This study is a reinterpretation of nineteenth-century Mexican American history, examining Mexico's struggle to secure its northern border with repatriates from the United States, following a war that resulted in the loss of half Mexico's territory. Responding to past interpretations, Jose Angel Hernández suggests that these resettlement schemes centred on developments within the frontier region, the modernisation of the country with loyal Mexican American settlers, and blocking the tide of migrations to the United States to prevent the depopulation of its fractured northern border. Through an examination of Mexico's immigration and colonisation policies as they developed in the nineteenth century, this book focuses primarily on the population of Mexican citizens who were 'lost' after the end of the Mexican American War of 1846–8 until the end of the century.

‘Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century makes a significant contribution to borderlands, Chicano, and Mexican history especially because José Angel Hernández takes a distinctly transnational approach in examining ‘Mexican American’ migration ‘south’ to northern Mexico, rather than ‘Mexican’ migration ‘north’ to the southwestern United States. While bridging the gap between traditional area studies focused on the United States or Latin America, Hernández’s methodology empirically tests the supposed motivations attributed to ‘Mexican repatriates’ against the documentary record, concluding with a more subtle interpretation. Equally impressive is his thoroughly bi-national and bilingual use of both primary and secondary sources. In the final analysis … Hernández, in revealing the surprising impact of ethnic Mexican repatriates on their nineteenth-century ‘homeland’ south of the 1848 border, develops a brilliantly original approach worthy of imitation.’

John Chavez - Southern Methodist University

‘José Angel Hernández has written an important book about the little-known history of the repatriation of Mexicans in the decades after the U.S.-Mexican War. His work is notable for connecting specific and well-researched cases spanning the entire border from Texas to California to the broad themes of migration, the creation of national spaces, and memory that have been so central in shaping the region.’

Andres Resendez - University of California, Davis

‘Hernández’s illuminating book transforms our understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He explores the extensive repatriation of Mexican Americans in the colonization of northern Mexico. These policies, he argues, had more to do with defending settlements against the threats of Anglo American invasion and Apache raiding than the often-cited ideological notions of racial ‘whitening’ or sentimental nationalism. His revealing bi-national archival work opens crucial questions that many scholars considered closed.’

Renato Rosaldo - New York University

‘With one out of ten Mexicans now living in the United States, José Hernández’s brilliant historical analysis of Mexico’s relationship to its diaspora is a timely and important contribution to knowledge about [the US's] often misunderstood southern neighbor. More than any other author, he explains how and why Mexico’s northern frontier became transformed into an entity known simply as ‘the border’.’

Douglas S. Massey - Princeton University

'Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century offers a compelling transnational story that adds to historians' and other scholars' understanding of Chicano and borderlands history.'

Sterling Evans Source: H-Borderlands

'The narrative is both dramatic and engaging. I strongly recommend this book.'

John McKiernan-Gonzalez Source: Southwestern Historical Quarterly