Book Review: An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz

Published: January 30, 2018
Publisher: Beacon Press
Received: purchased
Read from November 30, 2021 to January 6, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights

Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged revisionist history, arguing that Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa—otherwise known as "The Global South"—were crucial to the development of America as we know it. Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress, as exalted by widely-taught formulations like "Manifest Destiny" and "Jacksonian Democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms American history into one of the working class organizing themselves against imperialism.

In precise detail, Ortiz traces this untold history from the Jim Crow-esque racial segregation of the Southwest, the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the 20th century, to May 1, 2006, International Workers' Day, when migrant laborers—Chicana/os, Afrocubanos, and immigrants from every continent on earth—united in the first "Day Without Immigrants" to prove the value of their labor.

Incisive and timely, An African American and Latinx History is a bottom-up history told from the viewpoint of African American and Latinx activists revealing the radically different ways that brown and black people of the diaspora addressed issues plaguing the United States today.

Review:

An African American and Latinx History of the United States is the fourth book in the series ReVisioning American History, which attempts to look at the history of the United States through the lens of groups who have been underrepresented in mainstream history books. This particular book focuses on the history of African American and Latinx people in the US, especially in ways that the two groups' histories intersect.

I'd never read a book that wove together the history of Black and Latinx people in the way this one did, and I enjoyed the (unfortunately) unique view of American history that the book provides. There are many ways in which the two groups have been connected throughout US history, and placing them together in one book really put that into context.

The book focuses a lot on labor and independence movements. I had a basic understanding of a lot of what the book talked about, but I enjoyed learning even more. Because of the timespan that the book, it really helped put what I did know into a larger context than I'd previously considered.

Despite the book being focused on the United States, a lot of the it focuses on the United States' relationship with Latin America. That's not surprising since it's incredibly important to the history of Latinx people in the US, and it's also a very important part of US history that's frequently overlooked.

This book offers a great look at both African American and Latinx history, especially in ways that they intertwine with each other, and I enjoyed getting a look at US history that we often don't.