I am honored to evaluate George Sánchez’s groundbreaking, meticulously researched monograph Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945. No matter how many years pass, I will always consider myself George’s grateful student, just as I will always be a humble student of history. Accordingly, this essay mixes the personal and professional as it illustrates the methodological, theoretical, and historiographical impact of Becoming Mexican American on my own research and on Chicana/Chicano history, as well as the importance of Sánchez’s other scholarship and his mentorship.
Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity