Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Dreams of Small Countries: How Californios, Land Conflicts, and Race Shaped the Golden State

Dreams of Small Countries: How Californios, Land Conflicts, and Race Shaped the Golden State

Suárez, Camille

Paperback

Series: The David J. Weber the New Borderlands History

Latino StudiesRegional: West

ISBN10: 1469698021
ISBN13: 9781469698021
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: Oct 20 2026
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.66
Height: 0.48 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Prior to US conquest, a group of elite, mixed-race Mexicans called Californios nurtured the dream of patria chica (small homeland) in what is now the state of California. Californios' settler dreams of wealth and privilege depended upon controlling Indigenous land and labor, but after Anglo settlers and the US Army arrived, Californios struggled to hold onto their own way of life.

Camille Suárez shows that rather than challenge the new regime, elite Californios allied with both the US Army and Anglo settlers, whom they viewed as racial counterparts, to ensure that their dream survived. Despite their differences, Californio and Anglo settlers initially worked together to subjugate Indigenous peoples and exclude non-white residents. However, Californios failed to see that their own lands and power stood in the way of the white settler state. Over time, the legal regime Californios helped shape undermined their own political power, whiteness, and claims to the land. By centering Californios as key political actors from the beginning of the US-Mexico War through the Civil War and Reconstruction, Dreams of Small Countries reexamines the origins of California statehood and explains how California became a white settler state.

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