Harvest of EmpireHarvest of Empire

So many Hispanics came to this country toward the latter part of the twentieth century that they changed the face of the nation and are challenging its very identity. By 2050, one out of every five U.S. residents will be of Hispanic origin. The corner bodega, the salsa night spot, Mexican fajitas, and Spanish novellas are now as ubiquitous as rock 'n' roll and the state fair. But in this era of the global marketplace our government persists in erecting a steel, concrete, and electronic wall along our southern border to keep new Latinos out. Despite all efforts to restrict immigration in the 1990s, the Americanos keep coming--myriad differences among them in culture and class outlook, yet sharing the same language.Juan Gonzalez's passionate, sweeping, searching chronicle traces the Anglo-Hispanic encounter from the first sixteenth-century New World colonies and nineteenth-century U.S. conquest, gunboat diplomacy, and economic colonization of the Latin world up to the 1998 presidential election. Through intimate portraits (among them the author's own family), with which many readers will identify, Harvest of Empire reveals their experiences and concerns as they make a new life and transform this nation for a new century and an integrated hemisphere.