El Norte

English, the Mayflower, and the revolt against Britain have long shaped how Americans tell their national story, pushing the country's Anglo origins to the front. Carrie Gibson argues in El Norte that this account leaves out a far older Spanish inheritance that has often been ignored or pushed to the margins. Hispanic history in what is now the United States began a century before the Pilgrims landed, and it played a real part in forming the country as it is today.

The book follows Hispanic North America from the first Spanish arrivals in the early sixteenth century to the present day. It moves from Ponce de Leon's first landing in Florida in 1513, through Spain's control of the large Louisiana territory in 1762, to the Mexican-American War of 1846. It closes with the more recent suffering of Puerto Rico after a hurricane and with the continuing tensions along the border with Mexico.

Running through these events and the people who lived them are questions that have existed since the beginning and remain open: language, belonging, community, race, and nationality. Tracing how these questions developed over several centuries gives readers a useful way to think about them now.

In 1883, Walt Whitman reflected on the Spanish past of his own country: 'We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them,' predicting that 'to that composite American identity of the future, Spanish character will supply some of the most needed parts.' El Norte takes up that call and offers a detailed history meant to change how Americans understand their nation.