The (re)making of place has composed an essential aspect of Southern California history from the era of Spanish colonialism to the present. In
Aztlan and Arcadia: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Creation of Place (NYU Press, 2014) Associate Professor of American Studies at Middlebury College
Roberto Lint Sagarena examines the competing narratives of Anglo American conquest and ethnic Mexican reconquest following the U.S. War with Mexico in the mid-19
th century. Employing a transnational lens that illuminates the commonalities between Spanish colonizers, Mexican
criollos, Anglo American settlers, and ethnic Mexican Californians, Dr. Lint Sagarena argues that the ethno-nationalist histories of Aztlan and Arcadia share commonalities in logic, language, and symbolism that are rooted in religious culture and history. From Anglo American
Hispanophilia to Chicana/o
indigenismo, Professor Lint Sagarena sheds new light on the region's long and conflicted history over its multi-ethnic past as well as the understanding by many of its inhabitants that "owning place requires owning history."