Coyote Nation: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920

With the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in the 1880s came the emergence of a modern and profoundly multicultural New Mexico. Native Americans, working-class Mexicans, elite Hispanos, and black and whitenewcomers all commingled and interactedin the territory in ways that had not been previously possible. But what did itmean to be white in thismultiethnic milieu? And how did ideas of sexuality and racial supremacy shape ideas of citizenry anddetermine who would govern the region? Coyote Nation considers these questions as it explores how New Mexicans evaluated and categorized racial identities through bodily practices. Whereethnic groups were numerous and—in the wake of miscegenation—often difficult to discern, the ways one dressed, bathed, spoke, gestured, or even stood were largely instrumental inconveying one's race. Even such practices as cutting one's hair, shopping, drinking alcohol, or embalming a deceased loved one couldinextricably linka personto a very specific racial identity.A fascinating history of an extraordinarily plural and polyglot region, Coyote Nation will be of value to historians of race and ethnicity in American culture.