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graveyardpansy's review
3.0
3.5 ⭐️ — i agree with the overall thesis, but this book didn’t reveal anything new to me personally and it did feel a little disorganized.
my main frustration is the author calling settler-colonial logic a “deep psychosis.” invoking mental illness to describe bigotry is! not! it! i will never accept people defaulting to ableist language as a way of describing right-wing views. it isn’t accurate, it isn’t kind, and it certainly isn’t revolutionary.
i also wasn’t expecting the book to start off by deconstructing Hamilton. everything i’ve ever heard abt that musical has been against my will and i understand it’s used to discuss how many USAmercians view history but i just…. i personally struggle to care at all about hamilton. I know it sucks, i’ve always known it sucks, i’m tired of it.
i read the audiobook, and this is just personal preference, but i strongly dislike when narrators do impressions of the people they quote. that happens a LOT in this book.
the book is also repetitive at times, i.e. the idea of arrivants was introduced and defined twice, which felt unnecessary.
if you don’t understand the depth of the USA’s settler-colonial nature, this may be a good starting point, but it just wasn’t for me.
my main frustration is the author calling settler-colonial logic a “deep psychosis.” invoking mental illness to describe bigotry is! not! it! i will never accept people defaulting to ableist language as a way of describing right-wing views. it isn’t accurate, it isn’t kind, and it certainly isn’t revolutionary.
i also wasn’t expecting the book to start off by deconstructing Hamilton. everything i’ve ever heard abt that musical has been against my will and i understand it’s used to discuss how many USAmercians view history but i just…. i personally struggle to care at all about hamilton. I know it sucks, i’ve always known it sucks, i’m tired of it.
i read the audiobook, and this is just personal preference, but i strongly dislike when narrators do impressions of the people they quote. that happens a LOT in this book.
the book is also repetitive at times, i.e. the idea of arrivants was introduced and defined twice, which felt unnecessary.
if you don’t understand the depth of the USA’s settler-colonial nature, this may be a good starting point, but it just wasn’t for me.
sunflowerjess's review
informative
slow-paced
5.0
I learned SO. MUCH. from reading this book. It is dense and packed with information every American should know. I am in awe of Dunbar-Ortiz's scholarship and am very thankful this book exists.
kteq's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
2.5
An academic text acting in response to the “nation of immigrants” mythos that is just shy of analysis - informative but offers little else.
caroline1022's review against another edition
made me sad and lexie said i’m not allowed to read it anymore
readingwithcoffee's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Comments on Audiobook Specifically: Shaun Taylor-Corbett performs the book wonderfully, his trump voice when quoting is both honestly fairly accurate and also funny but not distracting, his Spanish accent is good when Spanish names and word come up.
My Only Criticism: I don’t hold this against the author bc soooo many Mexican Americans have invested in Cesar Chavez being not just not polarizing but a Saint people don’t like and actively accuse you as anti Mexican American or “too woke” or self hating for talking about Chavez as very important man who hated immigrant farm workers. He only changed his position because the young upcoming Chicano movement that was less removed from Mexico and being children of immigrants and did politics actually involving Mexico made him shut up and change the organization but he called migrants wet backs and meant it as a slur whatever someone who’s not immigrant and family never crossed or been here so and so generations might claim. He was furious at Chicanos who supported them and there’s even stories from migrants and others how he and another guy from the organization who viewed im groaned as scabs and strike breakers (not unlike poor whites frankly) encouraged border patrol and themselves sometimes patrolled areas with a gun and assaulted some. Like the book discusses him being anti immigrant but it was much worse even if him and Dolores have actively cleaned up their views as it became deeply unpopular very quickly around them.
Also the book is so concise and covers sooo many centuries of history and touches Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America relative to the United States, so I understand not wanting to dedicate pages to dissecting Chicano ethnic nationalism that’s anti indigenous and anti black but basically a spin off of how Mexico the state sees race and ethnonationalism, especially because I think the book talking about how their mythic land claim overlaps with existing Native American tribes literal reservations was meant to show how it can be, but I really think the book should have been more critical especially how Chicano version mestizaje also contributes to anti indigenous pan Indian myths. Though she did liken it explicitly as similar to Hispano’s self indigenizing to get away from settler guilt and claim indigenous things.
Otherwise deeply wonderful book and so concise while covering so much ground, a lot of history books could take notes.
My Only Criticism: I don’t hold this against the author bc soooo many Mexican Americans have invested in Cesar Chavez being not just not polarizing but a Saint people don’t like and actively accuse you as anti Mexican American or “too woke” or self hating for talking about Chavez as very important man who hated immigrant farm workers. He only changed his position because the young upcoming Chicano movement that was less removed from Mexico and being children of immigrants and did politics actually involving Mexico made him shut up and change the organization but he called migrants wet backs and meant it as a slur whatever someone who’s not immigrant and family never crossed or been here so and so generations might claim. He was furious at Chicanos who supported them and there’s even stories from migrants and others how he and another guy from the organization who viewed im groaned as scabs and strike breakers (not unlike poor whites frankly) encouraged border patrol and themselves sometimes patrolled areas with a gun and assaulted some. Like the book discusses him being anti immigrant but it was much worse even if him and Dolores have actively cleaned up their views as it became deeply unpopular very quickly around them.
Also the book is so concise and covers sooo many centuries of history and touches Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America relative to the United States, so I understand not wanting to dedicate pages to dissecting Chicano ethnic nationalism that’s anti indigenous and anti black but basically a spin off of how Mexico the state sees race and ethnonationalism, especially because I think the book talking about how their mythic land claim overlaps with existing Native American tribes literal reservations was meant to show how it can be, but I really think the book should have been more critical especially how Chicano version mestizaje also contributes to anti indigenous pan Indian myths. Though she did liken it explicitly as similar to Hispano’s self indigenizing to get away from settler guilt and claim indigenous things.
Otherwise deeply wonderful book and so concise while covering so much ground, a lot of history books could take notes.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs
Moderate: Hate crime and Colonisation
zachcarter's review
4.0
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is doing the work of writing real history. I often regard Gerald Horne as the greatest living historian for the work he does on settler colonialism and the project of whiteness that was crucial for the establishment of the United States as a country built on genocide and racial slavery. Dunbar-Ortiz continues to add crucial elements to this story, and her follow up to "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States" did not disappoint.
I want to focus in on one particular passage, as my reading of it coincidentally aligned with a recent viral post about Ron DeSantis. In it, he claims to identify culturally with "the working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio...This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving." In Chapter 2 of "Not a Nation of Immigrants," Dunbar-Ortiz critiques J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy," particularly how settlers in Appalachia came to self-indigenize themselves and how that distinction from "whites" in the rest of the country gives them cover for their animus toward Black and indigenous communities. When Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, he (and Vance) used egregious racist dog whistles, then pointed to Appalachia to serve as cover for it. DeSantis - an Italian-American born and raised in Florida who attended Ivy league schools - understands the project of whiteness and the importance of this settler ideology, and wants to get ahead of his policies before he runs for president by self-identifying as a working-class Appalachian. As both Dunbar-Ortiz and Horne remind us, this is not just history - it's the present.
The collection of topics in this book may at times feel like a hindrance - it can jump around a lot while covering so much ground - but I still feel that this is an essential read that continues to paint a picture of America that is both honest and to account.
I want to focus in on one particular passage, as my reading of it coincidentally aligned with a recent viral post about Ron DeSantis. In it, he claims to identify culturally with "the working class communities in western Pennsylvania and northeast Ohio...This made me God-fearing, hard-working and America-loving." In Chapter 2 of "Not a Nation of Immigrants," Dunbar-Ortiz critiques J.D. Vance's book "Hillbilly Elegy," particularly how settlers in Appalachia came to self-indigenize themselves and how that distinction from "whites" in the rest of the country gives them cover for their animus toward Black and indigenous communities. When Donald Trump ran for president in 2015, he (and Vance) used egregious racist dog whistles, then pointed to Appalachia to serve as cover for it. DeSantis - an Italian-American born and raised in Florida who attended Ivy league schools - understands the project of whiteness and the importance of this settler ideology, and wants to get ahead of his policies before he runs for president by self-identifying as a working-class Appalachian. As both Dunbar-Ortiz and Horne remind us, this is not just history - it's the present.
The collection of topics in this book may at times feel like a hindrance - it can jump around a lot while covering so much ground - but I still feel that this is an essential read that continues to paint a picture of America that is both honest and to account.
hellasmella's review
5.0
Really, really important book; super heavy and depressing to read. I already knew that the US state was a violent, sadistic empire and chronic perpetrator of crimes against humanity but holy shit, the depth and rigor of this book is really next level.