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ix Preface The first ­people whom we might call Latino or Hispanic ­today inhabited the conti- nental United States long before the arrival of British colonists in the Amer­ i ­ cas. Although the terms Latino and Hispanic are relatively recent inventions, they describe a population that was born out of the colonial encounters between Span- iards and other Eu­ro­pe­ans, Africans, and the indigenous ­peoples of the Amer­i­cas. When Christopher Columbus and his Spanish fleet first set foot on the island they named “Hispaniola” (present-­day Dominican Republic and Haiti), they unleashed a colossal demographic amalgamation—at times by choice but frequently by force— of ­these vari­ous populations from disparate parts of the globe. Latinos are thus understood to be ­people of varying degrees of African, indigenous, and Eu­ro­pean descent. The Eu­ ro ­ pean ele­ment of that heritage generally refers specifically to Span- ish, in some cases also Portuguese, ancestry. ­though There are vari­ous debates over how inclusive the terms Latino or Hispanic should be. Some argue that ­ people who live in Spain (and perhaps have never lived in the Amer­i­cas) should be incorporated ­under this umbrella. ­Others suggest that the labels should not be limited to Spanish-­speaking ­ people, but should also include the Portuguese, French, Dutch, and even English-­speaking colonies of Latin Amer­ i­ca and the Ca­rib­bean. Still ­ others point out that limiting the bound­aries of this group to Spanish speakers leaves out ­those who speak indigenous languages in Spain’s former colonies and may not speak Spanish at all. ­Needless to say, the dis- cussion is ongoing and constantly evolving. Latinos and their history are incredibly diverse, complicated, and ever-­changing, depending on who is narrating the story. ­Because this story’s founding moment begins in the former Spanish colonies of the Amer­ i ­ cas, Latino history is necessar- ily transnational, meaning it transcends national geopo­liti­cal bound­aries and stretches beyond the continental United States to the Amer­i­cas more broadly—­ Mexico, the Ca­rib­bean, Central Amer­ i ­ ca, and South Amer­i­ca. Taking a cue from Cuban in­de­pen­dence leader Jose Martí and ­ others who have defined the Amer­i­cas as a collection of interrelated, interdependent nations, this publication approaches