From the Bookshelves: Steven W. Bender, How the West Was Juan: Reimagining the U.S./Mexico Border
Steven W. Bender
Steven W. Bender, How the West Was Juan: Reimagining the U.S./Mexico Border
Imagine the United States losing the 1846 war, ending up a federation of 44 states [bordering] Alto México (with an acute accent over the “e”), one of the world’s major economies, Spanglish its lingua franca. Its borders? As abstruse as the ones defeating us today. If you think this is a Leibnitzian universe (or perhaps one of Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts), read Steven W. Bender’s prescient How the West Was Juan. It might show us the way out of this perverse prison we call “reality.”
Ilan Stavans, author of Laughing Matters: Conversations on Humor and Quixote: The Novel and the World
A Pandora’s box is opened in the hands of a master of law and cultural studies as well as history. Playful, yet historically and legally researched, How the West Was Juan demarcates a new territory for the physical, psychological, moral, and spiritual borders of our country, as well as deconstructing the inaccuracy of our traditional history books. Bender keeps us entertained with his kneading of geographical facts with history and current events, allowing us to envision different, possible borderlands, and throwing a scholarly wrench into the notion of border and belonging, as well as appropriated spaces.
Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, author of Word Images: New Perspectives on Canícula and Other Works by Norma Elia Cantú
[A] tightly packed, state by state review of the history, geography, demography, and economy of a confiscated region, Steven Bender’s imagined unwinding of the U.S. seizure of 54% of Mexico’s territory is excellent and engaging.
Raymond Caballero, author of Orozco, The Life and Death of a Mexican Revolutionary; Mayor, El Paso, TX (2001-03)
Steven W. Bender, a law professor and associate dean for planning and strategic initiatives at Seattle University School of Law, is the author of several books encompassing legal, cultural, political, and historical issues.
KJ