The United States of Mestizo is a powerful manifesto attesting to the fundamental changes the nation has undergone in the last half-century. Writer Ilan Stavans meditates on how the cross-fertilizing process that defined the Americas during the colonial period--the racial melding of Europeans and indigenous peoples--foretells the miscegenation that is the most salient profile of America today. If, as W.E.B. DuBois once argued, the twentieth century was defined by a color fracture at its core, Stavans believes the twenty-first will be shaped by a multi-color line that will make us all a sum of parts. Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He is the author of many books, including Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language and A Most Imperfect Union. He is also general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. Discrimination & Racism Sociology - Marriage & Family