Book examines the changing face Of America

According to census projections, by 2050 nearly one in three U.S. residents will be Latino, and the overwhelming majority of these will be of Mexican descent. This dramatic demographic shift is reshaping politics, culture, and fundamental ideas about American identity.

On Nov. 3, 2014, KERA's Think talked about how this growing segment of the population is affecting everything from politics to cultural identity with Neil Foley, the Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Chair in History at SMU. His new book is Mexicans in the Making of America. 

Listen to the discussion with host Krys Boyd and Foley. 

A leading Mexican American historian, Foley's book offers a sweeping view of the evolution of Mexican America, from a colonial outpost on Mexico’s northern frontier to a twenty-first-century people integral to the nation they have helped build. 

Mexicans in the Making of America demonstrates that America has always been a composite of racially blended peoples, never a purely white Anglo-Protestant nation. The struggle of Latinos to gain full citizenship bears witness to the continual remaking of American culture into something more democratic, egalitarian, and truer to its multiracial and multi-ethnic origins.