Colonizing Ourselves: Tejano Back-to-Mexico Movements and the Making of a Settler Colonial Nation

In the late nineteenth century, the Mexican government, seeking to fortify its northern borders and curb migration to the United States, set out to relocate “Mexico-Texano” families, or Tejanos, on Mexican land. In Colonizing Ourselves, José Angel Hernández explores these movements back to Mexico, also known as autocolonization, as distinct in the history of settler colonization.

Unlike other settler colonial states that relied heavily on overseas settlers, especially from Europe and Asia...