Description: Dancing with Manifest Destiny deftly documents how Pico, Biggs, and Coronel, standing center stage in frontier Los Angeles, maintained a surprising degree of influence amidst extremely hostile circumstances--at least for a while. The book recovers a forgotten layer in the origin story of Los Angeles, even as it offers fresh insight into entanglements of race, masculinity, and politics that persist to this day.
Brief description:
Daniel B. Lynch teaches history and serves as the Leonetti/O'Connell Honors Research in Humanities and Social Sciences Program Head at Marlborough School in Los Angeles.
Review Quotes:
"Collaborators do not usually fare well in the hands of historians. But while Daniel B. Lynch does not sympathize with the choices made by Peter Biggs, Antonio Coronel, and Andrés Pico, he helps us understand why these prominent men of color worked with white supremacists and what their efforts wrought. A vital contribution to the history of Los Angeles's transition from Mexican pueblo to American metropolis--with implications that reach far beyond the case study of three men and one place."--Stephen Aron, author of Peace and Friendship: An Alternative History of the American West