The Crossing - by Richard Parker (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A radical work of history that re-centers the American story around El Paso, Texas, gateway between north and south, center of indigenous power and resistance, locus of European colonization of North America, centuries-long hub of immigration, and underappreciated modern blueprint for a changing United States."--

Book Synopsis

"'American history did not begin in the Northeast. It began in the Southwest, ' Parker asserts, in this sweeping history." --The New Yorker, Best Books of the Week

A revelatory history that recenters the American story two-thousand miles west of Plymouth Rock, in El Paso, Texas--heart of Indigenous power and resistance, locus of European colonization of North America, centuries-long hub of immigration, and underappreciated modern blueprint for a multi-ethnic United States

"A grand tour of the Southwest, its people, culture, and history." --S. C. Gwynne, author Empire of the Summer Moon

American history is almost always told from east to west. Yet a closer look at our past reveals a coun-ternarrative, one that begins not in the East, but in the Southwest--at a Texan city located near the old-est archaeological evidence of human presence in the Americas: El Paso.

Situated in a naturally shallow crossing of the Rio Grande, El Paso was the crossroads of Indigenous America, the nexus of a thousand-year-old Native American migration and trade route linking Meso-american and Pueblo empires and beyond. It's where, in 1540, the European conquest of the North Amer-ican interior began, and where the United States' manifest destiny was later achieved. Here, East met West where the dominant transatlantic rail route, the Southern Pacific, was completed in 1881. Here, the West was "won"--the longest chapter of the Indian Wars was fought not on the Great Plains but in the Southwest, with a scorched-earth strategy that went on for decades. It's the past and present hub of immigrant America--more immigrants have passed through El Paso than Ellis Island--and where cru-cial battles for civil rights were fought, with the city smashing through racial and ethnic discrimination before anywhere else in the nation.

The Crossing is a revelatory new history of El Paso that recasts the city as the unacknowledged cradle of American history, where cultures have encountered each other for centuries and forged a thriving multi-ethnic community far ahead of the rest of the nation. As award-winning, El Paso-native journalist Richard Parker charts, the city holds not only the framework of our American story, but also a model for a more diverse and flourishing country.

Review Quotes

"Richard Parker's The Crossing is a grand tour of the Southwest, its people, culture, and history. The center of this sun-baked universe is El Paso, whose story Parker--who grew up there with roots in both Mexican and American cultures--is highly qualified to write." - S. C. Gwynne, author Empire of the Summer Moon
"Sparked by the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Texas, Richard Parker was moved to write a deeply moving epic of that city's story in deep time. Beginning with the region's origins in the indigenous world and the violent first contacts with Spanish conquistadors, Parker's eloquent mestizo saga takes the reader through centuries of empires and errors, chronicling waves of genocidal violence, mass deportations, discrimination, and exclusion, all met with extraordinary resilience and resistance by the victims. This indispensable book is an act of great compassion, revealing that far from being a fluke, the horrific event of 2019 was another episode in a long history of anti-Mexican estrangement and discord in the borderlands we're still seeking to leave behind." - John Phillip Santos, award-winning author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
"Sparked by the 2019 Walmart massacre in El Paso, Richard Parker was moved to write a deeply moving epic of that city's story in deep time. Parker's eloquent mestizo saga takes the reader through centuries of empires and errors, chronicling waves of genocidal violence, mass deportations, discrimination, and exclusion, all met with extraordinary resilience and resistance by the victims. This indispensable book is an act of great compassion, revealing that far from being a fluke, the horrific 2019 event was another episode in a long history of anti-Mexican estrangement and discord in the borderlands we're still seeking to leave behind." - John Phillip Santos, award-winning author of Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation
"Explores El Paso through the lens of the origin story of America. . . . Ambitious. . . . In The Crossing, Parker takes a long chronological view, contending El Paso should be considered the source of the origin story of America. A multicultural America." - Albuquerque Journal
"'American history did not begin in the Northeast. It began in the Southwest, ' Parker asserts, in this sweeping history of El Paso, his home town. The account, which starts in the sixteenth century, is one of both endless conflict and cross-cultural accommodation. 'El Paso is where Native, Spanish, European, African, Jewish, and Arab cultures fought, bled, died, ' he writes, but it's also where they forged a 'vibrantly diverse' society that became a model for the country." - The New Yorker
"Forget Plymouth Rock--U.S. history starts in El Paso, Richard Parker argues convincingly in this compelling history. He makes an energetic case for the centrality of his hometown, a place with a history as rich and deep as the Rio Grande that flows through it. . . . Parker clearly shows there is much to be learned from the story of this important crossroads." - Carrie Gibson, author of El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America