Keller in American History:Looking Back at U.S.-Mexican Relations
Renata Keller, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, discussed the difficulties in past and present U.S.-Mexican relations going back to the seizure of half of Mexico’s national territory in the 19th century.
Keller discussed the history in a March 2016 peer-reviewed article she penned for American History: Oxford Research Encyclopedias entitled “U.S.-Mexican Relations from Independence to the Present.”
From the text of the article:
The war between the United States and Mexico was the “original sin” of relations between the two countries. Mexico lost 55 percent of its national territory to U.S. conquest: not just Texas, but the modern states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming as well.
Mexicans felt the pain of this loss immediately, especially as the California Gold Rush began the same year as the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The implications of the war also ignited political firestorms in both countries that resulted in civil wars a little over a decade later.
Read the entire article here.
Keller’s research and teaching interests focus on Latin American history, particularly the connections between foreign and domestic politics, the dynamics of the Cold War, and U.S. relations with Latin America. She has special expertise in Mexican, Cuban, Chilean, and Argentine history. Learn more about her here.