Understanding Latino History: Excavating the Past, Examining the Present takes a new approach to the history of Latina/os in the United States. In the past, textbooks have divided the histories of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Central and South Americans into separate chapters, concentrating on the arrival and settlement of each group in the United States. This book, while paying careful attention to the unique historical trajectory of diverse Latina/o communities, takes a different path, drawing the various groups into a single narrative and highlighting the interactions and shared communities formed by Latinas and Latinos. This shared Latina/o history framework also allows us to see some broader trends in U.S. history, such as the unevenness of citizenship and belonging, the middle area that so many people in the past and in the present have occupied between exclusion, on the one hand, and full inclusion and membership in the nation, on the other--Introduction.