Charros: How Mexican Cowboys Are Remapping Race and American Identity

In the American imagination, no figure is more central to national identity & the nation’s origin story than the cowboy. Yet the Americans & Europeans who settled the U.S. West learned virtually everything they knew about ranching from the indigenous & Mexican horsemen who already inhabited the region. The charro—a skilled, elite, & landowning horseman—was an especially powerful symbol of Mexican masculinity & nationalism. After the 1930s, Mexican Americans in cities across the U.S. West embraced the figure as a way to challenge their segregation, exploitation, & marginalization from core narratives of American identity. 

In this definitive history, Laura R. Barraclough shows how Mexican Americans have used the charro in the service of civil rights, cultural citizenship, & place-making. Focusing on a range of U.S. cities, Charros traces the evolution of the “original cowboy” through mixed triumphs & hostile backlashes, revealing him to be a crucial agent in the production of U.S., Mexican, & border cultures, as well as a guiding force for Mexican American identity & social movements.