Saldívar is one of the founders of border studies and one of the most respected senior scholars in American Studies. In this work he introduces the term trans-Americanity as a frame for thinking more hemispherically within a global, world-systems frame.

Preface: Americanity Otherwise ixAcknowledgments xxix1. Unsettling Race, Coloniality, and Caste in Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, Martínez's Parrot in the Oven, and Roy's The God of Small Things 12. Migratory Locations: Subaltern Modernity and José Martí's Trans-American Cultural Criticism 313. Looking Awry at the War of 1898: Theodore Roosevelt versus Miguel Barnet and Esteban Montejo 574. In Search of the "Mexican Elvis": Border Matters, Americanity, and Post-State-centric Thinking 755. Making U.S. Democracy Surreal: Political Race, Transmodern Realism, and the Miner's Canary 906. The Outernational Origins of Chicano/a Literature: Paredes's Asian-Pacific Routes and Hinojosa's Cuban Casa de las Américas Roots 1237. Transnationalism Contested: On Sandra Cisnero's The House on Mango Street and Caramelo or Puro Cuento 152Appendix: On the Borderlands of U.S. Empire: The Limitations of Geography, Ideology, and Discipline 183Notes 213References 239Index 257