In the forty years since the publication of the special issue devoted to Chicano history in the Pacific Historical Review in 1973, the literature on Mexican Americans has flourished. In the early 1970s, the nascent subfield of Chicano history was established, and in subsequent decades it reached maturity as the number of historians writing in this area increased significantly, as did the number of monographs and articles. By the early twenty-first century, the importance of historical studies of Mexican Americans is reflected in the literature of many subfields of U.S. history—labor, women, U.S.-Mexican borderlands, urban, immigration—and in the curriculum of colleges and universities across the nation. This article provides a personal perspective on the origins, foundations, and maturation of Chicano history.

Demographic changes of enormous magnitude have altered the ethnic and racial composition of large cities and metropolitan suburbs across the nation over the past thirty years, especially in California. Many cities and suburbs that were once home to large majorities of whites are now places where ethnic and racial minorities form the majority. "Minority-majority" cities in California have emerged as a new frontier in ethnic and race relations, where African Americans, Latinos, and other non-white groups now fi nd themselves, many for the fi rst time, living together and struggling to coexist. Although confl ict, tension, and misunderstanding characterize this new racial frontier, historians and other scholars must look deeper to fi nd examples of cooperation and collaboration in these new "cities of color." This article considers three cities in California-Compton, East Palo Alto, and Seaside-as examples of the historical and contemporary forces that have shaped "minority-majority" cities and the relations between African Americans and Latinos in particular.