This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

This essay is part of a roundtable titled “The Scholarship, Influence, and Legacy of David F. Schmitz.” The roundtable includes an introduction from Andrew L. Johns; essays by Vanessa Walker, Steven J. Brady, Kimber M. Quinney, and Kathryn C. Statler; and a response from David F. Schmitz.

Seventy years ago, Pacific Historical Review published one of the journal’s first “special issues,” looking back on the California Gold Rush. The special issue came at a significant transitional moment in the study of the Gold Rush. In the late 1940s, historians had begun to turn away from nationalist and celebratory accounts of the Gold Rush and toward more critical perspectives. The influence of the World War II was acute, particularly in encouraging a more international perspective on the Gold Rush. (The full text of the 1949 special issue, “Rushing for Gold,” is available at http://phr.ucpress.edu/content/18/1 .)

While recent historical studies of transnational processes, persons, and events within and across the Pacific Ocean have proliferated, they have yet to cohere as part of a single scholarly field. Instead, they stand as hybrid studies bridging two or more conventional fields, including histories of the American West, U.S. immigration and ethnicity, U.S. diplomatic and international relations, Asian American studies, East Asian studies, and Pacific Islander studies. This special issue of the Pacific Historical Review explores important possibilities for the emerging research area of “transpacific history” to interweave these conventional fields in ways that can better explore the social, economic, political, and transnational complexities of developments within and across the Pacific Ocean.

Chicana/o historians have transformed understandings of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, identity, labor, and space in the United States. In dialogue with the articles for this special issue, my commentary reflects on some of the significant contributions of Chicana/o history, highlighting the themes of complexity and spatial metaphors. I concur with the authors that there still is much historical reconstruction to do, and suggest that this work is important intellectually and politically, given the hostile climate toward Mexicans and immigrants in many parts of the country. This commentary also provides an opportunity to share the course of my scholarly engagement with Chicana/o history and consider its far-reaching influence on my work in the history of medicine and public health in the U.S. West.

This article surveys the writing of Chicano/a history since its inception and reflects on why scholars have been concerned with certain issues and how they have written about them. Born from the tumult of the Vietnam era, the field has challenged the status quo and emboldened those communities from which Chicano/a historians come and which they ultimately serve. Given the generation-long development of Mexican American history, this article focuses on Chicano/a historiography, with some commentary on the recent emergence of Latino/a history and the future directions that this field may take. It engages three questions that have driven the field: What forces engendered the ethnic Mexican community in the United States? Who comprises it? And how does the past bear on the present?