Mexican America - Introduction "Mexican America" is a sampling
of objects from the collections of the National Museum of
American History. The stories behind these objects reflect the
history of the Mexican presence in the United States. They
illustrate a fundamentally American story about the centuries-
old encounter between distinct (yet sometimes overlapping)
communities that have coexisted but also clashed over land,
culture, and livelihood. Who, where, and what is Mexico? Over
time, the definitions and boundaries of Mexico have changed. The
Aztec Empire and the area where Náhautl was spoken—today the
region surrounding modern Mexico City—was known as Mexico. For
300 years, the Spanish colonizers renamed it New Spain. When
Mexico was reborn in 1821 as a sovereign nation, its borders
stretched from California to Guatemala. It was a huge and
ancient land of ethnically, linguistically, and economically
diverse regions that struggled for national unity. Texas, (then
part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Teja