New Mexico has a relatively short part in the conventional story of the making of the United States from east to west. The older, longer-lasting story of a country made from south to north, or in gridwork and patches with contributions from all over the hemisphere and the world, has resumed there. It is a model of US pluralism, in which no community’s culture is fixed, but peculiar traditions can be upheld without compromising overarching political unity.

That’s Felipe Fernández-Armesto’s optimistic words about my adopted home, in Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States.