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María Ruiz de Burton's Who Would Have Thought It? (1872) was the first novel to be written in English by a Mexican living in the United States. After a long period in which Ruiz de Burton's work was almost completely unknown, the novel was rediscovered by critics interested in the history of Chicano literature, and republished to acclaim in 1995. Yet Ruiz de Burton's life was not particularly typical of the Mexican-American experience, as she married a prominent US officer, Captain Henry S. Burton, in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War. The novel reflects her ambiguous position between the Californio elite and the Anglo-Saxon majority of the United States.

It details the struggles of a Mexican-American girl born in Indian captivity, Lola, in an American society obsessed with class, religion, race and gender. The first ten chapters narrate the attack on Fort Sumter (1857–1861), and flashbacks are meant to take the readers back further than that time line, such as the kidnapping of Lola's mother (1846). The last fifty chapters chronicle the events that took place during the Civil War (1861–1864). Each chapter focuses on a particular character and is told from an omniscient point of view. (more...)