Prior to US conquest, a group of elite, mixed-race Mexicans called Californios nurtured the dream of patria chica (“small homeland”) in what is now the state of California. Californios' settler dreams of wealth and privilege depended upon controlling Indigenous land and labor, but after Anglo settlers and the US Army arrived, Californios struggled to hold onto their own way of life.

Camille Suárez shows that rather than challenge the new regime, elite Californios allied with both the US Army and Anglo settlers, whom they viewed as racial counterparts, to ensure that their dream survived. Despite their differences, Californio and Anglo settlers initially worked together to subjugate Indigenous peoples and exclude non-white residents. However, Californios failed to see that their own lands and power stood in the way of the white settler state. Over time, the legal regime Californios helped shape undermined their own political power, whiteness, and claims to the land. By centering Californios as key political actors from the beginning of the US-Mexico War through the Civil War and Reconstruction, Dreams of Small Countries reexamines the origins of California statehood and explains how California became a white settler state.