The first female Mexican American author to write in English. Who Would Have Thought It? was the first novel to be written in English by a Mexican living in the United States. The book was published in 1872 without the author's name on the title page and details the struggles of a Mexican American girl born in Indian captivity, Lola, in an American society obsessed with class, religion, race and gender. She often wrote about ethnicity and gender and its impact on one’s power in society. A friend of Mary Todd Lincoln, her close look at government corruption also led her to campaign for better government for all. De Burton also used her writing to counter portrayals of Mexicans and critique discrimination of Californios.