Through extensive use of Spanish-language archives in Mexico and the United States, Zamora examines workers' independent organizations - including mutual aid societies and cooperatives that functioned as unions - as well as spontaneous informal actions, including strikes, by Texas Mexican workers. He portrays the gradual yet increasing integration of those organizations into the mainstream labor movement and examines labor solidarity across ethnic lines. In addition, he discusses the special role Mexican labor played in bridging labor struggles across the international border and in challenging racial exclusion on the job in the predominantly Anglo labor federations and in the broader institutional life of South Texas.
For Mexican workers on the American home front during World War II, unprecedented new employment opportunities contrasted sharply with continuing discrimination, inequality, and hardship.
In the early years of the twentieth century, newcomer farmers and migrant Mexicans forged a new world in South Texas. In just a decade, this vast region, previously considered too isolated and desolate for large-scale agriculture, became one of the United States' most lucrative farming regions and one of its worst places to work. By encouraging mass migration from Mexico, paying low wages, selectively enforcing immigration restrictions, toppling older political arrangements, and periodically immobilizing the workforce, growers created a system of labor controls unique in its levels of exploitation. Ethnic Mexican residents of South Texas fought back by organizing and by leaving, migrating to destinations around the United States where employers eagerly hired them--and continued to exploit them. In From South Texas to the Nation, John Weber reinterprets the United States' record on human and labor rights. This important book illuminates the way in which South Texas pioneered the low-wage, insecure, migration-dependent labor system on which so many industries continue to depend.
Like its ground-breaking predecessor, the first general survey of Tejanos, this completely up-to-date revision is a concise political, cultural, and social history of Mexican Americans in Texas from the Spanish colonial era to the present. Professor De Len is careful to portray Tejanos as active subjects, not merely objects in the ongoing Texas story. Complemented by a stunning photographic essay, a helpful glossary, and meticulously annotated, this work continues to be ideal reading for anyone wanting to learn about the most influential ethnic group in Texas.
Old roads, new horizons: Texas history and the new world order / David Montejano -- Occupied Texas: Bexar and Goliad, 1835-1836 / Paul D. Lack -- Mexicanos in Texas during the Civil War / Miguel Gonzalez Quiroga -- Uni.
This third edition of our ground-breaking publication, the first survey of Tejanos, has been completely updated to present a concise political, cultural, and social history of Mexican Americans in Texas from the Spanish colonial era to the present day, a time when people of Mexican descent are poised to become the demographic majority in the Lone Star. Writing specifically for the college-level student and careful to include a consensus of the latest literature in this strong and continually growing field, Professor De León portrays Tejanos as active subjects, not merely objects, in the ongoing Texas story. Complemented by a stunning photographic essay and a helpful glossary, and featuring new biographical vignettes that now introduce and set the context for each chapter, this third edition of our well-loved text is certain to be even more engaging and relevant to readers of all levels. And while the book targets a wide reading audience, it is ideally fit for classroom use. Professors teaching courses in Texas, western, and borderlands history will find it an ideal complement to their class lectures and other outside reading assignments. Of particular interest to students will be discussions describing the survival techniques Tejanos developed to withstand poverty and disadvantage, the process of assimilation over many generations, the changes engendered by the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, the role of political figures such as José Antonio Navarro, J. T. Canales, Alonso Perales, Héctor P. García, or Irma Rangel, or the impact of court cases like which Hernández v. Texas or Plyler v. Doe that changed the direction of Mexican American history.
A study of the bracero program during World War II. It describes the labor history of Mexican and Chicano workers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. It analyses the ways in which Braceros were active agents of their own lives. It also describes the living and working conditions in migrant farm camps.
The primary purpose of this study was to present the little-discussed Mexican and Mexican-American labor contribution to the economic development of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas between 1870 and 1930. Special attention was given to their efforts in the citrus industry which became a major enterprise. Immigration laws, local and national Anglo attitudes and their effects on this numerous and apparently submissive people were discussed in length. Due credit has been given to the Burgos, Tamaulipas, residents who came to the Valley before, during, and after the Mexican Revolution in search of stability and better wages. In spite of the abuses they suffered some of them decided to stay. Their children (now Mexican-Americans), are still contributing to the citrus industry today, although not in the strenuous way their parents did. The various attempts which were made to develop the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas prior to the coming of the railroad in 1904 were all but futile. This situation, however, did not restrain Anglo businessmen from coming to the region in search of prosperity. They saw its potential if the available resources were properly tapped. The combination of inexpensive Valley land and cheap Mexican and Mexican-American labor attracted entrepreneurs to the area. They bought brushlands, had them cleared, and started irrigation projects in preparation for the crops they experimented with. Although not all Anglos prospered it was not because of the labor force they employed, but rather, to some extent, because of the poor transportation system available. They employed Mexicans and Mexican-Americans for all types of work. With the coming of modern transportation the Valley broke its economic isolation and in the process everyone benefited: Anglos from the use of cheap labor and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans from jobs which had previously been non-existent. The Valley owes a tremendous debt to those businessmen with foresight who encouraged the construction of a railroad line through the Valley and built irrigation systems, but the greatest debt for its success, as presented in this work, is owed to the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.
Between the end of World War I and the Great Depression, over 58,000 Mexicans journeyed to the Midwest in search of employment. Many found work in agriculture, but thousands more joined the growing ranks of the industrial proletariat. Relating the experiences of Mexicans in the workplace and neighborhood, and showing the roles of Mexican women, the Catholic Church, and labor unions, Vargas enriches our knowledge of immigrant urban life.--Publisher's description.
