Cannery Women, Cannery Lives
Cannery Women, Cannery Lives

Author: Vicki L. Ruiz

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 1987-08-01

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 082632469X

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Women have been the mainstay of the grueling, seasonal canning industry for over a century. This book is their collective biography--a history of their family and work lives, and of their union. Out of the labor militancy of the 1930s emerged the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA). Quickly it became the seventh largest CIO affiliate and a rare success story of women in unions. Thousands of Mexican and Mexican-American women working in canneries in southern California established effective, democratic trade union locals run by local members. These rank-and-file activists skillfully managed union affairs, including negotiating such benefits as maternity leave, company-provided day care, and paid vacations--in some cases better benefits than they enjoy today. But by 1951, UCAPAWA lay in ruins--a victim of red baiting in the McCarthy era and of brutal takeover tactics by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Working People of California
Working People of California

Author: Daniel Cornford

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-11-10

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 0520332776

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From the California Indians who labored in the Spanish missions to the immigrant workers on Silicon Valley's high-tech assembly lines, California's work force has had a complex and turbulent past, marked by some of the sharpest and most significant battles fought by America's working people. This anthology presents the work of scholars who are forging a new brand of social history—one that reflects the diversity of California's labor force by paying close attention to the multicultural and gendered aspects of the past. Readers will discover a refreshing chronological breadth to this volume, as well as a balanced examination of both rural and urban communities. Daniel Cornford's excellent general introduction provides essential historical background while his brief introductions to each chapter situate the essays in their larger contexts. A list of further readings appears at the end of each chapter. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995.

Understanding Older Chicanas
Understanding Older Chicanas

Author: Elisa Facio

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 0803945817

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Focusing on an overlooked and understudied population, Understanding Older Chicanas examines older Chicanas' lives, status, and public policy needs. Chicana elderly tend to be poor, reflecting the economic position of Chicanos in American society; they also tend to be stereotyped as widows and grandmothers, reflecting the cultural values of Mexican American society. This work shows how Chicana elderly cope with this economic and cultural marginality and how they gain the personal and financial resources they require. Author Elisa Facio also relates how scholars and public policymakers have previously understood Chicana elderly, provides new data on the social meaning of Chicana old age, and points out the implications of that meaning for future policymakers. This perceptive volume is essential reading for those in academic and policy settings who are interested in issues regarding multicultural aging experiences, diversification, life-cycle phases, socialization, and women.

World War II and Mexican American Civil Rights
World War II and Mexican American Civil Rights

Author: Richard Griswold del Castillo

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0292779135

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This historical study examines how Mexican American experiences during WWII galvanized the community’s struggle for civil rights. World War II marked a turning point for Mexican Americans that fundamentally changed their relationship to US society at large. The experiences of fighting alongside white Americans in the military, as well as working in factory jobs for wages equal to those of Anglo workers, made Mexican Americans less willing to tolerate the second-class citizenship that had been their lot before the war. Having proven their loyalty and “Americanness” during World War II, Mexican Americans began to demand the civil rights they deserved. In this book, Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard Steele investigate how the wartime experiences of Mexican Americans helped forge their civil rights consciousness and how the US government responded. The authors demonstrate, for example, that the US government “discovered” Mexican Americans during World War II and began addressing some of their problems as a way of ensuring their willingness to support the war effort. The book concludes with a selection of key essays and historical documents from the World War II period that provide a first-person perspective of Mexican American civil rights struggles.

¡Sí, Ella Puede!
¡Sí, Ella Puede!

Author: Stacey K. Sowards

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2019-03-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 147731766X

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Since the 1950s, Latina activist Dolores Huerta has been a fervent leader and organizer in the struggle for farmworkers’ rights within the Latina/o community. A cofounder of the United Farm Workers union in the 1960s alongside César Chávez, Huerta was a union vice president for nearly four decades before starting her own foundation in the early 2000s. She continues to act as a dynamic speaker, passionate lobbyist, and dedicated figure for social and political change, but her crucial contributions and commanding presence have often been overshadowed by those of Chávez and other leaders in the Chicana/o movement. In this new study, Stacey K. Sowards closely examines Huerta’s rhetorical skills both in and out of the public eye and defines Huerta’s vital place within Chicana/o history. Referencing the theoretical works of Pierre Bourdieu, Chela Sandoval, Gloria Anzaldúa, and others, Sowards closely analyzes Huerta’s speeches, letters, and interviews. She shows how Huerta navigates the complex intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, language, and class through the myriad challenges faced by women activists of color. Sowards’s approach to studying Huerta’s rhetorical influence offers a unique perspective for understanding the transformative relationship between agency and social justice.

Latina Lives, Latina Narratives
Latina Lives, Latina Narratives

Author: Miroslava Chávez-García

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-27

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 1000401944

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This book brings together the most influential and widely known writings of Vicki L. Ruiz, a leading voice in the fields of Chicana/o, Latina/o, women’s, and labor history. For nearly forty years, Ruiz has produced scholarship that has provided the foundation for a rich and nuanced understanding of the ways in which Chicanas and Latinas negotiate the structures impinging on their everyday lives. From challenging familial, patriarchal cultural norms, building interethnic social networks in the neighborhood and workplace, and organizing labor unions, to fighting gender and racial discrimination in the courts, at work, in the schools, and on the streets, Ruiz’s studies have examined the countless struggles, roadblocks, and victories Chicanas and Latinas have faced in the twentieth century and beyond. The articles in this book are organized chronologically to reflect the evolution of Ruiz’s intellectual contributions as well as her commitment to integrating feminist history, theory, and methodology, and show how she has generously offered insights, reflections, and humor in helping us define and shape who we are as mujeres, Chicanas, Latinas, scholars, teachers, and mentors. With its narrative flow and engaging prose, Ruiz’s scholarship connects with academic and public audiences and this collection fulfills a much-needed demand in the teaching of women’s, Chicana/o, Latina/o, and labor history.

Radicals in the Barrio
Radicals in the Barrio

Author: Justin Akers Chacón

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2018-06-26

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 1608467767

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Radicals in the Barrio uncovers a long and rich history of political radicalism within the Mexican and Chicano working class in the United States. Chacón clearly and sympathetically documents the ways that migratory workers carried with them radical political ideologies, new organizational models, and shared class experience, as they crossed the border into southwestern barrios during the first three decades of the twentieth-century. Justin Akers Chacón previous work includes No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border (with Mike Davis).