The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin
Marc Simon Rodriguez
2011, University of North Carolina Press
256 pages, hardback, plates
MIGRANTS look set to be the big issue in the 2012 US election with Barack Obama in effect launching his election campaign a few weeks ago in El Paso, Texas, with a speech signalling both the importance to the US of a restricted immigration policy but also acknowledging the role played by Latino – and in particular Mexican – immigrants to the US. The Tejano Diaspora is timely, for it reveals the labour patterns followed by Chicanos and other Hispanics from Texas to Wisconsin for the summer farm season in the 1960s and 70s. They travelled in their hundreds of thousands to harvest America’s crops – and feed the country. The scale of this flow of people influenced concepts of identity in Texas, California, Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere, while also propelling the creation of social movements and civil rights activism. Rodriguez looks among other things at Crystal City in Texas, a flashpoint of Mexican Americanism in the 1960s and the scene in 1963 of ground-breaking advances in Mexican-American electoral politics. Wisconsin, with its long tradition of labour politics, proved a testing ground for the ideas and activities of young movement leaders. Rodriguez adds an important piece of the jigsaw to the history of Mexican American politics, while confirming the importance of migrant labourers to the growth of the US and its continuing prosperity. – GO’T
