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From Out of the Shadows

MEXICAN WOMEN IN

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

AMERICA

Tenth Anniversary Edition

Vicki L. Ruiz

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

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First published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 1998 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1999

Tenth anniversary edition published by Oxford University Press, 2008 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

www. oup. com

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ruiz, Vicki.

From out of the shadows: Mexican women in twentieth-century America / Vicki L. Ruiz.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-537478-0 (cloth) 978-0-19-537477-3 (pbk.)

1. Mexican American women—History—20th century. 2. Mexican American women—Social conditions.

I. Title E184.M5R86 1997 305.48'86872073—dc21 97-9387

Permission credits: Sections of Chapter 2 were published as

"Dead Ends or Gold Mines: Using Missionary Records in Mexican American Women's History, "

Frontiers 12:1 (1991): 35-56.

An earlier draft of Chapter 3 was published as "The Flapper and the Chaperone: Historical Memory

Among Mexican American Women" in Seeking Common Ground: A Multidisciplinary Reader

on Immigrant Women in the United States, ed. Donna Gabaccia (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), pp. 141-157.

"University Avenue" by Pat Mora is reprinted with permission from the publisher of Borders (Houston: Arte Piiblico Press, 1986).

3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper

www.oup.com

FOR THE STORYTELLERS WHO GAVE ME HISTORY LESSONS AT HOME

In memory of my grandmother Maria de las Nieves Moya de Ruiz

(1880-1971)

and to my mother Erminia Pablita Ruiz Mercer

(1921-2001)

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Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction yd

1. Border Journeys 3

2. Confronting "America" 33

3. The Flapper and the Chaperone 51

4. With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots 72

5. La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement 99

6. Claiming Public Space 127

Epilogue 147

Afterword 152

Appendix 166

Notes 171

Bibliography 227

Index 249

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Ac knowledgments

1 HIS book would not be possible without the voices of the indi- viduals who have shaped this narrative, as historical actors, as scholars, and as friends. First, I would like to thank the following people who shared with me their memories: Eusebia Buriel, Ray Buriel, Elsa Chavez, Carmen Bernal Escobar, Alma Araiza Garcia, Fernando Garcia, Martha Gonzalez, Dorothy Ray Healey, Lucy Lucero, Ernest Moreno, Graciela Martinez Moreno, the late Luisa Moreno, Julia Luna Mount, Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, Maria del Carmen Romero, my mother Erminia Pablita Ruiz Mercer, and Jesusita Torres. I thank my former students Carolyn Arredondo, Je- susita Ponce, Lydia Linares Peake, and David Ybarra for giving me permission to cite their oral interviews. With generosity and en- couragement, Sherna Berger Gluck has allowed me to quote from several volumes of the Rosie the Riveter Revisited oral history col- lection housed at California State University, Long Beach.

During my ten years of wandering in and out of archives, staff members have been extraordinarily helpful and I express a deep ap- preciation to Christine Marin, Special Collections, Arizona State University; Rose Diaz and Tom Jaehn, Special Collections, Zim- merman Library, University of New Mexico; Katherine Kane and Anne Bonds, Colorado Historical Society; Kate Adams, Barker His- tory Center and Margo Gutierrez, Benson Library, University of Texas, Austin; and Maria E. Flores, Our Lady of the Lake College,

-^Jviii^ Acknowledgments

San Antonio. I also thank the helpful staff at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles; Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research (especially Sarah Cooper); Coleccion Tloque Nahuaque, Chicano Studies Library, University of California, Santa Barbara; Western History Department, Denver Public Li- brary; Houchen Community Center, El Paso; Daughters of the Re- public of Texas Library at the Alamo; Labor Archives, University of Texas, Arlington; DeGroyler Library, Southern Methodist Univer- sity; University Archives, New Mexico State University; and the Arizona Historical Society Library, Tucson.

A debt of gratitude goes out to Victor Becerra, Ernie Chavez, Tom Jaehn, Valerie Matsumoto, Lara Medina, Beatriz Pesquera, Denise Segura, Howard Shorr, and Devra Weber for taking time out of their own busy schedules to share with me photographs, newspaper clippings, and primary materials. Thank you more than words can convey. I also acknowledge friends and colleagues who sent me their published and unpublished papers, works that have unquestionably enriched this manuscript: GabrielaArredondo, Ray Buriel, Gilbert Cadena, Roberto Calderon, Angel Cervantes, Ernie Chavez, Marisela Chavez, Kenton Clyrner, Virginia Espino, Jeff Garcflazo, Ramon Gutierrez, Tom Jaehn, Anne Larson, Margo McBane, Jesus Malaret, Valerie Matsumoto, Lara Medina, Cynthia Orozco, Naomi Quinonez, Ada Sosa Riddell, Margaret Rose, George Sanchez, Marjorie Sanchez-Walker, Denise Segura, Maria Soldatenko, Richard Street, Quintard Taylor, and Zaragosa Vargas.

I have been blessed with the privilege of working with a num- ber of highly motivated and talented graduate students, people who will definitely make a difference in our profession. The UC Davis cohort includes James Brooks, Kevin Leonard, Jennifer Levine, Matthew Lasar, Jesus Franscisco Malaret and of course, the "Sis- terhood"—Kathleen Cairns, Annette Reed Crum, Margaret Jacobs, Olivia Martinez-Krippner, Alicia Rodriquez-Estrada, and Yolanda Calderon Wallace. The Claremont crew wants to set the world on fire: Frank Barajas, Virginia Espino, Matthew Garcia, Timothy Hodgdon, Alice Horn, Peg Lamphier, Matthew Lasar, Lara Medina, Marian Perales, Naomi Quinonez, Alicia Rodriquez-Estrada, Ar- lene Sanchez-Walsh, Emilie Stoltzfus, Mary Ann Villarreal, and Antonia Villasenor are comitted to the bridging of the academy and the community. I have also enjoyed my many conversations with Pat Ash, Philip Castruita, Antonia Garcia, Lee Ann Meyer, Kat Norman, and Amanda Perez. A special thanks is reserved for

Acknowledgments •$ ix $*•

Marisela Chavez, Virginia Espino, Timothy Hodgdon, Peg Lam- phier, Laura Munoz and Mary Ann Villarreal, my current graduate students who migrated with me to the "dry heat" of Arizona and to the daughters of the desert, Luisa Bonillas, Rose Diaz, Christine Marin, and Jean Reynolds, who have made us all feel so welcome.

Institutional support for this manuscript has come from many sources. An American Council for Learned Societies Fellowship proved crucial in the early phases of this project. A UC Davis Hu- manities Fellowship and a faculty development award allowed me to take a one-year sabbatical from the classroom. In addition, re- search funds associated with the Mellon Humanities chair that I held for three years at The Claremont Graduate School along with a summer research grant and a Haynes Fellowship provided funds to complete the archival research and transcribe interviews. I wrote the last chapters at Arizona State University where I recieved a one semester sabbatical.

At UC Davis, my undergraduate assistants (both are now attor- neys) Amagda Perez and Viola Romero were conscientious to a fault. Thanks also to Ada Arensdorf, Jaime Ruiz and Eve Carr. The meticulous efforts of Timothy Hodgdon and Matthew Lasar proved invaluable in preparing the manuscript for publication. Mis com- paneras/os Angie Chabram-Dernesesian, Ed Escobar, Estelle Freedman, Gayle Gullett, Gail Martinez, Valerie Matsumoto, Beat- riz Pesquera, Mary Rothschild, Raquel Salgado Scherr, Howard Shorr, Susan Tiano, and Clarence Walker helped me regain my fo- cus during a very difficult time in my life.

At various stages, several individuals offered inspiration and constructive criticism. I would like to thank Ram6n Gutierrez, George Lipsitz, Betita Martinez, Valerie Matsumoto, and Howard Shorr for their careful readings of one or more chapters. The ASU Women's History Reading Group, particularly Michelle Curran, Susan Gray, Gayle Gullett, Mary Melcher, and Sybil Thornton, provided support and insight. Peggy Pascoe and Sarah Deutsch read the entire manuscript and their comments (and Peggy's line editing) substantially strengthened the narrative as a whole. Peggy y Sally—gracias por todo.

I have felt privileged to work with Sheldon Meyer, a steadfast advocate and extraordinary editor. I also acknowledge the careful attention paid to this manuscript by Brandon Trissler and Helen Mules. Their professionalism and enthusiasm eased this overpro- tective author. Rosemary Wellner, too, deserves thanks for her skills as a copy editor.

$ X & Acknowledgments

To my knowledge, there are only seventeen Chicanas with PhDs in history. I am number four. Often we labor alone, subject to "proving" our research and our very presence in the academy. I would like to acknowledge the labors of Louise Kerr, Raquel Casas, Antonia Castaneda, Miroslava Chavez, Deena Gonzalez, Camille Guerin Gonzales, Lara Medina, Gloria Miranda, Maria Montoya, Lorena Oropeza, Cynthia Orozco, Emma Perez, Naomi Quinonez, Yolanda Romero, Elizabeth Salas, and Shirlene Soto and to honor the legacies of the late Irene Ledesma and Magdalena Mora.

There are no words to describe the appreciation and love I have for the wonderful men who have graced my life. When I completed Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, my sons Miguel and Danny were six and three. In ten years, Miguel has gone from decorating the door with crayons to enjoying new challenges with a driver's license and Danny's taste in television has changed from Sesame Street to MTV. I value their patience and resilience in the midst of our sev- eral moves. They have borne their absentminded mother with good humor and much love. My father Robert Mercer passed away into the next life on November 14, 1995, after a long illness, but I feel his presence and independent spirit. A man of honor, gentle strength, with a great capacity for love, Victor Becerra, my hus- band, changed my life. Victor has contributed in many ways to the shaping of this work. Listening to scattered passages, reading pre- liminary drafts, and offering well-placed suggestions, he reminds me to write from the heart.

v. L. R.

Introduction

WHEN I was a child, I learned two types of history—the one at home and the one at school. My mother and grandmother would regale me with tales of their Colorado girlhoods, stories of village life, coal mines, strikes, discrimination, and family lore. At school, scattered references were made to Coronado, Ponce De Le6n, the Alamo, and Pancho Villa. That was the extent of Latino history. Bridging the memories told at the table with printed historical nar- ratives fueled my decision to become a historian.

From Out of the Shadows focuses on the claiming of personal and public spaces across generations. As farm workers, flappers, la- bor activists, barrio volunteers, civic leaders, and feminists, Mexi- can women have made history. Their stories, however, have re- mained in the shadows.

The introduction to my first book, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, refers to the shadowing of Mexican women's experiences. "Scholarly publications on Mexican American history have usually relegated women to landscape roles. The reader has a vague aware- ness of the presence of women, but only as scenery, not as ac- tors . . . and even their celebrated maternal roles are sketched in muted shades." Little did I realize that this theme had also res- onated among earlier chroniclers of Spanish New Mexico, most notably Cleofas Jaramillo. In 1941, she compiled a collection of folklore, Sombras del pasado/Shadows of the Past, in which she drew

-$ xii % Introduction

on the collective memories of her Hispano narrators.1 Similarly, I have drawn on the collective voices of the women who have shaped and given meaning to my work.

Race, class, and gender have become familiar watchwords, maybe even a mantra, for social historians, but few get beneath the surface to explore their intersections in a manner that sheds light on power and powerlessness, boundaries and voice, hegemony and agency. This book addresses issues of interpreting voice and locat- ing power between and within communities, families, and individ- uals. Women's lives, dreams, and decisions take center stage.

Women of Mexican birth or descent refer to themselves by many names—Mexicana, Mexican American, and Chicana (to name just three). Self-identification speaks volumes about re- gional, generational, and even political orientations. The term Mexicana typically refers to immigrant women, with Mexican American signifying U.S. birth. Chicana reflects a political con- sciousness borne of the Chicano Student Movement, often a gen- erational marker for those of us coming of age during the 1960s and 1970s. Chicana/o has also been embraced by our elders and our children who share in the political ideals of the movement. Some prefer regional identification, such as Tejana (Texan) or His- pana (New Mexican). Spanish American is also popular in New Mexico and Colorado. Latina emphasizes a common bond with all women of Latin American origin in the United States, a politicized Pan American identity. Even racial location can be discerned by whether one favors an Iberian connection (Hispanic) or an indige- nous past (Mestiza or Xicana).

As part of her stand-up routine, lesbian writer and comic Mon- ica Palacios articulates her multiple identities as follows:

When I was born I was of Mexican-American persuasion Then I became Chicana Then I was Latina Then I was Hispanic Then I was a Third World member (my mom loved that) Then I was a woman of color Now I'm just an Amway dealer And my life is happening.2

Literary critic Alicia Arrizon refers to Palacios's work as "one of challenge where humor becomes the tool of reconstructing ways of

Introduction 4 xiii fc-

understanding the self." Poet and novelist Alicia Caspar de Alba conveys the image of the Chicana writer as "the curandera (medi- cine woman) or the bruja (witch) . . . the keeper of culture, the keeper of memories."3 The exploration of identities, the conserva- tion and creation of cultural practices and traditions, and the re- construction of historical narratives are not without political in- tent. In the words of Sonia Saldivar-Hull, "The Chicana feminist looks to her history . . . to learn how to transform the present."4

Focusing on the twentieth century and the Southwest, this book surveys women's border journeys not solely in terms of travel, but of internal migration—creating, accommodating, resisting, and transforming the physical and psychological environs of their "new" lives in the United States. These are journeys of survival, re- siliency, and community. They reveal, to quote Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "the material politics of everyday life, especially the daily life struggles of poor people—those written out of history."5

In 1900, Mexican women had a long history of settlement in what is now the Southwest extending back to the Coronado expe- dition of 1540. Historians, including Ram6n Gutierrez, Albert Hur- tado, Antonia Castaneda, Angelina Veyna, and James Brooks, have reconstructed the ideological beliefs and physical realities of women in the Spanish Borderlands across racial and social loca- tions from the elite gentry to indentured servants.6 In addition, Deena Gonzdlez, Sarah Deutsch, and Lisbeth Haas carefully delin- eate the lives of Spanish-speaking women in the decades following the U.S.—Mexican War (1846—1848), and, in placing women at the center of Hispano communities, they document gendered strate- gies for resisting political, economic, and cultural conquests.7

Women's kin and friend networks—their comadres—were indis- pensable for both personal and cultural survival. Comadres helping comadres, neighbors joining neighbors—such patterns of mutual assistance run through the histories of Mexican—American women.

Through mutual assistance and collective action, Mexican women have sought to exercise control over their lives at home, work, and neighborhood. From 'Out of the Shadows opens with "Border Journeys," a chapter that details the ways in which Mexi- canas claimed places, albeit economically precarious ones, for themselves and their families in the United States while "Con- fronting America" records their efforts to create their own cultural spaces. "The Flapper and the Chaperone" focuses on the second generation taking the first individual steps toward sexual autonomy. "With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots" surveys women's activist paths in labor unions, voluntary associations, and political affiliations.

-̂ 1 xiv £- Introduction

"La Nueva Chicana" examines the development of a distinctive Chicana feminist consciousness, a consciousness with historical antecedents predating the 1960s and with contemporary lessons for bridging individual and community empowerment. Covering the period 1970 to the present, "Claiming Public Space" empha- sizes the ways in which women from the shop floor to city hall have made a difference in their lives and their neighbors' lives through community-based organizations.

It is important to situate this thread of public and private spaces that appears in each chapter. One's positionality inside the home, the community, and the workplace cannot be separated into neat categories of analysis. The feminist edifice of separate spheres need not apply as "the inextricable nature of family life and wage work in the histories of immigrant wives and women of color explodes the false oppositions at the heart of the public/private dichotomy."8 Integration, rather than separation, provides a more illuminating construct in exploring the dynamics of Mexicana/Chi- cana work and family roles.

A second thread running through the narrative is that of cul- tural coalescence. Immigrants and their children pick, borrow, retain, and create distinctive cultural forms. There is not a single hermetic Mexican or Mexican—American culture, but rather per- meable cultures rooted in generation, gender, and region, class, and personal experience. People navigate across cultural boundaries and consciously make decisions with regard to the production of culture. However, bear in mind that people of color have not had unlimited choice. Race and gender prejudice and discrimination with their accompanying social, political, and economic segmen- tation have constrained aspirations, expectations, and decision- making.

Though filtered through the lens of time and mediated by the interviewer, oral histories shed much light on individual stories of resistance, resilience, and creativity. It is not a question of "giving" voice, but of providing the space for people to express their thoughts and feelings in their words and on their own terms. Re- claiming, contextualizing, and interpreting their memories remain the historians' tasks. I am reminded of a line in William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence"—"To see a world in a grain of sand."9

In September 1992, the Los Angeles Times carried an article about a Mexican—American photo exhibit at the El Monte Histori- cal Museum.10 Though a bit timid behind the wheel, I gathered my courage and ventured onto the freeway bound for El Monte. Inside

Introduction -f xv %

the museum, I lingered over pictures documenting migrant life: the Hick's Camp barrio, family weddings, and neighborhood celebra- tions. I even noticed images of the popular Long Beach nightspot, the Cinderella Ballroom, where couples posed in front of paper moons and caboose facades. An elderly Mexicana entered the room accompanied by her daughter. She began to identify all the people and landmarks captured in the photographs. I introduced myself and tagged along as she graciously gave us a history lesson. A few months later, Jesusita Torres invited me into her home and shared with me her remarkable story of survival and hope. Her journey un- folds here.

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1 Border Journeys

1 HE year is 1923; the place G6mez Palacios in the Mexican state of Durango. As she watched her mother pack a few belongings, Je- susita Torres was warned by her mother Pasquala Esparza not to tell anyone of their plans. Several days later, shortly before noon, Pasquala would sneak out of the family home with nine-year-old Je- susita at her side and one-month-old Raquel in her arms. They headed for the train station with Pasquala surveying the landscape for any signs of her husband or his relations. She must have breathed a sigh of relief as the train began its journey to Ciudad Juarez from which she hoped to cross with her children into the United States.

During our interview seventy years later, Senora Torres would reveal that her stepfather (Raquel's biological father) in G6mez Palacios had been cruel to her and her mother. In her words:

I never knew my father. . . . My mother got married again and things did not work. I guess they did not work because I was mis- treated, too, you know. So I think the only way she could get away was to come over here.1

Pasquala intended to stay in Juarez until she had the money to se- cure passports for herself and her children. Her destination was El Monte, California, to live with her married sister.

%4 % From Out of the Shadows

That same year in the village of San Julian in the Los Altos re- gion of Jalisco, Petra Sanchez made plans to return to the United States with her husband Ramon, their three infants (two-year-old Guadalupe, one-year-old Librado, and newborn Margarita) and five-year-old Jose, the son of Ramon and his late wife Guadalupe Rocha. The villagers of San Julian may have thought Petra and Ramon an unusual couple. Theirs had not been a conventional courtship. Ramon's late wife Guadalupe had been Petra's older sis- ter. When Guadalupe and her daughter Ampelia succumbed to the global influenza outbreak of 1918, Ramon decided that he and Jose should live with the Rochas. Whether by choice or arrangement, Ramon and Petra married in 1920 and then the newlyweds jour- neyed to California. Laboring as berry pickers in the vicinity of Buena Park, they hoped to make enough to return to San Julian with a nice nest egg. They arrived back to the village in 1923, but within a year the couple decided to make California their home.2

Their second migration was marked by tragedy. When Ramon moved ahead to Buena Park leaving his family temporarily be- hind with his brother, baby Margarita died and, as Librado would later recall to his niece Marjorie Sanchez-Walker, "mother was alone . . . when Margarita died." By 1924, Ramon, Petra, and their increasing family worked in the fields of Knott's Berry Farm. About fifty miles to the north in El Monte, Pasquala and her daughter Jesusita would also be picking berries.3

Jesusita Torres and Petra Sanchez were part of the first modern wave of Mexican immigration to the United States. The society they entered was one already marked by multiple conquests, mi- grations, and overlapping patriarchies. As previously mentioned, Spanish-speaking women migrated north from Mexico decades, even centuries before their Euro-American counterparts ventured west. Most arrived as the wives or daughters of soldiers, farmers, and artisans. Over the course of three centuries, they raised fami- lies on the frontier and worked alongside their fathers or husbands, herding cattle and tending crops.4

Women's networks based on ties of blood and fictive kinship proved central to the settlement of the Spanish/Mexican frontier. At times women settlers acted as midwives to mission Indians and baptized sickly or stillborn babies. As godmothers for these infants, they established the bonds of commadrazgo between Native Amer- ican and Spanish/Mexican women.5 However, exploitation took place among women. For those in domestic service, racial and class hierarchies undermined any pretense of sisterhood. While the god-

Border Journeys •$ 5 £

parent relationship could foster ties between colonists and Native Americans, elites used baptism as a venue of social control. Inden- tured servitude was prevalent on the colonial frontier and persisted well into the nineteenth century.6

Spanish/Mexican settlement has been shrouded by myth. Walt Disney's Zorro, for example, epitomized the notion of romantic Cal- ifornia controlled by fun-loving, swashbuckling rancheros. Since only 3 percent of California's Spanish/Mexican population could be considered rancheros in 1850, most women did not preside over large estates, but helped manage small family farms.7 Married women on the Spanish/Mexican frontier had certain legal advan- tages not afforded their Euro-American peers. Under English com- mon law, women, when they married, became feme covert (or dead in the eyes of the legal system) and thus could not own property separate from their husbands. Conversely, Spanish/Mexican wo- men retained control of their land after marriage and held one-half interest in the community property they shared with their spouses.8

Life for Mexican settlers changed dramatically in 1848 with the conclusion of the U.S.—Mexican War, the discovery of gold in California, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexicans on the U.S. side of the border became second-class citizens, divested of their property and political power. Their world turned upside down. Segregated from the Euro-American population, Mexican Ameri- cans in the barrios of the Southwest sustained their sense of iden- tity and cherished their traditions. With little opportunity for advancement, Mexicans were concentrated in lower-echelon in- dustrial, service, and agricultural jobs.9 A few elite families, espe- cially in New Mexico, retained their land and social standing. This period of conquest, physical and ideological, did not occur in a dis- passionate environment. Stereotypes affected rich and poor alike, with Mexicans commonly described as lazy, sneaky, and greasy. In Euro-American journals, novels, and travelogues, Spanish-speak- ing women were frequently depicted as flashy, morally deficient sirens.10

Providing insight into community life, nineteenth-century Spanish language newspapers reveal ample information on social mores. Newspaper editors upheld the double standard. Women were to be cloistered and protected to the extent that some resi- dents of New Mexico and Arizona protested the establishment of coeducational public schools."

Despite prevailing conventions, most Mexican women, be- cause of economic circumstances, sought employment for wages.

-$ 6 £- From Out of the Shadows

Whether in cities or on farms, family members pooled their earn- ings to put food on the table. Women worked at home taking in laundry, boarders, and sewing while others worked in the fields, in restaurants and hotels, and in canneries and laundries.12 As sisters, cousins, and comadres, women relied on one another for mutual support. In the words of New Mexico native Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, "The women . . . had to be resourceful in every way. They were their own doctors, dressmakers, tailors, and advisers."13

Wage work and mutual assistance were survival strategies that per- sisted well into the twentieth century across region and generation.

Between 1910 and 1930, over one million Mexicanos (one- eighth to one-tenth of Mexico's population) migrated "al otro lado." Arriving in the United States, often with their dreams and little else, these immigrants settled into existing communities and cre- ated new ones in the Southwest and Midwest. In 1900, from 375,000 to perhaps as many as 500,000 Mexicans lived in the Southwest. Within a short space of twenty years, Mexican Ameri- cans were outnumbered at least two to one and their colonias be- came immigrant enclaves. In some areas, this transformation ap- peared even more dramatic. Los Angeles, for example, had a Mexican population ranging from 3,000 to 5,000 in 1900. By 1930, approximately 150,000 people of Mexican birth or heritage resided in the city's expanding barrios.14 As David Gutierrez has so persuasively argued, immigration from Mexico in the twentieth century has had profound consequences for Mexican Americans in terms of "daily decisions about who they are—politically, socially, and culturally—in comparison to more recent immigrants from Mexico." Indeed, a unique layering of generations has occurred in which ethnic/racial identities take many forms—from the His- panos of New Mexico and Colorado whose roots go back to the eighteenth century to the recently arrived who live as best they can in the canyons of northern San Diego County.15

Such a heterogeneous Mexican community is not new. Throughout the twentieth century, a layering of generations can be detected in schools, churches, community organizations, work sites, and neighborhoods. Writing about San Bernardino in the 1940s, Ruth Tuck offered the following illustration:

There is a street... on which three families live side by side. The head of one family is a naturalized citizen, who arrived here eigh- teen years ago; the head of the second is an alien who came . . . in 1905; the head of the third is the descendant of people who

Border Journeys ~% 7 %

came . . . in 1843. All of them, with their families, live in poor housing; earn approximately $ 150 a month as unskilled laborers; send their children to "Mexican" schools; and encounter the same sort of discriminatory practices.16

Inheriting a legacy of colonialism wrought by Manifest Destiny, Mexicans, regardless of nativity, found themselves segmented into low-paying, low-status jobs with few opportunities for advance- ment. Living in segregated barrios, they formed neighborhood as- sociations and church groups, and created a community life predi- cated on modes of production, economic and cultural.

This chapter surveys women's border journeys first in terms of migration and settlement followed by patterns of daily life. The ways in which women as farm worker mothers, railroad wives, and miners' daughters negotiated a variety of constraints (economic, racial, and patriarchal) are at the heart of the narrative. Mexicanas claimed a space for themselves and their families building commu- nity through mutual assistance while struggling for some sem- blance of financial stability, especially in the midst of rising nativist sentiments that would crest in the deportations and repatriations of the early 1930s. Whether living in a labor camp, a boxcar settle- ment, mining town, or urban barrio, Mexican women nurtured families, worked for wages, built fictive kin networks, and partici- pated in formal and informal community associations. Through chain and circular migrations of families, community and kin net- works intertwined. In Riverside, California, for example, the East- side barrio by the 1960s had so many members of a single extended family that Ray Buriel recalled how he and his buddies had to ven- ture into the rival barrio Casa Blanca to get dates.17

Chain and circular migrations, of course, begin with the act of crossing the political border separating Mexico and the United States.18 In writing the history of Mexican immigration, scholars generally work within a "push/pull" model.19 What material condi- tions facilitated migration and what expectations did people carry with them as they journeyed north? Between 1875 and 1910, the Mexican birthrate soared, resulting in a 50 percent increase in population. Food prices also spiraled. While dictator Porfirio Diaz has been credited with the modernization of Mexico, his economic policies decimated the lives of Mexican rural villagers as they were displaced from their ejidos (communal land holdings) by commer- cial (often corporate American) agricultural interests. Perhaps as many as five million people lost access to their ancestral lands. In

41 8 & From Out of the Shadows

the words of historian Devra Weber, "The independent Mexican peasantry disappeared, and by 1910 over nine and a half million people, 96 percent of Mexican families, were landless." By 1900, American-built and financed railroads offered mass transportation in Mexico. Since the major rail lines ran north and south (to make connections with lines on the U.S. side), hopping a train to the bor- der was a realistic and accessible option.20

Beginning with the Madero uprising of 1910, the Mexican Rev- olution also spurred migration to the United States. Claiming the lives of an estimated one to two million people, the ten-year bloody civil war wreaked economic, political, and social chaos. Starvation was not unknown and danger a constant companion. Marauders and soldiers raped and kidnapped young women. Elsie Gonzalez re- called how her grandmother had protected her sister from soldiers by throwing a wicker hamper over her and sitting on top of it until the men had left. The soldaderas, whether as wives, sweethearts, or paid service workers or as women who fought in their own right in their own units, shouldered multiple responsibilities in the course of a single day.21 Although only eight years old when Diaz was routed from power in 1911, Lucia R. had clear memories of the sol- daderas:

They used to carry the whole house on their backs. In addition, they carried the small children and a rifle in case they had to tan- gle with the enemy, too. In a bucket they carried what was neces- sary to cook. Toward the end of the day, they would stop and set up camp and start dinner. Pobrecitas, they suffered a lot.22

Although hostilities, for the most part, would cease in 1920, the economic aftershocks reverberated throughout the following decade. In addition, the Cristero Revolt prompted further emi- gration from 1925 to 1929. Several scholars have referred to the United States as a "safety valve" for Mexicanos seeking to escape the ravages of war. This metaphor is a good one, not only for cam- pesinos and artisans, but for government officials, professionals, and the wealthy. Taking no chances, Seftor Araiza, the mayor of Guadalupe I. Calvo, Chihuahua, wisely sent his wife and children to El Paso. He would never see his cherished family again as assas- sins would take his life during the course of the revolution.23

Immigrants looked to the United States as a source of hope and employment. They soon discovered that material conditions did not match their expectations. The early quantitative studies of Al-

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bert Camarillo, Ricardo Romo, and Mario Barrera sharply illumi- nated the economic and social stratification of Mexicans in the Southwest during the early decades of the twentieth century.24 As examples, in 1930, the three most common occupations for Mexi- can men were in agriculture (45 percent), manufacturing (24 per- cent), and transportation (13 percent). Only 1 percent held profes- sional positions. Women wage earners could frequently be found in the service sector (38 percent), in blue-collar employment (25 per- cent), and in agriculture (21 percent). Only 3 percent were consid- ered professionals and 10 percent held clerical or sales positions.25

The following discussion sketches out in the broadest strokes the occupational niches of Mexican immigrants and their families in the United States.

With the advent of reclamation and irrigation projects and World War I, commercial agriculture in the Southwest boomed at the same time that restrictive mandates against Asian immigration contributed to "a relatively diminishing supply of workers." Grow- ers avidly recruited Mexicanos, promising wages that seemed ex- traordinary to campesinos. Lawrence Cardoso indicated that in Mexico, field workers could earn twelve cents per day while in the U.S. Southwest daily wages for similar work ranged from $ 1.00 to $3.50. By 1930, according to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, Mexican agricultural workers earned from $2.75 to $6.00 per day.26

The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company contract dated March 14, 1918, signed by Severiano Rodriguez stipulated that workers would be paid $7.00 per acre for blocking and thinning; $2.50 and $,1.50 per acre for the first and second hoeing, and $10.00 per acre for pulling, topping, and loading sugar beets. The honoring of such wages could be another matter altogether. In 1919, a representa- tive of the Mexican ambassador to the United States would call on the Commissioner General of Immigration to investigate the phys- ical conditions of compatriots employed by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company based on materials the Mexican embassy had received from Senor Rodriguez in which he explained that 500 families "have been left in a very precarious situation."27

Mexicans provided the sinew and muscle on ranches and farms throughout the West. Historian Camille Guerin-Gonzales indi- cates that "by 1920, Mexicans formed the largest single ethnic group among farm workers in California, and during the 1920s, they became the mainstay of California large-scale, specialty group agriculture." Pioneering economist Paul Taylor found in Nueces County, Texas, that Mexicans formed 97 percent of the farm labor

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force. In Arizona, 80 percent of the year-round or "resident" farm workers were Mexican.28 Migrating into the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states, Spanish-speaking workers could also be found in such disparate places as Nyssa, Oregon, Blackfoot, Idaho, and Green River, Wyoming. Forming over 65 percent of the sugar beet harvesters, Mexican communities also emerged in Michigan and Minnesota. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce related that by 1930 Mexicans picked "more than eighty percent of the perishable commodities produced in the Southwest."29

The railroads also provided employment. According to Jeff Gar- cilazo, Mexicanos composed from "about fifty to seventy percent of the track crews on the major western lines." Labor contractors for both agribusiness and the railroads traveled to the interior of Mex- ico to recruit workers holding out such inducements as high wages, free transportation, and housing. More frequently, such agents competed with one another in the border city of El Paso.30 The bor- der journey of the Vasquez family serves as an example. Recruited by the Rock Island Railroad in Sinalao, Guanajuato, in 1907, Felix Vasquez and his wife Frederica made their way north. Their first two children were born in Mexico and then a daughter, Euesbia, in El Paso. Laboring on the track, Vasquez with his family migrated from boxcar colonia to boxcar colonia into Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Kansas (where they celebrated the birth of another daugh- ter), and then settled in Silvis, Illinois, outside Chicago, the birth- place of four younger children. The boxcar communities could move at a moment's notice or become permanent settlements. Midwest rail lines also relied on Mexican labor since over 40 per- cent of their workers in the Chicago—Gary region were Mexican. In 1927, wages in the rail yards of Detroit averaged $4.00 per day and Mexican rail hands could be found as far east as Pittsburgh.31

Mining and industrial jobs were other "pull" occupations. By 1910, Arizona had become "the nation's number one producer of copper" and the Rockefellers' Colorado Fuel and Iron Company had irrevocably altered the southern Colorado landscape with coal mines. In both states, a layering of generations occurred similar to urban areas of the Southwest with Mexicano migrants living and working alongside native-born Mexican Americans. By the mid- 19205, daily wages averaged from $2.75 to $4.95 for Mexican min- ers in Arizona.32 Heavy industry in the Midwest also recruited Mex- ican labor, with Bethelem Steel in Pennsylvania the most notable example; in the Southwest, construction firms depended on Mexi- canos. In Mexican Immigration to the United States (1930), an-

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thropologist Manuel Gamio indicated that money orders to Mexico originated from such unlikely places as Nebraska and New York. The grandfather of Chicana artist Yolanda Lopez, for example, made his living as a tailor in New York City. As Francisco Balder- rama and Raymond Rodriguez astutely observed, "By the 1920s Mexicans could be found harvesting sugar beets in Minnesota, lay- ing track in Kansas, packing meat in Chicago, mining coal in Okla- homa, assembling cars in Detroit, canning fish in Alaska, and sharecropping in Louisiana."33

Migration within the United States was common and the Vasquez family journey to Silvis exemplifies the stepping-stone route to the Midwest. However, most new arrivals lingered closer to the border. Coming from every Mexican state with a substantial proportional from the central plateau regions of Michoacan, Jal- isco, and Guanajuato, 80 percent of this population, by 1930, lived in the states of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Col- orado.34

The experiences of women who journeyed north alone or only in the company of their children have received scant scholarly attention. In separate studies, however, Devra Weber and I have found numerous examples of women, like Pasquala Esparza, who arrived al otro lado on their own. Manuel Gamio also documents their experiences, here and there, in his field notes housed at the Bancroft Library as well as in excerpts published in his The Life Story of the Mexican Immigrant. The records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, especially the transcripts of the Boards of Special Inquiry, lend insight into the lives of those who came as solas or as single mothers.35

Gender marked one's reception at the Stanton Street Bridge linking Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, especially if one ventured alone. Men would hear the competing pitches of labor contractors promising high wages and assorted benefits. Conversely, immigra- tion inspectors routinely stopped those considered "likely to be- come a public charge"—in other words solas and single mothers. Agents scrutinized passport applications and conducted special hearings to determine women's eligibility for entrance into the United States.36

Arriving in Ciudad Juarez with a nine-year-old daughter and a four-week-old infant, Pasquala Esparza discovered she did not have the necessary funds to obtain the proper passports in El Paso so she stayed in Ciudad Juarez, finding a job as a housekeeper and a room in a boardinghouse. The landlady promised to look in on her

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daughters while Pasquala worked; however, it was nine-year-old Je- susita who shouldered the responsibility for herself and her sister. Jesusita remembered that as part of her daily routine she would carry Raquel a long distance to an affluent home where their mother worked. After preparing the noon meal for her employer, Pasquala would anxiously wait by the kitchen door. When her chil- dren arrived, she quickly and quietly ushered them into the kitchen. While nursing Raquel, she fed Jesusita a burrito of left- overs. Then Jesusita would take her baby sister into her arms and trek back to the boardinghouse to await their mother's return in the evening. One can only imagine her fears as she negotiated the streets of a strange city, a hungry child carrying a hungry baby. Af- ter six months, Pasquala had made enough money to complete the journey to California.37

Immigration agents, however, still remained suspicious of a wo- man unaccompanied by a man. On their next attempt to cross, even with cash in hand, Pasquala and her family were denied a reg- ular passport. Desperate, but not helpless, she secured a local pass- port generally reserved for Juarez residents who worked in El Paso and in that way she and her children crossed the border.38

Another strategy employed by women involved direct con- frontation with immigration officers. Journalist John Reed record- ed an incident in which a woman was queried about the contents of her rebozo. "She slowly opened the front of her dress and an- swered placidly: 'I don't know, senor. It may be a girl and it may be a boy.'"39 During a Board of Special Inquiry in Nogales, Arizona, twenty-four-year-old Trinidad Orellana refused to be intimidated as she and her fourteen-year-old sister Beatriz attempted to join their mother and two sisters who worked as actors at the Star Theatre in El Paso. Perhaps aware of the suspicion with which actors were held, Trinidad adopted a defiant stance. A portion of her testimony follows:

ORELLANA: No, my brother is not an actor. HEARING OFFICER: What is he? ORELLANA: He is a mechanic. HEARING OFFICER: What kind of mechanic? ORELLANA: You ask him.40

Shortly after this exchange, an exasperated immigration agent de- clared, "Do you want to answer these questions ... or do you want to stop right now?" Appearing as a witness, her brother Alfonso took

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a deferential position, emphasizing the strong transnational family bond, his fitness as a breadwinner, and his desire for U.S. citizen- ship. In granting the Orellana sisters admittance, the transcript re- veals an odd rationale for Trinidad's testimony.

It was thought at first from the manner of answering that there was something wrong . . . but the Board finally decided that she was just ignorant or frightened. There is nothing in her appear- ance to indicate that she is connected to the theatrical profession or anything other than a plain seamstress as she claims to be.41

Whether Trinidad Orellana's "performance" at the hearing had been carefully scripted or not, it seems interesting that she and her brother articulated reverse gender expectations—she assertive, he accommodating. As significant, immigration agents attributed her unsettling testimony to being scared or backward rather than as a direct challenge to their authority. Perhaps being caught off guard worked to the sisters' advantage, for three weeks later the El Paso office would chastise the Nogales agents for making such a hasty decision with respect to the Orellanas.42

The Immigration Act of 1917, which included provisions for a literacy test and a head tax, made circular migration more difficult. Historian George Sanchez contends that these measures along with harassment by border agents contributed to a pattern of more permanent settlement. Especially after its passage, immigrants ar- riving in El Paso (the Ellis Island for Mexicanos) encountered a daunting and demeaning reception. According to Balderrama and Rodriguez, "All immigrants, men, women, and children, were herd- ed into crowded, examination pens. As many as five hundred to six hundred persons were detained there for endless hours without benefit of drinking fountains or toilet facilities." Immigrants were also required to remove their clothing to hand over to officials for disinfecting. They received medical examinations and were then herded through a public bath. Associating immigrants with out- breaks of influenza, border agents perceived themselves as acting in the public interest, but for the the individuals undergoing such treatment the humiliation remained a searing memory: "They disinfected us as if we were some kind of animals." Sanchez points out that this process was reserved only for poor migrants. Profes- sional and elite exiles (and those who dressed to pass above their class) could forgo the literacy test, medical examination, and pub- lic bath.43

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Like those who arrived from Europe and Asia, Mexican immi- grants dreamed of "a better life." Some were propelled by fantastic images of prosperity. Or as a verse from a popular corrido pro- claimed, "For they told me that here the dollars were scattered about in heaps; That there were girls and theaters/And that here everything was good fun."44 The manufactured fantasies of Holly- wood also appealed to adventurous young women like Elisa Silva. Divorcing an abusive husband, Silva, her mother, and two sisters left Maztal&n for Los Angeles with the hope of "working as extras in the movies." However, once they arrived, they found work in dif- ferent occupations. One sister worked as a seamstress, another at- tended business college, and Elisa earned $20 to $30 a week as a "dime a dance" partner in a local Mexican dance hall. Other wo- men, like Pasquala Esparza, were not motivated by promises of fame and fortune; survival was their goal and, for many, the agri- cultural communities of Texas, California, and the Far West would be their new homes.45

After the grueling journey, Pasquala and her children resided with her sister's family in El Monte, California. Living under one roof with her tios and her cousins, Jesusita and her mother worked in the berry fields from February through June; then journeyed with the relatives to the San Joaquin Valley where they would first pick grapes, then cotton. By November, the extended family would return to El Monte. "We didn't work November . . . December . . . January . . . But we used to buy our sack of beans . . . and we'd get our flour and we'd get our coffee and we'd get our rice so that we could live on those three months we didn't work."46

It is a truism that family networks are central to American im- migration history, but as I listened to Jesusita Torres, I wondered how observers, like 1930s' sociologist Ruth Allen, could have miss- ed the complexities of extended family life when they interviewed Mexican farm workers. Indeed, Allen seemed to equate the fact that since growers paid the wages of all the family members in a lump sum to the head of household, such arrangements sat well in the minds of Mexican women, whom she believed clung to "tra- ditions of feminine subservience." With thinly veiled contempt, Allen wrote:

The Mexican woman has been taught as her guide to conduct the vow of the Moabitess, 'Where thou goest, I will go.' Up and down the road she follows the men of her family. . . . The modern Woman Movement and demands for economic independence

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have left her untouched. Uncomplainingly, she labors in the field for months at a time and receives as a reward from the head of the family some gew-gaw from the five and ten cent store, or, at best, a new dress. The supremacy of the male is seldom disputed.47

The ethnocentric perceptions of this Texas professor signifies one end of the spectrum. On the opposite end reside rosy notions of happy extended families. While family and fictive kin may have eased the migrant journey and provided physical and emotional succor, human relationships are rarely perfect. Indeed, I too may be guilty of casting a fairly uncritical eye on extended family net- works in Cannery Women, Cannery Lives.48 Bear in mind that the dynamics of power permeate the realm of decision-making whether one is situated at work or at home. We must move beyond a cele- bration of la familia to address questions of power and patriarchy, the gender politics of work and family.

Gender politics, however, is also enmeshed in economic and social stratification. Women like Jesusita Torres and her mother Pasquala lived and worked in extended family relationships often by necessity rather than choice. It was not until Pasquala secured employment at a walnut factory that she could save a portion of her wages and move her daughters and grandson out of her sister and brother-in-law's home. Although Senora Torres remembered that "when you live together, you think that they love you and you love them," she also revealed that her uncle's drinking took a toll on the family. "We couldn't sleep because they had to do their singing and their cussing . . . and we had a little corner in the kitchen where we slept."49 Julia Luna Mount remembered her family going wal- nut picking "with a friend of a friend." In her words, "We slept on the floor in the living room. We suffered humiliations because we really had no place to go ... and they made us feel very un- welcome."50

Individual memories illuminate community histories. The fol- lowing narrative reveals Mexican women's stories across region and occupation, examining their lives in agricultural colonias, boxcar barrios, and mining towns and focusing, in part, on the cultural construction of class. Just as women's work and family roles were intertwined, so too were the racial, economic, and patriarchal con- straints they faced. Their legacies of resistance reveal their re- siliency, determination, and strength.

A lifelong farm and nursery worker, Jesusita Torres stated simply:

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It's hard when you don't have an education. You go to work and you always have to do the hardest work. I used to think, "If I ever have children, I'm gonna work so hard my children will NEVER do this."51

Migrant workers, both past and present, have occupied a vulnera- ble, precarious sector of the working class. Indeed, as an underclass of monopoly capitalism, frequently invisible in labor camps off the beaten track, farm workers have, in general, labored for low wages, under hazardous conditions, and with substandard housing and provisions. While individual qualities such as physical stamina and fortitude seem necessary for survival, a collective sense of family, neighborhood, and cultural bonds created thriving colonias among Mexican agricultural workers. In Labor and Community, historian Gilbert Gonzalez meticulously reconstructs citrus communities in Orange County. Colonia residents may have depended on the grow- ers for their livelihoods, but they developed their own local village structures and organizations, ones imbued with what Emilio Zamora has termed "an all-inclusive Mexicanist identity" rooted in nationalism and "working class values of fraternalism, reciproc- ity, and altruism." As Devra Weber argues in Dark Sweat, White Gold, "Segregation, working-class status, and the geographic mo- bility of Mexican men and women reinforced their identity as Mex- icans ... and reaffirmed the need to rely on each other in an Anglo- dominated society." She continued, "While aspects of mutual aid underlie any society, the importance of reciprocity was more pow- erful among immigrants."52

But there is more to the story than collective identity, for the pallor of patriarchy must also be considered in exploring the lives of women agricultural workers. Rosalinda Gonzalez contends that the organization of farm labor reinforced patriarchal tendencies within families. Women could labor for the patron at work and the patron at home. However, like their foremothers who migrated north dur- ing the frontier era, Mexicanas created their own worlds of influ- ence predicated on women's networks, on ties of familial and fictive kin. Commadrazgo served as one of the undergirdings for general patterns of reciprocity as women cared for one another as family and neighbors.53

As an example, Irene Castaneda recalled her mother's efforts as a midwife in South Texas:

Mother, from seeing the poor people die for lack of medical at- tention, wanted to do something to help them and she learned as best she could, to deliver babies. Sometimes on the floor with just

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a small blanket. . . . Sometimes she would bring pillows or blan- kets from home—many of the women had not eaten—she would bring them rice from home and feed them by spoonfuls. The shots were a cup of hot pepper tea—to give strength for the baby to be born.54

The family remained the unit of production in agricultural la- bor. For wives and mothers, the day began before sunrise as they prepared the masa for fresh tortillas. In an interview with Gilbert Gonzalez, Julia Aguirre remembered how her mother prepared tor- tillas on top of a steel barrel that she had improvised as a stove. As a child, Clemente Linares worked with a short-handle hoe in the beet fields of Montana. He recalled the "double day" existence of his mother who labored all day in the fields and returned to a full evening of chores. After dinner, "She would work on the washing board and tub. She had to heat the water on the stove and if there wasn't room for the water, they would heat the water outside on a fire." He continued, "She would spend half the night so she would be ready to go back to work the next morning." Drawing on a 1923 Department of Labor study, sociologists Mary Romero and Eric Margolis illuminate the double day among campesinas in the Col- orado beet fields. "Only 14 of the 454 working mothers interviewed were relieved by other adults in the cooking and only 42 women were assisted by a child."55

Paid by the acre, bin, or burlap bag, workers had their earnings tied to their abilities to pick with speed and skill, careful not to bruise the berries or puncture the tomatoes. Mothers with infants were not uncommon sights. Grace Luna related how women would scale ladders with 100 pounds of cotton on their backs and "some carried their kids on top of their picking sacks."56 While Luna picked cotton in Madera, California, Marfa Arredondo worked in a peach orchard little more than an hour's distance near the small town of Delhi. Reflecting on her experiences as a young mother coping with the realities of migrant life, she revealed:

In 1944 we camped in Delhi under trees and orchards in tents. We made a home. We had rocks already or bricks and cooked our food and got boxes for our table.... Martin [her son] suffered, he remembers. Picking peaches was the hardest job—I used to cry because my neck hurt, the big peaches were heavy. I [could] only fill the bag half way because I couldn't stand the pain. . . . We lived not too far [the bosses] and that is where we used to get our water. Restrooms—they were under the trees, in the field, or by the canal.57

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Migrant farm workers had little shelter from the extremes of heat or cold. With no labor camp in sight, Jesusita Torres dusted herself off and slept under trees. Clemente Linares recalled how the Montana winters would freeze the outdoor water pumps, but the ever-present snow, which seeped into the house from the cracks in the walls, did serve as his family's main source of water. Telling his daughter Lydia the proverbial story of walking over two miles to school in the snow, he declared, "That you didn't freeze to death was a miracle."58 Conversely, in the poem "I Remember," Is- abel Flores presents a limpid image of life in the fields on a hot summer day. A portion follows:

I remember riding on my mother's sacka as she picked cotton in the middle of two surcos lonches tortillas y frijoles in an opened field with the dust and the wind.

I remember watching a cloud slowly covering the sun and giving thanks for the minutes of shade.59

Some children never made it to the fields. In 1938, a Michigan newspaper reported how, in the beet fields near Blissfield, company housing amounted to "hovels" with fifteen to twenty workers as- signed to each shack. Babies were born "in tents or outside under trees." One infant died shortly after birth. The mother had stood in a crowded flatbed truck all the way from San Antonio, Texas, to Michigan and on her arrival went into labor prematurely.60 A single headline from a Michigan paper says it all:

Want, Poverty, Misery, Terror Ride Through Michigan Sugar Beet Fields Like Four Horsemen

Mexican Labor Brought Like Cattle to State in Trucks; Nameless Graves Unmarked in

Fields.61

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Rural migrant women had few choices other than picking pro- duce. Some became cooks in labor camps and others ran makeshift boardinghouses. In addition to picking produce, caring for her family, and serving as the local midwife, Irene Castaneda's mother took in laundry for which she earned $5 per week. Working as a housekeeper for local farm and merchant families offered another option, but domestic labor frequently contains the hidden psycho- logical costs of prejudice, discrimination, and humiliation.62 Paul Taylor recorded the following observations from Euro-American women in South Texas regarding their Mexican "servants."

They are good domestic servants if you train them right. They are getting better and are clean if you teach them to be. . .. We feel toward the Mexicans like the old southerners toward the Negroes. Some of us have had servants from the same family for three generations.

In the midst of a family tragedy, Jesusita Torres learned that she definitely preferred migrant work over household employment. At the age of fifteen, Jesusita eloped with a young man she met in the fields and a year later became a mother. At seventeen, Jesusita, pregnant with their second child, had been abandoned by her twenty-four-year-old husband. Moving back in with her mother and relatives, she packed carrots and spinach for a while, but then tried working as a live-in housekeeper. Her mother would care for her toddler son and newborn child. "I went to do housework and they did not pay me too much and I had to stay there so I did not like it." When Jesusita's baby died, her employer helped her provide a proper burial. Senora Torres, however, learned that this assistance was neither an act of charity nor kindness, but an advance she would have to pay back. In her words, "That lady helped me to bury him because I was working for her; so after I got through paying her what I owed her then I quit." How could this patrona be so heartless? Writing about women of color in domestic service, sociologist Eve- lyn Nakano Glenn examines both the structural mechanism of a "dual labor system" and the playing out of racialized/gendered iden- tities and ideologies within the employer-employee interpersonal interactions that characterize such work. She theorizes the actions of employers in the following terms: "Racial characterizations effect- ively neutralized the racial-ethnic woman's womanhood, allowing the mistress to be 'unaware' of the domestic's relationship to her own children and household."

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Nakano Glenn continues, "The exploitation of racial-ethnic wo- men's physical, emotional, and mental work for the benefit of white households thus could be rendered invisible in consciousness if not in reality."65

Migrant women, whether they labored in the fields or someone else's kitchen, conserved scarce familial resources within their own households. They tended subsistence gardens and raised poultry and other barnyard animals. At times, grandparents and chil- dren assumed responsibility for the herbs, vegetables, and chick- ens. Clemente Linares remembers helping his eighty-six-year-old grandfather around the yard. "We raised tomatoes, peas, beans, cabbage, carrots . . . in order to have a root cellar . . . to help pro- vide us through the winter. . . . And of course, we tried to have a hog or two to butcher, maybe a calf, and . . . we had our chickens." Such activities lessened dependence on local merchants and the com- pany store. As Sarah Deutsch has argued, such a mixed economy enabled Hispanos in New Mexico and Colorado a measure of inde- pendence.66 Yet, once they left the land, they lost that indepen- dence. Romero and Margolis explained that when these farmers "left their dry land farms in southern Colorado or northern New Mexico to answer the call of the growers and the sugar beet com- panies it was a critical step in their transformation from peasant farmers to wage workers." They continue, "By the end of the de- pression the dignity of wage work had been wrested from them and they had been reduced to underemployed wards of the state."67

Whether underemployed, unemployed, or even employed, put- ting food on the table was a full-time occupation, especially during the Depression. In California fields, migrant farm workers of all ethnicities (Euro-American, African American, Filipino, and Mexi- can) lived on the brink of starvation. John Steinbeck described a typical diet in good times as "beans, baking powder biscuits, jam, coffee," and, in bad, "dandelion greens and boiled potatoes." Simi- larly, Maria Arredondo recalled, "We didn't have enough food. We had beans, very little meat mixed with potatoes and sopa."68 In her article on the San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike of 1933, Devra We- ber tellingly points to the importance of food in women's daily lives with memories of want indelibly etched in their consciousness. "Men remembered the strike in terms of wages and conditions; women remembered the events in terms of food."69

For some, resistance to exploitation took the form of labor ac- tivism; for others, escape seemed the only option. A single case study taken from INS records can serve to show fortitude and courage. It concerns over 150 Mexican immigrants recruited to

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pick sugar beets by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company only to find that management failed to abide by the terms of their contracts and the recruited immigrants were left to fend for themselves without coal or food in the bleak Idaho winter. As mentioned earlier, one of the workers, Severiano Rodriguez, had appealed to the Mexican ambassador to intervene on their behalf. In addition, a local priest brought their plight to the county commissioners who authorized the distribution of 1,000 pounds of flour and one ton of coal as well as a relief allotment of $165 to be divided among sixteen of the neediest families. The county commission then sought compensa- tion from the sugar beet firm. A subsequent Immigration Service investigation absolved the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company from any wrongdoing. Referring to company representatives as "intelligent and capable men," the investigating agent believed that incidences of suffering had been "exaggerated." In a classic example of scape- goating, he chastised Mexicanos for not bringing along the proper clothes and bedding for an Idaho winter and not saving enough of their wages to carry them through to spring. Although he realized that the workers would be charged for such supplies, he seemed be- wildered that they turned down company offers of blankets and mattresses. The migrants had already accumulated substantial debt, beginning with company charges for transportation to Idaho, and, though in great want, they were determined to avoid further employer claims to their labor. During the investigation, the Utah- Idaho Sugar Beet Company also made assurances that the Mexican immigrants would henceforth receive adequate supplies of food and fuel. Although the local government had donated some provi- sions, Mexicans were not welcome as they were perceived as carri- ers of influenza and even the Immigration Service acknowledged that at least seven migrants had succumbed to the epidemic.70

Having little recourse and probably fewer resources, thirty-two people—men, women, and children—gathered their belongings and fled the labor camp. Like the African-American slaves who took a chance on the Underground Railroad, these Mexicano im- migrants (twenty-one were members of a single extended family, the Betancourts) made a desperate break for freedom. Behaving like a modern-day planter, the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company ap- pealed to immigration authorities for assistance in apprehending those whom the firm perceived as breaking their contracts with their feet. Labeling them deserters, a company official wrote, "I un- derstand that some of the people are in Pocatello, Idaho, but have reason to believe some of them have gone to Elko, Nevada."71

Resistance to economic exploitation could also take the form of

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ethnic community building. In the citrus belt of southern Califor- nia, Mexican immigrants established colonias or villages complete with their own organizations and institutions. Forming patriotic as- sociations, mutual aid groups, church societies, and baseball teams, Mexican immigrants created a rich, semiautonomous life for themselves. In historian Gilbert Gonzalez's words, "The village was home, neighborhood, playground, and social center." The length of the citrus season promoted the development of Orange County colonias and Riverside barrios. With employment available in the groves eight months out of the year, citrus workers had a spa- tial stability in contrast to transient or contract labor. During the off-season (late summer, early fall), citrus families would often make the migrant circuit north picking grapes and cotton in the San Joaquin Valley or perhaps heading southeast to the rich agri- cultural fields near Coachella. However, they had a home and community awaiting their return.72 For Eusebia Vasquez de Buriel, Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine has been at the center of her life for over sixty years. She recalled how the Mexican neighbors chipped in to build their own church in the middle of the Depression. "We worked real hard to have our church . . . the people were all poor, worst than we are now, but everything came up real nice, so we are very proud of ... that church." Citrus communities represented a collective identity and a sense of belonging for its members or, as Gilbert Gonzalez stated, within these villages, workers "con- structed their vision of a good society."73

Conditions of migrant life were not confined to agricultural la- bor. Railroad workers and their families traveled from one boxcar barrio to another. While men went off to the tracks, women en- deavored to make the boxcar a home and to nurture ties with their neighbors. When newcomers arrived in Helen, New Mexico, for ex- ample, women met the crew trains offering their assistance to the passengers. Frederica Vasquez recalled to her grandson Ray Buriel how "las senoras . . . went out to meet them and brought them food and brought them clothing and made them feel very welcome."74

According to historian Jeffrey Garcilazo, "Boxcar communities probably represented the most common form of housing for Mexi- can workers and their families."75 Some were "rolling villages" in that families traveled with their particular shelters while other set- tlements were composed of boxcars with the wheels removed. The company provided wood-burning stoves and at times outdoor sani- tation facilities. However, one Kansas man stated that the out- house only had two seats for thirty people. Given the isolation of many of these settlements, families often had little choice but to

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buy their staples from the company commissary. Like the contract laborers employed by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, track fami- lies could become entangled in a web of debt peonage. Noting the high prices charged by the company store, the wife of a South- ern Pacific rail worker, Juana Calderon, declared, "We cannot save any money . . . always in debt so we will probably always stay with the . . . Company."76

As in the case of farm workers, subsistence gardens and barn- yard animals could ease reliance on the company store as well as provide fresh produce, dairy products, and meat. Women and chil- dren tended the chickens and goats, pulled weeds, and nurtured seedlings.77 One can only imagine their frustration if their hus- bands were transferred to another section as they gathered their belongings and livestock, leaving the gardens for other families to harvest.

A single boxcar often housed more than one family, generally two, sometimes more. Families sweltered in the Arizona heat and shivered in an Illinois winter. Referring to the railroad settlement of Silvis, Illinois, a Reader's Digest article related: "When the Mex- icans in their boxcars woke up in the wintertime, children had to break ice in the washbowls before they could clean up for school."78 Health care, moreover, was a vital concern. People fre- quently relied on euros, those in the community with knowledge of traditional medicine. Doctors and hospitals were not readily acces- sible. Frederica Vasquez would lose two daughters in Silvis, one to whooping cough and another to pneumonia.79

Railroad wives, like migrant workers, could also find making ends meet a difficult proposition. To supplement their spouses' in- comes, they took in sewing, laundry, boarders, even babies. Some women earned money or food for their families by wet-nursing neighborhood infants. As Gregoria Sosa, a railroad worker's wife from Colton, California, recounted:

I bore three children and did washing and ironing for some of my neighbors. Sometimes I was also a wet nurse. I was very sad once when one of my "criados"—a child I breast fed was taken from my breast because his father did not want to pay me any longer. The baby died of hunger not much later. They tried to have him suck on a goat teat. I would have fed him without money, for a little food to help my little ones.80

Seeking some measure of economic security, railroad workers in Silvis, Illinois, "saved enough money to buy land that no else

- $ 2 4 & From Out of the Shadows

wanted at the west end of town." These men had relatively stable jobs in the repair shop of the Rock Island Railroad.81 After years of migrating on the Rock Island rails, Felix Vasquez would also secure employment as a bolt maker at the Silvis plant and for ten years he and his family would call Silvis home. Recalling the close-knit na- ture of the community, his daughter Eusebia stated, "Most people were real nice, they called [each other] los compadres." She further explained that during the influenza epidemic of 1918, her father organized a food drive to assist his afflicted neighbors. "My father used to have a little wagon and every week, he used to go to every house and pick up food . . . to help the sick people."82

Mutual aid proved a cornerstone in the process of settlement among Mexican workers in the United States. It should be noted that not everyone participated in this sense of reciprocity, as evi- dent in Gregoria Sosa's narrative. However, like the frontier women described by Fabiola Cabeza de Baca in We Fed Them Cactus,83

Mexicanas, whether in migrant camps, boxcar barrios, or mining towns, sought to exercise some control over their lives, often rely- ing on one another for material and emotional support.

The cultural construction of class can be discerned in the min- ing communities of southern Arizona and southern Colorado. Both locales had a mixed economy—mining towns next to villages with ranches and homesteads marking the landscape. In Songs My Mother Sang to Me, Patricia Preciado Martin presents the oral nar- ratives of ten Arizona women, women whose memories elucidate the division of labor within families as well as the layering of gen- erations within a regional matrix. Furthermore, Martin's narrators demonstrate how women claimed a public space through expres- sions of religious faith.84

Typical of working-class Mexican and Mexican-American households, the family served as the locus of production. Whether from a ranching or mining family, daughters were expected to per- form a round of arduous chores. The labor of female kin, regardless of age, proved instrumental in ensuring the family's economic sur- vival. Women preserved food for the winter, sold surplus commodi- ties to neighbors, did laundry for Euro-American employers, and provided homes for lodgers. Like their pioneer foremothers, they also herded livestock, milked cows, built fences, and harvested crops. A strict division of labor according to gender became blurred. Yet this seemingly egalitarian assignment of tasks in no way subverted the traditional notion of "woman's place." Before the break of dawn, Rosalia Salazar and her sisters would rise to

Border Journeys -^j 25 (£;-

gather kindling, milk the cows, and afterwards walk several miles to school, a routine that began with serving their father a cup of coffee.

With fortitude, faith, and unsung courage, single mothers relied on their domestic skills to feed their children. Julia Yslas Velez recalled how her mother, who came from a middle-class back- ground in Mexico, peddled her handmade garments to "poor" Mexicanos. "She did not have a formal education, but she was very smart. She had a little book.... She used to mark in it what people owed her. She would draw a circle for a dollar and a half circle for fifty cents." Across Arizona and the Southwest, women participated in the informal economy in various ways—lodging single miners in Superior, Arizona, selling pan dulce door to door in San Bernardino, or swapping sex for food in El Paso. Some relied on their healing skills. As cumndems (healers) and parteras (midwives), Mexican women nurtured the networks es- sential for claiming a place in the United States.

A layering of generations and peoples characterized rural Arizona. Mexicano migrants from Sonora homesteaded alongside Mexican Americans. Marriages occurred across generational and racial lines. Boardinghouses brought people together. At Josefa's Boarding House in Superior, for instance, a young Sonoran miner success- fully courted Josefa's Arizona-born daughter. The oral histories in Songs My Mother Sang to Me reveal a multiracial agrarian society. As an example, Rosalia Salazar was the child of a Mexican mother and a "full-blooded Opata Indian" father. She married Wilford Whelan, whose mother, Ignacia, was Mexicana.87 In the center of this multiracial society was a distinctive Mexican-American agrarian culture, one that incorporated those willing to partake of it. Some "Americanos" attended fiestas, dances, and religious pageants. Assimilation was not a one-way street. In southern Arizona, assimi- lation seemed to be thrown in reverse. Intermarriage did not guarantee the anglicization of the region's Spanish-speaking peoples. "Many of the offspring of Mexican-Anglo unions emphasized their Mexican rather than their Anglo heritage," observed historian Thomas Sheridan. "The reasons they did so testify to the en- during strength of Mexican society in the face of Anglo political and economic hegemony."88 One also has to take into account the class bridge, with Mexican-Euro-American intermarriage occurring among those who owned property. The voices represented in Songs point to an expansive Mexican cultural horizon in sou- thern Arizona where one's "positionality" or identity rested not in some

$ 26 $- From Out of the Shadows

essentialist biological mooring but through acceptance and adop- tion of Mexican cultural values and expectations.

Yet southern Arizona was a stratified society complete with seg- regated schools and clearly demarcated "American" and "Mexican" sides of mining towns. "I'll admit there was a lot of discrimination in those years," declared Carlotta Silvas Martin as she recalled growing up as a miner's daughter. In Mascot, Dolores Montoya opened a boardinghouse in the Euro-American section of the town. Decades later, her daughter Esperanza would vividly recount the fear she felt as she, her recently widowed mother, and her siblings were forced to abandon the family-run boardinghouse in the face of systematic terror and harassment. In the dark of night, someone kept turning the doorknob and separating the vines from the win- dow. Reaching a point of desperation, the family fled with only their clothing "After we left, whoever it was did a good job of rob- bing us. They took everything—dishes, jewelry, furniture—any- thing of value, even the santos."89

Women relied on one another and on their faith. Religious practices permeated everyday routines. In preparing the masa for the tortillas, Maria del Carmen Trejo de Gastelum "would always add salt to the flour in the form of la Santa Cruz (the Holy Cross)— para bendecir la masa (to bless the dough)." With regard to edu- cation, the convent of the Sisters of the Company of Mary in Dou- glas, Arizona, served as a bulwark against the Americanizing in- fluences of a mining town. The nuns became teachers of both cat- echism and custom.90 Church jamaicas, saints' days, and Mexican patriotic holidays constituted an integral part of Arizona's Mexican- American agrarian culture. Recalling the celebration of "Las Po- sadas," Carlotta Silvas Martin observed:

Las Posadas are a reenactment of the travels of Joseph and Mary who are looking for shelter before the birth of Jesus. Large groups of men, women, and children walked in procession thorough the darkened streets carrying candles.... We'd arrive at a designated house and sing songs asking for posada or lodging . . . those inside would answer that there was no room. We'd go to several houses until we arrived at a chosen house. . . . Then we'd go in and have food—chocolate and pan de huevo . . . and a pinata full of candy.91

Las Posadas reaffirmed the practice of ritualized visiting among kin and friends; it seemed as much a celebration of community net- works as a religious journey. From a small home altar nestled atop

Border Journeys -^j 27 (£;-

a bureau dresser to a well-orchestrated town play or pageant, Mexicans in southern Arizona viewed their own interpretations of Catholicism as integral parts of their cultural life. Women also carved out a public cultural space in these community- based religious productions.

Women's daily lives appear to corroborate Richard White's observation on the cultural construction of class. "A self-conscious working class demands not just common labor, but also a common sense of identity, a common set of interests, and a common set of values." Arguing that "ethnic solidarity often seemed more important than working class solidarity," White maintained that Western mining towns "often seemed a collection of separate ethnic working-class communities whose overarching class con- sciousness was tentative and fragile when it existed at all."

While racial/cultural boundaries could blur in Arizona's agrar- ian communities, in southern Colorado, ethnic boundaries appear relatively fixed, with racial/class divisions cropping up even within groups of Spanish-speaking workers. Born in Walsenberg, Colo- rado, in 1921, Erminia Ruiz was considered the daughter of a "mixed marriage"—her father was a Mexican immigrant, her mother a Hispana born in nearby Trinidad. She remembered that Mexican union families (those associated with the Industrial Workers of the World) tended to stick together. On Saturday night, they would gather at someone's house for music, food, dancing, and fellowship. "All the neighbors got together. You'd have dancing and they put all the chairs o u t . . . and the ladies would bake pies and cakes." During the Columbine Strike of 1927, Erminia had little contact with her mother's side of the family as her uncles were scabs. "We were in a way closer to our neighbors." She also remembered attending union meetings with her father, sitting on his knee and listening to all the languages spoken around her. There, she learned to sing her first song in English—"Solidarity Forever." Her personal story correlates well with Sarah Deutsch's analysis of the ways in which ethnic and regional identities in New Mexico and Colorado reconfigure class consciousness within separate communities.

Whether they lived in a camp, village, or city, Mexican women carved a place for themselves and their families based on shared experiences, cultural traditions, histories, and concerns. They relied on one another as family members and as neighbors whether they lived in a tightly knit rural colonia or a rolling boxcar barrio. Yet, as we have seen, patriarchy and even class distinctions existed; fami-

•f 28 $- From Out of the Shadows

lies could be source of strength or a source of trial. But the range of their lives and their struggles seemed lost on the American pub- lic. Growing nativist sentiment during the 1920s and 1930s began to blame Mexican immigrants for society's ills.

A Mexican "expert" from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Roy Garis testified before a U.S. congressional committee. He reiterated the views of a Euro-American Westerner, a man who claimed that Mex- ican women were instinctively prone to adultery. Relaying this questionable third-party testimony, Garis recapitulated the tired, trite, and grotesque nineteenth-century gendered, racialized stereotypes for a modern audience.94 A portion follows:

Their minds run to nothing higher than animal functions—eat, sleep, and sexual debauchery. In every huddle of Mexican shacks one meets the same idleness . . . filthy children with faces plas- tered with flies, diseases, lice . . . apathetic peons and lazy squaws.95

These sentiments were not isolated, extremist meanderings. With a circulation of nearly three million, The Saturday Evening Post ran a series of articles urging the restriction of Mexican im- migration. The titles tell the story: "The Mexican Invasion," "Wet and Other Mexicans," and "The Alien on Relief." One article, "The Docile Mexican," characterized Mexicano immigrants with the following adjectives: "illiterate, diseased, pauperized." Relying on mixed metaphors as well as the opinions of scientists who dabbled in eugenics, the author Kenneth Roberts refers to Mexicans as both "white elephants" and as people who bring "countless num- bers of American citizens into the world with the reckless prodigal- ity of rabbits." Roberts cautions against "the mongrelization of America," warning further that the children of Mexican and Euro- American parents will result in "another mixed race problem; and as soon as a race is mixed, it is inferior."96 And under the heading of "The Mexican Conquest," the editor of The Saturday Evening Post offered his opinion in the June 22, 1929 issue:

The very high Mexican birth rate tends to depress still further the low white birth rate. Thus a race problem of the greatest magni- tude is being allowed to develop for future generations to regret and in spite of the fact that the Mexican Indian is considered a most undesirable ethnic stock for the melting pot.97

Border Journeys % 29 £

With the onset of the Great Depression, rhetoric exploded into action. Between 1931 to 1934, an estimated one-third of the Mex- ican population in the United States (over 500,000 people) were either deported or repatriated to Mexico even though the majority were native U.S. citizens. Mexicans were the only immigrants tar- geted for removal. Proximity to the Mexican border, the physical distinctiveness of mestizos, and easily identifiable barrios influ- enced immigration and social welfare officials to focus their efforts solely on the Mexican people, people whom they viewed as both foreign usurpers of American jobs and as unworthy burdens on re- lief rolls. From Los Angeles, California, to Gary, Indiana, Mexicans were either summarily deported by immigration agencies or per- suaded to depart voluntarily by duplicitous social workers who greatly exaggerated the opportunities awaiting them south of the border.98 In the words of George Sanchez,

As many as seventy-five thousand Mexicans from southern Cali- fornia returned to Mexico by 1932. . . . The enormity of these fig- ures, given the fact that California's Mexican population was in 1930 slightly over three hundred and sixty thousand . . . indi- cates that almost every Mexican family in southern California confronted in one way or another the decision of returning or staying."

Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez place the de- portation and repatriation figures even higher. Drawing on statis- tics from both U.S. and Mexican government agencies as well as newspaper reports, they contend that one million Mexicanos were repatriated or deported during the 1920s and 1930s. Moreover, they note "that approximately 60 percent . . . were children who had been born in the United States."100

The methods of departure varied. A historian of Los Angeles, Douglas Monroy, recounts how la migra trolled the barrio in a "dog catcher's wagon." In one instance, immigration agents tore a Los Angeles woman from her home in the early morning hours, threw her in the wagon, and then left her toddler screaming on the front porch.101 Even if such scenes were few and far between, they cer- tainly invoked fear among Mexicanos, many of whom decided to take the county up on its offer of free train fare. Carey McWilliams described those boarding a repatriation train as "men, women, and children—with dogs, cats, and goats . .. [with] half-open suitcases,

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rolls of bedding, and lunch baskets."102 Thousands more chose to leave by automobile. They piled all their possessions—mattresses, furniture, clothing—into a jalopy and headed south. This scene of auto caravans making their way into the interior of Mexico offers a curious parallel to the ensuing Dust Bowl or "Okie" migration into California.103

Losing one child and struggling to support the other, Jesusita Torres held on to her place in the United States. She refused to ap- ply for relief because she and her mother wanted to escape the no- tice of government authorities. "My mother said it was no use for us to [go] back . . . to what? We did not have anything out there." Describing the repatriation of two friends, she further remarked, "We were sorry that they left, because both of the ladies the hus- bands left them [in Mexico] with their children. It was pretty hard for them." Jesusita survived the Depression by picking berries and string beans around Los Angeles and following the crops in the San Joaquin Valley. From her wages, she raised a family and bought a house, one she purchased for seventeen dollars.104

Petra Sanchez had no choice. By the fall of 1933, Petra and Ramon appear to have built a nice life for themselves in Buena Park. With the money from berry picking and manure hauling com- bined with Petra's frugal budgeting, the couple had leased a small ranch. From 1926 to 1933, their family grew from four children to ten.105 According to Marjorie Sanchez-Walker,

Even with a new baby arriving every fifteen months, Petra still found the time to supplement the family's needs from her indus- try. Chicken provided eggs and meat that she could sell when there was a surplus; her garden produced vegetables; she made cheeses which hung . . . over the dining room table; and in the summer, she picked berries for wages.106

Petra found she could not keep up this pace. In November 1933, she suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to the Nor- walk State Mental Hospital.107

By Christmas, Petra, her health seemingly restored, would be home with her family again, but home now was her childhood vil- lage of San Julian. Coming under the scrutiny of relief authorities, Ramon believed that if the family left voluntarily, they could return at a later date. However, his papers bore the stamp: "LOS ANGELES COUNTY/DEPARTMENT OF CHARITIES/COUNTY WELFARE DEPARTMENT."

The family now bore the onus of "liable to become a public charge"

Border Journeys 4 31 £-

and thus "ineligible for readmission." "Repatriation, therefore, amounted to deportation for Petra and Ramon."108

In 1935, hoping to return to California, the couple and their eleven children, with another on the way, traveled to Ciudad Juarez. They were turned away at the border. With money running low, Ramon "shaved his moustache, borrowed money for a second- hand suit and with his green eyes and fair-skin, simply walked across the border." He planned to earn enough money picking ber- ries in Buena Park to secure his family's clandestine passage to the United States. The children supported the family—the boys by shining shoes, selling trinkets, and "lagging pennies"; and the girls by running errands for neighbors. Six-year-old Juan acted as a "tour guide" for U.S. army personnel on the prowl for a good time in the Red Light District and for his labor received tips from both soldiers and prostitutes.109

The deprivation in Ciudad Juarez was well known. The New York Times carried a story of how over twenty repatriates had died "from pneumonia and exposure." Without resources or shelter, "as many as 2,000 lived in a large open corral."110 With hunger a con- stant companion, Petra gave birth to a daughter Catalina, but the infant would die in Juarez fifteen months later, her coffin hand- made by her brother Librado. Petra held her children together un- der the most adverse circumstances. In 1937, the family was re- united in California; but Ramon and Petra would never regain the level of financial security they had known living on their leased Buena Park ranch.111

After 1934, the deportation and repatriation campaigns dimin- ished, but the effects of the Depression, segregation, and eco- nomic segmentation remained. Even members of the middle-class Mexican-American community were not immune. During the 1930s and 1940s, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) led the fight for school desegregation in the courts. At the household level, maintaining appearances proved important. With no money for coal, Eduardo Araiza, who owned a small auto repair shop in El Paso, brought home rubber tires to burn in the fireplace. As his daughter Alma related, "You kept up appearances even though your stomach grumbled."112

The border journeys of Mexican women were fraught with un- foreseen difficulties, but held out the promises of a better life. In the words of one Mexicana, "Here woman has come to have a place like a human being."113 Women built communities of resiliency, drawing strength from their comadres, their families, and their

% 32 £ From Out of the Shadows

faith. Confronting "America" often mean confronting the labor contractor, the boss, the landlord, or la migra. It could also involve negotiating the settlement house, the grammar school, and the health clinic. State and church-sponsored Americanization pro- jects could portend cultural hegemony, individual empowerment, vocational tracking, community service, or all four simultaneously. To get at how Mexicanas and their children traversed the terrain of Americanization in negotiating institutions and ideologies, a case study seems appropriate. The Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House in El Paso, Texas, emphasized "Christian Americanization" while furnishing social services denied Mexicans in the public sec- tor. A historical survey of this Methodist settlement reveals much about how women, especially as mothers and daughters, claimed portions of Americanization within their own cultural frames.

1£L Confronting "America"

As a child Elsa Chavez confronted a "moral" dilemma. She wanted desperately to enjoy the playground equipment close to her home in El Paso's Segundo Barrio. The tempting slide, swings, and jungle gym seemed to call her name. However, her mother would not let her near the best playground (and for many years the only play- ground) in the barrio. Even a local priest warned Elsa and her friends that playing there was a sin—the playground was located within the yard of the Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement, a Meth- odist community center.'

While one group of Americans responded to Mexican immigra- tion by calling for restriction and deportation, other groups mounted campaigns to "Americanize" the immigrants. From Los Angeles, California, to Gary, Indiana, state and religious-sponsored Americanization programs swung into action. Imbued with the ide- ology of "the melting pot," teachers, social workers, and religious missionaries envisioned themselves as harbingers of salvation and civilization.2 Targeting women and especially children, the van- guard of Americanization placed their trust "in the rising genera- tion." As Pearl Ellis of the Covina City schools explained in her 1929 publication, Americanization Through Home-making, "Since the girls are potential mothers and homemakers, they will control, in a large measure, the destinies of their future families." She con- tinued, "It is she who sounds the clarion call in the campaign for better homes."3

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A growing body of literature on Americanization in Mexican communities by such scholars as George Sanchez, Sarah Deutsch, Gilbert Gonzalez, and myself suggest that church and secular pro- grams shared common course offerings and curricular goals. Per- haps taking their cue from the regimen developed inside Progres- sive Era settlement houses, Americanization projects emphasized classes in hygiene, civics, cooking, language, and vocational educa- tion (e.g., sewing and carpentry). Whether seated at a desk in a public school or on a sofa at a Protestant or Catholic neighborhood house, Mexican women received similar messages of emulation and assimilation. While emphasizing that the curriculum should meet "the needs of these people," one manual proclaimed with deepest sincerity that a goal of Americanization was to enkindle "a greater respect. . . for our civilization."4

Examples of Americanization efforts spanned the Southwest and Midwest from secular settlements in Watts, Pasadena, and Riverside to Hull House in Chicago. In addition, Catholic neigh- borhood centers, such as Friendly House in Phoenix, combined Americanization programs with religious and social services. Prot- estant missionaries, furthermore, operated an array of settlements, health clinics, and schools. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Methodist Church sponsored one hospital, four board- ing schools, and sixteen settlements/community centers, all serving a predominately Mexican clientele. Two of these facilities were lo- cated in California, two in Kansas, one in New Mexico, and sixteen in Texas.5 Though there are many institutions to compare, an overview, by its very nature, would tend to privilege missionary labors and thus, once again, place Mexican women within the shadows of history. By taking a closer look at one particular pro- ject—the Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement—one can discern the attitudes and experiences of Mexican women themselves. This chapter explores the ways in which Mexican mothers and their children interacted with the El Paso settlement, from utilizing se- lected services to claiming "American" identities, from taking their babies to the clinic for immunizations to becoming missionaries themselves.

Using institutional records raises a series of important method- ological questions. How can missionary reports, pamphlets, news- letters, and related documents illuminate the experiences and atti- tudes of women of color? How do we sift through the bias, the self-congratulation, and the hyperbole to gain insight into women's lives? What can these materials tell us of women's agencies within

Confronting "America" ^ 35 ^

and against larger social structures? I am intrigued (actually ob- sessed is a better word) with questions involving decision-making, specifically with regard to acculturation. What have Mexican women chosen to accept or reject? How have the economic, social, and political environments influenced the acceptance or rejection of cultural messages that emanate from the Mexican community, from U.S. popular culture, from Americanization programs, and from a dynamic coalescence of differing and at times oppositional cultural forms? What were women's real choices and, to borrow from Jiirgen Habermas, how did they move "within the horizon of their lifeworld"?6 Obviously, no set of institutional records can pro- vide substantive answers, but by exploring these documents through the framework of these larger questions, we place Mexican women at the center of our study, not as victims of poverty and su- perstition as so often depicted by missionaries, but as women who made choices for themselves and for their families.

As the Ellis Island for Mexican immigrants, El Paso seemed a logical spot for a settlement house. In 1900, El Paso's Mexican community numbered only 8,748 residents, but by 1930 this pop- ulation had swelled to 68,476. Over the course of the twentieth century, Mexicans composed over one-half the total population of this bustling border city.7 Perceived as cheap labor by Euro-Ameri- can businessmen, they provided the human resources necessary for the city's industrial and commercial growth. Education and eco- nomic advancement proved illusory as segregation in housing, employment, and schools served as constant reminders of their second-class citizenship. To cite an example of stratification, from 1930 to 1960, only 1.8 percent of El Paso's Mexican workforce held high white-collar occupations.8

Segundo Barrio or South El Paso has served as the center of Mexican community life. Today, as in the past, wooden tenements and crumbling adobe structures house thousands of Mexicanos and Mexican Americans alike. For several decades, the only consis- tent source of social services in Segundo Barrio was the Rose Gre- gory Houchen Settlement House and its adjacent health clinic and hospital.

Founded in 1912 on the corner of Tays and Fifth in the heart of the barrio, this Methodist settlement had two initial goals: (1) pro- vide a Christian roominghouse for single Mexicana wage earners and (2) open a kindergarten for area children. By 1918, Houch- en offered a full schedule of Americanization programs—citizen- ship, cooking, carpentry, English instruction, Bible study, and Boy

$ 36 & From Out of the Shadows

Scouts. The first Houchen staff included three Methodist mission- aries and one "student helper," Ofilia [sic] Chavez.9 Living in the barrio made these women sensitive to the need for low-cost, acces- sible health care. Infant mortality in Segundo Barrio was alarm- ingly high. Historian Mario Garcia related the following example: "Of 121 deaths during July [1914], 52 were children under 5 years of age."10

Houchen began to offer medical assistance, certainly rudimen- tary at first. In 1920, a registered nurse and Methodist missionary Effie Stoltz operated a first aid station in the bathroom of the set- tlement. More important, she soon persuaded a local physician to visit the residence on a regular basis and he, in turn, enlisted the services of his colleagues. Within seven months of Stoltz's arrival, a small adobe flat was converted into Freeman Clinic. Run by volun- teers, this clinic provided prenatal exams, well-baby care, and pedi- atric services and, in 1930, it opened a six-bed maternity ward. Seven years later, it would be demolished to make way for the con- struction of a more modern clinic and a new twenty-two-bed ma- ternity facility—the Newark Methodist Maternity Hospital. Health care at Newark was a bargain. Prenatal classes, pregnancy exams, and infant immunizations were free. Patients paid for medicines at cost and, during the 1940s, $30 covered the hospital bill. Staff members would boast that for less than $50, payable in install- ments, neighborhood women could give birth at "one of the best equipped maternity hospitals in the city."11

Houchen Settlement also thrived. From 1920 to 1960, it coor- dinated an array of Americanization activities. These included age and gender graded Bible studies, music lessons, Campfire activi- ties, scouting, working girls' clubs, hygiene, cooking, and citizen- ship. Staff members also opened a day nursery to complement the kindergarten program. In terms of numbers, how successful was Houchen? The available records give little indication of the extent of the settlement's client base. Based on fragmentary evidence for the period 1930 to 1950, perhaps as many as 15,000 to 20,000 people per year or approximately one-fourth to one-third of El Paso's Mexican population utilized its medical and/or educational services. Indeed, one Methodist from the 1930s pamphlet boasted that the settlement "reaches nearly 15,000 people."12

As a functioning Progressive Era settlement, Houchen had amazing longevity from 1912 to 1962. Several Methodist mission- aries came to Segundo Barrio as young women and stayed until their retirement. Arriving in 1930, Millie Rickford would live at the

Confronting "America" % 37 ^

settlement for thirty-one years. Two years after her departure, the Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House (named after a Michi- gan schoolteacher) would receive a new name, Houchen Commu- nity Center. As a community center, it would become more of a secular agency staffed by social workers and at times Chicano ac- tivists.13 In 1991 the buildings that cover a city block in South El Paso still furnish day care and recreational activities. Along with Bible study, there are classes in ballet f6lklorico, karate, English, and aerobics. Citing climbing insurance costs (among other rea- sons), the Methodist Church closed the hospital and clinic in De- cember 1986 over the protests of local supporters and community members.14

From 1912 until the 1950s, Houchen workers placed Ameri- canization and proselytization at the center of their efforts. Em- bracing the imagery and ideology of the melting pot, Methodist missionary Dorothy Little explained:

Houchen settlement stands as a sentinel of friendship . . . be- tween the people of America and the people of Mexico. We as- similate the best of their culture, their art, their ideals and they in turn gladly accept the best America has to offer as they . . . be- come one with us. For right here within our four walls is begun much of the "Melting" process of our "Melting Pot."15

The first goal of the missionaries was to convert Mexican women to Methodism since they perceived themselves as harbingers of salva- tion. As expressed in a Houchen report, "Our Church is called El Buen Pastor . . . and that is what our church really is to the peo- ple—it is a Good Shepherd guiding our folks out of darkness and Catholocism [sic] into the good Christian life." Along similar lines, one Methodist pamphlet printed during the 1930s equated Catholicism (as practiced by Mexicans) with paganism and super- stition. Settlement's programs were couched in terms of "Christian Americanization" and these programs began early.16

Like the Franciscan missionaries who trod the same ground three centuries before, Houchen settlement workers sought to win the hearts and minds of children. While preschool and kinder- garten students spoke Spanish and sang Mexican songs, they also learned English, U.S. history, biblical verses—even etiquette a la Emily Post.17 The settlement also offered various after-school ac- tivities for older children. These included "Little Homemakers," scouting, teen clubs, piano lessons, dance, bible classes, and story hour. For many years the most elaborate playground in South El

41 38 |- From Out of the Shadows

Paso could be found within the outer courtyard of the settlement. Elsa Chavez eventually got her playground wish. She and her mother reached an agreement: Elsa could play there on the condi- tion that she not accept any "cookies or koolaid," the refreshments provided by Houchen staff. Other people remembered making sim- ilar bargains—they could play on the swings and slide, but they could not go indoors.18 How big of a step was it to venture from the playground to story hour?

Settlement proselytizing did not escape the notice of barrio priests. Clearly troubled by Houchen, a few predicted dire conse- quences for those who participated in any Protestant-tinged activi- ties. As mentioned earlier, one priest went so far as to tell neigh- borhood children that it was a sin even to play on the playground equipment. Others, however, took a more realistic stance and did not chastise their parishioners for utilizing Methodist child care and medical services. Perhaps as a response to both the Great De- pression and suspected Protestant inroads, several area Catholic churches began distributing food baskets and establishing soup kitchens.19

Children were not the only ones targeted by Houchen. Women, particularly expectant mothers, received special attention. Like the proponents of Americanization programs in California, settlement workers believed that women held a special guardianship over their families' welfare. As head nurse Millie Rickford explained, "If we can teach her [the mother-to-be] the modern methods of cooking and preparing foods and simple hygiene habits for herself and her family, we have gained a stride."20

Houchen's "Christian Americanization" programs were not unique. During the teens and twenties, religious and state-orga- nized Americanization projects aimed at the Mexican population proliferated throughout the Southwest. Although these efforts var- ied in scale from settlement houses to night classes, curriculum generally revolved around cooking, hygiene, English, and civics. Music seemed a universal tool of instruction. One Arizona school- teacher excitedly informed readers of The Arizona Teacher and Home Journal that her district for the "cause of Americanization" had purchased a Victorola and several records that included two Spanish melodies, the '"Star Spangled Banner,' 'The Red, White, and Blue,' 'Silent Night,' . . . [and] 'Old Kentucky Home.'"21

Houchen, of course, offered a variety of musical activities begin- ning with the kindergarten rhythm band of 1927. During the 1940s and 1950s, missionaries provided flute, guitar, ballet, and tap

Confronting "America" % 39 %

lessons. For fifty cents a week, a youngster could take dance or mu- sic classes and perform in settlement recitals.22 Clothing young- sters in European peasant styles was common. For instance, Alice Ruiz, Priscilla Molina, Edna Parra, Mira Gomez, and Aida Rivera represented Houchen in a local Girl Scout festival held at the Shrine temple in which they modeled costumes from Sweden, Eng- land, France, Scotland, and Lithuania.23 Some immigrant tradi- tions were valorized more than others. Celebrating Mexican her- itage did not figure into the Euro-American orientation pushed by Houchen residents.

In contrast, a teacher affiliated with an Americanization pro- gram in Watts sought to infuse a multicultural perspective as she directed a pageant with a U.S. women's history theme. Clara Smith described the event as follows:

Women, famous in the United States history as the Pilgrim, Betsy Ross, Civil War, and covered wagon women, Indian and Negro women, followed by the foreign women who came to live among us were portrayed. The class had made costumes and had learned to dance the Virginia Reel. .. . They had also made costumes with paper ruffles of Mexican colors to represent their flag. They pre- pared Mexican dances and songs.24

Despite such an early and valiant attempt at diversity, the teacher did not think it necessary to include the indigenous her- itage of Mexican women. Indeed, stereotypical representations of the American Indian "princess" (or what Rayna Green has termed "the Pocahontas perplex"25) supplanted any understanding of in- digenous cultures on either side of the political border separating Mexico and the United States.

Like Americanization advocates across the Southwest, Houch- en settlement workers held out unrealistic notions of the American Dream as well as romantic constructions of American life. It is as if the Houchen staff had endeavored to create a white, middle-class environment for Mexican youngsters complete with tutus and toe shoes. Cooking classes also became avenues for developing partic- ular tastes. Minerva Franco, who as a child attended settlement programs and who later as an adult became a community volun- teer, explained, "I'll never forget the look on my mother's face when I first cooked 'Eggs Benedict' which I learned to prepare at Houchen."26 The following passage, taken from a report dated Feb- ruary 1942 outlines, in part, the perceived accomplishments of the settlement:

-$ 40 £ From Out of the Shadows

Sanitary conditions have been improving—more children go to school—more parents are becoming citizens, more are leaving Catholicism—more are entering business and public life—and more and more they taking on the customs and standards of the Anglo people.27

Seemingly oblivious to structural discrimination, such a statement ignores economic segmentation and racial/ethnic segregation. Fo- cusing on El Paso, historian Mario Garcia demonstrated that the curricula in Mexican schools, which emphasized vocational educa- tion, served to funnel Mexican youth into the factories and build- ing trades. In the abstract, education raised expectations, but in practice, particularly for men, it trained them for low-status, low- paying jobs. One California grower disdained education for Mexi- cans because it would give them "tastes for things they can't ac- quire."28 Settlement workers seemed to ignore that racial/ethnic identity involved not only a matter of personal choice and heritage but also an ascribed status imposed by external sources.29

Americanization programs have come under a lot of criticisms from historians over the past two decades and numerous passages and photographs in the Houchen collection provide fodder for sar- casm among contemporary readers. Yet, to borrow from urban the- orist Edward Soja, scholars should be mindful of "an appropriate interpretive balance between space, time and social being."30 Al- though cringing at the ethnocentrism and romantic idealizations of "American" life, I respect the settlement workers for their health and child care services. Before judging the maternal missionaries too harshly, it is important to keep in mind the social services they rendered over an extended period of time as well as the envir- onment in which they lived. For example, Houchen probably launched the first bilingual kindergarten program in El Paso, a pro- gram that eased the children's transition into an English-only first grade. Houchen residents did not denigrate the use of Spanish and many became fluent Spanish speakers. The hospital and clinic, moreover, were important community institutions for over half a century.31

Settlement workers themselves could not always count on the encouragement or patronage of Anglo El Paso. In a virulently na- tivist tract, a local physician, C. S. Babbitt, condemned missionar- ies, like the women of Houchen, for working among Mexican and African Americans. In fact, Babbitt argued that religious workers were "seemingly conspiring with Satan to destroy the handiwork of

Confronting "America" -% 41 £•

God" because their energies were "wasted on beings . . . who are not in reality the objects of Christ's sacrifice."32 Even within their own ranks, missionaries could not count on the support of Protes- tant clergy. Reverend Robert McLean, who worked among Mexi- cans in Los Angeles, referred to his congregation as "chili con carne" bound to give Uncle Sam a bad case of "heartburn."33

Perhaps more damaging than these racist pronouncements was the apparent lack of financial support on the part of El Paso area Methodist churches. Accessible records reveal little in terms of lo- cal donations. Houchen was named after a former Michigan schoolteacher who bequeathed $ 1,000 for the establishment of a settlement in El Paso. The Women's Home Missionary Society of the Newark, New Jersey, Conference proved instrumental in rais- ing funds for the construction of both Freeman Clinic and Newark Methodist Maternity Hospital. When Freeman Clinic first opened its doors in June 1921, all the medical equipment—everything from sterilizers to baby scales—were gifts from Methodist groups across the nation. The Houchen Day Nursery, however, received consistent financial support from the El Paso Community Chest and later the United Way. In 1975, Houchen's Board of Directors conducted the first community-wide fund-raising drive. Volunteers sought to raise $375,000 to renovate existing structures and build a modern day care center. The Houchen fund-raising slogan "When people pay their own way, it's your affair . . . not welfare" makes painfully clear the conservative attitudes toward social wel- fare harbored by affluent El Pasoans.34

The women of Houchen appeared undaunted by the lack of lo- cal support. For over fifty years, these missionaries coordinated a multifaceted Americanization campaign among the residents of Se- gundo Barrio. How did Mexican women perceive the settlement? What services did they utilize and to what extent did they internal- ize the romantic notions of "Christian Americanization?"

Examining Mexican women's agency through institutional records is difficult; it involves getting beneath the text to dispel the shadows cast by missionary devotion to a simple Americanization ideology. One has to take into account the selectivity of voices. In drafting settlement reports and publications, missionaries chose those voices that would publicize their "victories" among the Span- ish speaking. As a result, quotations abound that heap praise upon praise on Houchen and its staff. For example, in 1939, Soledad Burciaga emphatically declared, "There is not a person, no matter to which denomination they belong, who hasn't a kind word and a

•$ 42 £- From Out of the Shadows

heart full of gratitude towards the Settlement House."35 Obviously, these documents have their limits. Oral interviews and informal discussions with people who grew up in Segundo Barrio give a more balanced, less effusive perspective. Most viewed Houchen as a Protestant-run health care and after-school activities center rather than as the "light-house" [sic] in South El Paso.36

In 1949, the term Friendship Square was coined as a descrip- tion for the settlement house, hospital, day nursery, and church. Missionaries hoped that children born at Newark would participate in preschool and afternoon programs and that eventually they and their families would join their church, El Buen Pastor. And a few did follow this pattern. One of the ministers assigned to El Buen Pastor, Fernando Garcia, was a Houchen kindergarten graduate. Emulating the settlement staff, some young women enrolled in Methodist missionary colleges or served as lay volunteers. Eliza- beth Soto, for example, attended Houchen programs throughout her childhood and adolescence. On graduation from Bowie High School, she entered Asbury College to train as a missionary and then returned to El Paso as a Houchen resident. After several years of service, she left settlement work to become the wife of a Mexi- can Methodist minister. The more common goal among Houchen teens was to graduate from high school and perhaps attend Texas Western, the local college. The first child born at Newark Hospital, Margaret Holguin, took part in settlement activities as a child and later became a registered nurse. According to her comadre, Lucy Lucero, Holguin's decision to pursue nursing was "perhaps due to the influence" of head nurse Millie Rickford. According to Lucero, "The only contact I had had with Anglos was with Anglo teachers. Then I met Miss Rickford and I felt, 'Hey, she's human. She's great.'" At a time when many (though certainly not all) elementary schoolteachers cared little about their Mexican students, Houchen residents offered warmth and encouragement.37

Emphasizing education among Mexican youth seemed a com- mon goal characterizing Methodist community centers and schools. The Frances De Pauw School located on Sunset Boule- vard in Los Angeles, for example, was an all-girls boarding school. Frances De Pauw educated approximately 1,800 young Mexican women from 1900 to 1946 and a Methodist pamphlet elaborated on its successes. "Among [the school's] graduates are secretaries, bookkeepers, clerks, office receptionists, nurses, teachers, wait- resses, workers in cosmetic laboratories, church workers, and Christian homemakers." While preparing its charges for the worka-

Confronting "America" -% 43 £•

day world, the school never lost sight of women's domestic duties. "Every De Pauw girl is graded as carefully in housework as she is in her studies."38 With regard to Friendship Square, one cannot make wholesale generalizations about its role in fostering mobility or even aspirations for mobility among the youth of Segundo Bar- rio. Yet it is clear that Houchen missionaries strived to build self- esteem and encouraged young people to pursue higher education.

Missionaries also envisioned a Protestant enclave in South El Paso; but, to their frustration, very few people responded. The set- tlement church, El Buen Pastor, had a peak membership of 150 families. The church itself had an intermittent history. Shortly af- ter its founding in 1897, El Buen Pastor disappeared; it was offi- cially rededicated as part of Houchen in 1932. However, the con- struction of an actual church on settlement grounds did not begin until 1945. In 1968, the small rock chapel would be converted into a recreation room and thrift shop as the members of El Buen Pas- tor and El Mesias (another Mexican-American church) were merged together to form the congregation of the Emmanuel United Methodist Church in downtown El Paso. In 1991, a modern gym- nasium occupies the ground where the chapel once stood.39

The case histories of converts suggest that many of those who joined El Buen Pastor were already Protestant. The Dominguez family offers an example. In the words of settlement worker A. Ruth Kern:

Reyna and Gabriel Dominguez are Latin Americans, even though both were born in the United States. Some members of the fam- ily do not even speak English. Reyna was born . . . in a Catholic home, but at the age of eleven years, she began attending the Methodist Church. Gabriel was born in Arizona. His mother was a Catholic, but she became a Protestant when . . . Gabriel was five years old.40

The youth programs at Houchen brought Reyna and Gabriel to- gether. After their marriage, the couple had six children, all born at Newark Hospital. The Dominguez family represented Friendship Square's typical success story. Many of the converts were children and many had already embraced a Protestant faith. In the records I examined, I found only one instance of the conversion of a Cath- olic adult and one of the conversion of an entire Catholic family.41

It seems that those most receptive to Houchen's religious messages were already predisposed in that direction.

The failure of proselytization cannot be examined solely within

- ^ 4 4 fc- From Out of the Shadows

the confines of Friendship Square. It is not as if these Methodist women were good social workers but incompetent missionaries. Houchen staff member Clara Sarmiento wrote of the difficulty in building trust among the adults of Segundo Barrio. "Though it is easy for children to open up their hearts to us we do not find it so with the parents." She continued, "It is hard especially because we are Protestant, and most of the people we serve . . . come from Catholic heritage."42 I would argue that the Mexican community played an instrumental role in thwarting conversion. In a land where the barrio could serve as a refuge from prejudice and dis- crimination, the threat of social isolation could certainly inhibit many residents from turning Protestant. During an oral interview, Estella Ibarra, a woman who participated in Houchen activities for over fifty years, described growing up Protestant in South El Paso:

We went through a lot of prejudice . . . sometimes my friends' mothers wouldn't let them play with us. . . . When the priest would go through the neighborhood, all the children would run to say hello and kiss his hand. My brothers and I would just stand by and look. The priest would usually come . . . and tell us how we were living in sin. Also, there were times when my brother and I were stoned by other students . . . and called bad names.43

When contacted by a Houchen resident, Mrs. Espinosa admitted to being a closet Protestant. As she explained, "I am afraid of the Catholic sisters and [I] don't want my neighbors to know that I am not Catholic-minded." The fear of ostracism, while recorded by Houchen staff, did not figure into their understanding of Mexicano resistance to conversion. Instead, they blamed time and culture. Or as Dorothy Little succinctly related, "We can not eradicate in a few years what has been built up during ages."44 Their dilemma points to the fact historians Sarah Deutsch and George Sanchez have noted: Americanization programs in the Southwest, most of which were sporadic and poorly financed, made little headway in Mexican communities. Ruth Crocker also described the Protestant settle- ments in Gary, Indiana, as having only a "superficial and tempo- rary" influence.45 Yet even long-term sustained efforts, as in the case of Houchen, had limited appeal. This inability to mold con- sciousness or identity demonstrates not only the strength of com- munity sanctions, but, more significant, of conscious decision- making on the part of Mexican women who sought to claim a place for themselves and their families in American society without aban- doning their Mexican cultural affinities.

Confronting "America" -f 45 £

Mexican women derived substantive services from Friendship in the form of health care and education; however, they refused to embrace its romantic idealizations of American life. Wage-earning mothers who placed their children in the day nursery no doubt en- countered an Anglo world quite different from the one depicted by Methodist missionaries and thus were skeptical of the settlement's cultural messages. Clara Sarmiento knew from experience that it was much easier to reach the children than their parents.46 How did children respond to the ideological undercurrents of Houchen programs? Did Mexican women feel empowered by their interac- tion with the settlement or were Methodist missionaries invidious underminers of Mexican identity?

In getting beneath the text, the following remarks of Minerva Franco that appeared in a 1975 issue of Newark-Houchen News raise a series of provocative questions. "Houchen provided . . . opportunities for learning and experiencing. . . . At Houchen I was shown that I had worth and that I was an individual."47 Now what did she mean by that statement? Did the settlement house heighten her self-esteem? Did she feel that she was not an individ- ual within the context of her family and neighborhood? Some young women imbibed Americanization so heavily as to reject their identity. In No Separate Refuge, Sarah Deutsch picked up on this theme as she quoted missionary Polita Padilla: "I am Mexican, born and brought up in New Mexico, but much of my life was spent in the Allison School where we had a different training so that the Mexican way of living now seems strange to me." Others, like Es- tella Ibarra and Rose Escheverrfa Mulligan, saw little incompatibil- ity between Mexican traditions and Protestantism.48

Which Mexican women embraced the ideas of assimilation so completely as to become closet Mexicans? As a factor, class must be taken into consideration. In his field notes housed at the Ban- croft Library, economist Paul Taylor contends that middle-class Mexicans desiring to dissociate themselves from their working- class neighbors possessed the most fervent aspirations for assimila- tion. Once in the United States, middle-class Mexicanos found themselves subject to racial/ethnic prejudice that did not discrimi- nate by class. Due to restrictive real estate covenants, immigrants lived in barrios with people they considered inferiors.49 By passing as "Spanish," they cherished hopes of melting into the American social landscape. Sometimes mobility-minded parents sought to regulate their children's choice of friends and later marriage part- ners. "My folks never allowed us to be around with Mexicans," re-

-̂ 1 46 % From Out of the Shadows

membered Alicia Mendeola Shelit. "We went sneaking around, but my Dad wouldn't allow it. We'd always be with white." Indeed, She- lit married twice, both times to Euro-Americans.50 Of course it would be unfair to characterize all middle-class Mexican women immigrants as repudiating their mestizo identity. Working in a posh El Paso department store, Alma Araiza would quickly correct her colleagues when they assumed she was Italian.

People kept telling me, 'You must not be Mexican.' And I said, 'why do you think I'm not?' 'Well, it's your skin color. Are you Ital- ian?' . . . I [responded] 'I am Mexicana.'51

Or as a young woman cleverly remarked to anthropologist Ruth Tuck, "Listen, I may be a Mexican in a fur coat, but I'm still a Mex- ican."52

The Houchen documents reveal glimpses into the formation of identity, consciousness, and values. The Friendship Square Calen- dar of 1949 explicitly stated that the medical care provided at Houchen "is a tool to develop sound minds in sound bodies; for thus it is easier to find peace with God and man. We want to help people develop a sense of values in life." Furthermore, the privileg- ing of color—with white as the pinnacle—was an early lesson. Re- lating the excitement of kindergarten graduation, Day Nursery head Beatrice Fernandez included in her report a question asked by Margarita, one of the young graduates. "We are all wearing white, white dress, slip, socks and Miss Fernandez, is it alright if our hair is black?"53 Sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, the privileging of race, class, culture, and color taught by women missionaries had painful consequences for their pupils.

Houchen activities were synonymous with Americanization. A member of the settlement Brownie troop encouraged her friends "to become 'an American or a Girl Scout' at Houchen." Scouting certainly served as a vehicle for Americanization. The all-Mexican Girl and Boy Scout Troops of Alpine, Texas, enjoyed visiting El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in the company of Houchen scouts. In a thank- you note, the Alpine Girl Scouts wrote, "Now we can all say we have been to a foreign country."54

It is important to remember that Houchen provided a bilingual environment, not a bicultural one. Spanish was the means to com- municate the message of Methodism and Christian Americaniza- tion. Whether dressing up children as Pilgrims or European peas- ants, missionaries stressed "American" citizenship and values; yet, outside conversion, definitions of those values or of "our Amer-

Confronting "America" % 47 ^-

ican way" remained elusive. Indeed, some of the settlement lessons were not incongruous with Mexican mores. In December 1952, a Euro-American settlement worker recorded in her journal the suc- cess of a Girl Scout dinner. "The girls learned a lot from it too. They were taught how to set the table, and how to serve the men. They learned also that they had to share, to cooperate, and to wait their turn."55 These were not new lessons.

The most striking theme that repeatedly emerges from Houch- en documents is that of individualism. Missionaries emphasized the importance of individual decision-making and individual ac- complishment. In recounting her own conversion, Clara Sarmiento explained to a young client, "I chose my own religion because it was my own personal experience and . . . I was glad my religion was not chosen for me."56

In Relations of Rescue, Peggy Pascoe carefully recorded the glass ceiling encountered by "native helpers" at Protestant rescue homes. Chinese women at Cameron House in San Francisco, for example, could only emulate Euro-American missionaries to a cer- tain point, always as subordinates, not as directors or leaders. Con- versely, Mexican women did assume top positions of leadership at Methodist settlements. In 1930, Maria Moreno was appointed the head resident of the brand new Floyd Street Settlement in Dallas, Texas. Methodist community centers and boarding schools stress- ed the need for developing "Christian leaders trained for useful liv- ing."57 For many, leadership meant ministering as a lay volunteer; for some, it meant pursuing a missionary vocation.

The Latina missionaries of Houchen served as cultural brokers as they diligently strived to integrate themselves into the commu- nity. Furthermore, over time Latinas appeared to have experienced some mobility within the settlement hierarchy. In 1912, Ofilia [sic] Chavez served as a "student helper"; forty years later Beatrice Fer- nandez would direct the preschool. Until 1950, the Houchen staff usually included one Latina; however, during the 1950s, the num- ber of Latina (predominately Mexican American) settlement work- ers rose to six. Mary Lou Lopez, Maria Rico, Elizabeth Soto, Febe Bonilla, Clara Sarmiento, Maria Payan, and Beatrice Fernandez had participated in Methodist outreach activities as children (Soto at Houchen) and had decided to follow in the footsteps of their teachers. In addition, these women had the assistance of five full- time Mexican laypersons.58 It is no coincidence that the decade of greatest change in Houchen policies occurred at a time when Lati- nas held a growing number of staff positions. Friendship Square's

- ^ 4 8 fc- From Out of the Shadows

greater sensitivity to neighborhood needs arose, in part, out of the influence exerted by Mexican clients in shaping the attitudes and actions of Mexican missionaries.

So, in the end, Mexican women utilized Houchen's social ser- vices; they did not, by and large, adopt its tenets of Christian Amer- icanization. Children who attended settlement programs enjoyed the activities, but Friendship Square did not always leave a lasting imprint. "My Mom had an open mind, so I participated in a lot of clubs. But I didn't become Protestant," remarked Lucy Lucero. "I had fun and I learned a lot, too." Because of the warm, supportive environment, Houchen Settlement is remembered with fondness. However, one cannot equate pleasant memories with the accep- tance of the settlement's cultural ideals.59

Settlement records bear out Mexican women's selective use of Houchen's resources. The most complete set of figures is for the year 1944. During this period, 7,614 people visited the clinic and hospital. The settlement afternoon programs had an average monthly enrollment of 362 and 40 children attended kindergarten. Taken together, approximately 8,000 residents of Segundo Barrio utilized Friendship Square's medical and educational offerings. In contrast, the congregation of El Buen Pastor included 160 peo- ple.60 Although representing only a single year, these figures indi- cate the importance of Houchen's medical facilities and Mexican women's selective utilization of resources.

By the 1950s, settlement houses were few and far between and those that remained were run by professional social workers. Im- plemented by a growing Latina staff, client-initiated changes in Houchen policies brought a realistic recognition of the settlement as a social service agency rather than a religious mission. During the 1950s, brochures describing the day nursery emphasized that while children said grace at meals and sang Christian songs, they would not receive "in any way indoctrination" regarding Method- ism. In fact, at the parents' request, Newark nurses summoned Catholic priests to the hospital to baptize premature infants. Client desire became the justification for allowing the presence of Cath- olic clergy, a policy that would have been unthinkable in the not too distant past.61 Finally, in the new Houchen constitution of 1959, all mention of conversion was dropped. Instead, it conveyed a more ecumenical, nondenominational spirit. For instance, the goal of Houchen Settlement was henceforth "to establish a Christian de- mocratic framework for—individual development, family solidarity, and neighborhood welfare."62

Settlement activities also became more closely linked with the

Confronting "America" % 49 £•

Mexican community. During the 1950s, Houchen was the home of two LULAC chapters—one for teenagers and one for adults. The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was the most visible and politically powerful civil rights organization in Texas.63

Carpentry classes—once the preserve of males—opened their doors to young women, although on a gender-segregated basis. Houchen workers, moreover, made veiled references to the "very dangerous business" of Juarez abortion clinics; however, it appears unclear whether or not the residents themselves offered any con- traceptive counseling. During the early 1960s, however, the settle- ment, in cooperation with Planned Parenthood, opened a birth control clinic for "married women." Indeed, a Houchen contracep- tion success story was featured on the front page of a spring newsletter. "Mrs. G y after having her thirteenth and four- teenth children (twins), enrolled in our birth control clinic; now for one and one half years she has been a happy and non-pregnant mother."64 Certainly Houchen had changed with the times. What factors accounted for the new directions in settlement work? The evidence on the baptism of premature babies seems fairly clear in terms of client pressure, but to what extent did other policies change as the result of Mexican women's input? The residents of Segundo Barrio may have felt more comfortable expressing their ideas and Latina settlement workers may have exhibited a greater willingness to listen. Indeed, Mexican clients, not missionaries, set the boundaries for interaction.

Creating the public space of settlements and community cen- ters, advocates of Americanization sought to alter the "lifeworld" of Mexican immigrants to reflect their own idealized versions of life in the United States. Settlement workers can be viewed as the narra- tors of lived experience as Houchen records reflected the cognitive construction of missionary aspirations and expectations. In other words, the documents revealed more about the women who wrote them than those they served. At another level, one could interpret the cultural ideals of Americanization as an indication of an at- tempt at what Jiirgen Habermas has termed "inner colonization."65

Yet the failure of such projects illustrates the ways in which Mexi- can women appropriated desired resources, both material (infant immunizations) and psychological (self-esteem) while, in the main, rejecting the ideological messages behind them. The shift in Houchen policies during the 1950s meant more than a recognition of community needs; it represented a claiming of public space by Mexican women clients.

Confronting Americanization brings into sharp relief the con-

•$ 50 fc- From Out of the Shadows

cept I have termed cultural coalescence. Immigrants and their chil- dren pick, borrow, retain, and create distinctive cultural forms. There is no single hermetic Mexican or Mexican-American culture, but rather permeable cultures rooted in generation, gender, region, class, and personal experience. Chicano scholars have divided Mexican experiences into three generational categories: Mexicano (first generation), Mexican American (second generation), and Chicano (third and beyond).66 But this general typology tends to obscure the ways in which people navigate across cultural bound- aries as well as their conscious decision-making in the production of culture. However, people of color have not had unlimited choice. Race and gender prejudice and discrimination with their accompa- nying social, political, and economic segmentation have con- strained aspirations, expectations, and decision-making.

The images and ideals of Americanization were a mixed lot and were never the only messages immigrant women received. Local mutualistas, Mexican patriotic and Catholic pageants, newspapers, and community networks reinforced familiar legacies. In contrast, religious and secular Americanization programs, the elementary schools, movies, magazines, and radio bombarded the Mexican community with a myriad of models, most of which were idealized, stylized, unrealistic, and unattainable. Expectations were raised in predictable ways. In the words of one Mexican-American woman, "We felt that if we worked hard, proved ourselves, we could become professional people."67 Consumer culture would hit the barrio full force during the 1920s, exemplified by the Mexican flapper. As we will see in the next chapter, even Spanish-language newspapers promoted messages of consumption and acculturation. Settlement houses also mixed in popular entertainment with educational pro- grams. According to historian Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr, the Mexican Mothers Club of the University of Chicago Settlement "took a field trip to NBC radio studios in downtown Chicago from which many of the soap operas emanated."68

By looking through the lens of cultural coalescence, we can be- gin to discern the ways in which people select and create cultural forms. Teenagers began to manipulate and reshape the iconogra- phy of consumer culture both as a marker of peer group identity and as an authorial presence through which they rebelled against strict parental supervision. When standing at the cultural cross- roads, Mexican women blended their options and created their own paths.

Figure 1 Giving the camera a glimpse of her steely determination, Pasquala Esparza, with her daughters Jesusita and baby Raquel, pose for a passport photo taken in Ciudad Juarez. Courtesy of Jesusita Torres.

Figure 2 Las solas: Mexican women arriving in El Paso, 1911. Courtesy of the Rio Grande Historical Collections, New Mexico State University Library, Las Cruces.

Figure 3 Mexican migrant women and children in front of company housing, Arizona 1930s. Courtesy of the Carey McWilliams Collection, Special Collec- tions, University Research Library, UCLA.

Figure 4 Caring for a tuber- cular relative, Estella Cortez

in the kitchen of the home she rented for four dollars

per week in Corpus Christi, Texas, 1949. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collec-

tion, The Center for Ameri- can History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no.

13918-AF4.

Figure 5 Mother and infant, 1949. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Col- lection, The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg.no. 13918-EF12.

Figure 6 Identified only as a mother of eight, this Tejana was photographed as she sewed. Sewing for family members and for pennies as homeworkers, women made meager earnings stretch. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. 14233-55.

Figure 7 Father and daugh- ter, 1949. Courtesy of Lee

(Russell) Photograph Collec- tion, The Center for Ameri- can History, The University

of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. 14233-2.

Figure 8 A young Mexican immigrant with her son in San Bernardino, c. 1926. Courtesy of Jos6 Rivas.

Figure 9 "Comadres" Teresa Grijalva de Orosco and Fran- cisca Ocampo Quesada, 1912. Courtesy of the Ocampo Papers, Chicano Research Collection, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz.

Figure 10 Wedding photo of Macario and Guadalupe

Hernandez, Santa Paula, California, 1928. The cou-

ple recently celebrated their sixty-ninth anniver-

sary. Courtesy of Esteban and Elia Hernandez.

Religion played an important role in the lives of many

Latinos in the Southwest.

Figure 11 To commemorate her first communion, Marina

Briones poses for a portrait with her beaming madrina

(godmother). Personal loan to the author.

Figure 12 Catholic women took great pride and comfort in their home altars. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. CN06311.

Figure 13 A Pentecostal congregation in Greeley, Colorado, 1932. This gather- ing is indicative of the small Protestant enclaves which endure in Spanish- speaking communities. Courtesy of Archives, City of Greeley Museums, Perma- nent Collection.

Figure 14 From 1937 to 1976, over 12,000 babies

were born at Newark Hospital adjacent to the Houchen Set-

tlement. Although mother and child are unidentified,

the nurse is Dorothea Munoz. Courtesy of Houchen Com-

munity Center, El Paso, Tex.

Figure 15 For many years, the big attraction for children of El Paso's Segundo Barrio was the elaborate playground at Houchen Settlement. Courtesy of Houchen Community Center, El Paso, Tex.

Figure 16 "Christian Americanization" guided all of Houchen's programs. Here kindergarten students say grace during snack-time. Courtesy of Houchen Com- munity Center, El Paso, Tex.

Figure 17 For fifty cents per week, children could take dance or music classes and then perform in Houchen recitals. Courtesy of Houchen Community Center, El Paso, Tex.

Figure 18 Emblematic of cultural coalescence, Maria Soto Audelo at a Fourth of July celebration, 1917. Courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.

Figure 19 The great-aunt of singer Linda Ronstadt, entertainer Luisa Espinel in elegant flapper attire. Courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society Library, Tucson.

Figure 20 Fashion lay-outs, celebrity testi- monials, and cosmetic ads promoted the

iconographies of Americanization and con- sumption to a Spanish-speaking public. La

Opinion, May 16, 1927, reprinted with permission.

Figure 21 Note the types of products designed to "whiten" one's complexion. La Opinidn, June 5, 1927, reprinted with permission.

Figure 22 Promises of status and affection were the staples

of cosmetics advertising in both English and Spanish.

La Opinidn, February 8, 1938, reprinted with

permission.

Figure 23 My mother as a young woman, Erminia Ruiz, 1941. Personal collection of the author.

Figure 24 Big Band Music with a Latin Beat. The Quintero's Orchestra, 1947. Courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson.

Figure 25 An employee of the La Malinche Tortilla Factory, Corpus Christi, Texas, 1949. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. II DF-6.

Figure 26 For Mexican-American women, clerical jobs represented status and mobility. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. II DF-10.

3 The Flapper and the

Chaperone

IMAGINE a gathering in a barrio hall, a group of young people dressed "to the nines" trying their best to replicate the dance steps of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This convivial heterosocial scene was a typical one in the lives of teenagers during the interwar period. But along the walls, a sharp difference was apparent in the barrios. Mothers, fathers, and older relatives chatted with one an- other as they kept one eye trained on the dance floor. They were the chaperones—the ubiquitous companions of unmarried Mexican- American women. Chaperonage was a traditional instrument of so- cial control. Indeed, the presence of la duena was the prerequisite for attendance at a dance, a movie, or even church-related events. "When we would go to town, I would want to say something to a guy. I couldn't because my mother was always there," remembered Maria Ybarra. "She would always stick to us girls like glue. . . . She never let us out of her sight."1

An examination of events like this one reveals the ways in which young Mexican women in the United States between the wars rationalized, resisted, and evaded parental supervision. It of- fers a glimpse into generational conflict that goes beyond the more general differences in acculturation between immigrants and their children. Chaperonage existed for centuries on both sides of the political border separating Mexico and the United States. While conjuring images of patriarchal domination, chaperonage is best

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understood as a manifestation of familial oligarchy whereby elders attempted to dictate the activities of youth for the sake of family honor. A family's standing in the community depended, in part, on women's purity. Loss of virginity not only tainted the reputation of an individual, but of her kin as well. For Mexicano immigrants liv- ing in a new, bewildering environment filled with temptations, the enforcement of chaperonage assumed a particular urgency.2

Historians Donna Gabaccia and Sydney Stahl Weinberg have urged immigration historians to notice the subtle ways women shaped and reshaped their environments, especially within the family. In addition, pathbreaking works by Elizabeth Ewen, Andrew Heinze, and Susan Glenn examine the impact of U.S. consumer culture on European immigrants.3 Indeed, while some Mexican- American youth negotiated missionary idealizations of American life, other teenagers sought the American dream as promised in magazines, movies, and radio programs.

Popular culture could serve as a tool for literacy. While moth- ers may have viewed romance magazines, like True Story, as giving their daughters "bad ideas,"4 the following passage taken from my interview with Jesusita Torres poignantly reveals a discourse of dis- covery:

I started reading in English. I remember when I started reading the love story books . . . I started understanding. But I never knew the end of it. You know why I never knew the end of the story? Be- cause .. . when you turn the page and at the end it says 'cont.' like in continue, I never knew what it meant. So one day I discovered it myself. I was reading and I always wanted to know the end of the story. I wanted to know so bad so I continued flipping the pages, then I looked . .. the same name of the story and it said the same word 'cont'... I learned that. And then from then on ... I finished the stories. . . . To me that was something . . . you see, I did not have anybody to say: "Look, you look at the page and you continue."5

The transmitters of Americanization, including mass culture, could influence women in many ways—from fantasy to lived experience, from hegemonic presence to small, personal victories. I am re- minded of the words of George Lipsitz: "Images and icons compete for dominance within a multiplicity of discourses." He continues, "Consumers of popular culture move in and out of subject posi- tions in a way that allows the same message to have widely varying meanings at the point of reception." Or as Indonesian poet Nirwan

The Flapper and the Chaperone •$ 53 |i-

Dewanto stated, "The struggle for our survival in the information era is not to be won where information originates, but where it ar- rives."6

Confronting "America" began at an early age. Throughout the Southwest, Spanish-speaking children had to sink or swim in an English-only environment. Even on the playground, students were punished for conversing in Spanish. Admonishments, such as "Don't speak that ugly language, you are an American now," not only reflected a strong belief in Anglo conformity but denigrated the self-esteem of Mexican-American children.7 As Mary Luna stated:

It was rough because I didn't know English. The teacher wouldn't let us talk Spanish. How can you talk to anybody:1 If you can't talk Spanish and you can't talk English. . . . It wasn't until maybe the fourth or fifth grade that I started catching up. And all that time I just felt I was stupid.8

Yet Luna credited her love of reading to a Euro-American educator who had converted a small barrio house into a makeshift commu- nity center and library. Her words underscore the dual thrust of Americanization—education and consumerism. "To this day I just love going into libraries ... there are two places that I can go in and get a real warm, happy feeling; that is, the library and Bullock's in the perfume and make-up department."9

Racial/ethnic women struggled with boundaries and made de- cisions as individuals, family members, neighbors, and peers. The following works in Asian-American history seem especially enlight- ening. Taking into account a buffet of cultural choices emanating from Japanese communities and U.S. society at large, Valerie Mat- sumoto's study of Nisei women teenagers before the Second World War elegantly outlines the social construction of the Nisei world. Matsumoto emphasizes the agency of adolescents in creating and nurturing their own youth culture. Along similar lines, Judy Yung in Unbound Feet beautifully details the work and leisure activities among Chinese-American teenagers in San Francisco.10

For Mexican Americans, second-generation women as teen- agers have received scant scholarly attention. Among Chicano his- torians and writers, there appears a fascination with the sons of immigrants, especially as pachucos.u Young women, however, may have experienced deeper generational tensions as they blended el- ements of Americanization with Mexican expectations and values. This chapter focuses on the shifting interplay of gender, cultures,

-£ 54 %- From Out of the Shadows

class, ethnicity, and youth and the ways in which women negotiate across specific cultural contexts blending elements as diverse as celebrating Cinco de Mayo and applying Max Factor cosmetics.

In grappling with Mexican-American women's consciousness and agency, oral history offers a venue for exploring teenage expec- tations and preserving a historical memory of attitudes and feel- ings. In addition to archival research, the recollections of seven- teen women serve as the basis for my reconstruction of adolescent aspirations and experiences (or dreams and routines).12 The wo- men themselves are fairly homogeneous in terms of nativity, class, residence, and family structure. With two exceptions, they are U.S. citizens by birth and attended southwestern schools. All the in- terviewees were born between 1908 and 1926.13 Although three came from families once considered middle class in Mexico, most can be considered working class in the United States. Their fathers' typical occupations included farm worker, miner, day laborer, and railroad hand. These women usually characterized their mothers as homemakers, although several remembered that their mothers took seasonal jobs in area factories and fields. The most economi- cally privileged woman in the sample, Ruby Estrada, helped out in her family-owned hardware and furniture store. She is also the only interviewee who attended college.14 It should be noted that seven of the seventeen narrators married Euro-Americans. Although in- termarriage was uncommon, these oral histories give us insight into the lives of those who negotiated across cultures in a deeply personal way and who felt the impact of acculturation most keenly. Rich in emotion and detail, these interviews reveal women's con- scious decision-making in the production of culture. In creating their own cultural spaces, the interwar generation challenged the trappings of familial oligarchy.

Chicano social scientists have generally portrayed women as "the 'glue' that keeps the Chicano family together" as well as the guardians of traditional culture.15 Whether one accepts this prem- ise or not, within families, young women, perhaps more than their brothers, were expected to uphold certain standards. Parents, therefore, often assumed what they perceived as their unquestion- able prerogative to regulate the actions and attitudes of their ado- lescent daughters. Teenagers, on the other hand, did not always ac- quiesce in the boundaries set down for them by their elders. Intergenerational tension flared along several fronts.

Like U.S. teenagers, in general, the first area of disagreement between an adolescent and her family would be over her personal

The Flapper and the Chaperone -% 55 ^

appearance. As reflected in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair," the length of a young woman's tresses was a hot issue span- ning class, region, and ethnic lines. During the 1920s, a woman's decision "to bob or not bob" her hair assumed classic proportions within Mexican families. After considerable pleading, Belen Mar- tinez Mason was permitted to cut her hair, though she soon regret- ted the decision. "Oh, I cried for a month."16 Differing opinions over fashions often caused ill feelings. One Mexican American wo- man recalled that as a young girl, her mother dressed her "like a nun" and she could wear "no make-up, no cream, no nothing" on her face. Swimwear, bloomers, and short skirts also became sources of controversy. Some teenagers left home in one outfit and changed into another at school. Once Maria Fierro arrived home in her bloomers. Her father inquired, "Where have you been dressed like that, like a clown?" "I told him the truth," Fierro explained "He whipped me anyway. . . . So from then on whenever I went to the track meet, I used to change my bloomers so that he wouldn't see that I had gone again."17 The impact of flapper styles on the Mexi- can community was clearly expressed in the following verse taken from a corrido appropriately entitled "Las Pelonas" [The Bobbed- Haired Girls]:

Red Banannas [sic] I detest, And now the flappers Use them for their dress. The girls of San Antonio Are lazy at the metate. They want to walk out bobbed-haired, With straw hats on. The harvesting is finished, So is the cotton; The flappers stroll out now For a good time.18

With similar sarcasm, another popular ballad chastised Mexican women for applying makeup so heavily as to resemble a piflata.19

The use of cosmetics, however, cannot be blamed entirely on Madison Avenue ad campaigns. The innumerable barrio beauty pageants, sponsored by mutualistas, patriotic societies, churches, the Mexican Chamber of Commerce, newspapers, and even pro- gressive labor unions, encouraged young women to accentuate

41 56 £ From Out of the Shadows

their physical attributes. Carefully chaperoned, many teenagers did participate in community contests from La Reina de Cinco de Mayo to Orange Queen. They modeled evening gowns, rode on pa- rade floats, and sold raffle tickets.20 Carmen Bernal Escobar re- membered one incident where, as a contestant, she had to sell raf- fle tickets. Every ticket she sold counted as a vote for her in the pageant. Naturally the winner would be the woman who had accu- mulated the most votes. When her brother offered to buy $25 worth of votes [her mother would not think of letting her peddle the tickets at work or in the neighborhood], Escobar, on a prag- matic note, asked him to give her the money so that she could buy a coat she had spotted while window-shopping.21

The commercialization of personal grooming made additional inroads into the Mexican community with the appearance of barrio beauty parlors. Working as a beautician conferred a certain degree of status—"a nice, clean job"—in comparison to factory or domes- tic work. As one woman related:

I always wanted to be a beauty operator. I loved makeup; I loved to dress up and fix up. I used to set my sisters' hair. So I had that in the back of my mind for a long time, and my mom pushed the fact that she wanted me to have a profession—seeing that I wasn't thinking of getting married.22

While further research is needed, one can speculate that neighbor- hood beauty shops reinforced women's networks and became places where they could relax, exchange chisme (gossip), and enjoy the company of other women.

During the 1920s, the ethic of consumption became inextrica- bly linked to making it in America.23 The message of affluence attainable through hard work and a bit of luck was reinforced in English and Spanish-language publications. Mexican barrios were not immune from the burgeoning consumer culture. The society pages of the influential Los Angeles-based La Opinion, for ex- ample, featured advice columns, horoscopes, and celebrity gossip. Advertisements for makeup, clothing, even feminine hygiene prod- ucts reminded teenagers of an awaiting world of consumption.24

One week after its inaugural issue in 1926, La Opinion featured a Spanish translation of Louella Parsons' nationally syndicated gos- sip column. Advertisements not only hawked products but offered instructions for behavior. As historian Roberto Trevino related in his recent study of Tejano newspapers, "The point remains that the

The Flapper and the Chaperone ~%t 57 $•

Spanish-language press conveyed symbolic American norms and models to a potentially assimilable readership."25

Advertisements aimed at women promised status and affection if the proper bleaching cream, hair coloring, and cosmetics were purchased. Or, as one company boldly claimed, "Those with lighter, more healthy skin tones will become much more successful in business love, and society."26 A print ad [in English] for Camay Soap carried by Hispano America in 1932 reminded women readers that "Life Is a Beauty Contest."27 Flapper fashions and celebrity testimonials further fused the connections between gendered iden- tity and consumer culture. Another promotion encouraged readers to "SIGA LAS ESTRELLAS" (FOLLOW THE STARS) and use Max Factor cosmetics. It is important to keep in mind that Span- ish-language newspapers filtered to their readers not only the iconography of U.S. popular culture, but also their perceptions of gender relations within that culture. For example, an advertise- ment for Godefroy's "Larieuse" hair coloring featured an attractive woman in profile smiling at the tiny man cupped in the palm of her hand. The diminutive male figure is shown on bended knee with his hands outstretched in total adoration. Does this hair coloring promotion found in the February 8, 1938, issue of La Opinion relay the impression that by using this Anglo product Mexican women will exert the same degree of power over their men as their Anglo peers supposedly plied?28

These visual representations raise all sorts of speculation as to their meaning, specifically with regard to the social construction of gender. I cannot identify the designers of these layouts, but the ar- chitects are less important than the subtle and not-so-subtle mes- sages codified within their text. Mexican women interpreted these visual representations in a myriad of ways. Some ignored them, some redefined their messages, and other internalized them. The popularity of bleaching creams offers a poignant testament to color consciousness in Mexican communities, a historical consciousness accentuated by Americanization through education and popular culture.29

Reflecting the coalescence of Mexican and U.S. cultures, Spanish-language publications promoted pride in Latino theater and music while at the same time celebrated the icons of Ameri- canization and consumption. Because of its proximity to Holly- wood, La Opinion ran contests in which the lucky winner would re- ceive a screen test. On the one hand, La Opinion nurtured the

^ 58 ^ From Out of the Shadows

dreams of "success" through entertainment and consumption while, on the other, the newspaper railed against the deportations and repatriations of the 1930s.30 Sparked by manufactured fan- tasies and clinging to youthful hopes, many Mexican women teenagers avidly read celebrity gossip columns, attended Saturday matinees, cruised Hollywood and Vine, and nurtured their visions of stardom. A handful of Latina actresses, especially Dolores del Rio and Lupe Velez, whetted these aspirations and served as public role models of the "American dream." As a La Opinion article on Lupe Velez idealistically claimed, "Art has neither nationalities nor borders."31

In her essay "City Lights: Immigrant Women and the Rise of the Movies," Elizabeth Ewen has argued that during the early decades of the twentieth century, "The social authority of the media of mass culture replaced older forms of family authority and behavior." Ewen further explained that the "authority of this new culture organized itself around the premise of freedom from cus- tomary bonds as a way of turning people's attention to the con- sumer market place as a source of self-definition."32 Yet Mexican women had choices (though certainly circumscribed by economic considerations) about what elements to embrace and which to ig- nore. As George Lipsitz reminds us in Time Passages, "Hegemony is not just imposed on society from the top; it is struggled for from be- low, and no terrain is a more important part of that struggle than popular culture."33 Mexican-American women teenagers also posi- tioned themselves within the cultural messages they gleaned from English and Spanish-language publications, afternoon matinees, and popular radio programs. Their shifting conceptions of accept- able heterosocial behavior, including their desire "to date," height- ened existing generational tensions between parents and daugh- ters.34

Obviously, the most serious point of contention between an adolescent daughter and her Mexican parents regarded her behav- ior toward young men. In both cities and rural towns, close chap- eronage was a way of life. Recalling the supervisory role played by her "old maid" aunt, Maria Fierro laughingly explained, "She'd check up on us all the time. I used to get so mad at her." Ruby Estrada recalled that in her small southern Arizona community, "all the mothers" escorted their daughters to the local dances. Estrada's mother was no exception when it came to chaperoning her daugh- ters. "She went especially for us. She'd just sit there and take care of our coats and watch us." Even talking to male peers in broad day-

The Flapper and the Chaperone % 59 £

light could be grounds for discipline.35 Adele Hernandez Milligan, a resident of Los Angeles for over fifty years, elaborated:

I remember the first time that I walked home with a boy from school. Anyway, my mother saw me and she was mad. I must have been sixteen or seventeen. She slapped my face because I was walking home with a boy.36

Describing this familial protectiveness, one social scientist re- marked that the "supervision of the Mexican parent is so strict as to be obnoxious."37

Faced with this type of situation, young women had three op- tions: they could accept the rules set down for them; they could rebel; or they could find ways to compromise or circumvent tradi- tional standards. "I was never allowed to go out by myself in the evening; it just was not done," related Carmen Bernal Escobar. In rural communities, where restrictions were perhaps even more stringent, "nice" teenagers could not even swim with male peers. According to Ruby Estrada, "We were ladies and wouldn't go swim- ming out there with a bunch of boys." Yet many seemed to accept these limits with equanimity. Remembering her mother as her chaperone, Lucy Acosta insisted, "I could care less as long I danced." "It wasn't devastating at all," echoed Ruby Estrada. "We took it in stride. We never thought of it as cruel or mean. . . . It was taken for granted that that's the way it was."38 In Sonora, Arizona, like other small towns, relatives and neighbors kept close watch over adolescent women and quickly reported any suspected indis- cretions. "They were always spying on you," Estrada remarked. Women in cities had a distinct advantage over their rural peers in that they could venture miles from their neighborhood into the anonymity of dance halls, amusement parks, and other forms of commercialized leisure. With carnival rides and the Cinderella Ballroom, the Nu-Pike amusement park of Long Beach proved a popular hangout for Mexican youth in Los Angeles.39 It was more difficult to abide by traditional norms when excitement loomed just on the other side of the streetcar line.

Some women openly rebelled. They moved out of their family homes and into apartments. Considering themselves freewheeling single women, they could go out with men unsupervised as was the practice among their Anglo peers. Others challenged parental and cultural standards even further by living with their boyfriends. In his field notes, University of California economist Paul Taylor recorded an incident in which a young woman had moved in with

-J 60 $• From Out of the Shadows

her Anglo boyfriend after he had convinced her that such arrange- ments were common among Americans. "This terrible freedom in the United States," one Mexicana lamented. "I do not have to worry because I have no daughters, but the poor senoras with many girls, they worry."40

Those teenagers who did not wish to defy their parents openly would "sneak out" of the house to meet their dates or attend dances with female friends. Whether meeting someone at a drugstore, roller rink, or theater, this practice involved the invention of elabo- rate stories to mask traditionally inappropriate behavior.41 In other words, they lied. In his study of Tucson's Mexican community, Thomas Sheridan related the following saga of Jacinta Perez de Valdez:

As she and her sisters grew older, they used to sneak out of the house to go to the Riverside Ball Room. One time a friend of their father saw them there and said, "Listen, Felipe, don't you know your daughters are hanging around the Riverside?" Furious, their father threw a coat over his longjohns and stormed into the dance hall, not even stopping to tie his shoes. . . . Dona Jacinta recalled. "He entered by one door and we left by another. We had to walk back home along the railroad tracks in our high heels. I think we left those heels on the rails." She added that when their father re- turned, "We were all lying in bed like little angels."42

A more subtle form of rebellion was early marriage. By marry- ing at fifteen or sixteen, these women sought to escape parental su- pervision; yet it could be argued that, for many of these child brides, they exchanged one form of supervision for another in ad- dition to the responsibilities of child-rearing.43 In her 1933 ethnog- raphy, Clara Smith related the gripping testimony of one teenage bride:

You see, my father and mother wouldn't let us get married. . . . Mother made me stay with her all the time. She always goes to church every morning at seven-thirty as she did in Mexico. I said I was sick. She went with my brothers and we just ran away and got married at the court. . . . They were strict with my sister, too. That's why she took poison and died.44

One can only speculate on the psychic pressures and external cir- cumstances that would drive a young woman to take her own life.

Elopement occurred frequently since many parents believed

The Flapper and the Chaperane % 61 ^

that no one was good enough for their daughters. "I didn't want to elope . . . so this was the next best thing to a wedding," recalled Maria Ybarra as she described how the justice of the peace per- formed the ceremony in her parents' home. "Neither my Dad or my Mom liked my husband. Nobody liked him," she continued. "My husband used to run around a lot. After we got married, he did set- tle down, but my parents didn't know that then."45 One fifteen year old locked her grandmother in the outhouse so she could elope with her boyfriend. Indeed, when he first approached her at a San Joaquin Valley migrant camp asking if he could be her novio, she supposedly replied, "No, but I'll marry you." Lupe was just that des- perate to escape familial supervision.46

If acquiescence, apartment living, early marriage, or elopement were out of the question, what other tactics did teenagers devise? The third alternative sometimes involved quite a bit of creativity on the part of young women as they sought to circumvent traditional chaperonage. Alicia Mendeola Shelit recalled that one of her older brothers would accompany her to dances ostensibly as a chaper- one. "But then my oldest brother would always have a blind date for me." Carmen Bernal Escobar was permitted to entertain her boy- friends at home, but only under the supervision of her brother or mother. The practice of "going out with the girls," though not ac- cepted until the 1940s, was fairly common. Several Mexican- American women, often related, would escort one another to an event (such as a dance), socialize with the men in attendance, and then walk home together. In the sample of seventeen interviews, daughters negotiated their activities with their parents. Older sib- lings and extended kin appeared in the background as either chap- erones or accomplices. Although unwed teenage mothers were not unknown in Mexican barrios, families expected adolescent women to conform to strict standards of behavior.47

As can be expected, many teenage women knew little about sex other than what they picked up from friends, romance magazines, and the local theater. As Mary Luna remembered, "I thought that if somebody kissed you, you could get pregnant." In Singing for My Echo, New Mexico native Gregorita Rodriguez confided that on her wedding night, she knelt down and said her rosary until her hus- band gently asked, "Gregorita, mi esposa, are you afraid of me?" At times this naivete persisted beyond the wedding. "It took four days for my husband to touch me," one woman revealed. "I slept with dress and all. We were both greenhorns, I guess."48

Of course, some young women did lead more adventurous

-% 62 £- From Out of the Shadows

lives. A male interviewer employed by Mexican anthropologist Manuel Gamio recalled his "relations" with a woman met at a Los Angeles dance hall. Although born in Hermosillo, Elisa "Elsie" Morales considered herself Spanish. She helped support her fam- ily by dancing with strangers. Even though she lived at home and her mother and brother attempted to monitor her actions, she managed to meet the interviewer at a "hot pillow" hotel. To prevent pregnancy, she relied on contraceptive douches provided by "an American doctor." Although Morales realized her mother would not approve of her behavior, she noted that "she [her mother] is from Mexico . . . I am from there also but I was brought up in the United States, we think about things differently." Just as Morales rationalized her actions as "American," the interviewer perceived her within a similar, though certainly less favorable, definition of Americanization. "She seemed very coarse to me. That is, she dealt with one in the American way." Popular corridos, such as "El En- ganchado" and "Las Pelonas," also touched on the theme of the corrupting influence of U.S. ways on Mexican women.49 If there were rewards for women who escaped parental boundaries, there were also sanctions for those who crossed established lines.50

Women who had children out of wedlock seemed to be treated by their parents in one of two ways—as pariahs or prodigal daugh- ters. Erminia Ruiz recalled the experiences of two girlhood friends:

It was a disgrace to the whole family. The whole family suffered and . . . her mother said she didn't want her home. She could not bring the baby home and she was not welcome at home. . . . She had no place to go. . . . And then I had another friend. She was also pregnant and the mother actually went to court to try to get him to marry her. . . . He hurried and married someone else but then he had to give child support.51

In another instance, Carmen and her baby were accepted by her family. She was, however, expected to work in the fields to sup- port her infant. Her parents kept a watchful eye on her activities. When Diego, a young Mexicano immigrant, asked Carmen out to dinner, her baby became her chaperone. "[My mother] said to take the baby with you. She was so smart so I wouldn't go any farther than the restaurant. At first, I was ashamed but [he] said, "Bring him so he can eat." Before Carmen accepted Diego's proposal of marriage, she asked him for his family's address in Mexico so she could make sure he was not already married. "I told him I wouldn't answer him until I got an answer." Diego's mother replied that her

The Flapper and the Chaperone 3j 63 %

son was single, but had a girlfriend waiting for him. Carmen and Diego have been married for over fifty years.52

Carmen's story illustrates the resiliency and resourcefulness of Mexican-American women. Her behavior during her courtship with Diego demonstrates shrewdness and independence. Once burned, she would be nobody's pendeja (fool).

Yet autonomy on the part of young women was hard to win in a world where pregnant, unmarried teenagers served as community "examples" of what might happen to you or your daughter if appro- priate measures were not taken. As an elderly Mexicana remarked, "Your reputation was everything."53 In this sense, the chaperone not only protected the young woman's position in the community, but that of the entire family.

Chaperonage thus exacerbated conflict not only between gen- erations but within individuals as well. In gaily recounting tales of ditching the duena or sneaking down the stairwell, the laughter of the interviewees fails to hide the painful memories of breaking away from familial expectations. Their words resonate with the dilemma of reconciling their search for autonomy with their desire for parental affirmation. It is important to note that every infor- mant who challenged or circumvented chaperonage held a full- time job, as either a factory or service worker. In contrast, most woman who accepted constant supervision did not work for wages. Perhaps because they labored for long hours, for little pay, and fre- quently under hazardous conditions, factory and service workers were determined to exercise some control over their leisure time. Indeed, Douglas Monroy has argued that outside employment "fa- cilitated greater freedom of activity and more assertiveness in the family for Mexicanas."54

It may also be significant that none of the employed teenagers had attended high school. They entered the labor market directly after or even before the completion of the eighth grade. Like many female factory workers in the United States, most Mexican opera- tives were young, unmarried daughters whose wage labor was es- sential to the economic survival of their families. As members of a "family wage economy," they relinquished all or part of their wages to their elders. According to a 1933 University of California study, of the Mexican families surveyed with working children, the chil- dren's monetary contributions constituted 35 percent of total household income.55 Cognizant of their earning power, they re- sented the lack of personal autonomy.

Delicate negotiations ensued as both parents and daughters

•$ 64 %~ Front Out of the Shadows

struggled over questions of leisure activities and discretionary in- come. Could a young woman retain a portion of her wages for her own use? If elders demanded every penny, daughters might be more inclined to splurge on a new outfit or other personal item on their way home from work or, even more extreme, they might choose to move out, taking their paychecks with them. Recognizing their de- pendence on their children's income, some parents compromised. Their concessions, however, generally took the form of allocating spending money rather than relaxing traditional supervision. Still, women's earning power could be an important bargaining chip.56

On one level, many teenagers were devoted to their parents as evident (at least, in part) by their employment in hazardous, low- paying jobs. For example, Julia Luna Mount recalled her first day at a Los Angeles cannery:

I didn't have money for gloves so I peeled chiles all day long by hand. After work, my hands were red, swollen, and I was on fire! On the streetcar going home, I could hardly hold on my hands hurt so much. The minute I got home, I soaked my hands in a pan of cold water. My father saw how I was suffering and he said, "Mi hija, you don't have to go back there tomorrow," and I didn't.57

On the other hand, adolescents rebelled against what they per- ceived as an embarrassingly old-fashioned intrusion into their pri- vate lives. When chastised by her aunt for dancing too close to her partner, Alma Araiza Garcia would retort, "I am not going to get pregnant just by leaning on his cheek, okay?"58 They wanted the right to choose their own companions and to use their own judg- ment.

Chaperonage triggered deep-seated tensions over autonomy and self-determination. "Whose life is it anyway?" was a recurring question with no satisfactory answer. Many women wanted their parents to consider them dutiful daughters, but they also desired degrees of freedom. While ethnographies provide scintillating tales of teenage rebellion, the voices of the interviewees do not. Their stories reflect the experiences of those adolescents who struggled with boundaries. How can one retain one's "good name" while ex- periencing the joys of youth? How can one be both a good daugh- ter and an independent woman?

To complete the picture, we also have to consider the perspec- tive of Mexican immigrant parents who encountered a youth cul- ture very different from that of their generation. For them, courtship had occurred in the plaza; young women and men prom-

The Flapper and the Chaperone -$ 65 ^

enaded under the watchful eyes of town elders, an atmosphere in which an exchange of meaningful glances could well portend en- gagement. One can understand their consternation as they watch- ed their daughters apply cosmetics and adopt the apparel adver- tised in fashion magazines. In other words, "If she dresses like a flapper, will she then act like one?" Seeds of suspicion reaffirmed the penchant for traditional supervision.

Parents could not completely cloister their children from the temptations of "modern" society, but chaperonage provided a way of monitoring their activities. It was an attempt to mold young women into sheltered young matrons. But one cannot regard the presence of la duena as simply an old world tradition on a collision course with twentieth-century life. The regulation of daughters in- volved more than a conflict between peasant ways and modern ideas. Chaperonage was both an actual and symbolic assertion of familial oligarchy. A family's reputation was linked to the purity of women. As reiterated in a Catholic catechism, if a young woman became a "faded lily," she and her family would suffer dire con- sequences.59 Since family honor rested, to some degree, on the preservation of female chastity (or vergiienza), women were to be controlled for the collective good, with older relatives assuming un- questioned responsibility in this regard. Mexican women coming of age during the 1920s and 1930s were not the first to challenge the authority of elders. Ramon Gutierrez in his pathbreaking scholar- ship on colonial New Mexico uncovered numerous instances of women who tried to exercise some autonomy over their sexuality.60

The Mexican-American generation, however, had a potent ally un- available to their foremothers—consumer culture.

United States consumerism did not bring about the disintegra- tion of familial oligarchy, but it did serve as a catalyst for change. The ideology of control was shaken by consumer culture and the heterosocial world of urban youth. As previously indicated, chaper- onage proved much easier to enforce in a small town. Ruby Estrada described how a young woman would get the third degree if caught with a potential boyfriend alone. "And they [the elders] would say what are [you] doing there all alone. . . . Yeah, what were you up to or if you weren't up to no good, why should you be talking to that boy?"61

In contrast, parents in the barrios of major cities fought a los- ing battle against urban anonymity and commercialized leisure. The Catholic Church was quick to point out the "dangerous amusement" inherent in dancing, theater-going, dressing fashion-

$ 66 $• From Out of the Shadows

ably, and reading pulp fiction. Under the section, "The Enemy in the Ballroom," a Catholic advice book warned of the hidden temp- tations of dance. "I know that some persons can indulge in it with- out harm; but sometimes even the coldest temperaments are heat- ed by it."62 Therefore, the author offered the following rules:

(1) If you know nothing at all ... about dancing do not trouble yourself to learn (2) Be w a t c h f u l . . . and see that your pleasure in dancing does not grow into a passion. . . . (3) Never frequent fairs, picnics, carnivals, or public dancing halls where Heaven only knows what sorts of people congregate. (4) Dance only at private parties where your father or mother is present.63

Pious pronouncements such as these had little impact on those adolescents who cherished the opportunity to look and act like vamps and flappers.

Attempting to regulate the social life of young parishioners, barrio priests organized gender-segregated teen groups. In Los An- geles, Juventud Catdlica Feminina Mexicana (JCFM) had over fifty chapters. In her autobiography Hayt Street, Mary Helen Ponce re- membered the group as one organized for "nice" girls with the navy blue uniform as its most appealing feature. The local chapter fell apart during World War II as young women rushed off to do their patriotic duty at "canteens," preferring to keep company with "lonely soldiers" than to sitting "in a stuffy church while an elderly priest espoused the virtues of a pure life." Too young for the USO, Ponce enjoyed going to "las vistas," usually singing cowboy movies shown in the church hall after Sunday evening rosary.64

Priests endeavored to provide wholesome entertainment, show- ing films approved by the Legion of Decency. Movies in parish halls also served other purposes. The cut-rate features, like church ja- maicas, raised money for local activities and offered a social space for parishioners. In an era of segregated theaters, church halls ten- dered an environment where Mexicanos and their children could enjoy inexpensive entertainment and sit wherever they pleased.65

Even within the fishbowl of church-sponsored functions, romance could blossom. In Riverside, Frederico Buriel kept going to the movies held every Sunday night at Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine so he could chat with the pretty ticket seller, Eusebia Vasquez. Theirs, however, was not a teenage courtship. When they married, she was thirty-seven, he forty-three.66

Parents could also rely on Catholic practices in the home to test the mettle of prospective suitors. When Fermin Montiel came

The Flapper and the Chaperone -$ 67 £-

to call on Livia Leon in Rillito, Arizona, her parents instructed him to join them as they knelt to recite the family rosary. In Livia's words: "It was a real education for him to be told it was rosary time."67

As a manifestation of familial oligarchy, chaperonage crossed denominational lines. Protestant teens, too, yearned for more free- dom of movement. "I was beginning to think that the Baptist church was a little too Mexican. Too much restriction," remem- bered Rose Escheverria Mulligan. Indeed, she longed to join her Catholic peers who regularly attended church-sponsored dances— "I noticed they were having a good time."68

As mentioned earlier, popular culture offered an alternative vi- sion to parental and church expectations complete with its own aura of legitimacy. While going out with a man alone violated Mex- ican community norms, such behavior seemed perfectly appropri- ate outside the barrio. Certainly Mexican-American women no- ticed the less confined lifestyles of their Anglo co-workers who did not live at home and who went out on dates unchaperoned. Some wage-earning teenagers rented apartments, at times even moving in with Anglo peers. Both English and Spanish-language media promoted a freer heterosocial environment. Radios, magazines, and movies held out images of neckers and petters, hedonistic flap- pers bent on a good time. From Middletown to East Los Angeles, teenagers across class and ethnicity sought to emulate the fun- seeking icons of a burgeoning consumer society.69

Even the Spanish-language press fanned youthful passions. On May 9, 1927, La Opinion ran an article entitled, "How do you kiss?" Informing readers that "el beso no es un arte sino una cien- cia" [kissing is not an art but rather a science], this short piece out- lined the three components of a kiss: quality, quantity, and topog- raphy. The modern kiss, furthermore, should last three minutes.70

Though certainly shocking older Mexicanos, such titillating fare catered to a youth market. La Opinion, in many respects, reflected the coalescence of Mexican and American cultures. While promot- ing pride in Latino theater and music, its society pages also cele- brated the icons of Americanization and mass consumption.

Mexican-American women were not caught between two worlds. They navigated across multiple terrains at home, at work, and at play. They engaged in cultural coalescence. The Mexican- American generation selected, retained, borrowed, and created their own cultural forms. Or as one woman informed anthropol- ogist Ruth Tuck, "Fusion is what we want—the best of both

- # 6 8 $ - From Out of the Shadows

ways."71 These children of immigrants may have been captivated by consumerism, but few would attain its promises of affluence. Race and gender prejudice as well as socioeconomic segmentation con- strained the possibilities of choice.

The adult lives of the seventeen narrators profiled in this chap- ter give a sense of these boundaries. Most continued in the labor force, combining wage work with household responsibilities. Their occupations varied from assembling airplanes at McDonnell-Dou- glas to selling clothes at K-Mart.72 Seven of the seventeen married Euro-American men, yet, their economic status did not differ sub- stantially from those who chose Mexican partners.73 With varying degrees of financial security, the majority of the narrators are work- ing-class retirees whose lives do not exemplify rags to riches mobil- ity, but rather upward movement within the working class. Al- though painfully aware of prejudice and discrimination, many people of their generation placed faith in themselves and faith in the system. In 1959, Margaret Clark asserted that the second-gen- eration residents of Sal si Puedes [a northern California barrio] "dream and work toward the day when Mexican Americans will be- come fully integrated into American society at large."74 Perhaps, as part of that faith, they rebelled against chaperonage.

Indeed, what seems most striking is that the struggle over chap- eronage occurred against a background of persistent discrimina- tion. During the early 1930s, Mexicans were routinely rounded up and deported and even when deportations diminished, segregation remained. Historian Albert Camarillo has demonstrated that in Los Angeles restrictive real estate covenants and segregated schools in- creased dramatically between 1920 and 1950. The proportion of Los Angeles area municipalities with covenants prohibiting Mexi- cans and other people of color from purchasing residences in cer- tain neighborhoods climbed from 20 percent in 1920 to 80 percent in 1946. Many restaurants, theaters, and public swimming pools discriminated against their Spanish-surnamed clientele. In south- ern California, for example, Mexicans could swim at the public plunges only one day out of the week (just before they drained the pool).75 Small-town merchants frequently refused to admit Span- ish-speaking people into their places of business. "White Trade Only" signs served as bitter reminders of their second-class citizen- ship.76

Individual acts of discrimination could also blunt youthful as- pirations. Erminia Ruiz recalled that from the ages of thirteen to fifteen, she worked full-time to support her sisters and widowed

The Flapper and the Chaperone •$ 69 ^

mother as a doughnut maker. "They could get me for lower wages." When health officials would stop in to check the premises, the un- derage employee would hide in the flour bins. At the age of sixteen, she became the proud recipient of a Social Security card and was thrilled to become the first Mexican hired by a downtown Denver cafeteria. Her delight as a "salad girl" proved short-lived. A co- worker reported that $200 had been stolen from her purse.77 In Er- minia's words:

Immediately they wanted to know what I did with the $200.00. I didn't know what they were talking about so they got . . . a po- licewoman and they took me in the restroom and undressed me. [Later they would discover that the co-worker's friend had taken the money.] I felt awful. I didn't go back to work.78

Though deeply humiliated, Erminia scanned the classified ads the next day and soon combined work with night classes at a storefront business college.79

During the course of her adolescence, Erminia Ruiz was the sole breadwinner. Even so, familial oligarchy significantly influ- enced her actions. For Erminia, there was no duena because she was not allowed to date at all. However, she found ways to have a social life. On weekend evenings, she had to meet her dates at the drugstore or sneak out to go with girlfriends to the Rainbow Room. Though happy to be learning shorthand, Erminia dreamed of being a teacher. When an elderly patron of a cafeteria where she worked offered the financial support needed for her to complete a high school and then a college education, Erminia's mother refused. "All she said was—'I need her to work.'"80

Mexican-American adolescents felt the lure of Hollywood and the threat of deportation, the barbs of discrimination, and the reins of constant supervision. In dealing with all the contradictions in their lives, many young women focused their attention on chap- eronage, an area where they could make decisions. The inner conflicts expressed in the oral histories reveal that such decisions were not made impetuously. Hard as it was for young heterosex- ual women to carve out their own sexual boundaries, imagine the greater difficulty for lesbians coming of age in the Southwest barrios.

Although only one facet in the realm of sexual politics, chaper- onage was a significant issue for teenagers coming of age during the interwar period. The oral interviews on which I relied repre- sented the experiences of those who were neither deported nor

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repatriated. Future studies of chaperonage should examine the ex- periences of those adolescents whose families returned to Mexico. This physical uprooting no doubt further complicated the ways in which they negotiated across shifting cultural terrains. For exam- ple, were young women expected to tolerate even more stringent supervision in Mexico? Did they, in essence, return to the ways of their mothers or did they adopt distinctive patterns of behavior de- pending on which side of the political border they found them- selves?

Future research should also look more closely at the worlds of Mexican mothers. Were they, in fact, the tradition-tied Mexicanas who longed for a golden age of filial obedience or did they too hear the siren song of consumption? Recent studies on European immi- grants by Susan Glenn and Andrew Heinze suggest that U.S. pop- ular culture made inroads among mothers as well as daughters. Based on my previous work, I would argue that employment out- side the home would accelerate the process of acculturation among immigrant women.81 Interestingly, several Mexican actors attrib- uted the decline of Spanish language theater in the Southwest dur- ing the Great Depression to financial hard times, repatriation dri- ves, and the Americanized tastes of Mexican audiences.82

Coming of age during the interwar period, young women sought to reconcile parental expectations with the excitement of experimentation. Popular culture affirmed women's desire for greater autonomy and, in hearing its messages, they acted. Chap- erones had to go.

In studying the interwar generation, a pattern emerges regard- ing the presence of la duena. Although still practiced in some areas, chaperonage appeared less frequently after World War II. By the 1950s, chaperonage had become more of a generational marker. Typically only the daughters of recent immigrants had to contend with constant supervision. Mexican Americans relegated chaperon- age to their own past, a custom that, as parents, they chose not to inflict on their children. Family honor also became less intertwined with female virginity; but the preservation of one's "reputation" was still a major concern.83 In the poem "Pueblo, 1950," Bernice Za- mora captures the consequences of a kiss:

I remember you, Fred Montoya You were the first vato to ever kiss me I was twelve years old. My mother said shame on you,

The Flapper and the Chaperone -% 71 ^

my teacher said shame on you, and I said shame on me, and nobody

said a word to you.84

Some Mexican-American women found themselves invoking the threats of their mothers. Maria de las Nieves Moya de Ruiz warned her daughter Erminia that if she ever got into trouble and disgraced the family, she would be sent packing to a Florence Crit- tenden Home for Unwed Mothers. During the 1960s and 1970s, Erminia repeated the same words to her teenage daughters. Chap- eronage may have been discarded, but familial oligarchy re- mained.85

In challenging chaperonage, Mexican-American teenagers did not attack the foundation of familial oligarchy—only its more obvi- ous manifestation. (It would take later generations of Chicana fem- inists to take on this task.) Chaperonage, however, could no longer be used as a method of social control, an instrument for harnessing women's personal autonomy and sexuality. Through open resis- tance and clever evasion, daring young women broke free from its constraints. Their actions represent a significant step in the sexual liberation of Mexican-American women.

4 With Pickets, Baskets,

and Ballots

A few nights ago I spoke to 1,500 women—women who work picking walnuts out of shells. It was one of the most amazing meetings I've ever attended. . . . The employers recently took their hammers away from them—they were making "too much money." For the last two months . . . they have been cracking walnuts with their fists. Hundreds of them held up their fists to

CJAREY McWilliams wrote these lines in a 1937 letter to his friend Louis Adamic. Describing these Eastern European and Mexican workers, he observed, "And such extraordinary faces—particularly the old women. Some of the girls had been too frequently to the beauty shop, and were too gotten up—rather amusingly dressy."2 I would argue that dressing up for a union meeting could be inter- preted as an affirmation of individual integrity. They had not sur- rendered their self-esteem as evidenced by their collective action and personal appearance. These women worked in sweatshops. Shells littered the shop floor, causing them to slip and fall, and the toilets were "filthy." Less than a year later, the walnut workers joined the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Work- ers of America (UCAPAWA-CIO). Dorothy Ray Healey, UCAPAWA vice-president and Los Angeles organizer, recalled that the "cata- lyst" for labor representation seemed unrelated to either hammers or wages, but work benches. "The work benches they stood in front of ... were ragged and jagged and tore their stockings. Every day

Prove it. 1

With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots -% 73 £•

they had to get another pair of stockings and that just infuriated them."3 Conforming to popular fashions and fads cannot be con- strued as a lack of ethnic or political consciousness. In this in- stance, silk stockings were accessories to unionization.

Spanish-speaking women as family members, as workers, and as civic-minded individuals have strived to improve the quality of life at work, home, and neighborhood. This chapter does not pro- vide a laundry list of every strike, mutualista, or political organiza- tion in which Mexican women have exercised leadership. Instead it offers a range and a sample of such activist paths, drawing out, in particular, the integration of women's private and public worlds, worlds in which family and community have been (at least) meta- phorically intertwined. As farm hands, cannery workers, miners' wives, mutualista members, club women, civil rights advocates, and politicians, Mexican women have taken direct action for them- selves and others. This claiming of public space has occurred at several levels and with differing trajectories across time and region. Some, like the walnut workers, placed their faith in a union local; some joined mutualistas; and others, such as Alicia Dickerson Montemayor of LULAC, turned to the ballot box.4

Reflecting the heterogeneity within Mexican and Mexican- American cultures as well as individual predilections and social lo- cations, political agendas have varied. For example, in 1939, Luisa Moreno, Josefina Fierro de Bright, and Eduardo Quevedo were the principal leaders of El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Espanola (the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress), the first national Latino civil rights assembly. Two years later, on the more conservative side of the spectrum, New Mexico politician and community leader Concha Ortiz y Pino railed against welfare administrators whom she viewed as spendthrift social workers.5 At times men and women holding diverse political views joined together in common cause, particularly in areas as voter registration.

This chapter sketches out the contours of Mexican women's very public roles, roles they often assumed in pursuit of social jus- tice and in partnership with men. As historian Cynthia Orozco has so eloquently stated:

For over a century Chicanas have belonged to voluntary associa- tions. We too have a history of voluntarist politics but our schol- arly discourse on the subject is not about "volunteerism" or "vol- untarist politics" but rather in the discourse of "community organizations," "activism," and the politics of "resistance."6

-̂ 1 74 fc From Out of the Shadows

I further concur with Orozco's observations on the significance of mixed gender associations among Mexicans in the United States.7

These legacies of resistance encompassed both compadres and co- madres.

Mexican women have a rich history of union and political ac- tivism. As far back as 1903, they took matters in their own hands in a labor dispute. Rallying to support 700 striking track workers of the Pacific Electric Railway Company in Los Angeles, Mexicanas caught the attention of a local reporter. In his words:

The women had come from various parts of Sonoratown and all of them were relatives or sympathizers with the Mexicans who had gone on strike. . . . There were more than thirty . . . Amazons . . . [they] approached the workers [scabs] and began seizing the shovels, picks, and tamping irons.8

Referring to the English working class, legendary scholar E. P. Thompson wrote that "there was a consciousness of the identity of interests . . . which was embodied in many institutional forms, and which was expressed on an unprecedented scale in ... general unionism."9 During the 1930s, Mexican workers had reached a similar stage. In 1933 alone, thirty-seven major agricultural strikes occurred in California—twenty-four led by the Cannery and Agri- cultural Workers Industrial Union (CAWIU). The leadership of this union identified with the Communist Party—from principal officers Pat Chambers and Caroline Decker to grass-roots organiz- ers Elizabeth Nicholas and sixteen-year-old Dorothy Ray (later Healey).10 Daring to organize some of the most disenfranchised people in the United States, these activists enjoyed an enviable success rate, winning partial wage increases in twenty-one of twenty-four disputes. The San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike was the union's most ambitious attempt. Between 12,000 and 20,000 workers, spanning a 120-mile area, engaged in a bitter dispute over wages. They wanted their pay increased from sixty cents to one dollar per hundred pounds of cotton picked. While the union pro- vided the umbrella leadership, Mexican families composed 95 percent of the rank and file.'' It was not as if the union were call- ing all the shots and the workers followed. As Pat Chambers told Devra Weber, "Although the directives in some superficial way could come from the outside, the actual organization had to come from the workers themselves."12

Violence marred the labor dispute. Farmers killed three people,

With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots -% 75 %

including one Mexicana. Law enforcement officials, as well as the local press, threatened strikers with deportation. Along with grower and police harassment and outright terror, a denial of federal relief proved an effective strike-breaking method. One Tulare County supervisor allegedly stated, "Those d Mexicans can lay out on the street and die for all I care." Indeed, at least four children died of malnutrition during the struggle. In government hearings held several years later, a Kern County deputy sheriff showed no remorse for police actions. In his words, "We protect our farmers here.... They are our best people.... But the Mex- icans are trash.... We herd them like pigs." After twenty-four days, union members, possessing few options, reluctantly accepted a fifteen-cent wage increase.

Women did not stand on the sidelines. They distributed food, formed picket lines, taunted scabs, and, when attacked by police, fought back. Devra Weber described them as "older women with long hair who wore the rebozos of rural Mexico, young women who had adopted flapper styles, and young girls barely in their teens."14

As they did in labor camps and colonias, women's networks offered physical and emotional support. As channels for political and labor activism, they also fused private life and public space in pursuit of social justice.

The San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike represents the "David versus Goliath" image of farm workers organizing—Mexican cam- pesinos versus Euro-American agribusiness. The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933 presents a different, more complicated scenario. On June 1, 1933, 1,500 berry pickers went out on strike in the fields surrounding El Monte, California. Organized initially by the CAWIU, the workers (the majority of them Mexicano) demanded a pay increase because some earned as little as nine cents per hour. Jesusita Torres, who did this work, remembered earning less than one penny per basket of berries. The employers were not Euro- American farmers, but Japanese leaseholders. Consequently, the relationship between grower and worker did not appear as cut and dried or as distant. Within the cultural landscape of El Monte, both groups were minorities—numerically and socially.

El Monte was a small town with a population under 10,000 residents (75 percent Euro-American; 20 percent Mexican; and 5 percent Japanese) and one with clearly marked racial divisions in housing, schools, and public facilities. Mexicans and Japanese were segregated from Anglo El Monte. The children of Japanese farmers and Mexican farm workers attended the same segregated

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school, Lexington Elementary, and in the town's premier movie palace, they were relegated to the same side of the aisle, away from Anglo patrons. This sharing of social space in the classroom or the cinema led to an environment in which grower-catwpesiwo relations were familiar, but not friendly. According to Senora Torres, "They [the Japanese farmers] would work in the field, but you knew they were the i>oss."16

Historian Rudy Acuna argues that the Japanese leaseholders were "caught" between rising rents levied by Euro-American land- owners and worker protests for higher wages. I would add that Mexican strikers were also caught between two rival unions—the class-based CAWIU and the nationalist CUCOM (La Confed- eracion de Uniones de Campesinos y Obreros del Estado de Cali- fornia), a union supported by the Mexican Consul. Once the rank- and-file leadership switched to CUCOM, over $5,000 in strike support funds flowed from the pockets of Mexico's politicians, in- cluding hefty donations from the nation's current and former pres- idents. Fearing adverse publicity for his compatriots and their chil- dren, the Japanese Consul stepped in to try to broker a settlement. Such international intervention in a U.S. labor dispute seemed un- precedented. Furthermore, the chair of the strike committee, Ar- mando Flores, sought federal help as he appealed to President Roo- sevelt for arbitration under the new National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA).17

Yet the success or failure of the strike would depend, in part, on the strength of community networks. The residents of El Monte's Hick's Camp barrio rallied around the strikers. Sadie Castro used her culinary skills to feed hungry families. "She used to cook rice and beans and take it to the people who were striking," recalled Patty Holguin. Rarrio merchants also donated food and other need- ed supplies. Strikers who became scabs, moreover, found them- selves ostracized by their neighbors.18

Farmers also relied on their own networks. From all over the Los Angeles area, family and friends pitched in to harvest the ripe and highly perishable berries. "Japanese school children were re- leased from school for a few days to work in the fields." Growers also sought to recruit the public as scab labor. Newspaper ads and radio spots offered El Monte berries at the pick-your-own price of one penny per box. With thoughts of bargain berries, "hundreds of men, women and children" took a trip to the fields.19

On July 6, a settlement was reached: "$1.50 for a nine-hour day or 20 cents an hour where the employment was not steady." This

With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots % 77 %

agreement resulted largely from the concerted efforts of the state and federal Departments of Labor, the Mexican and Japanese Con- suls, and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Ethnic-based mutual aid played a significant role in that both sides relied on their racial/ethnic communities to help them weather the strike. In 1946, sociologist Charles Spaulding contended that the strike had widened the gulf between Mexican workers and Japanese growers while shrinking the "social distance" between Japanese and Euro- American residents of El Monte. Coalitions based on class inter- ests or affinities perhaps precluded the development of racial/eth- nic coalitions to fight segregation. After Pearl Harbor, El Monte growers would find themselves judged not by class, but by race. Surprisingly, Spaulding ignores the internment of Japanese Ameri- cans during World War II and its impact on both area growers and workers. As Jesusita Torres related, "After they were taken to the concentration camps, the fields were not good."20

When one thinks of California agriculture during the Depres- sion, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath generally comes to mind. Steinbeck did not exaggerate. White and African American Dust Bowl migrants alongside Mexicanos and Filipinos endured great hardships. Local relief agencies in the San Joaquin Valley turned their back on the plight of farm workers, and growers con- tinued to lower piece rates confident in the knowledge that mi- grants would take any job under any conditions.21 Beginning in 1937, UCAPAWA-CIO offered hope. Four decades later, I asked Dorothy Ray Healey to recall her most rewarding experience as a labor organizer. Her answer:

To watch the disappearance or at least the diminishing of bigotry . . . watching all those Okies and Arkies and that . . . bigotry and small-mindedness—all their lives they'd been on a little farm in Oklahoma; probably they had never seen a Black or a Mexicano. And you'd watch in the process of a strike how those white work- ers soon saw that those white cops were their enemies and that the Black and Chicano workers were their brothers.22

Borne out of material conditions, class consciousness provided the leavening for labor activism. Mexican men and women proved en- thusiastic union members. Some acted out of socialist convictions nurtured during the Mexican Revolution; others viewed the union solely as a vehicle for decent wages and conditions. Whether envi- sioning class struggle or the American Dream, migrant families re- sponded to union overtures to such a degree that the San Francisco

•H 78 fc From Out of the Shadows

News declared that UCAPAWA was the fastest growing agricultural union in California history primarily because of its popularity among Mexicanos.23 UCAPAWA capitalized on women's networks, with organizers holding house meetings to encourage their partici- pation.

The Associated Farmers (AF), a vigilante anti-union brigade of growers and their supporters, also detected this militancy among Spanish-speaking workers. As one grower malevolently wrote, "We do not propose to sit idly by and see the fruits of our labors de- stroyed by a bunch of Indian ignoramusses from the jungles."24

Hired by both the AF and Fresno County law enforcement, a pri- vate investigator meticulously recorded in his mileage reports the names of various Mexican cafes he considered "Communist and CIO" hotbeds.25

Given the union's growing membership and partial victories, the Associated Farmers swung into action—often relying on vio- lence to achieve their goals as evident in the Madera Cotton Strike. On October 12, 1939, approximately 1,000 white, Mexican, and African-American pickers walked out of the fields around Madera County; it was in one grower's estimation about 90 percent of the workforce. Thirty Fresno ministers publicly encouraged area farm- ers to raise their pay scales so families would not have to depend on the wages of women and children. Family members also shared picket duty and when police arrested 143 strikers for violating the local anti-picketing ordinance, they were incarcerated together.26

Led by the AF, local growers sprinkled tacks onto roadways and beat picketers with clubs and chains. When 200 vigilantes attacked UCAPAWA families attending a peaceful rally in the park, law en- forcement officials stood back to watch and eventually entered the fracas "by shooting tear gas into the park to rout the strikers." Nine- teen union members required medical attention.27 An outside ob- server would write, "Men, women, and little children with no- where to sleep, nothing to eat, are hunted, shot, and beaten because they asked for a wage they could live on."28

Unlike previous attempts to organize field workers, UCAPAWA enjoyed the support of several outside groups such as the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Agricultural Organization, the Sim- on J. Lubin Society, and the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress. Hollywood celebrities threw Christmas parties for farm workers and city folk brought foodstuffs and other goods they had collected on their behalf. Although the Madera strikers would realize their minimum wage demands, UCAPAWA would soon retreat from the

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fields. The tactics of the Associated Farmers, local hostility to the union, the failure of the New Deal to extend collective bargaining rights to agricultural workers, and the drain on union coffers ne- cessitated a new strategy. UCAPAWA activists would turn their at- tention to cannery and packinghouse workers on both national and regional levels with the idea of building stable food-processing locals from which to base a renewed organizing campaign among migrant field hands.29 The union did not forget the militancy of Mexicanos, especially of women, and from San Antonio pecan- shelling plants to Los Angeles peach canneries, UCAPAWA would fuse class consciousness with gendered meanings—capitalizing on women's networks for unionization as well as encouraging the lead- ership skills of rank-and-file women.

Between 1933 and 1938, Mexican workers organized a pecan shellers' union, El Nogal, in San Antonio, Texas. Men, women, and children were paid pitifully low wages—less than $2.00 a week in 1934. Management conceded that wages were low, but contended that the shellers could eat all the pecans they desired and chat with friends while they worked. Some employers explained that if they raised the pay scale, Tejanos would "just spend" the extra money on "tequila and worthless trinkets in the dime stores."30 One employer, Julius Seligman, defended the pay scale of five cents per day even though his company had garnered over $500,000 in profits.31

As a twenty-three-year-old member of the Workers' Alliance and secretary of the Texas Communist Party, Emma Tenayuca emerged as the fiery local leader. Although not a pecan sheller, Ten- ayuca, a San Antonio native, was elected to head the strike com- mittee. During the six-week labor dispute from 6,000 to 10,000 strikers faced tear gas and billy clubs "on at least six occasions." Emma Tenayuca courageously organized demonstrations and she along with over 1,000 pecan shellers were jailed.32 Known as "La Pasionaria," Tenayuca, in an interview with historian Zaragosa Var- gas, reflected on her activism as follows: "I was pretty defiant. [I fought] against poverty, actually starvation, high infant death rates, disease and hunger and misery. I would do the same thing again."33

UCAPAWA president Donald Henderson intervened in the strike by assigning Luisa Moreno, a thirty-two-year-old veteran la- bor activist from the East Coast, to San Antonio to help solidify the local and move from street demonstrations to a functioning trade union. As the union's official representative, Moreno organized the strikers into a united, disciplined force that employers could no longer ignore. Five weeks after the strike began, management

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agreed to arbitration. The settlement included both recognition of the UCAPAWA local and piece-rate scales that would comply with the newly established federal minimum wage of twenty-five cents an hour.34

Employers reacted to unionization by installing new equipment that performed most of the manual tasks. From 1938 to 1950, em- ployment in the pecan-shelling plants fell from 10,000 to 350 workers. The wages of the operatives, however, remained reason- ably stable. According to historian Robert Landolt, a single pecan sheller during the 1940s earned "as much or more than the labor of an entire family" working in the plants prior to unionization. Side benefits included greater opportunities for Mexican children to at- tend school rather than labor in a pecan sweatshop to help feed their families.35

Tejana pecan shelters held positions of leadership in their union from the onset of the strike through World War II. Three of the workers at the bargaining table in 1938 were women and in 1942 Tejanas held all the top spots in UCAPAWA Local No. 172, The Pecan Shellers Union of San Antonio. Lydia Dominguez served as president, Margarita Rendon as vice-president, and Mai- zie Tamez as secretary-treasurer.36 UCAPAWA's most successful union drives among Mexican women workers, however, would not be in Texas, but in the canneries and packinghouses of sunny southern California. Women's networks in southern California canneries at times crossed ethnic boundaries and organizers quickly recognized their potential as conduits for unionization.

During the 1930s, the canning labor force included young daughters, newly married women, middle-aged wives, and widows. Occasionally three generations worked at a particular cannery— daughter, mother, and grandmother. Entering the job market as members of a family wage economy, they pooled their resources to put food on the table. "My father was a busboy," Carmen Bernal Escobar recalled, "and to keep the family going . . . in order to bring in a little more money . . . my mother, my grandmother, my mother's brother, my sister and I all worked together at Cal San."37

One of the largest canneries in Los Angeles, the California San- itary Canning Company (Cal San) employed primarily Mexican and Russian Jewish women. They were clustered into specific de- partments—washing, grading, cutting, canning, and packing—and were paid according to their production level. Women jockeyed for position near the chutes or gates where the produce was plentiful. "Those at the end of the line hardly made nothing." Standing in the

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same spots week after week, month after month, women workers often developed friendships crossing family and ethnic lines. Their day-to-day problems (slippery floors, peach fuzz, production speed- ups, arbitrary supervisors, and sexual harassment) cemented feel- ings of solidarity. Cannery workers even employed a special jargon when conversing among themselves, often referring to an event in terms of when specific fruits or vegetables arrived for processing at the plant. For instance, the phrase, "We met in spinach, fell in love in peaches, and married in tomatoes" indicates that the couple met in March, fell in love in August, and married in October.38

In addition, second-generation daughters shared celebrity chisme, True Story, and Pond's cold cream. They had common in- terests rooted not only in their work but in their positionality as second-generation women coming of age during the Depression. Not every Mexican-American teenager acquired a Euro-American work buddy, but enough women transcended barriers of mutual distrust and wage disparities so that, at certain junctures, the par- allel networks met and collective strategies, such as unionization, could be created and channeled across ethnic boundaries.39

In July 1939, Dorothy Ray Healey, now a vice-president for UCAPAWA, began to distribute union leaflets outside the gates of Cal San. Meeting were held in workers' homes so that entire fami- lies could listen and membership cards traveled from one kin or peer network to the next. Within three weeks, 400 (out of 430) Cal San employees had joined UCAPAWA. The cannery owners, the Shapiro brothers, refused to recognize the union and a strike was called. At the height of the peach season (August 31, 1939), 400 workers walked off their jobs, the next day sixteen more joined them. The workers staged picket lines around the plant, at local grocery stores that carried Cal San products, and eventually their children would picket the front lawns of the Shapiros' homes. Within days of the child pickets who carried such signs as "I'm underfed because my Mama is underpaid," the Shapiros agreed to meet with the negotiating team and a settlement was quickly reached.40

Wages and conditions improved at Cal San as workers nurtured their local and jealously guarded their closed shop contract. In 1941, Luisa Moreno arrived to organize other canneries in south- ern California. She enlisted the aid of union members at California Walnut and Cal San in union drives at several Los Angeles area food-processing firms. The result would be Local 3, the second largest UCAPAWA affiliate in the nation. Moreno encouraged

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cross-plant alliances and women's leadership. In 1943, for exam- ple, Mexican women filled eight of the fifteen elected positions of the local. The union members proved able negotiators during an- nual contract renewals. The local also offered benefits that few in- dustrial unions could match—free legal advice and a hospitaliza- tion plan.41

In southern California, UCAPAWA provided women cannery workers with the crucial "social space"42 necessary to assert their independence and display their talents. They were not rote em- ployees, numbed by repetition, but women with dreams, goals, tenacity, and intellect. Unionization became an opportunity to demonstrate their shrewdness and dedication to a common cause. Mexicanas not only followed the organizers' leads, but also devel- oped strategies of their own. A fierce loyalty developed as the result of rank-and-file participation and leadership. Forty years after the strike, Carmen Bernal Escobar declared, "UCAPAWA was the greatest thing that ever happened to the workers at Cal San. It changed everything and everybody."43

The World War II era ushered in a set of new options for Mex- ican women wage earners. Not only did cannery workers negotiate higher wages and benefits, but many obtained more lucrative em- ployment in defense plants. As "Rosie the Riveters," they gained self-confidence and the requisite earning power to improve their standard of living. Carmen Chavez and her sisters, Albuquerque Hispanas, entered the workforce for the first time during the war. "[T]hrough earning our own wages, we had a taste of independence we hadn't known before the war," Chavez wrote. "The women of my neighborhood had changed as much as the men who went to war. We developed a feeling of self-confidence and a sense of worth." As a single parent, Alicia Mendeola Shelit purchased her first home as the result of her employment with Douglas Aircraft in southern California. Her mother cared for her children as well as cooked and cleaned. As Alicia recalled, "All I knew was just bring the money in to feed my kids, like a man."44

Though women could now earn more money, old problems re- mained. Julia Luna Mount left her cannery job at Cal San both for better pay as a C-47 framer at Douglas Aircraft and for a chance to organize with the United Auto Workers. However, she found the other Rosies cool to the idea of a union local and, understandably, felt unnerved by the sexual advances of several men at Douglas. Fi- nally, an incident occurred that forced her out of the plant.

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It was real dark and this man got very fresh . . . [he] started to chase me. I didn't want him to hug me. And he got kind of rough and I got kind of panicked.45

Her co-worker literally chased her around the foggy parking lot. Dropping her lunch pail, she took off at a dead run, not stopping until she had reached the Personnel Department where she quit on the spot.46

While Julia Luna Mount was physically threatened, other Mex- ican-American Rosies would have their reputations paraded through the mud in the popular press. These young women, known collectively as "las pachucas," rebelled against Mexican and Ameri- can norms. Patricia Adler commented that pachucas "scandalized the adults of the Anglo and Mexican communities alike with their short, tight skirts, sheer blouses, and built-up hairdos." Conversely, Chicana artist Carmen Lomas Garza in "Pachuca With a Razor Blade" created a portrait of teenagers getting dressed for a dance with one young woman concealing a razor blade in a barrette, no doubt, to be hip and protected.47 Enjoying the company of men who wore zoot suits, las pachucas were vilified as incorrigible de- linquents by the Los Angeles press. One daily, according to Carey McWilliams, ran a story that characterized pachucas as pot-smok- ing prostitutes with VD. Similarly, La Opinion referred to them as "las malinches"—traitors to established Mexican codes of chaper- oned feminine conduct.48 Responding to such lurid depictions, a group of East Los Angeles teens wrote a letter published in The Eastside Sun in which they affirmed their virginity and patriotism. A portion follows:

The girls in this meeting room consist of young girls who gradu- ated from high school as honor students, of girls who are now working in defense plants because we want to help win the war, and of girls who have brothers, cousins, relatives, and sweet- hearts in all branches of the American armed forces. We have not been able to have our side of the story told.49

In 1942, the director of the Civilian Service Corp, Herman Stark, tried to set the record straight. He declared that juvenile delinquency in Los Angeles has been "grossly exaggerated" in that "only 1.6 percent of boys and .6 percent of girls" required "the at- tention of juvenile authorities." The English-language press placed the blame for the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 not on the Euro-Ameri-

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can servicemen who indiscriminately attacked Mexican youth on Los Angeles street corners, but on the zoot suiters themselves.50

Statements by Herman Stark and the East Los Angeles teenagers stand in stark contrast to popular conceptions. The letter printed in The Eastside Sun reflects the positionality of teenagers who as wage workers and citizens sought to carve out their own social space, not in terms of exercising union leadership, but by defining a youth culture.51

There were reasons for hope and fear. During the 1940s, Mex- ican women began to break into lower white-collar occupations. In 1930, only 10 percent of Mexican women workers in the South- west held clerical or sales positions, but by 1950 this figure had risen to 23.9 percent. With the expansion of clerical jobs during the war, second-generation daughters could finally apply the office skills they had acquired in high school or at storefront business col- leges.52 The Zoot Suit Riots of June 1943 and Japanese-American internment, however, served as reminders of their own status as second-tier citizens. Civil rights leader Josefina Fierro de Bright witnessed the riots firsthand. When she pleaded with a police offi- cer to intervene, he told her, "Keep your mouth shut or they're gonna beat the sh— out of you, too." Josefina further recalled that pachucos were not the only targets of soldiers and sailors as men in uniform roamed the aisles of local Mexican theaters assaulting men, women, and children. Diana Bernal lived in San Antonio, Texas, and Theresa Negrete in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, but both wo- men feared that Mexicans would be the next group placed in con- centration camps. As Bernal stated, "Are they going to do the same thing to us because we are Mexican?"53

The postwar era did little to promote a more tolerant environ- ment, although cracks in segregation began to surface. In 1946, federal judge Paul McCormick ruled in Mendez v. Westminister that the segregation of Mexican schoolchildren was unconstitutional; his interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment would later serve as a precedent for Brawn v. Board of Education. However, cannery workers in southern California lost their union as UCAPAWA/FTA collapsed under the weight of Red Scare witch hunts exemplified by the California Senate UnAmerican Activities Committee and Teamster smear campaigns. In 1950, Luisa Moreno left for her na- tive Guatemala under terms listed as "voluntary departure under warrant of deportation" on the grounds that she had once been a member of the Communist Party.54

The movie Salt of the Earth encapsulated Cold War politics and

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Mexican-American labor activism. Produced, directed, and written by filmmakers blacklisted from Hollywood, the film recorded the real-life struggles of Mexican miners in Silver City, New Mexico, who walked off their jobs over wage and safety issues. The strike began in October 1950 and lasted until January 1952. Organized by Clint and Virginia Jencks, who represented the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, the miners faced police harassment and were prohibited from picketing. Their wives took their places on the line and men assumed child care and household responsibilities, learning to cope without hot water or indoor plumbing. Although assaulted and arrested, women refused to be intimidated. Mariana Ramirez described their arsenal against the scabs. "We had knitting needles. We had safety pins. . . . We had chili peppers." Another perhaps disingenuously informed a local re- porter, "It's like a picnic. . . . We're having fun—and we're going to stay on the picket line, too." The movie documents the changes in consciousness about women's place within mining families as a re- sult of the temporary role reversals.55

At Empire Zinc, Clint and Virginia Jencks cultivated women's leadership in ways that closely resembled UCAPAWA's efforts in canneries and packinghouses. Indeed, three of the five members of the union negotiating team were not miners, but wives who held the line—Elvira Molano, Catalina Barreras, and Carmen Rivera. An arbitrated settlement was reached in favor of the mine families in one of the few labor victories during the 1950s, a successful strike that achieved both higher wages and hot water.56

During the filming of Salt of the Earth, the cast and crew ran the proverbial gauntlet. Megamillionaire Howard Hughes used his influence to bar the doors to Hollywood's film labs and editing rooms. Even before the picture was released, Republican Con- gressman from California Donald Jackson publicly referred to it as "deliberately designed to inflame racial hatred . . . a new weapon for Russia." The Immigration and Naturalization Service harassed the principal star, Mexican actor Rosaura Revueltas, throughout the filming and toward the end of the shoot she was arrested and held for a deportation hearing. In describing the INS prosecutor, Revueltas explained, "Since he had no evidence to present of my 'subversive' character, I can only conclude that I was 'dangerous' because I had been playing a role that gave status and dignity to the character of a Mexican-American woman." She left the United States under a warrant of deportation. In Salt of the Earth: Story of a Film, director Herbert Biberman offers a spine-tingling tale of

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courage, conviction, and Cold War repression.57 Attending a thirty- year Salt of the Earth reunion, Angela Sanchez, who was both pick- et and movie extra, recalled two lasting legacies. "Mexican culture has traditionally been that women belong in the home. After the strike, men didn't see us as weaklings anymore. Also the two races started getting together and mixing in nightclubs."58 The impact of the strike on race and gender relations certainly varied from family to family, yet its celluloid testament in Salt of the Earth remains emblematic of a long history of labor activism among Mexican women in the United States.

If holding the picket line represented one way Mexican women claimed a collective public space, distributing food baskets was an- other. Women participated in mutualistas (mutual aid societies) that materialized in southwestern barrios during the late nine- teenth century. Many early organizations focused on providing life insurance, planning Mexican patriotic celebrations, and offering charitable and legal assistance. According to Bert Corona, a Chi- cano trade union and civil rights leader, mutualistas "were often the only means immigrants had to defend themselves and to acquire help."59 At times these societies were part of larger networks either affiliated with the Mexican Consulate or an autonomous regional confederation. Founded by prominent Hispanic citizens of Tucson in 1894, Alianza Hispano-Americana not only focused on local wel- fare needs but formed new chapters in Phoenix, Tempe, Jerome, and other towns in Arizona territory. By 1919, the Alianza, which had cultivated a substantial working-class following, begot eighty- eight chapters across the Southwest and northern Mexico and, on the eve of World War II, over 17,000 people were dues-paying members. One historian succinctly stated that the Alianza "hoped to unite all Mexicans and Latin Americans in the United States into one 'family' under the principles of 'protection, morality, and education.'"60

Mutualista "families," however, differed by citizenship, class, and gender. In Santa Barbara, Club Mexicano Independencia (CMI), a working-class community group, offered its members a range of insurance and emergency benefits; however, membership was predicated on being male and a citizen of Mexico. In contrast, Club Femenino Orquidia in San Antonio was an elite women's or- ganization that mixed volunteer service with cultural events and lectures. One evening, its members gathered for a lecture by Mar- garita Robles de Mendoza sponsored, in part, by the American As- sociation of University Women; the topic was "The Current Condi-

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tion of Mexican Women."61 The typical mutualista created a sepa- rate "ladies auxiliary," as did both the Alianza and CMI. As Cynthia Orozco has pointed out, women's work in mutual aid activities— preparing enchilada suppers, organizing jamaicas and dances as well as distributing food baskets—has received only passing men- tion by contemporary historians. Certainly their invisible day-to- day labor made a difference.62

Cultural nationalism signified voluntarist politics in the barrios of the Southwest and Midwest. Mutnalistas were frequently named in honor of Mexican heroes—Miguel Hidalgo and Benito Juarez were popular choices. In Laredo, the popular women's group So- ciedad Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez commemorated a heroine of Mexican independence.63

Mutualistas were important meeting grounds between Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans and between middle-class leaders and working-class members. David Gutierrez put it this way:

By providing a place where immigrants and citizens of Mexican descent could speak the same language, discuss common prob- lems, and cooperatively provide themselves with needed services, mutualistas allowed immigrants to learn the ropes of living in the United States in a ... supportive environment. In addition . .. the culturally familiar mutualistas helped to break down barriers be- tween the two groups, improved communication, and promoted a spirit of cooperation.64

This was not an unconscious process. The formation of a com- mon identity fostered by voluntarist politics can be discerned in the words of a Houston teacher Castulo Ortiz as he spoke before a crowd attending a Cinco de Mayo celebration:

MEXICANS: Good will should be forged like a bell. Let it be forged in a grand effort and may a new bronze nationality, like the Aztec race come to light, bringing order to chaos. Forget political and religious divisions and come together in the future of one Mexican family.65

The nexus of community and family resonates throughout the his- tory of Mexicans in the United States. Furthermore, the roots of contemporary debates over self-identification and the construction of ethnic identity can be gleaned from the very names of mutualis- tas active during the early decades of the twentieth century—

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Alianza Hispano-Americana [Hispanic]; Liga Protectora Latina [Latina/o]; Sociedad Mutualista Hispano-Azteca [Chicana/o].66

If the politics of voluntary associations negotiated class divi- sions, they also articulated configurations of gendered identity. Re- flecting a belief in the nurturing nature of women, Mexican Con- suls across the U.S. organized chapters of La Cruz Azul (the Blue Cross), an all-women's mutualista devoted to improving health care, education, and social services to barrio residents. Similar to both the General Federation of Women's Clubs and the American Red Cross, La Cruz Azul could be found in such disparate locations as Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, and Detroit. Members raised funds for poor children, provided emergency relief, and established medical clinics and libraries.67 In San Antonio, a coalition of work- ing-class and affluent mutualistas, including La Cruz Azul, joined forces to build a neighborhood health clinic. Commenting on wo- men's contributions, the local Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa believed that their actions could be attributed to "the latent feelings of motherhood carried by all women."68 If La Cruz Azul was metaphorically garbed in the mantle of motherhood, the real- ity was one of limited resources. As historian Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr has pointed out, needs always outdistanced funds and in Chicago, the chapter folded.69

Women, through mutualistas, sought to help their neighbors; they worked within their communities in a public way, although their labor generally remained invisible outside the barrio. Their activism became more evident as they joined new types of local or- ganizations, associations that viewed the barrio not as an island of Mexico, but as a neglected American community. Groups, such as el Comite de Vecinos de Lemon Grove (the Lemon Grove Neigh- bors Committee), engaged in direct political action.

Before 1931 Mexican and Euro-American children in Lemon Grove, California, a small town outside San Diego, attended the same school. In January 1931, the local school board built a sepa- rate facility for Mexican pupils across the tracks in the barrio. The "new" two-room school resembled a barn hastily furnished with secondhand equipment, supplies, and books. Forming el Comite de Vecinos de Lemon Grove, local parents voted to boycott the school and seek legal redress. Except for one household, every family kept the children home. With the assistance of the Mexican Consul En- rique Ferreira, the Comite hired attorneys and filed suit. Board members justified their actions on the grounds that a separate fa- cility was necessary to meet the needs of non-English-speaking

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children. To counter this argument, students "took the stand to prove their knowledge of English."70 In Alvarez v. Lemon Grove School District, Judge Claude Chambers ordered "the immediate reinstatement" of Mexican children to their old school. During a reign of deportations and repatriations, Mexican immigrants had mustered the courage to protest segregation in education and they had won. Comadres and compadres banded together for grass-roots political action. These immigrants parents, moreover, had sought the assistance of the Mexican Consul in their effort to provide equal opportunities for their U.S. born children.71

Mutualistas represented institutionalized forms of compadrazgo and commadrazgo with men and women typically working together within parallel, if separate organizations. In Tucson, the Alianza Hispano-Americana raised funds to establish an orphanage and a nursing home, concrete manifestations of the mutualista as fictive kin.72 For women, mutualistas represented the spaces between fam- ily and community where volunteer work was accepted and re- spected.73 El Comite de Vecinos de Lemon Grove served as a bridge between mutual assistance and civil rights. During the 1930s, grass-roots organizing among men and women took several forms, with issues of class and generation defining diverse agendas.

Similar jobs, neighborhoods, and cultural traditions did not al- ways bridge the distance between immigrants and citizens. The in- clusion or exclusion of immigrant issues has served as the flash point for civil rights activists in Mexican-American communities. As David Gutierrez explained in his pathbreaking political history, Walls and Mirrors, "Forced virtually every day to deal with the both the positive and negative effects of Mexican immigration while struggling to win basic civil rights for their constituents, such ac- tivists have had to come to some fundamental decisions about just who their constituents are."74 He continues,

Whether they choose to work only on behalf of American citizens or decided that their efforts should focus on what they considered to be a broader cultural community, including immigrants, such decisions speak volumes about Mexican American activists' polit- ical and cultural orientations in a society that has continually been transformed by constant immigration.75

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) chose political distance from Mexican immigrants. Founded by middle- class Tejanos in 1929, LULAC struck a chord among Mexican Americans and by 1939 chapters could be found throughout the

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Southwest with a membership estimated at 2,000. Envisioning themselves as patriotic "white" Americans pursuing their rights, LULACers restricted membership to English-speaking U.S. citi- zens. Taking a page from the early NAACP, LULAC stressed the leadership of an "educated elite" who would lift their less fortunate neighbors by their bootstraps.76 Mario Garcia reiterates how mem- bers considered LULAC "an authentic American organization and that each letter in its name expressed patriotism: L stood for love of country; U for Unity as American citizens; L for loyalty to country: A for advancement; and C for citizenship." Taking a somewhat dif- ferent spin, David Gutierrez argues that "LULAC members consis- tently went to great lengths to explain to anyone who would listen that Americans of Mexican descent were different from (and by im- plication, somehow better than) Mexicans from the other side."77

Yet both historians would agree on LULAC's concrete political legacies. According to Gutierrez:

From 1929 through World War II LULAC organized successful voter registration and poll tax-drives, actively supported candi- dates sympathetic to Mexican Americans, and aggressively at- tacked discriminatory laws and practices throughout Texas and the Southwest. More important. . . LULAC also achieved a num- ber of notable legal victories in the area of public education.78

Indeed, landmark desegregation cases, such as Mendez v. West-min- ister, owed much to LULAC support. By 1940, LULAC had be- come the most visible regional civil rights organization.79

In their quest for respectability and political clout, LULAC members distanced themselves from working-class, mestizo identi- ties. During the San Antonio Pecan Shellers Strike of 1938, LU- LACers sided with management and condemned the strikers. They also fought for the right to be considered "white." In his study of LULAC, political scientist Benjamin Marquez mentions a reveal- ing incident regarding this type of racial positioning. In Corpus Christi, Texas, the city directory divided local residents into "'Amer- ican' (Am), 'Mexicans' (M), 'English-speaking Mexicans' (EM), and 'Coloreds' (C)." LULACers protested their classification, incensed that they had been separated from "other members of the white race."80 David Gutierrez further notes that LULAC favored the re- striction of Mexican immigrants during the tumultuous thirties.81

Through the prism of gender, Cynthia Orozco provides fresh insights into the day-to-day operations and goals of the organiza- tion. From LULAC's inception, women participated in numerous grass-roots service projects. In Houston, for example, women

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raised "monies for milk, eye glasses, Christmas toys, and baby clothes." Orozco inscribes LULAC women's activism as concrete responses to community needs.82 Their voluntarist politics indi- cates that there existed less of a social distance between immi- grants and citizens as well as between workers and merchants than the rhetoric of LULAC would lead us to believe. LULAC women were bridge people simultaneously seeking to meet the material needs of newcomers and neighbors while engaging in direct action for civil rights.

Before World War II, Mexican middle-class women in Texas demonstrated their civic leadership as LULAC members and lead- ers. In 1937, Alicia Dickerson Montemayor from Laredo, Texas, became the first woman elected to the office of Second Vice-Pres- ident General of LULAC, "the f i r s t . . . to hold an office not specif- ically designated for women." That same year, she published an ar- ticle in LULAC News entitled "Son Muy Hombres," a distinctly feminist critique of Latin male privilege. In her words, "I was a very controversial person."83

In New Mexico, two remarkable women, Adelina Otero Warren and Concha Ortiz y Pino, ran for political office. In 1922, Adelina Otero Warren ran as a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, the first New Mexican woman and the first His- pana to run for national office. Maria Adelina Isabel Emilia (Nina) Otero was born in 1881, a member of the "Spanish" land-owning gentry of New Mexico. The extended Otero family was well known for its political clout, with Nina's second cousin Miguel Otero serv- ing as territorial governor from 1897 to 1906. Well educated in Santa Fe and St. Louis, Otero Warren ventured to New York City for a brief stint in settlement work.84 From 1915 to 1920, the strong-willed, independent Hispana proved a tireless crusader for women's suffrage. As she wrote Alice Paul of the Congressional Union and later the National Women's Party, "[I] will take a stand and a firm one whenever necessary for I am with you now and al- ways." Paul, in turn, recognized her contributions as an influential state lobbyist and in a telegram credited Otero Warren's "splendid leadership" in securing New Mexico's ratification of the Nine- teenth Amendment.85 According to her biographer Charlotte Wha- ley, Nina Otero Warren had become "a heroine in Santa Fe, an in- telligent, resourceful woman with a strong sense of justice." She continued, "More than any other New Mexican woman of that time, she had become a role model for both Anglo and Hispanic women in the state."86

Emboldened perhaps by her celebrity and her election as Su-

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perintendent of Schools for Santa Fe County in 1918, Otero War- ren decided to run for Congress. Winning the Republican primary, she proved an astute politician. She penned press releases detailing her reform record on education, temperance, and social welfare. A charismatic campaigner, she spoke of her political ideals and her connection to the land, beginning one speech with the claim that "her people had founded the state." Since her Democratic oppo- nent was an Anglo male, she may have used the phrase "my people" to encompass all Hispanos, not just her own genealogical family.87

Certainly her gender and her "Spanish noble heritage" made good newspaper copy. One reporter went so far as to attribute her red hair and freckles to her German Visigoth ancestors who had cen- turies before settled in Spain. Otero Warren ran on a record of hon- esty, integrity, and fair play; but her cousin, the former governor Miguel Otero, publicly revealed that she had lied about her per- sonal life. Adelina Otero Warren was not the widow of Rawson Warren, but a divorcee. Historian Elizabeth Salas contends that news of her divorce (which had occurred twelve years earlier) helped tip the scales in favor of her Democratic opponent. De- feated by less than 10,000 votes, Otero Warren never again sought an elected state or national office.88

Adelina Otero Warren, however, remained a force in New Mex- ico education. Although she opposed bilingual education, she did prove a vocal critic of boarding schools for Native Americans. She was also concerned with cultural conservation, particularly with re- gard to Hispano arts and crafts. Literary critic Diana Rebolledo considers Otero Warren's Old Spain and the Southwest (1936) a narrative of resistance to the Anglocization of New Mexico. Her ro- mantization of a halcyon Spanish colonial past fits within the poli- tics of identity prevalent among Hispanos in New Mexico and southern Colorado.89 I suggest that Adelina Otero Warren traver- sed at least two worlds on two levels as she negotiated across His- panic and Euro-American New Mexico as well as across her own subjectivities as both rural aristocrat and modern feminist.

In 1936, the first Spanish-speaking woman took her seat as a member of a state legislature. At age twenty-six, Concha Ortiz y Pino from Galisteo, New Mexico, also became the youngest woman elected to state office. During her six years as represen- tative from Santa Fe County, the media frequently depicted her as a "glamour girl," but on the floor she proved a conscientious and shrewd legislator. With confidence, style, and on occasion a tart tongue, she garnered respect and, during her last term, Ortiz y

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Pino, a Democrat, served as the majority whip in the New Mexico House of Representatives.90

Like Adelina Otero Warren, Concha Ortiz y Pino traced her an- cestry to Spanish nobility; her family had participated in electoral politics since territorial days.91 Ortiz y Pino, however, ran for office out of a sense of noblesse oblige rather than a desire for progressive social reform. During our interview, she recalled how, at Christ- mas, her father Jose would reiterate how the family's position in the region ("the many more gifts the Lord has given you") required them to be generous and oversee the welfare of their neighbors and employees. With shades of a nineteenth-century seigneurial world view, she echoed her father's words:

The family responsibility is always this: first to your government, secondly your loyalty . . . to your church; and thirdly, an unwa- vering family loyalty and care of those who work for you. You must take care of their material needs, their spiritual needs, and their medical needs.92

She further related that "after the Americans moved in and took over New Mexico," her great-grandfather Don Nicolas vowed that "a Pino or related Ortiz would stand for election to the state as- sembly in every generation." Her father had served in the state house and Concha followed in his footsteps. When I asked her why, she, rather than her brother Frank, had been selected, she laugh- ingly explained, "Oh, they wouldn't throw him to the wolves. They picked me."93

I would argue that her family recognized early her aptitude for public life. "My father spent 10 years teaching me the rules of the house. . . . Every afternoon when [he] was in the state legislature, I had to go and sit there after school."94 In 1930, at the age of eigh- teen, she organized local villagers at Galisteo into a vocational school for the promotion of traditional Hispano crafts, such as blankets, leather goods, and furniture. This artisan venture became so successful that it attracted the attention of the State Depart- ment of Vocational Education and, more important, provided a vi- able livelihood for Galisteo families hard hit by the Depression. In 1936, she switched her party affiliation from Republican to Demo- crat and with a chauffeur as her chaperone, she campaigned for both a statehouse seat and FDR's re-election.95

Although a Roosevelt Democrat, Ortiz y Pino took a dim view of several measures identified with the New Deal. She voted against ratifying a proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting

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child labor, voted against state regulation of hours for working women, and proclaimed publicly that relief agencies did little more than provide jobs for "high salaried Lady Bountiful social work- ers."96 She has never been identified as a feminist,97 but, as a legis- lator, she did introduce the first bill that would have made women eligible to serve on juries. Her measure failed and it was not until 1969 that New Mexico permitted women to sit in a jury box. She also pushed for a civil service merit system that would protect women workers at the capital from bosses who expected sexual fa- vors as a condition of employment.98 Her most notable legislative accomplishment involved introducing and securing the passage of a bill requiring the teaching of Spanish in New Mexico's grade schools. An early proponent of bilingual education, she resigned her membership in LULAC when it publicly opposed her mea- sure.99

By the time Ortiz y Pino had finished her last term in 1942, she had also graduated from the University of New Mexico and a year later married her favorite professor, Victor Kleven. For sixty years, Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven has been a force to be reckoned with in New Mexico. Called "the most powerful woman" in the state, she has been a steadfast advocate for abused children and people with disabilities. In 1966, the Albuquerque Journal gave her credit for a state law that required public buildings to "be accessi- ble to the disabled." She later remarked that Albuquerque commis- sioners called her "the Mother of the Ramps."100 Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, moreover, is well known as a doyenne of the arts and humanities. An ageless aristocrat, she views a good life as one devoted to public service. Reflecting a voluntarist politics rooted in noblesse oblige, Concha Ortiz y Pino exemplifies a quintessen- tial Dona in New Mexico civic life, a leader with an entitled sense of place and heritage. "I don't need a costume . . . I know who I am."101

Public political leadership among Spanish-speaking women was not limited to an aspiring middle class or an elite gentry. Orga- nized by Luisa Moreno, El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Es- panola (the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress) represented the hopes and dreams of many working-class Latinos. By the late 1930s, Moreno was cognizant of both the strength of local institu- tions and the distance between immigrants and citizens as she en- deavored to bring together community networks under the um- brella of a national civil rights congress.l02

El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Espanola was the first na-

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tional civil rights assembly for Latinos in the United States. The ap- proximately 1,000 to 1,500 delegates representing over 120 organi- zations assembled in Los Angeles on April 28 to 30, 1939, to ad- dress issues of jobs, housing, education, health, and immigrant rights. Luisa Moreno, its driving force, drew on her contacts with Latino labor unions, mutual aid societies, and other grass-roots groups to ensure a truly national conference. Los Angeles activists Josefina Fierro de Bright, Eduardo Quevedo, and Bert Corona would also assume leadership roles in El Congreso. Although the majority of the delegates hailed from California and the Southwest, women and men traveled from such distances as Montana, Illinois, New York, and Florida to attend the convention. According to his- torian Rudy Acuna, El Congreso "was broadly based: workers, politicians, youth, educators—people from all walks of life."103

Congreso delegates drafted a comprehensive platform. They called for an end to segregation in public facilities, housing, edu- cation, and employment and to discrimination in the disbursement of public assistance. El Congreso endorsed the rights of immi- grants to live and work in the United States without fear of depor- tation. While encouraging immigrants to become citizens, dele- gates did not advocate assimilation, but instead emphasized the importance of preserving Latino cultures and called on universities to create departments in Latino Studies. Despite the promise of the first convention, a national network of local branches never devel- oped and red-baiting would later take its toll among fledgling chap- ters in California.104

Scholars have debated the extent to which the United States Communist Party actually influenced the Spanish-speaking Peo- ples Congress.105 Historian George Sanchez offers the following in- sights:

By not excluding Communists from their ranks—both Anglos and Latinos—El Congreso proved to be an inclusive organization, but not one "captured" by any outside group. In fact, the leadership of El Congreso, though clearly a product of labor and left organi- zations, prided itself on being able to appeal to all Latinos, re- gardless of political affiliation.106

El Congreso brought together two dynamic women—Luisa Moreno and Josefina Fierro de Bright—whose life-long friendship was forged in the fire of community organizing. Born into an elite Guatemalan family, Luisa Moreno rejected her patrimony early and as a teenager ventured to Mexico City where she worked as a jour-

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nalist and pursued her talents as a poet. In 1927, at the age of twenty-one, she married artist Angel De Leon and the couple im- migrated to New York City in 1928. A few months later, Luisa gave birth to her only child, a daughter Mytyl. With the onset of the Great Depression, Moreno, struggling to support her infant daugh- ter and unemployed husband, bent over a sewing machine in Span- ish Harlem. She organized her companeras into a Latina garment workers' union. Her talents did not go unnoticed. In 1935, the American Federation of Labor hired her as a professional organizer. Leaving an abusive husband, Luisa, with Mytyl in tow, boarded a bus for Florida where she would unionize African-American and Latina cigar rollers. Within two years, she joined the CIO and in 1938 she became an UCAPAWA representative.107

A native of Mexicali, Josefina Fierro descended from a line of rebellious women. Her grandmother and mother were Magonistas, followers of socialist leader Juan Flores Magon and Partido Liberal Mexicano. Josefina remembered her mother Josefa teaching her important lessons at an early age. "She taught us to fight discrimi- nation. She taught us to organize, what community was . . . that it wasn't a shame to be a Mexican."108 Growing up in Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley, Josefina and her brother helped her mother prepare and sell food. At one point, Josefa supported her family by converting a trailer into a boardinghouse and restaurant on wheels to better serve their migrant clientele. While a student at UCLA, Josefina Fierro met Hollywood writer John Bright at the local cabaret where her tia sang.109 After their marriage, she became a community organizer in East Los Angeles drawing on her celebrity connections to raise funds for barrio causes. While Luisa Moreno took the lead in organizing the 1939 national meeting of El Con- greso, Josefina Fierro de Bright proved instrumental in buoying the day-to-day operations of the fragile southern California chapters. Recalling her East Los Angeles days and Hollywood nights, she simply stated, "I was always sleepy."110

Moreno and Fierro de Bright believed in the dignity of the com- mon person and the importance of grass-roots networks, recipro- city, and self-help. As Josefina commented, "Movie stars such as Anthony Quinn, Dolores Del Rio, and John Wayne contributed money, not because they were reds . . . but because they were help- ing Mexicans help themselves."1" The two women also shared an awareness of the positionality of women in U.S. Latino communi- ties. As we will see in the following chapter, El Congreso created a woman's committee and a woman's platform, a platform that

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expressly recognized the "double discrimination" facing Mexican women. Josefina Fierro de Bright put it this way: "We had women's problems that were very deep . . . discrimination in jobs . . . migra- tory problems ... schooling. No, we didn't have a Lib Movement so we didn't think in terms of what women's roles were—we just did it and it worked."112

Given their beliefs and backgrounds, it is not surprising that both women cared passionately about immigrant rights. Speaking before the 1940 conference of the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB), Luisa Moreno used the metaphor "Caravan of Sorrow" to delineate the lives of Mexican migrant workers. A portion of her presentation follows:

Long before The Grapes of Wrath had ripened in California's vineyards a people lived on highways, under trees or tents, in shacks or railroad sections, picking crops—cottons, fruits, veg- etables, cultivating sugar beets, building railroads and dams, making barren land fertile for new crops and greater riches.

These people are not aliens. They have contributed their en- durance, sacrifices, youth and labor to the Southwest. Indirectly, they have paid more taxes than all the stockholders of California's industrialized agriculture, the sugar companies and the large cot- ton interests, that operate or have operated with the labor of Mexican workers.113

Her talk made such an impact that the ACPFB reprinted selected sections in a pamphlet entitled "Non Citizen Americans of the South West." In southern California, Congreso members organized against anti-immigrant legislation introduced at the state capital. A caravan of "20,000 people by Fierro's estimate" arrived in Sacra- mento to voice their concerns. Governor Culbert Olson listened as he vetoed a bill that would have suspended relief to immigrants.114

While not to diminish the desegregation and voter registration ef- forts of such organizations as LULAC, American G.I. Forum, ANMA, or CSO,115 I would argue that a direct link exists between the platform endorsed by El Congreso and many of the goals artic- ulated within the Chicano Student Movement.

Luisa Moreno and Josefina Fierro de Bright were foremothers to women who would come to call themselves Chicana/Latina fem- inists. Although political gains were made during the 1950s, espe- cially with regard to desegregation, much work remained. The Mexican neighborhood of Chavez Ravine, for example, was leveled

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to make way for Dodger Stadium. According to urban planner Victor Becerra, "Aside from displacing 7,500 people, destroying some 900 homes, and costing taxpayers approximately $5,000,000, the arrival of baseball to Los Angeles didn't change things much."116 In 1960, the per capita income for Mexicans in the Southwest averaged "$968 compared to $2,047 for Anglos." Furthermore, the median years of schooling completed by Mex- ican workers in 1960 was only 7.1 years in comparison to 12.1 for Euro-Americans and 9.0 for "non-whites."117 As part of global student movements of the late 1960s, Mexican American youth joined together to address continuing problems of discrimination, especially in education and political representation. They trans- formed the pejorative barrio term "Chicano" into a symbol of pride. "Chicano/a" implies a commitment to social justice and social change.

Self-help, reciprocity, and commadrazgo are woven through the narratives of Mexican-American women. With pickets, baskets, and ballots, they created tapestries of resistance. Representing a range of ideologies from proletarian to seigneurial, they addressed injustice and served their communities. During the 1960s and 1970s, women in the Chicano Student Movement would draw on these legacies to form a Chicana generation that reclaimed, reinscribed, and transformed political and cultural subjectivities —with feminism as the contested frontera.

5 La Nueva Chicana:

Women and the Movement

Rise Up! To Woman Rise up! Rise up to life, to activity, to the beauty of truly living; but rise up radiant and powerful, beautiful with qualities, splendid with virtues, strong with energies.1

1 HIS poem was written not during the heyday of the Chicano Movement, but in 1910 by Tejana socialist labor leader and politi- cal activist Sara Estela Ramirez.2 She would not live to participate in El Primer Congreso Mexicanista held the following year. Ram- irez's ideas, however, would resonate in the words of her com- paneras. Composed of South Texas residents, this Congreso was the first civil rights assembly among Spanish-speaking people in the United States. With delegates representing community organi- zations and interests from both sides of the border, its platform ad- dressed discrimination, land loss, and lynching. Women delegates, such as Jovita Idar, Soldedad Pefia, and Hortensia Moncaya, spoke to the concerns of Tejanos and Mexicanos. Regarding education, Soledad Pena referred to "our duty . . . to educate woman; to in- struct her and to ... give her due respect." Out of this congress arose a women's organization, Liga Femenil Mexicanista, and for a short period two sisters Andrea and Teresa Villareal published a newspaper, La Mujer Moderna.3

As the poem shows, strands of feminist ideology or incipient feminist ideology can be located at various junctures in the history

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of Mexican women in the United States. Feminism has taken many forms; however, this chapter focuses primarily on women's partici- pation in the Chicano Student Movement "el movimiento" from 1968 to the present. The participation of "La Nueva Chicana" (to quote poet Viola Correa) in welfare rights, immigrant services and advocacy, sterilization suits, community organizations, La Raza Unida, campus activism, and literature has been reduced to a cur- sory discussion of sexism within the movimiento by the authors of the leading monographs on the Chicano Movement. Perhaps as frustrating, survey texts and relevant specialized monographs in U.S. Women's history overlook Chicana feminism.4 Although scholars recognize the 1960s and 1970s as the era of the modern feminist movement, they have left Chicanas out of their stories. Countering these chilling silences, a growing body of scholarly studies and literary works offer eloquent testimonies of Chicana feminist thought inside and outside the academy. In this chapter, I will draw on them as well as archival materials and oral interviews to outline the ideological parameters of student politics and em- phasize the ways in which women negotiated the terrains of na- tionalism and feminism, paying special attention to the iconogra- phy of the movimiento and the ways in which imagery from the Aztec world and the Mexican Revolution reinforced and challenged traditional notions of gender. The links between Marxism and fem- inism as well as debates over the double standard and intermar- riage are examined. The chapter also discusses women's commu- nity organizing, the emergence of Chicana lesbian consciousness, and the call for third-world coalitions.

The titles of two recent publications illuminate a basic dialecti- cal tension among Chicana feminists—Building with Our Hands and Infinite Divisions. This chapter offers a brief glimpse into the ways in which Chicanas have articulated a community-centered consciousness and a recognition of differences as they live amid the "swirls of cultural contradictions."5 I would like to start with the development of one of the basic themes of Chicana feminism, a premise expressed by Tejana activist Rosie Castro. "We have prac- ticed a different kind of leadership, a leadership that empowers others, not a hierarchical kind of leadership." Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez echoed, "The leadership that empowers others is the leadership we need."6

Over fifty years ago, Luisa Moreno and Josefina Fierro de Bright provided this type of leadership. The second California con- vention of El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Espanola, held in

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December 1939, passed a prescient resolution with regard to work- ing-class women. A portion follows:

Whereas: The Mexican woman, who for centuries had suffered oppression, has the responsibility for raising her children and for caring for the home, and even that of earning a livelihood of her- self and her family, and since in this country, she suffers a dou- ble discrimination as a woman and as a Mexican.

Be It Resolved: That the Congress carry out a program o f . . . ed- ucation of the Mexican woman, concerning home problems . . . that it [a Women's Committee] support and work for women's equality, so that she may receive equal wages, enjoy the same rights as men in social, economic, and civil liberties, and use her vote for the defense of the Mexican and Spanish American peo- ple, and of American democracy.7

As I related in an earlier book, the women rank and file of UCA- PAWA gained heightened self-esteem along with an awareness of gender issues as the result of union activism. Sociologist Myra Marx Ferree has argued that women wage earners "are significantly more feminist" than housewives and that "the effect of employ- ment is to place women into a social context which encourages feminist ideas."8 Consistent with Ferree's findings, women labor activists, while perhaps not political feminists, certainly appeared attuned to sex discrimination within the canneries. Luisa Moreno recalled that during World War II in "Cal San negotiations a wom- an ... member of the negotiating committee remarked: 'Females includes the whole animal kingdom. We want to be referred [to] as WOMEN. That remained henceforth in every contract."9 In ad- dition, southern California cannery workers demanded manage- ment-financed day care and an end to the piece-rate scale. UCA- PAWA's women members, in general, developed a job-oriented feminism; that is, they sought equality with men regarding pay and seniority and they demanded benefits that specifically addressed women's needs, such as maternity leave and day care.10

For some women, such as Julia Luna Mount, UCAPAWA served as a stepping-stone to life-long involvement in labor and civil rights issues. As a teenager, Julia Luna began working at Cal San and joined in the Workers' Alliance. She served as a rank- and-file leader during the 1939 Cal San strike and took part in El Congreso. She later left food processing to earn higher wages at McDonnell-Douglas, but was forced to quit because of unrelenting

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sexual harassment. She married George Mount, an organizer for the United Auto Workers, and continued her activist path. After World War II, she led union drives among Los Angeles hospital workers. In addition, she and her sister, Celia, both former cannery workers, were active in Asociacion Nacional Mexico-Americana (ANMA), a civil rights organization that emerged from the labor movement during the 1950s. Julia Luna Mount has run for politi- cal office several times under the banner of the Peace and Freedom Party. She was also well known in the southern California nuclear freeze movement.''

Whether through commadrazgo, mutualistas, labor unions, or political organizing, some women recognized what they had in common as women. Tensions between women, however, form a second theme of Chicana feminist history. This dialectic, often ex- pressed as a conflict between personal liberation or family first, had emerged well before the nationalist student movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Examples abound of both paths. In Texas, Sara Estela Ramirez had encouraged women to "Rise Up!" and Maria Hernandez did, indeed, take action—in concert with her husband. In 1929, Hernandez and her husband Pedro formed Orden Ca- belleros de America, a mutualista that provided social services to the barrio as well as served as a springboard to political organizing. An activist for over fifty years, she also participated in school de- segregation cases and, as a senior citizen, was an advocate of La Raza Unida, the Chicano third party. Hernandez believed strongly in women's familial responsibilities as she elaborated in an essay published in 1945. As noted by Cynthia Orozco, Hernandez ad- hered to the idea that "the domestic sphere was maintained to be the foundation of society and mothers the authority figures who molded nations." Maria Hernandez has also been characterized as "a strong feminist," who emphasized "the importance of family unity" and "the strength of men and women working together." Hernandez herself described her husband has "enlightened, com- mitted, and liberated in every way, and who has never done any- thing but to encourage her participation in the community."12 This statement resonates among contemporary heterosexual Chicana feminists. The phrase "My boyfriend/husband—he really is a femi- nist" represents a mantra of justification and affirmation.13

The birth of the Chicano student movement occurred in 1967 as Mexican Americans formed their own organizations on college campuses. Their numbers were relatively small; one survey re- vealed that the cumulative undergraduate enrollment for seven

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southwestern colleges included only 3,227 Mexican Americans (2,126 men, 1,101 women).14 Yet, in May 1967, young adults gath- ered at Loyola University in Los Angeles and formed the United Mexican American Students (UMAS). In addition to holding fund- raisers for the United Farm Workers and other community causes, this group sought to make alliances with local chapters of the Black Student Union (BSU) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). A year later, as a result of student pressure, the first Chi- cano Studies program was founded at California State University, Los Angeles.15

Activism was not limited to college campuses. A group of high school teens, including student council officers, circulated peti- tions urging the school board to take concrete measures to improve the quality of secondary education in East Los Angeles. Board members politely received the petitions and then discarded them. As a result, in March 1968, over 10,000 youngsters at five area schools (Roosevelt, Wilson, Lincoln, Garfield, and Belmont) walk- ed out. Staging the largest student walkout in the history of the United States, the young leaders had now captured the attention of the board. They demanded a revised curriculum to include Mexican/Chicano history and culture; the recruitment of more Mexican-American teachers; an end to the tracking of Chicano stu- dents into vocational education; and the removal of racist teachers. They also desired smaller classes and upgraded libraries. Vicky Castro recalled that issues ranged "from better food all the way to ... we want to go to college."16 Another student who walk- ed out, artist Patissi Valdez, succinctly related the attitude of her home economics teacher as an example of the lessons taught at her school:

She would say . . . "You little Mexicans, you better learn and pay attention. This class is very important because . . . most of you are going to be cooking and cleaning for other people."17

Students, moreover, had few Mexican-American role models as "only 2.7 percent of the teachers . . . had Spanish surnames." One of these educators, Sal Castro, joined the protesters; he could not in good conscience remain inside the walls of Abraham Lincoln High School. Perhaps with a twinge of nostalgia, he remembered the walkouts (or blowouts) as: "Kids out in the streets with their heads held high. With dignity. It was beautiful to be a Chicano that day."18

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The East Los Angeles "blowouts" lasted over a week. One Los Angeles Times reporter referred to the protests as "the birth of brown power." The media keyed in on banners carried by students: "Chicano Power," "Viva La Raza," and "Viva La Revolucion."19 The LAPD overreacted at Roosevelt and Belmont high schools, chasing and bludgeoning teens. Describing the scene, Mita Cuaron de- clared, "It didn't match the thing we were doing. We didn't commit a crime. We were protesting." The blowouts did initiate reform in Los Angeles schools. "We were very successful at informing the public about how serious the conditions were," reflected Paula Cristonomo. In fact, Senator Robert Kennedy met with the stu- dents and sent a telegram of support.20 Walkouts in Mexican schools followed in such disparate cities as Denver, Phoenix, and San Antonio. Such militancy was not confined to the Southwest. Writer Ana Castillo, a native of Chicago, recalled her own adoles- cent activism. "I went downtown and rallied around City Hall along with hundreds of other youth screaming 'Viva La Raza' and 'Chicano Power!' until we were hoarse." Demonstrations also pro- liferated on college campuses. A coalition of students of color or- chestrated the 1969 Third World Strike at Berkeley. Facing police batons and arrests, these students called for the creation of a third college dedicated to people of color and run by the community. A Department of Ethnic Studies on the Berkeley campus was the concrete result.21

In March 1969, Colorado community activist Corky Gonzales and the Crusade for Social Justice hosted the National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference at Denver, Colorado. This confer- ence offered a potent nationalist vision linking the Aztec past to a Chicano future. The concept of Aztlan as the mythic Aztec home- land reborn in a Chicano nation resonated among the audience, over 1,500 strong.22 A former organizer with the Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Alabama, Maria Var- ela gave eloquent testimony to the transformative power of this gathering:

"Conference" is a poor word to describe those five d a y s . . . . It was in reality a fiesta: days of celebrating what sings in the blood of a people who, taught to believe they are ugly, discover the true beauty in their souls . . . Coca, Cola . . . Breck Shampoo, the Playboy Bunny, the Arrow Shirt man, the Marlboro heroes are lies. "We are beautiful. . ." [T]his affirmation grew into agrito, a roar among the people gathered in the auditorium.23

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A month later at a youth conference at the University of Cali- fornia, Santa Barbara, from which MECHA (El Movimiento Estu- dantil Chicano de Aztlan) was officially launched, students stressed the importance of applying their education for the benefit of their communities.24 Echoing that "man is never closer to his true self as when he is closer to his community," El Plan de Santa Barbara ex- pounded that:

Chicanismo draws its faith and strength from two main sources: from the just struggle of our people and from an objective analy- sis of our community's strategic needs. . . . Chicanos recognize the central importance of institutions of our higher learning to modern progress, in this case, to the development of our com- munity.25

Whether one views the Chicano Student Movement as a polit- ical quest or as a nationalist struggle, one cannot subsume its iden- tity under the rubric of "Me, too." Although there were a few con- nections to African-American civil rights groups, with SNCC veterans Betita Martinez and Maria Varela bringing their organiz- ing skills and experiences to the Southwest, the Chicano Move- ment was very much its own entity with its own genesis. However, in U.S. history textbooks, Mexicans are typically relegated to the end of the book and pictured as either followers of Cesar Chavez or student activists emulating African Americans. It was not that they wanted a piece of the "American pie," they wanted the freedom to bake their own pan dulce.26

Situating one's politics, indeed one's very life, toward commu- nity empowerment was a given among Chicano student activists. Forging bonds of community with one another and, most impor- tant, with the worlds they literally or metaphorically left behind crossed ideological borders as they created diffuse and at times competing organizations. Whether one assumed the mantle of cul- tural nationalism (working only for Chicanos) or longed for third- world liberation, sustaining connections to a world outside the uni- versity proved crucial. Students led food drives for the United Farm Workers; protested the Vietnam War; offered tutorial programs for barrio youth; organized for immigrant rights, volunteered for La Raza Unida, the Chicano third party; established health clinics; and launched Chicano Studies programs.27 Success was measured in terms of social justice, not material wealth.

Aztec motifs dominated the iconography of the Chicano Stu-

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dent Movement. Young militants adopted Aztec imagery and her- itage as their own. The image of the "warrior" struck a cord with "its ferociously macho imagery." While noting that the idea of a Brown nation (or Aztlan) offered a "taste of self-respect," long-time com- munity activist Betita Martinez argues that "merely as a symbol the concept of Aztlan encourages the association of machismo with domination."28

What roles could women play in this hagiography of a pre- Columbian past? Think about representations of Aztec life that you have seen: the familiar murals in Mexican restaurants and calendar art. Light-complected women dressed in translucent gowns held in the arms of muscular bronze men arrayed in gold and feathers. The spectacular mural at the El Cerezo Restaurant in El Paso, Texas, serves an example. Against the backdrop of mountain scenery, an Aztec warrior bends his head in sorrow over a supine vestal virgin. This feminine icon (dead, no less) can hardly be construed as an empowering symbol for Chicanas.

Worse yet are traditional notions of La Malinche. Born of Aztec nobility, La Malinche (Malintzin Tenepal) was sold by her mother into a state of slavery at the age of eight. Six years later, she was given to Hernan Cortes who soon made use of her linguistic and diplomatic skills. La Malinche would also bear him a son. Viewed as a traitor to her people, La Malinche remains "the Mexican Eve." In this vein, Carlos Fuentes argues that Mexican women are twice cursed—they bear both the sin of Eve and the sin of La Malinche.29

Today in Mexico the term Malinchismo means selling out to for- eigners. A popular Mexican ballad of the mid-1970s bore the title "The Curse of La Malinche." A excerpt follows:

The curse of offering foreigners Our faith, our culture, Our bread, our money, Remains with us.

Oh, curse of Malinche! Sickness of the present When will you leave my country When will you free my people?30

Given these symbolic meanings, one of the first tasks Chicana feminists faced was that of revising the image of La Malinche. Ade- laida Del Castillo's pathbreaking 1977 article provided a new per-

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spective by considering Malinche's captivity, her age, and most im- portant her conversion to Christianity. What emerges from Del Castillo's account is a gifted young linguist who lived on the mar- gins and made decisions within the borders of her world.31 Lucha Corpi offers a sympathetic and tragic portrait of Malinche in "Ma- rina Mother."

They made her of the softest clay and dried under the rays of the tropical sun. With the blood of a tender lamb her name was written by the elders on the bark of that tree as old as they.

Steeped in tradition, mystic and mute she was sold— from hand to hand, night to night, denied and desecrated, waiting for the dawn and for the owl's song that would never come; her womb sacked of its fruit, her soul thinned to a handful of dust.

You no longer loved her, the elders denied her, and the child who cried out to her "mama!" grew up and called her "whore."32

Other Chicana writers envision Malintzin as a role model. Cordelia Candelaria considers her "a prototypical Chicana feminist," a woman of "intelligence, initiative . . . and leadership." With similar intent, poet Carmen Tafolla casts her as a woman who dared to dream.33

In this way, picking up the pen for Chicanas became a "politi- cal act." As poet Naomi Quinonez explained, "With poetry, I could encourage, reaffirm, and mirror efforts toward social change. I wrote poetry while at antiwar rallies, during class discussions about capitalism, at Cinco de Mayo celebrations . . . and at Santana con- certs." Quinonez considered herself a cultural worker as she plan- ned poetry readings at barrio community centers, parks, and churches as well as on college campuses.34 Women also founded and edited newspapers—El Grito (Betita Martinez); Encueni.ro Feminil (Adelaida del Castillo and Ana Nieto Gomez); Regener- ation (Francisca Flores); and El Chicano (Gloria Macias Harri-

% 108 fc From Out of the Shadows

son). Through their writings, Chicanas problematized and chal- lenged prescribed gender roles at home (familial oligarchy); at school (the home economics track); and at meetings (the clean-up committee).35

From the early days of the student movement, women were not always satisfied with the rhetoric and praxis of their companeros, but those who called for the introduction of women's issues on the collective agenda or for an end to gender-specific tasks (e. g., typ- ing, cooking, cleaning up) were labeled "Women's Libbers" or "ag- gringadas," and open ridicule had a chilling effect. At the 1969 Denver youth conference, after considerable discussion in the women's workshop, a Chicana facilitator reported to the confer- ence as a whole: "It was the consensus of the group that the Chi- cana woman does not want to be liberated." "I felt this as quite a blow," penned conference participant Enriqueta Longauex y Vas- quez soon after the event. "Then I understood why the statement had been made and I realized that going along with the feelings of the men at the convention was probably the best thing to do at the time."36 Sonia Lopez reported that some coeds proved reluctant to join campus Chicana organizations, like Hijas de Cuauhtemoc at Cal State, Long Beach, for fear of being labeled or rejected by men. In the words of Francisca Flores, "Women must learn to say what they think and feel, and free to state it without apologizing or pref- acing every statement to reassure men that they are not competing with them."37

By 1971, in Houston, Texas, at La Conferencia de Mujeres For La Raza, the first national Chicana conference, women spoke out with a distinctly feminist platform. The resolutions called for "free legal abortions and birth control in the Chicano community be pro- vided and controlled by Chicanas." In addition, they called for higher education, for acknowledgment of the Catholic Church as an instrument of oppression, for companionate equalitarian mar- riage ("Marriage-Chicana Style"), and for child care arrangements to ensure women's involvement in the movement. Of the 600 wom- en who attended the conference, as many as one-half disagreed with such radical resolutions and walked out. They believed that in- house problems should not overshadow community concerns. ["Our enemy is the gavacho not the macho."]38

The Houston conference, however, did place feminism very vis- ibly on the movement table. Chicano leaders either pretended it didn't exist or dismissed women's concerns. Corky Gonzalez openly admitted he did not want Chicanas to become like the "frigid

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gringa."39 He also issued a dire warning about the hidden tradi- tional power of women:

A woman who influences her old man only under the covers or when they are talking over the table, and when he goes in—if it's a bad idea—and argues for that, because he's strong enough to carry it through, is doing a disservice to La Causa.40

These attitudes could also be found in movement songs. In "The Female of Aztlan," women were told that "their responsibility is to love, work, pray, and help . . . the male is the leader, he is iron, not mush."41 Ramon Gutierrez accurately suggests that men "ini- tially regarded the feminist critique as an assault on their Mexican cultural past, on their power, and by implication their virility." In fairness, some Chicanos envisioned themselves as placing women on bronze pedestals as Chicana queens or Aztec princesses.42 The heartfelt (but inept) poem "Mi Amor" echoes familiar pedestal themes found in Mexican serenades sung a century ago. Two stan- zas should suffice:

To my eyeslo my eyes A Chicana is an exotic queen, She radiates a glow of exquisite

sheen.sheen.

She has style, she has class, and she is aware,

That her beauty is exceptional, So she walks tall and proud,

never forgetting That her beauty is traditional.43

Whether queen for a day or maid for a week, many Chicanas chaf- ed at images or roles that placed them in the category of "tradi- tional" helpmate.

In various venues from Encuentro Femenil to Mademoiselle, Chicanas passionately articulated their frustrations as women within the movement. "A lot of women were finding themselves unfulfilled in being just relegated to this position of beast of bur- den." They also questioned the double standard and blew the whis- tle on men who used political rhetoric for sexual conquest ["the guys that radicalize her off her pants"] .44 Feminists also problema-

3 110 fc- From Out of the Shadows

tized the madonna/whore dichotomy in Latino culture, considering it a holdover of colonialism. As one woman stated, "And if you're active in Raza Unida, you're suspected of being la mujer mala and in order to prove you're not, you have to live the life of a nun."45

Ramon Gutierrez would find within this Chicana feminist dis- course a common thread, "a story that was rooted in the politiciza- tion of the body."46

Adelaida del Castillo succinctly declared that "Chicana femi- nism . . . recognized the worth and potentials of all women."47 Chi- canas, however, deliberately distanced themselves from Euro- American feminists. The pivotal anthology This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, is replete with painful, searing tales of encounters between feminists of color and Anglo liberationists. Native American/Chicana writer Chrystos observed: "The lies, pretensions, the snobbery and cliquishness, the racism. . . . The terrifying & useless struggle to be accepted. . . . I left the women's movement utterly drained."48 Perhaps the objecti- fication of their racial subjectivities—the exotic othering of their experiences galled women of color the most. Jo Carrillo's poem "And Take Your Pictures with You" encapsulates resistance to such objectification. A portion follows:

Our white sisters radical friends love to own pictures of us sitting at a factory machine wielding a machete in our bright bandanas

And when our white sisters radical friends see us in the flesh not as a picture they own, they are not quite as sure if they like us as much. We're not as happy as we look on their wall.49

Chicanas recoiled against the middle-class orientation of lib- eral feminists; the anti-male rhetoric of radicals; and the conde-

La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement •$ 111 ^

scending, dismissive attitudes expressed by both.50 Conflicts over gender or race, personal liberation or family first, did not stop the development of Chicana feminism. Caught between "maternal" and "paternal" movements, Ana Nieto Gomez declared:

The Chicana feminist has been cautioned to wait to fight for her cause at a later time for fearing of dividing the Chicano move- ment. Also it has been recommended that she must melt into the melting pot of femaleness rather than divide the women's move- ment.51

At first these attitudes divided Chicanas themselves into two camps: feminists and loyalists. The loyalists believed that one should "stand by your man" and "have babies por la causa." They ar- gued that Chicanas who needed "an identity" were "vendidas" or "falsas." Firing back, Nieto Gomez laid out the following scenario. "A girl may find that an open avenue to temporary status and dis- tinction is to sleep with a noted 'Heavy.'. . . This is the traditional 'back door' open to all ambitious women."52

And then a third image also emerged—"La Adelita" or the sol- dadera. The idea of a strong, courageous woman garbed in the iconography of the Mexican Revolution was not a threatening im- age to Chicano nationalists; it implied that the woman fights beside her man and cares for his needs. Women in the Brown Berets, es- pecially, were seen as contemporary soldaderas. Norma Cantii posits that Chicano nationalists did not embrace the more histori- cally exact representation of the soldadera as a solider in her own right, but instead clung to the popular stereotype perpetuated by the Mexican cinema in which "Pedro Armendariz rides into the next battle [as] Dolores del Rio follows—on foot."53

But women, too, embraced this icon. The soldadera embodied a conflicted middle ground between loyalist and feminist, one that could be fiercely independent, yet strongly male-identified. The newspaper El Rebozo from San Antonio, Texas, "was written by women, put on by women, distributed by women, and was under- taken for the purpose of uniting our people to work for La Causa."54

Yet even the name El Rebozo literally and figuratively wraps Chi- cana consciousness within the bosom of the soldadera. As the edi- tors explained:

El Rebozo—the traditional garment of the Mexican woman, with its many uses, symbolizes the three roles of the Chicana, portray- ing her as "la senorita," feminine yet humble; as "la revolu-

3 112 I- From Out of the Shadows

cionaria," ready to fight for "La Causa," and finally portraying the role of "La Madre" radiant with life."

In a poem "Youth Mirror," Ana Nieto Gomez reminded Chicanas of Mexican women warriors, Juana Gallo and Petra Ruiz, revolution- ary commanders who had led both men and women. Nieto Gomez endeavored to link historical action with Chicana liberation.56

Feminists, however, frequently found themselves isolated as in- dividuals. Referring to women's participation in La Raza Unida, Marta Cotera noted the costs involved for women who seemed too outspoken on gender issues. To stay in the Party, Cotera related, "These women must retreat into more conservative stands, and in effect, retreat from certain activities that deal specifically with the special social needs of women." If one dropped the mask of agree- ability, there were consequences. Indeed, Ana Nieto Gomez would be silenced as she faced physical threats and was later fired from her position in Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge. The "gender objectification" inherent in cultural na- tionalist ideology had painful, concrete manifestations for women, such as Nieto G6mez, who openly articulated a Chicana feminist vision. As literary theorist Angie Chabram-Dernersesian would later write, "Chicanas were denied cultural authenticity and inde- pendent self-affirmation."57

At times biting their lips, most Chicana feminists chose to re- main involved in the Movimiento. Rhetorically, some contended that feminism was not divisive. During the early 1970s, Ana Nieto G6mez somewhat idealistically for the times wrote that the "femi- nist movement is a unified front made up of both men and women—a feminist can be a man as well as a woman—it is a group of people which advocates the end of women's oppression." Con- sidering Chicana feminism as "part of the Chicano Movement," Adelaida del Castillo stated that "we have to work together in order to save ourselves.... As Chicanos we have the responsibility to look after each other."58 Meanwhile, many feminists chose to focus their activities on women's concerns, such as defending the rights of welfare mothers and protesting the forced sterilizations of poor women. They created their own organizations, such as Comision Femenil Mexicana and the Chicana Action Service Center. Femi- nists could be found at every pivotal event and in every major move- ment organization from the Chicana Moratorium to La Raza Unida to CASA.

In 1967, Alicia Escalante began to organize welfare mothers in

La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement -$l 113 $•

East Los Angeles. On public assistance herself, Escalante sought to create a safe Chicana space for both mutual support and political action. Through the meetings of what would become the Chicana Welfare Rights Organization, she nurtured "a non-threatening en- vironment where women felt comfortable enough to talk about the private issues one only revealed with family members or comadres." Comparing notes on pregnancy (or the lack thereof), some came to the painful realization that they had been sterilized while giving birth at the USC/Los Angeles County Medical Center.59

With the assistance of Comision Femenil Mexicana, an organi- zation founded by young Chicana professionals, twelve women sterilized at the hospital filed suit. They were represented by two at- torneys from the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice, one of whom was Antonia Hernandez, a Comision member fresh out of law school at UCLA. Her Comision amiga Ana Nieto Gomez would later recall in an interview with historian Virginia Espino that doc- tors "thought they were throwing . . . in a free service. They saw themselves as agents of the public, saving taxpayers money." Dur- ing the trial in 1978, anthropologist Carlos Velez Ibanez testified that he had found ample evidence of eugenics-infused attitudes among area doctors, including some listed on the Medical Center staff. He related an informant's tale of how Mexicans were denied pain killers until they had signed the consent form for a tubal liga- tion.60 Detailing the specifics of the case in a law review article, An- tonia Hernandez wrote:

All of the victims or near victims belonged to a racial minority, were poor, and could readily understand the English language. Most were approached for sterilization surgery while under the duress of labor, drugged, and confined. All of them entered the Medical Center without any intent of becoming sterilized, and all were persistently solicited for the operation. Many of the women encountered doctors and nurses who were openly hostile to them because of their ethnicity or poverty status.61

In Madrigal v. Quilligan (1978), Judge Jesse Curtis ruled in fa- vor of the defendants; that is, in favor of the Medical Center and its doctors. Judge Curtis believed that the sterilizations had resulted from miscommunication rather than malice and encouraged physi- cians to explain more carefully the consequences of a tubal ligation to Mexicana immigrants. In the words of his decision, "One can sympathize with them for their inability to communicate clearly, but one can hardly blame the doctors for relying on those indicia of

3 114 £ From Out of the Shadows

consent which appeared unequivocal on their face and which are in constant use at the Medical Center."62 It had taken a great deal of courage for the twelve Mexicanas to come forward and tell their stories. The judge, however, ignored their voices and relied instead on an "ideology of cultural differences" that absolved the physi- cians of "the legal and moral responsibility for their actions." Al- though the women had lost in a court of law, the adverse publicity generated from the case and a series of investigative articles ap- pearing in the Los Angeles Times prompted the Medical Center to revisit its policies and procedures with regard to informed con- sent.63

Feminist commitment to community took other forms as well. Founded by Comision Femenil member Francisca Flores, the Chi- cana Action Service Center in East Los Angeles was "one of the first antipoverty agencies exclusively serving barrio women." The center offered job training and placement with 50 percent of its clients single mothers under thirty. Emphasizing the importance of its programs, Ana Nieto Gomez wrote: "The low retention of Chi- canas in the secondary schools, 70% dropout before the tenth grade inadvertently fails to make available to the Chicana even the traditionally oriented feminine curriculum, i.e., typing, business, English, shorthand." She further indicated that Chicanas who dropped out of college found themselves "at the same door step" as their sisters who left high school.64 Age discrimination plagued center graduates over the age of thirty-five. Yolanda Nava asserted that 41 percent could not find employment. Even government training projects were closed to them because their placement would seem "improbable."65

Now an institution in southern California, the Chicana Action Service Center has helped thousands of women secure jobs and pi- oneered the development of placement networks with corporations and nonprofit agencies. An early industrial advisory board for the center represented a "class" bridge between Chicana professionals and their barrio sisters. For instance, Carmen Olguin of Pacific Telephone and Sally Martinez of Southern California Edison offered frequent career planning and job interview workshops.66

Delivering direct services, lobbying lawmakers, and conducting policy-oriented research, Comision members returned to their communities with their education. Their legacy endures.

Chicanas joined with their companeros in protesting the Viet- nam War. These activists were only were only too cognizant of the impact of the war on the lives of their kin and neighbors. Between

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1961 and 1969, Mexican Americans in the Southwest represented 10 to 12 percent of the population but accounted for almost 20 percent of the casualities. Feminist scholar and poet Adaljiza Sosa Riddell wrote that "too many" Chicano veterans came home "wrap- ped como enchiladas in red, white, and blue."67 Roosevelt High student and blowout activist Tanya Luna Mount (daughter of George and Julia Luna Mount) summed up the feelings of many by linking education in the barrio and the war in Vietnam. "Do you know why they [the Board of Education] has no money for us? Be- cause of a war in Vietnam 10,000 miles away, that is killing Mexi- can-American boys—and for WHAT? We can't read, but we can die! Why?"68

During the Chicano Moratorium (August 29, 1970), women and children were fired on by police as they attended a peaceful protest rally in Laguna Park in East Los Angeles, a rally attended by over 20,000 people. In the aftermath of this "riot," a Los Angeles County deputy shot tear gas through a curtain hanging in the door- way of the Silver Dollar Bar. An unexploded tear gas canister killed K-MEX reporter and Los Angeles Times columnist Ruben Salazar as he sat in the bar having a beer and, no doubt, discussing the vio- lence that had just transpired in the park. A televised inquest ruled Salazar's death an accident. The Chicano Moratorium shook the student movement to its core—sixty people had been wounded and three Chicanes, including Salazar, lost their lives. Remember that the Chicano Moratorium occurred only a few months after the killings at Kent State. Many Chicanos felt a mixture of moral out- rage, anger, and disbelief. Moctezuma Esparza poignantly recalled, "It was a tremendous blow. Because we lost a certain heart, we lost a certain innocence of our ideals." He continued, "That we could engage the country . . . through the Bill of Rights, through the ideals that the country was supposedly founded on and that we could be killed."69

Disillusioned with the Vietnam War and Democratic Party promises, many Chicano activists called for the creation of their own third party. La Raza Unida (LRU) brought together politically engaged women across generations from Maria Hernandez and Ju- lia Luna Mount to Virginia Musquiz and Martha Cotera. Borne out of the high school walkouts in Crystal City, Texas, La Raza Unida became a political force in South Texas. With the prohibition of the poll tax, many small town Tejanos were eager to vote and the grass- roots Chicano party captured their imagination and their hopes. In 1970, LRU candidates swept fifteen of the sixteen local races in

% 116 £ From Out of the Shadows

Crystal City, winning seats on the school board and the city coun- cil. Buoyed by local victories, LRU ran a slate for state office in 1972. The party, furthermore, spread outside the Long Star State with strong showings in California and Colorado.70

Founded by Jose and Luz Gutierrez, Virginia Musquiz, and others, La Raza Unida became a vehicle for political self-determi- nation, especially in South Texas. Tejanas played very visible roles and several were elected to local office. Luz Gutierrez asserted that women made their position clear early on. "We actually had to walk in to one of the meetings . . . and said, 'Hey we don't want to be the tamale makers and . . . the busy bees. We really want to be part of the decision-making process.'" Women also organized a separate caucus within La Raza Unida (Mujeres For La Raza) to promote women's leadership on their own terms and not in the shadows of LRU men. Acknowledging both empowerment and sexism within its ranks, Martha Cotera also acknowledged LRU's nationalist overlay. "When women came into the party, they fell under the greater context of la familia de la raza."71 Indeed, La Raza Unida represented the zenith of cultural nationalism. Historian Ernesto Chavez refers to LRU activism in Los Angeles as an "attempt to cre- ate Aztlan through the ballot box." Seeking to bridge the academy and the community, Chicano college students provided the volun- teer labor necessary to construct a base for California's La Raza Unida Party. At a Chicano politics conference in northern Califor- nia, Isabel Hernandez railed against armchair activists. "It's going to take a lot of work if we're going to make a political party," she stated. "We have to stop the exploitation, we have to have personal contact with people in the barrio, not sitting up in the colleges . . . talking about revolution, but we also have to go to the barrio and tell people where it's at."72

Although the party would fade by the mid-1970s, sociologist Tatcho Mendiola contends that La Raza Unida "introduced to the American public a brand new generation of leadership." As the re- sult of the many threads of community organizing, including LRU, "Within twenty years, there would be almost five thousand Latino elected officials in the United States. Half would come from Texas."73

Within a few years, cultural nationalism as the single, sustain- ing ideology waned and in its place emerged a renewed emphasis on building class-based coalitions with Mexicanos, Latinos, and at times third-world peoples. El Centro de Accion Autonoma-Her-

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mandad General de Trabajadores (CASA) saw beyond the borders of Aztlan. Founded in 1968 by long-time civil rights activists Bert Corona and Chole Alatorre, CASA provided legal and social ser- vices for undocumented Mexicano/Latino immigrants. CASA, like El Congreso, believed in the rights of immigrants to work in the United States, join labor unions, and raise their families without fear. The historical link between the two organizations was not just ideological. At the age of twenty-one, Bert Corona had been a leader in El Congreso's youth division. David Gutierrez refers to CASA as "the first Chicano-era organization to explore systemati- cally the significance of the relationship between immigration, Chicano ethnicity, and the status of Mexican Americans in the United States."74

With an influx of student volunteers, CASA also conducted re- search on the contributions and exploitation of immigrants and lobbied against proposed anti-immigrant legislation. In 1975, Cor- ona departed, turning over the reins to (in his words) "the young turks." Graduate students, undergraduates, and young profession- als launched an ambitious agenda for what they considered a new and improved CASA. In addition to running the service center, they would educate the public through their newspaper, Sin Fronteras, organize workers into trade unions, and fortify themselves through research and study groups, openly Marxist in orientation. Corona would later remark that these leaders did not have the patience or experience necessary to build a constituency among Mexi- cano/Chicano workers. "They somehow believed that the workers would come on their own.... They thought the people would be at- tracted by the political line, by the rhetoric, and by the glamour."75

Beset by problems that ranged from FBI surveillance to personal in-fighting, CASA disintegrated over the course of 1977 and 1978. Its slogans live on in the cadenced voices of contemporary Chi- cano/Chicana activists: "Obreros Unidos, Jamas Seran Vencidos" ["The Workers United Shall Never Be Defeated"] and "Somos Un Pueblo Sin Fronteras" [We Are One People Without Borders].76

CASA companera, Magdalena Mora, provided a model of Chi- cana activism. A graduate student in history at UCLA, she not only wrote about trade union struggles but participated in them. She or- ganized Mexicana/Chicana cannery workers in Richmond, Califor- nia, at Tolteca Foods. As her professor Juan Gomez-Quinones stated, "Ella hizo historia" [She made history]. Mora was also on the editorial staff of Sin Fronteras. An activist since her UMAS days

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as a high school student in San Jose, she died in 1981 of a brain tu- mor at the age of twenty-nine. Rudy Acuna eulogized her as a "beautiful fanatic" and "a movement person." In the words of De- vra Weber, "Magdalena was a fighter. She saw and understood the potential in people. This motivated her political work and her struggle for a society in which that potential could be realized."77

The informal credo of the Chicano student movement was to re- turn to your community after your college education to help your people. Magdalena Mora never left.

Women in CASA were both inspired and frustrated. CASA could be considered "the signifier of Marxist thought in the Chi- cano Movement"; and perhaps, not surprisingly, women still had to fight for leadership roles. As Victor Becerra explained, "Women were not given positions of leadership; they took them." Consider- ing themselves the revolutionary vanguard, CASA leaders required an all-encompassing commitment on the part of its members. Peo- ple left school; people left jobs; their lives totally revolved around the organization. In some instances, even choice of dating partners was not an individual decision. Women did assume very visible public roles in CASA—as examples, Kathy Ledesma Ochoa and Is- abel Rodriguez Chavez served as editors of Sin Fronteras. Chicanas in CASA, however, were expected to bear the brunt of "women's work" in planning fundraisers, selling tickets, and preparing food. The double standard prevailed. Hired by the ILGWU as an orga- nizer, Patricia Vellanoweth discovered she was pregnant. Her com- paneros berated her. "[Y]ou're supposed to be organizing, how could you get pregnant?" No one uttered a word to her husband.78

Feminism did not appear on the collective agenda, although a few Chicanas openly identified themselves as feminists. Gender poli- tics notwithstanding, involvement in CASA as organizers, writers, and service providers made an indelible imprint on their lives; many former Casistas remain active in advocacy efforts for immi- grants. In the words of historian Marisela Chavez: "These women lived, breathed, and worked the movement."79

Surprisingly personal decisions, such as dating, marriage, and sexuality, became movement concerns whether one identified with cultural nationalism or Marxism or a some sort of combination or an in-between political space. The whole issue of interracial dating and marriage became hotly debated. In 1971, Velia Garcia Han- cock argued against this mixing on political grounds. It was not a question of "mingling of the bloods" given the nature of Mexican

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mestizaje, but rather that "intermarriage results in a weakening of ties and declining sense of responsibility and commitment to La Raza." These types of wholesale generalizations did little to pro- mote communication. Love cannot be legislated. Furthermore, did marriage within La Raza always guarantee commitment to commu- nity empowerment? Many chroniclers and fighters for social jus- tice, including slain journalist Ruben Salazar and poet/scholar/ activist Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, intermarried. Marta Cotera addres- sed this issue in her 1977 collection of essays, The Chicana Fem- inist. "You have to be mature enough to respect people's choices. An individual who doesn't have freedom of choice cannot be lib- erated."80

From the earliest days of the Chicano Movement to current campus life, student activism has consistently included support for the United Farm Workers, an organization attracting volunteers representing diverse political orientations ranging from liberal to nationalist to Marxist. As we will see in the following chapter, Ce- sar Chavez and Dolores Huerta began to organize farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley in 1962. During the grape boycotts of the late 1960s and 1970s, the UFW was the most visible Chicano- identified organization, one that stressed a mestizaje of nationalism and coalition-building. Young people, whom David Gutierrez refers to as "a multiethnic horde of idealistic . . . student volunteers," not only organized campus support groups but served in the fields. Many devoted their summers (and some dedicated a year or more) to the UFW as health workers, legal interns, boycott coordinators, media specialists, as well as organizers.81

In keeping with the spirit of El Plan de Santa Barbara, Chicano Studies departments encouraged undergraduate engagement with local issues. Teaching about the experiences of Mexicans in the United States was more than a classroom endeavor; experiential education became an essential component of a Chicano Studies curriculum. Internships with community-based organizations as part of field studies programs enabled young people to forge for themselves the links between the academy and the community.82

Chicano Studies also provided a safe space, a home for Chicana and Chicano students, most of whom were first-generation col- lege bound. In the poem "University Avenue," Pat Mora encour- ages undergraduates to draw on their cultural beliefs—"cuentos whisper lessons en espanol"—in coping with new terrain and new challenges.83

41 120 & From Out of the Shadows

The problems faced by young women in MECHA or CASA dur- ing the 1970s continue to mark the development of Chicana femi- nism. Tugs-of-war persist over ideology, organizations, and gender relations. Some women turned to poetry as a means of articulating their opposition to machismo. In the classic "Machismo Is Part of Our Culture," Marcela Christine Lucero-Trujillo offered a look at the double standard:

Hey, Chicano bossman don't tell me that machismo is part of our culture if you sleep andmarryWAS.P You constantly remind me, me, your Chicana employee that machi-machi-machismo is part of our culture. I'm conditioned, you say, to bearing machismo which you only learned day before yesterday. At home you're no patron your liberated gabacha has gotcha where she wants ya.

Chicanismo through osmosis acquired in good does remind you to remind me that machi-machi-machismo is part of our culture.84

Chicana heterosexual undergraduates and graduate students perceived themselves as caught in a double bind in terms of suit- able marriage partners among their companeros. On one hand, many of their peers married white women and, in the minds of some Chicanos, these women were not Chicana enough—higher education had assimilated them to the point of no return. Noted Chicana scholar Maria Eugenia Matute-Bianchi recalled how in graduate school at Stanford a Chicano companero had referred to her as "damaged and acculturated" because she desired a Ph.D.

La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement •% 121 £•

Similar remarks could still be heard when I attended Stanford dur- ing the years 1977 to 1982. I recall the posturing of one graduate student who boasted that he never dated "college girls." "When I want a real woman, I go to the barrio in East San Jose and pick up a high school girl." He seemed genuinely taken aback when his re- marks were challenged by the Chicanas who were within earshot.85

Claiming public space can be intertwined with sexuality. Chi- cana lesbians often found themselves isolated from Chicanos and heterosexual Chicanas. Referring to lesbians, in general, the fol- lowing passage taken from the 1990 introduction to Unequal Sis- ters certainly speaks to Chicana lived experiences. "[Ljesbians have struggled to create their own identities and to build their own com- munities in the midst of the most hostile environments. Carving a sense of sexual self amid such oppression was a courageous act of preservation, both personally and politically."86 As Cherrie Moraga revealed, "My lesbianism is the avenue through which I have learned the most about silence and oppression."87 In whisper cam- paigns and outright verbal assaults, Chicana lesbians were label- ed vendidas, Malinches, and feminists. According to Alma Gar- cia, "Feminists were labelled lesbians, and lesbians as feminists." At a Chicano activists' reunion, an organized conference held in San Antonio in 1989, a "joke" about Chicana lesbians found its way into the program.88 Tejana literary critic Maria C. Gonzalez poignantly recalled her own personal journey:

I, too had been a product of a world that saw homosexuality as an immoral disease. My studies in feminism prepared me to accept my own lesbianism and also gave me an intellectual context for understanding my own resistance and fears about it.89

The works of Chicana lesbian writers Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Emma Perez, Ana Castillo, Alicia Caspar de Alba, Carla Trujillo, and many others bring out the pain and isolation, but, as important, their joys, self-respect, courage, and dignity. A sampling of this rich literature includes Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands and Cherrie Moraga's Loving in the War Years. The following four edited collections provide powerful testimonies of individual and collec- tive struggles and affirmations: This Bridge Called My Back; Mak- ing Face, Making Soul/Haciendo Caras; Companeras: Latina Les- bians; and Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About. Equally important, these anthologies elucidate health is-

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sues, mixed race relationships, color consciousness, language, sex- uality, self-representation, and historical constructions.90 As criti- cal works in feminist thought, Bridge and Hacienda Cams center the voices of lesbians of color as they dialogue with one another and the reader. Gloria Anzaldiia, furthermore, articulates a distinct lesbian fusion of private worlds and public spaces.

As a mestiza I have no country, my homeland cast me out; yet all countries are mine because I am every woman's sister or poten- tial lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.)91

The stories of Mexicana/Chicana lesbians have only begun to be told. At the University of Arizona, Yolanda Chavez Levya found- ed the first Latina lesbian archive. Alice Horn writes of "creating sites of resistance" among lesbians of color and her dissertation focuses on political coalitions that have been forged by lesbians in New York and Los Angeles.92 These grass-roots networks offer hope in terms of building viable coalitions among women of color. Many more comparative studies are needed to bring together the voices of Latinas, indigenous women, Asian Americans, and African Americans, all women who live on the borderlands.

Chicana lesbians have painfully articulated the oppression they have experienced at the hands of heterosexual Chicanas. Carla Trujillo has railed against "the controlling forces of compul- sory heterosexuality." At the 1989 MALCS workshop on feminism, when Chicana lesbians spoke out against the stifling heterosex- ism in the audience, members of the workshop seemed more in- terested in making men more sensitive than in examining their own attitudes and values. "Feminism is not about men washing dishes." Emma Perez reveals the need for "safe" spaces. "So call me a separatist, but to me this is not about separatism. It is about survival."93

Since the days of the Chicano Student Movement, Chicana feminists have experienced fissures along the fault lines of sexual- ity, class, region, and acculturation. In To Split a Human, Carmen Tafolla has warned companeras against competing for coveted spots in the hierarchy of oppression:

Don't play. "Will the Real Chicana Stand Up?" Much as we have heard different groups compete for 'charter membership' in the

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Most Oppressed Club . . . Mujer Sufrida ranks, and Double Mi- nority Bingo, we must admit that membership dues must be con- tinuously paid. . . . It is irrelevant to try to justify how "Chicana" we are or to criticize others for being "Anglicized."94

Coming to terms with divisions in order to move forward as a col- lective remains both a dream and a challenge.

In 1982, Chicana undergraduates, graduate students, and professors gathered at the campus of the University of Califor- nia, Davis, to form Mujeres Activas En Letras Y Cambio Social (MALCS). Called together by Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, chair of Chi- cano Studies at Davis, this small group of women, many from Sacramento and the Bay Area, joined together to form a feminist organization with a collective vision and responsibility to Chicanas in the academy and the community.95 A portion of the MALCS de- claration follows:

The scarcity of Chicanas in institutions of higher education re- quires that we join together to identify our common problems, to support each other, and to define collective solutions. Our pur- pose is to fight the race, class, and gender oppression we have ex- perienced in the universities. Further we reject the separation of academic scholarship and community involvement. Our research strives to bridge the gap between intellectual work and active commitment to our communities. . . . We declare our commit- ment to seek social, economic, and political change through our work and collective action.96

Today MALCS is the most influential and largest Chicana/Latina academic organization. It has convened annual conferences and publishes a working paper series and most recently a journal, Chi- cana Critical Issues. MALCS has also served as an important femi- nist mentoring network for faculty, staff, graduate students, and undergraduates.

"A leadership that empowers others" continues to the present. Student activism has translated into community activism. In southern California alone, many women exemplify the credo of giv- ing back to your community. Judy Baca is an internationally re- nowned muralist whose work brings Chicano history to life. Maria Elena Durazo is the current president of the Hotel Workers' Union in Los Angeles and Gloria Romero, an associate professor at Cal State Los Angeles, spearheaded a campaign for citizen review of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. She was recently elected as

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a trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District. A blowout activist in 1968, Vicky Castro now serves on the Los An- geles County School Board and attorney Antonia Hernandez heads the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), arguably the most influential civil rights organization west of the Missis- sippi. Furthermore, Gloria Molina is the first Latina elected to the LA County Board of Supervisors.

But if the list of Chicana activists goes on across the West and Midwest, so do the battles for respect, recognition, and justice. In 1989, the UCLA Film and Television Department funded and screened a student film entitled "Animal Attraction" that depicted a "Mexicana/Chicana having sexual intercourse with a donkey." When Professor Gloria Romero and her friends voiced their objec- tions at the screening, the film students booed them and one poured wine all over Romero. The campus police arrived—to arrest Romero. The southern California MALCS chapter staged a protest and in a letter to the chair of film and television, the mujeres de- manded an investigation into the procedures through which such a film was funded; to match the funds given to the production with a grant to MALCS for its summer institute to be held at UCLA the following year; to support "a collaborate relationship" with the Chicano Research Center; and to admit more Chicanas in- to the film and television graduate program. MALCS also called for the creation of a Chicano Studies Department with a strong Chicana/Latina research component.97 Addressing the depart- ment's Euro-American woman chair, they ended their letter as follows:

Our voice is one which is frequently excluded through various discursive practices which honor a male/centered vision and pol- icy, be it Anglo or Chicano. We hope you respond to our requests given that you refused to speak to our chapter representative yes- terday. . . . We are the daughters of Guadalupe, Tenepal, and Adelita. We are the active women (professors, staff and students) for social change. We demand action now!98

Such language resonates with the rhetoric of the Chicano Move- ment and summarizes the importance of reclaiming a distinctly Chicana heritage, of linking the past with the present.

The last three decades have witnessed the emergence of dis- tinct Chicana feminist identities: collectively and individually. The

La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement •$ 125 £

road has not been easy. As scholar/activist Teresa Cordova has so eloquently stated, "Chicana feminists have struggled to find their voices—have struggled to be heard. Our struggle continues, but our silence is forever broken."99

Chicanas share a topography of multiple identities, and defini- tions of Chicana feminism remain contested. Instead of feminism per se, Ana Castillo calls for a mestiza consciousness or Xicanisma, an uncompromising commitment to social justice rooted in a woman-centered, indigenous past. Again with her global vision, An- zaldiia's construction of "the new mestiza" encompasses all women of color. In the preface to Making Face, Making Soul, she holds out a message of hope. "We are continuing in the direction of honoring others' ways, of sharing knowledge and personal power through writing (art) and activism, of injecting into our cultures new ways, feminist ways, mestiza ways."100

Bringing to their sociological study of Chicana feminism their experiences as student and community organizers, Beatriz Pes- quera and Denise Segura divide Chicana feminists on college campuses during the 1980s into three distinct categories: Chicana Liberal Feminist, Cultural Nationalist Feminist, and Chicana In- surgent Feminist. "Chicana liberal feminism centers on women's desire to enhance the well-being of the Chicano community, with a special emphasis on improving the status of women." Cultural na- tionalists continue to see their lives as part of "the great family of Chicanos" or a feminism defined within traditional familial norms. Insurgent feminists take the intersections of race, class, gender, and power into consideration.101 As one of their informants so co- gently related:

Chicana feminism means the struggle to obtain self-determina- tion for all Chicanas, in particular that Chicanas can choose their own life course without contending with the pressure of racism, sexism, and poverty. It means working to overcome oppression, institutional and individual. Chicana feminism is much more than the slogan: "the personal is political"; it represents a collec- tive effort for dignity and respect.102

Chicana feminism also represents a commitment to commu- nity. "Feminism is necessary for liberation," Tejana historian Cyn- thia Orozco has so powerfully stated. "We must move beyond the barriers that the university seeks to maintain between a privileged

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sector and the mass of exploited and oppressed Mexicans. Sexism has no geographical barriers . . . nor should feminism stay in the college setting. Feminism belongs in the community." In the words of Gloria Anzaldua, "Basta de gritar contra el viento—toda palabra es ruido si no esta acompanada de accion" ["Enough shouting against the wind—all words are noise if not accompanied with ac- tion"].103

Figure 27 For over seventy years, Jesusita Torres (left) tilled a livelihood as a farm and nursery worker in southern California. Courtesy of Jesusita Torres.

Figure 28 Pecan shellers of San Antonio, Texas, 1938. The young woman standing in the polka-dot dress, Annie Perez, is the mother-in-law of former mayor of San Antonio and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. Courtesy of Mary Alice Cisneros.

Figure 29 Women cannery workers at the California Sanitary Canning Com- pany, 1936. Courtesy of Carmen Bernal Escobar.

Figure 30 UCAPAWA Local No. 3 negotiating committee, including Luisa Moreno (far left in plaid coat) and Carmen Bernal Escobar (third from left with hands around her child), 1943. Courtesy of Car- men Bernal Escobar.

figure 31 The iconographies of a romantic Spanish past captured the imagination of affluent Anglos and Hispanos alike. The woman standing to the left in the nifty hat is New Mexico State Representa- tive Concha Ortiz y Pino. Courtesy of New Mexico Cuarto Centennial Commission Collection, Photographer Harold D. Walter, The Center for Southwest Research, General Library, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, Neg. no. 000-048-0092.

LUISA MORENO

Figure 32 This section of Judy Baca's sweeping mural "The Great Wall of Los Angeles" honors the legacy of Luisa Moreno. When I gave Luisa this photo- graph, she seemed quite pleased with the artist's darkened rendition of her giaera (light-hued) complexion. Courtesy of Judy Baca and Social and Public Art Re- source Center.

Figure 33 A night on the town for civil rights advocate Josefina Fierro de Bright and

her Hollywood screenwriter husband John Bright. Cour-

tesy of Mytyl Glomboske.

Figure 34 Picketing and knitting: The real women of "Salt of the Earth." Em- pire Zinc Mining Strike, 1951. Courtesy of the Los Mineros Photograph Collec- tion and Clint Jencks Papers, Chicano Research Collection, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Figure 35 Children at the line, Empire Zinc Mining Strike, 1951. Courtesy of the Los Mineros Photograph Collection and Clint Jencks Papers, Chicano Re- search Collection, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Figure 36 Defiant in the face of shotguns and billy clubs, Elvira Molano, co- chair of the union negotiating committee, was dubbed "the most arrested woman" during the Empire Zinc Mining Strike, 1951. Courtesy of the Los Min- eros Photograph Collection and Clint Jencks Papers, Chicano Research Collec- tion, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University, Tempe.

Figure 37 A child beside an outhouse, 1949. Such condi-

tions spurred the growth of Mexican-American civil rights organizations after World War

II. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The

Center for American History, The University of Texas at

Austin, Neg. no. AD 19- 13198.

Figure 38 Children attending a segregated school in San Angelo, Texas, 1949. Courtesy of Lee (Russell) Photograph Collection, The Center for American His- tory, The University of Texas at Austin, Neg. no. 14233-27.

Figure 39 Migrant elementary school student, 1963. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Department.

Figure 40 Primarily a middle- class organization, the League

of United Latin American Citi- zens (LULAC) has for over

seventy years resisted discrimi- nation in education, employ-

ment, and housing while hold- ing fast to aspirations of the

American Dream. Courtesy of the Mexican American Collec-

tion, Chicano Research Col- lection, Department of

Archives and Manuscripts, Arizona State University,

Tempe.

Figure 41 Migrant farm worker children, Colorado, ca. 1968. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Department.

Figure 42 Embracing cultural nationalism, Chicano students sought to reclaim a glorious Aztec past. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Department.

Figure 43 Students represented the vanguard of the Chicano Movement: Mex- ican Independence Day March, Denver. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Department.

^ Figure 44 Chicanos at the University of Colorado listen to a young lawyer named Frederico Perm. Courtesy of Juan Espinosa and the Colorado Historical Society, Denver.

Figure 45 Children of CASA line up to march. Historian Marisela Chavez, pic- tured in pigtails, stands in the second row. Courtesy of Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

Bridging the academy and the community—Chicana femi- nist scholars/activists.

Figure 46 Gloria Romero, 1992. Courtesy of The Clare- mont Graduate School.

Figure 47 Mary Pardo, 1992. Courtesy of The Claremont

Graduate School.

Figure 48 Returning to the community with your education was the informal credo of the Chicano Movement. Standing in front of the Stanford University chapel are the 1988 coordinators of the Latino Leadership Opportunity Pro- gram which encouraged undergraduates to consider careers in public affairs. Courtesy of Victor Becerra who stands at the far right, middle row.

Figure 49 Jesusita Torres in the yard of the home she bought for seventeen dol- lars during the Depression. Personal collection of the author.

6 Claiming Public

Space

^aSfe"iW^

DURING the second week of May 1972, Elsa Chavez, a twenty-six- year-old El Paso garment worker, left her post at the Paisano plant of Farah Manufacturing. Joining 4,000 Farah employees in El Paso, San Antonio, Victoria, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, Chavez became part of a twenty-two month strike for seniority rights, higher wages, pension issues, and union recognition. Man- agement's manipulation of production quotas sparked the most in- dignation among Mexican women who formed the backbone of Farah's line personnel. Chavez's anger is easy to understand. Imag- ine that you have been hired to sew belts onto slacks. To get a raise, you must meet a quota of 3,000 belts per day, which translates into sewing six belts per minute. Forget your lunch hour, for if you fall too far behind in fulfilling your quota, you will be fired. As a "checker" of freshly sewn garments, Chavez felt fortunate in that she did not have to meet a quota; yet she understood the situation of the seamstresses with whom she worked. "Some of my fellow workers . . . were very nervous because they were always told, 'Hurry up'. .. 'You're going to be fired.'There was so much pressure that they started fighting for the bundles." Although Chavez per- ceived herself as earning good money and facing little personal ha- rassment, she too walked out.1

Successful union organization depends, in large measure, on a sense of solidarity and community among workers. Effective polit-

127

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ical and community action requires the intertwining of individual subjectivities within collective goals. Claiming public space can in- volve fragile alliances and enduring symbols, rooted in material re- alities and ethereal visions. On a situational, grass-roots level, in- formal and formal voluntary organizations do serve as conduits for women's collective identity and empowerment. For the Mexican women whose voices foreground this study, the individual bonds formed at work, at church, or in the neighborhood reflect a mosaic of subjectivities, strategies, and goals but remain rooted in collec- tive struggles for recognition and respect.

Gender and social justice—doesn't that equal feminist con- sciousness? As contemporary Mexican women know all too well, it depends on whose feminism and whose context. As one Farah striker bluntly stated, "I don't believe in burning your bra, but I do believe in having our rights."2 Mediated by gender, race, cul- ture, and class, activism transforms individual conceptions of self, changes that alter people's lives with subtlety or drama. Labor dis- putes raise the stakes in the precarious politics of work and family. Drawing on the insightful scholarship of Laurie Coyle, Gail Her- shatter, and Emily Honig, on union pamphlets and newsletters, on local media coverage, and on oral history, an examination of the Farah strike provides a powerful case of community building through union organization.

When she joined her striking co-workers, Elsa Chavez had lit- tle inkling of the struggles that lay ahead. Farah Manufacturing was the largest private employer in El Paso; its chief executive offi- cer Willie Farah had a reputation as a patriotic, civic-minded busi- ness leader; and labor activism found few friends in a conservative border city notorious as a "minimum wage town."3 Indeed, the May 1972 walkout was not the culmination of an overnight organizing drive by representatives of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers (ACW), but the result of a protracted campaign begun in 1969. Events on the picket lines outside the El Paso plants quickly con- vinced the ACW that the strike could not be won within the city limits. Willie Farah responded with armed security guards walking with unmuzzled police dogs and he obtained a court order uphold- ing an 1880 law stipulating that pickets must stand at least fifty feet apart. From 800 to 1,000 people, many of them women, were arrested, some during midnight raids at their residences. Instead of the usual $25 bail set for misdemeanor offenses, those arrested during the Farah strike were required to post a $400 bond.4

Within a few months, the 1880 picketing law was declared un-

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constitutional and Farah was ordered to "call off" the dogs and de- sist from interfering with peaceful picketing. Farah decided to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but in August Justice Lewis Powell ruled against him by affirming the decisions of the lower court. At the same time the National Labor Relations Board char- ged Farah with unfair practices with regard to intimidation and ha- rassment.5

But if Willie Farah found little solace outside his native El Paso, he found plenty of local support. Both El Paso dailies offered him a friendly hearing. And when El Paso's Catholic bishop Sidney Met- zger openly supported the strikers, an area Protestant minister Paul Poling wrote a highly charged anti-union pamphlet endorsed by thirteen other clergy. Yet, despite being insulted at street corners where they picketed department stores, in their neighborhoods, and in letters to the editor, the Farah strikers continued their vigil.6

As one El Paso activist reflected, "We thought when we went out on strike that our only enemy was Farah . . . but we found out it was also the press, the police, the businessmen. . . . This strike was not just for union recognition."7 The Farah strike distilled the racial and class cleavages within El Paso, cleavages evident in both the daily lives of the strikers and the opinion sections of local news- papers. Letters to the editor typically chastised the Farah strikers for their ingratitude, ignorance, and gullibility to outside agitators. Or as one retired El Paso retail saleswoman (F.T.T.) wrote,

Mr. Farah did not invite one of the people who are working for him to come and work for him. They all asked for a job and should thank God that they got one. If they think they are such hot stuff and qualified for a better job then why don't they quietly fold their tents and leave? . . . The Farah family has worked hard for what they have and no-one has the moral right to harm them. I would like to give my boot—and you know where—to those picking [sic] in front of The Popular."8

Although their letters appeared less frequently than those of their opponents, strikers and their supporters responded in kind, and the editorial pages impart a sense of the polarity of opinions surround- ing the "morality" of the Farah dispute. In a spirited letter critical of media coverage, Irma Camacho wrote, "The Farah struggle, since its conception was a moral fight for human dignity, since then through the use of your newspaper, the controlling 'powers that be' have stolen what objectivity there could exist and have subjectively used the facts to place economic value over human rights."9

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Realizing that "the strike won't be won in El Paso," the Amal- gamated Clothing Workers called for a national boycott of Farah suits and slacks.10 Supported by AFL-CIO unions, campus ac- tivists, celebrities, and liberal politicians, Citizens Committees for Justice for Farah Workers sprung up in cities from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic seaboard. In addition to holding fundraisers, these groups organized picket lines in front of department stores that car- ried Farah products and during "Don't Buy Farah Day" on Decem- ber 11, 1972, an estimated 175,000 people, predominately AFL- CIO members, held rallies and parades across the country. United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez visited the workers as did Sergeant Shriver, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee of 1972. The Farah strikers also listened as U.S. Representative Ed- ward Roybal from California spoke of his youth as a garment presser and ACW member. Support even crossed party lines with Nelson Rockefeller's public endorsement.11

The national boycott slowly began to have its desired effect. Sales declined from $150 million in 1972 to $126 million in 1974. As an article in Texas Monthly revealed, some retailers gladly took Farah slacks off their racks not in response to pickets but in retali- ation for Willie Farah's "high-handed methods of doing business."12

While the boycott undoubtedly contributed to bringing Farah to the bargaining table in March 1974, the dedication of the Mexi- canas holding the line cannot be underestimated.

As weeks turned into months, the Farah picketers turned to one another for support, friendship, advice, and action. Critical of ACW support in El Paso, one group of women formed a rank-and- file committee within the union. According to Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, the "members . . . shared a strong sense of themselves as workers and a desire to build a strong and democratic trade union." The women "put out their own leaflets, participated in marches and rallies, helped to found the Farah Distress Fund, and talked to other strikers about the need for a strong union." This caucus continued its work after the strike's successful settlement under the name Unidad Para Siempre.13

The strike, however, divided friends and families since a little less than one-half of the original workforce had walked out. Elsa Chavez recalled how this schism affected her personally.

I had a fiance there—we were going to get married, but he was from the inside, I was from the outside. So we broke up because

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he didn't want anything to do with the strikers. After the strike, he came back and (then) I told him "good-bye."14

Chavez continued, "But you wouldn't believe the number of di- vorces caused by the strike. A lot of couples broke up either the wife was inside and the husband was outside or the other way around."15

As amply documented in "Women at Farah," tensions among kin and friends took its toll and, as the strike wore on, financial pressures mounted. Many families lost their homes, automobiles, and other possessions. Although the union had an emergency strike fund and distributed groceries and clothing, many Farah ac- tivists found themselves in severe economic straits. One woman explained, "A lot of people lost their homes, cars—you name it, they lost it." Such circumstances fueled marital tensions, but 85 percent of the strikers were women and they sought ways to bal- ance picket and family duties.16

Children taking their place on the picket line occurred throughout modern Chicano labor history, as early as the 1930s. As an example, during the 1933 Los Angeles Dressmakers Strike, IL- GWU representative Rose Pesotta organized 300 children in cos- tume for an impromptu Halloween parade in front of the factories where their mothers were picketing.17 While perhaps mothers ini- tially brought their children to the line because they had little choice, the youngsters began to prove themselves useful in distrib- uting leaflets outside stores. Adults were less likely to make abusive comments toward a child.18 In the words of Farah activist Julia Aguilar, "Now, we just bring our children to our meetings, and we bring them to the picket lines. Sometimes they ask, 'Are we going to the picket line today, mommy?'" Aguilar continued, "It's kind of hard with kids. But I'm willing to sacrifice myself and I think my husband is beginning to understand."19

The settlement of the Farah Strike in March 1974 had, for many women, come at great personal cost. Few activists would en- joy the benefits since many of the most vocal were fired after a few months, ostensibly for failing to meet inflated production quotas; union representatives blithely refused to generate any grievance procedures to protect and retain these women.20 Mexican women have not fared well in their affiliation with mainstream labor unions even though they have contributed much of the people power, perseverance, and activism necessary for successful organi-

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zation. As in the case of Farah, they typically have been denied any meaningful voice in the affairs of the local they had labored so valiantly to build.

Yet the Farah strikers had created community with one another and asserted their claims for social justice. As Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig wrote, "The Chicanas who comprise the majority of the strikers learned that they could speak and act on their own behalf as women and as workers, lessons they will not forget."21 Elsa Chavez represents one of the women activists who have sought to merge personal and community empowerment. After she was fired, Chavez began to work at another clothing factory, but came to the realization that she wanted—and could achieve—a college ed- ucation. I first met Ms. Chavez when she was a student in my Chi- cano history class at U.T. El Paso; two former strikers had enrolled in the class, a fact I discovered as I lectured on the Farah strike and noticed the two reentry women, both bilingual education ma- jors, sitting in the front row winking and giggling to each other. "Oh, we're sorry, Dr. Ruiz, but we were there." A bit nonplussed, I turned the class over to them. Elsa Chavez dreamed of opening up "a school for slow learners" and had begun to organize a group of Mexican-American women in her education classes for this school.22

Labor struggles can also be centered around the involvement of the entire family. The United Farm Workers provides the most well- known example. Drawing on his experience with the Community Service Organization (CSO), Cesar Chavez in 1962 began to orga- nize farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley. During the grape boy- cotts of the late 1960s and 1970s, Chavez and his United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (later the UFW) utilized tactics, such as the secondary boycott, national support committees, and identification with the Catholic Church. A charismatic leader preaching social justice and nonviolence, Chavez became the most prominent advocate for the rights of Mexicans in the United States. By 1973, the UFW "had contracts with 80% of the grape growers in the San Joaquin Valley" and "at its height the union had 100,000 members."23

UFW organizers, many of whom grew up as farm workers themselves, recognized that the family formed the unit of produc- tion in agriculture and consequently focused on the involvement of every family member. Referring to campesinas, Chavez related, "We can't be free ourselves if we can't free our women."24 Signing union membership cards has always been a monumental decision

Claiming Public Space % 133 $-

for most farm workers because they risk not one job, but the live- lihood of the entire family. While the husband might be the first to sign the card, he often does so at the insistence of his wife. Former UFW legal department volunteer Graciela Martinez Mor- eno explained:

At the beginning, women were more afraid of the union. But once they got the information about the benefits their children would receive, the women became good supporters. The biggest prob- lem was getting through the initial fear, but if you got to the wife, the husband was sure to follow. The quiet, subtle pressure of the wife was very effective.25

But there is more to the story than this, for Mexican women have been well represented at the leadership and service levels of the United Farm Workers. Women, to a large extent, operate the service centers, health clinics, day nurseries, and legal depart- ments.26 Founding the first UFW Service Center in the Midwest in concert with her husband, Maria Elena Lucas offered a realistic portrayal of exhaustion. "And I worked such long hours, during the nights and on the weekends ... but I just didn't know how to say no to people. I got very skinny. Sometimes I'd have thirteen or four- teen people waiting for me to do different things for them. It was just impossible." She continued, "Cesar had told me, 'It's not good to play Santa Claus to the people. It'll be neverending.' and I started getting to the point where I understood . . . I was burning out."27

Frustrated by the UFW's reluctance to organize migrant labor- ers in Illinois and exhausted from her job as a union social worker, Lucas became an organizer in 1985 with the Farm Labor Organiz- ing Committee (FLOC) led by Baldemar Velasquez. Joined by four of her compaiieras, including her own daughter, and their children (Gloria Chiquita had six kids), Lucas helped organize over 5,000 Midwestern farm workers and orchestrated a successful union election and contract. Maria Elena Lucas and her friend Gloria Chiquita both became vice-presidents in the FLOC, although Lu- cas expressed a feeling of powerlessness with regard to decision- making within the union board. She also recognized the difference in support systems between men and women organizers. Referring to men, she remarked, "They have the support of their wives and families, but most of us women have to work against our husbands and all of the services they expect."28

Fran Leeper Buss's oral history of Maria Elena Lucas, Forged

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Under the Sun/Forjada bajo el sol provides the most nuanced por- trait of a woman rank-and-file organizer. What emerges most viv- idly from Buss's skillful editing of Lucas's life story is the strength and comfort migrant women find in their friendships with one an- other. Lucas gives unvarnished testimony to the oppression and abuse women face in the fields and at times in the home and the union hall.29

In her pathbreaking dissertation, "Women in the United Farm Workers," Margaret Rose documents women's networks in the campesino centers, ranch committees, and boycott campaigns. Rose divides UFW women into two typologies—"nontraditional" (UFW vice-president Dolores Huerta) and "traditional" (Helen Chavez, Cesar's widow). Although Rose portrays Huerta as some- one fitting her union nickname of "Adelita" (the symbolic soldadera of the Mexican Revolution), she notes how even the "nontradi- tional" Huerta relied on extended kin and women friends in the union (the "union family") to care for her eleven children during her frequent absences. Although criticized for putting la causa first, Dolores Huerta has had few regrets. As she informed Rose, "But now that I've seen how good they [my children] turned out, I don't feel so guilty."30

Dolores Huerta is a fearless fighter for social justice. In 1962, she taught school in Stockton, California while being a political ac- tivist with the CSO and a mother of six with a seventh on the way. "When I left my teaching job to go start organizing farm workers, a lot of people thought I had just gone completely bananas."31 A tough, savvy negotiator, Huerta skillfully manipulated her position- ality as a mother at the bargaining table.

When I had my younger children and I was still negotiating, I would take nursing breaks . . . everybody would have to wait while the baby ate. Then I would come back to the table and start ne- gotiating again . . .

I think it made employers sensitive to the fact that when we're talking about benefits and the terms of a contract, we're talking about families and we're talking about children.32

Although they contributed in different ways, Dolores Huerta, more public, and Helen Chavez, more private, there was no sepa- ration of home and union. For Helen Chavez, the UFW became an extension of her familial responsibilities. She worked in the fields while her husband organized, took care of the children and house-

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hold, and participated in the social service end of the union. In a rare interview, Helen Chavez offered a glimpse of daily family life: "I hadn't worked for a while, because at the time of the year you could only pick up a day's or a week's worth of work. . . . You just made a few hampers [of peas] and that was it."33 She further re- called winning a supermarket contest:

Everytime you went to Safeway, they would give you a little coupon. . . . Everytime we went to the store we saved these. . . . So when we got one of those little tags, I told the checker, "This is going to be my winner," and he laughed. I was just joking with him. I gave the tag to the kids . . . I think it was one of the girls who put saliva on it, and came in yelling, "Mom, Mom, you got the flag! You won!" . . . I rushed back to Safeway. I was really ex- cited. I had won $100 and, oh boy, what a lot of food for the kids! After I got my check, I told Cesar, "Look, we can get some things." And he said, "I'm sorry, but this going to our gas bill." He said he was about to lose his gasoline credit card because he owed $180. I was so disappointed, I sat and cried. I made so many plans for that $ 100!34

As the union grew, Helen Chavez left the fields and became the manager of the credit union. Her integration of family, work, and activism exemplifies the "political familialism" described by sociol- ogist Marine Baca Zinn. Many women, like Helen Chavez, pre- ferred to work behind the scenes and, as Margaret Rose remarked, "Their contribution remains vital, but largely unrecognized."35

As Barbara Kingsolver's Holding the Line demonstrates, dis- tinctions between traditional/nontraditional, striker/supporter, and Mexican/Euro-American can become blurred. Her study of the 1983 Phelps Dodge copper strike in Arizona pivots on workers' identities as longtime residents of the mining towns of Clifton and Morenci. There existed a mingling of families—Euro-American, Mexican, and Euro-American/Mexican—whose genealogies were as part of the mines as the shafts. While not to minimize the his- torical legacies of ethnic tension, the strikers of 1983 perceived themselves more along the lines of a class-based mining commu- nity. Arizona copper miners had long history of labor activism and, after World War II, viable union representation. According to King- solver, the women "had grown up with the union, a tool as familiar to them as a can opener or a stove."36 Yet she also argues that al- though these women had knowledge of and some direct experience in labor disputes and a few had worked in the mines themselves,

-31 136 $- From Out of the Shadows

this strike changed their consciousness. Although they faced tear gas, arrests, and grave financial hardships, these women blocked traffic, took charge of the picket lines, and organized mass demon- strations. They kept their vigil for months. One law enforcement officer disingenuously remarked, "If we could just get rid of those broads, we'd have it made." Furthermore, many had gone to work for the first time and recorded feeling confident and independent as the result of outside employment. "I think there are a lot of fem- inists around here," Jessie Tellez informed Kingsolver. "There are some strong women here who won't ever go back to the way things were."37 Cleo Robeledo put it this way, "Before, I was just a house- wife. Now I am a partner." In Changing Woman, historian Karen Anderson argues that these small-town Arizona women acted out of an "attachment to their community" and "used the managerial and interpersonal skills they had developed as homemakers in order to organize . . . and mediate." Reminiscent of the shift in conscious- ness among the miners' wives of Salt of the Earth, this strike stands as another example of the fusion of the private and public spheres for collective goals. However, as both Rudy Acuna and Karen An- derson have pointed out, the strike did not have a rosy ending. The NLRB ordered an election in which only the scabs could vote and the union was decertified.38

Wages, benefits, safer working conditions, seniority, and union recognition are not the only reasons women will go out on strike. Regarding women's labor activism, modes of consumption can be as important as modes of production. In 1973, Tejana pecan shel- ters employed by McCrea and Son in Yancy, Texas, went out on strike for equal pay for equal work and for more sanitary condi- tions, but also because they resented "being coerced into buying 'Avon' products from the employer's wife."39 Activism among Mexi- can women workers takes many forms, and the contours of their in- dividual and collective agency shift in response to work environ- ment, familial roles, and personal subjectivities.

In analyzing the rich history of labor activism among Mexican women in the United States, the transformation of women's con- sciousness, whether explicitly "feminist" or not, must be problema- tized through the shifting interplay of gender, race, class, culture, generation, and region. It is easier to celebrate the ways in which Mexican women have exercised control over their work lives than to examine the costs involved. In Women's Work and Chicano Fam- ilies, anthropologist Patricia Zavella reveals the intricate sets of negotiations, networks, and decisions made by Mexican cannery

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workers in the Santa Clara Valley as they strived to build a rank- and-file caucus within the Teamsters' Union. Constructing a lucid, engaging narrative, she brings out the patriarchal infrastructures as well as attitudes on three levels—on the shop floor, in the union hall, and at home.40 Zavella recognizes that neither family, neigh- borhood, the ethnic/racial community, nor union membership guarantees a comfortable "community."

In Sunbelt Working Mothers, Zavella, with co-authors Louise Lamphere, Felipe Gonzales, and Peter Evans, continues this dis- cussion of work, family, and unions, with an emphasis on women's multiple networks. Focusing on "Hispana" and Euro-American factory workers in Albuquerque, the authors accentuate the im- portance of class and social location in building networks. "Our ap- proach to ethnic and racial difference," they write, "focuses on be- havioral strategies in response to material conditions, rather than exclusively on a cultural construction of ethnic identity."41 How- ever, these authors, among others, note that in the 1980s and 1990s, the transformation of women's work networks into effective union representation seems more elusive than ever. In recent years, runaway shops, anti-labor campaigns, and high-priced union-bust- ing consultants, participative management styles, police harass- ment, mechanization, unemployment, and even the NLRB have stymied labor activism.42

While labor organizing, in general, has waned, union cam- paigns among service workers in Los Angeles show a remarkable vi- tality in building communities of resistance. Both "Justice for Jani- tors" (affiliated with the Service Employees International Union) and the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 11, demon- strate the power of grass-roots organizing among the most politi- cally and economically vulnerable sectors of the labor force—cus- todians, housekeepers, and food service workers, many of whom are undocumented Latino and Latina immigrants. In Los Angeles, those without union representation earn from $4.25 to $5.35 per hour—wages low enough for citizens "to qualify for food stamps."43

Local 11 's president Maria Elena Durazo is a college-educated Chi- cana for whom the idea of "going back to your community with your education" (a predominant theme of the Chicano Student Movement) was never empty rhetoric. Referring to immigrants as "the future of LA," Durazo eloquently stated, "I hope people will see unions as a tool for change and I hope we in the unions can re- spond to the challenge."44

With drive and conviction, Durazo leads a union that cannot be

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ignored. According to scholar/activist Mike Davis, Local 11 re- writes the book when it comes to organizing. "There will be no for- mal strike nor stationary picket line. . . . Across the city there will be leafletting, human billboards, flying pickets, delegations to city officials, and inevitably mass civil disobedience." Seeking a living wage, the members of Local 11 "speak of building not just a union, but a social movement like those of the 1930s and 1960s."45

As a labor historian, I will try to resist the temptation of privi- leging the workplace as the locus for claiming public space. Mexi- can women have relied on others as well, including, historically, the Roman Catholic Church. In Hoyt Street, her autobiography of growing up in Pacoima, Mary Helen Ponce portrays the local parish as the heart of her neighborhood in which time is recorded accord- ing to holidays and sacraments. In the barrios of the Southwest, Mexican women have been the stalwart volunteers for church fundraisers. Atjamaicas, they sell tamales and cascarones, operate the cake walk, serve punch, organize the raffle, and help aspiring young anglers at the "go fish" booth. As feminist theologian Yolanda Tarango has argued, church activities were for many Latinas "the only arena in which they could legitimately, if indirectly, engage in developing themselves."46

Over the last twenty-five years, the Catholic Church, as both an institutional funding source (e.g., the Campaign for Human De- velopment) and as community centers, began to support grass- roots organizing campaigns among Mexican Americans. The most well known is the Alinsky-based Communities Organized for Pub- lic Service (COPS) in San Antonio, Texas. In 1973, with the sup- port of local parishes, especially parish women, Ernie Cortes, Jr., began to organize neighbor by neighbor in San Antonio's Westside. He asked residents about their needs and concerns. This grass- roots approach has permeated the infrastructure of COPS, with leadership emerging from local networks. Women's voluntary par- ish labor now became channeled for civic improvement and, in- deed, several Tejanas have been elected president of the organiza- tion.47

Drainage problems and unpaved streets became their first or- der of business. Heavy rains made "peanut butter" of Westside roads; along with mud gushing into area homes and businesses, at times children died in "flash floods on their way to and from school."48 Calling a public meeting with the city manager at the lo- cal high school in August 1974, COPS representatives caught him off guard with their numbers (over 500 people attended), their re-

Claiming Public Space % 139 ft

search, and their polite, yet firm queries. As former COPS presi- dent Beatrice Gallegos stated, "I sir'ed him to death." Through the use of demonstrations, political mobilization, research, and negoti- ation, COPS has significantly improved the material conditions of Westside and Southside neighborhoods. Focusing on municipal is- sues and boards, members of the twenty-five chapters of COPS en- sure that developers, planners, school administrators, city officials, and Northside politicians do not ride roughshod over their com- munities. COPS has decisively influenced the distribution of Com- munity Development Block Grants (CDBG) with "56 percent of the CDBG money allotted to San Antonio has gone to COPS-en- dorsed projects." They have also been active in local utility and en- vironmental issues and opposed the funneling of over one million dollars of federal urban renewal funds into a suburban country club. COPS also engaged in voter registration drives and, while not endorsing candidates, its members closely monitored the positions taken by local politicians.49

The film Adelante Mujeres credits COPS with the 1981 elec- tion of Henry Cisneros as mayor of San Antonio, the first Tejano to hold the position since Juan Seguin in 1841. Yet the connection is not as clear as it may first appear. COPS may have generated a level of political consciousness or civic engagement among Mexican Americans; Cisneros, who had significant crossover appeal among Euro-Americans, may have reaped the benefits of this heightened politicization.50

Unlike other community-based organizations in which leverage seems to rise and ebb, COPS is a respected grass-roots confedera- tion with considerable municipal power. Scholars with divergent political perspectives have also recognized its importance as a model for community empowerment. Political scientist Peter Skerry praises COPS for the deftness with which the organization currently deals with development issues—relying on negotiation rather than confrontation. In defending Alinsky-style groups, such as COPS, from leftist criticism, historian/activist Rudy Acuna notes that without these groups "Many middle-class and poor Lati- nos would not be involved in social change programs." Or as polit- ical scientist Joseph Sekul put it, "COPS has taken giant steps to- ward raising the quality of life in older neighborhoods, some of which may now become places where people can stay if they choose, rather than leave because they must."51

Along with issues of family and neighborhood, COPS has cul- tivated the leadership of women. In the words of former COPS

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president Beatrice Cortez, "Women have community ties. We knew that to make things happen in the community, you have to talk to people. It was a matter of tapping our networks."52 Unfortunately, Peter Skerry fails to appreciate the importance of women's civic la- bor as he impugns weakness in leadership to the organization's re- liance on "housewives." Referring to what he considers "the au- thoritative role of organizers," he writes:

Because organizers expend considerable time . . . working with them, leaders tend to find their involvement . . . quite stimulat- ing. Unaccustomed to the sort of attention they receive, leaders typically experience marked personal growth. . . . But at the same time, these leaders . . . must be willing to put up with the orga- nizers' demanding, sometimes harsh treatment. . . . For those who have a lot to learn, the bargain may seem a reasonable one. But for those with broader horizons and opportunities, it may not. As a result, the leaders . . . have been, with few exceptions, working-and lower-middle-class Mexican-American housewives with limited career prospects. These organizations have a much tougher time attracting college-educated Mexican Americans, es- pecially well-educated men.53

Such condescension hardly merits elaboration. Skerry misses the significance of Mexican women's histories of community respon- sibility, education, and action. Or as Ernie Cortes simply stated, "COPS is like a university where people come to learn about pub- lic policy, public discourse, and public life."54

Feminist historian Sara Evans contextualizes Tejana participa- tion in COPS within U.S. women's history. Bridging the public and private spheres, Evans argues that "women created a new public terrain through voluntary associations that became areas where cit- izenship could take on continuing and vital meanings, personal problems could be translated into social concerns, and democratic experiments could flourish."55 While I agree with this supposition, I would also hasten to add that Mexican women's civic labor is nei- ther recent in nature nor emulative in content. Examples of such activism can be located throughout the history of Mexican women in the United States. Muttialistas, like La Asociacion Hispano- Americana; parish organizations, such as Hijas de Maria; middle- class auxiliaries, like the "ladies" of LULAC; and labor unions, such as UCAPAWA, provide strong evidence of women claiming public space for their community, their kin, and themselves.

With COPS as the model, similar organizations have emerged

Claiming Public Space % 141 ^

throughout the Southwest. Although beyond the scope of this study, Los Angeles alone has at least three recognized and vital Alinsky-style community confederations: United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), South Central Organizing Committee (SC- OC), and East Valleys Organization (EVO).56 Recently, members of SCOC tried to get Food 4 Less to build on a neighborhood lot owned by the discount grocery firm and the Community Redevel- opment Agency. In the words of activist Orinio Ospinaldo,

But having seen no progress at the Vermont site for many years, we were forced to take a dramatic step. . . . SCOC launched an "action" against Food 4 Less. We 65 adults and children went by bus to the Claremont [an upscale college community] office of Food 4 Less' chairman, Ron Berkel. His office was closed, so we distributed flyers outside. The leaflets compared the price of his home to the price of opening a new grocery store.57

Such direct action brought Berkel to meetings with the SCOC and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and, according to Ospinaldo, "Suddenly, things look promising." A single parent of three, Os- pinaldo linked both family and community in the following re- marks. "No matter where you live, that's your community and you have to fight to claim it. ... But don't do it alone. You need the strength of people . . . [united] for a common good." He continued, "Second, try to involve your children. I've found an activity that is fulfilling and that acts as an example for my children."58 Despite these articulated goals, the regional Catholic hierarchy has not al- ways supported Latino and Latino/African-American community endeavors even when initiated by members of its own religious or- ders. Calpulli in San Bernardino provides such an example.

For over twenty years, Sister Rosa Marta Zarate and Father Patricio Guillen have pursued a vision of a dynamic mesitizaje of Latin American theology, Mesoamerican traditions, and commu- nity development projects. Forming Communidades Ecclesiales de Base (CEBs) in San Bernardino, Ontario, Riverside, San Diego, and the Imperial Valley, calpulli (the Aztec equivalent of neighbor- hood) fosters self-sufficient economic cooperatives. Unlike COPS, which works within the system, CEBs seek to build financially sus- tainable communities outside the arena of municipal politics. In some respects, calpulli represents an indigenous settlement house, offering classes in English, vocational education, and other com- monly defined immigrant services. In addition, it closely resembles economic cooperatives found in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and other

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parts of Latin America. For example, calpulli's projects "include a travel agency, tax and legal counseling, book store, gardening and landscaping service, clothing manufacturing, and food service."59

Scholars Gilbert Cadena and Lara Medina summarize Zarate and Guillen's efforts as follows:

Today, they and a team of lay people successfully apply the tenets of liberation theology by creating a system of profit and non- profit cooperatives employing residents from the local commu- nity. Their goal is to create economically self-sufficient organiza- tions that operate based on the principles of shared profit, shared responsibility, and shared power.60

Calpulli's successes have not gone unnoticed by church offi- cials in Los Angeles. Several have looked askance at what they per- ceive as unorthodox community organizing. Indeed, Sister Rosa Marta Zarate received an ultimatum—return to Mexico or leave her order. She chose calpulli over the convent.

Zarate and Guillen also seek to make connections with south- ern California Native Americans and to educate project members in Mesoamerican history. Sister Rosa Marta Zarate reinterprets Aztec society from popular conceptions of feathered warriors and flamboyant sacrifices to understanding the economic cooperation that girded Aztec neighborhoods as well as an appreciation for their gendered spiritual values (e.g., recognizing Tonantzin, the earth mother). Preserving a historical memory also applies to contempo- rary activism. Calpulli has inaugurated an oral history project among its members.61 El Plan de Action de Calpulli encapsulates its mission as "an organization inspired by the cultures of our peo- ple, our history, our projects, and our destiny." Or as Lara Medina relates, "The underlying theme is living out their faith in a God who wants justice and humanity." She continues, "This faith motivates them to develop projects that will empower the personal and com- munal lives of la gente."62

Contemporary women's activism, however, does not necessarily revolve around the church. The work of sociologist Mary Pardo, for example, clearly delineates the networks of neighborhood organi- zation among Mexican women in East Los Angeles. Founded in 1984, the Mothers of East Los Angeles (MELA) arose out of Res- urrection Parish [no pun intended] to halt the construction of a prison in their community. This group of concerned women at- tracted 3,000 supporters as it staged demonstrations and rallies and engaged in political lobbying. Juana Gutierrez summed up her

Claiming Public Space % 143 $

involvement as follows, "I don't consider myself political. I'm just someone looking out for the community, for the youth . . . on the side of justice."63

State Assemblywoman Gloria Molina fervently supported their cause. She pointed out that the new prison would be built "within a four mile radius" of four correctional facilities and "within two miles" of twenty-six schools. Believing that enough is enough, Mo- lina asked the rhetorical question:

Do you think this could happen to Woodland Hills or Torrance? LA is supposed to have a prison, consequently, our community must bear the burden because we don't have the political strength to oppose it.64

However, the Mothers of East Los Angeles would forge that politi- cal strength.

While Peter Skerry characterized the women as housewives "led by a parish priest," Mary Pardo delineates Mexican wom- en's organizing strategies that evolved independently of the Cath- olic Church. In her dissertation "Identity and Resistance: Mexican American Women and Grassroots Activism in Two Los Angeles Communities," Pardo offers compelling portraits of women as neighborhood activists, women who contextualize their civic labor as an extension of familial responsibilities Although considered as "political novices," the Mothers of East Los Angeles took on Gov- ernor George Deukmejian and the Department of Corrections and won. The prison was never built.65

From almost its inception, the Mothers of East LA have dedi- cated themselves to environmental issues. Their activities have ranged from leading the fight against a proposed incinerator to dis- tributing free toilets to neighborhood residents. MELA has also raised money for scholarships and organized graffiti clean-up teams. The fusion of family and community resonates in the voices of these women. "The mother is the soul of the family; but the child is the heartbeat," Aurora Castillo, one of MELA's founders, ex- plained. "We must fight to keep the heart of our community beat- ing. Not just for our children, but for everyone's children."66 Like Dolores Huerta and the women of the United Farm Workers, the Mothers of East LA have drawn on familial motifs for community and personal empowerment.

Mexican women's community activism is not limited to city streets. In his photojournal, Organizing for Our Lives: New Voices

3 144 fc- From Out of the Shadows

from Rural Communities, Richard Street poignantly documents the struggles of Mexican and Southeast Asian farm workers against toxic waste, pesticides, labor abuses, and discrimination in housing and education. Highlighting the activism among women, Street profiles several grass-roots associations represented by California Rural Legal Assistance. In chronicling organized protests against the building of an incinerator by Chem Waste in Kettleman City, Street photographs a young Mexican girl dressed in her frilly Sun- day best. The Mexicanita is holding a large sign featuring Bart Simpson with the balloon caption, "DON'T HAVE AN INCINERATOR, MAN!"67 This appropriation of an icon of U.S. popular culture rep- resents a bifurcation of consciousness where the boundaries blur to the point that cultural codes converge in this subversion of the image.

In 1988, Mujeres Mexicanas, a campesina organization, was formed in the Coachella Valley. This group has participated in voter registration drives and electoral politics. Richard Street credits its members for the election of three Chicano city council candidates as well as the initiation of AIDS education in the valley. "They pro- vided pamphlets, condoms, and bleach to disinfect needles. No lo- cal government or health agency in Coachella Valley was attempt- ing anything like it."68

Many of the mujeres also belong to the United Farm Workers, in which Millie Trevino-Sauceda has been a rank-and-file orga- nizer. In explaining the mission of Mujeres Mexicanas, Trevino- Sauceda revealed:

Since the beginning we all agreed that our role was to promote the socio-political and psychological empowerment of cam- pesinas. We also agreed that professional women—the ones with college educations—could only be advisors, not active members, because professionals tend to take over the leadership of the group. We wanted campesinas to be in control.69

The testimonies of the campesinas give witness to the power of women's collective action. In the words of Maria "Cuca" Carmona, "We have found our place within our community and even within our homes."70

Sustaining community space can be as important as finding it. For some areas, economic survival is resistance. In northern New Mexico, former SNCC volunteer and Chicano Movement activist Maria Varela has helped create and foster viable economic cooper- atives among impoverished Hispano farmers, shepherds, and weav-

Claiming Public Space -% 145 £-

ers. Los Ganados del Valle, which was founded in 1983, "operates on $150,000 annual budget and has 50 families as members." The cooperatives market yarns, quilts, clothing, and rugs; in 1990 its Tierra Wools subsidiary reached an annual sales of $250,000. Los Ganados del Valle has also organized around local environmental issues with regard to grazing rights. A recipient of a MacArthur Ge- nius Award, Varela astutely contends, "I learned . . . that it is not enough to pray over an injustice or protest it or research it to death, but that you have to take concrete action to solve it."71

"Concrete action" resonates in the voices presented throughout this book. In examining women's activism, I am struck by the threads of continuity, the intertwining of community, family, and self. For some women, their involvement remains couched in fa- milial ideology while others articulate feelings of personal empow- erment or contexualize their actions within a framework of com- munity-based feminism. Whether or not they proclaim feminist identities, their actions privilege collective politics over personal politics. Claiming public space, furthermore, can sustain, not sub- ordinate, women's personal needs. Struggles for social justice can- not be boiled down to a dialectic of accommodation and resistance, but should be placed within the centrifuge of negotiation, subver- sion, and consciousness. Building community is both a legacy and a responsibility. As a storyteller, listener, recorder, and amateur the- orist, I am reminded of a passage in Eudora Welly's Becoming a Writer:

Each of us is moving, changing, and with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most in- tensely do we experience this when our separate journeys con- verge.72

Feminist theorist Chela Sandoval has adroitly distilled "the dif- ferential mode of oppositional consciousness" that underlies "con- crete action." In her words: "The differential mode of oppositional consciousness depends upon the ability to read the current situa- tion of power and of self-consciously choosing and adopting the ideological form best suited to push against its configurations."73 In reflecting on her positionality in the hegemonic racial and eco- nomic structures of El Paso, Farah striker Estela Gomez addressed her grievances in a courageous letter to the editor:

A lot of people in the El Paso community ask quite often, with all of these good benefits Willie Farah provides at his factory, why

•3jl 146 &• From Out of the Shadows

did these people walk on strike? . . . These benefits were only there for the good of the company, not for the worker. . . . All these benefits put together could never make up for the only thing we are now struggling for and that is human dignity.

What good was the vaccuum [sic] cleaner he gave us for Christ- mas, when a lot of us didn't even earn enough to afford a carpet. . . . And the turkey for Thanksgiving—was it to make up for the time your supervisor made you cry because he wanted more pro- duction from you, as if you were a machine and not a human be- ing? . . .

Be grateful to Farah they say, for all this man has done for you. I say Farah should be grateful to us, the Mexican-American, who from our sweat have [sic] worked hard to make the pants that have built his empire.74

Mexicana/Mexican American/Chicana activists, with determina- tion, creativity, acumen, and dignity, have strived to exercise some control over their lives in relation to material realities and indiv- idual subjectivities as forged within both the spatial and affini- tive bonds of community. Their courage comes forth out of the shadows.

Epilogue

IN 1995, as a registered California voter, I received a survey from the California group, American Immigration Control, a program of a nonprofit organization called "We The People," that asked re- spondents to name the social ills associated with immigration. Boxes to be checked included the following: terrorism, welfare fraud, taxpayer burdens, AIDS, drugs, riots, and bilingual educa- tion. The passage of Proposition 187 which is aimed solely at the immigrant, not the employer, heightens the possibilities for abuse by unscrupulous contractors and managers. Immigrant fears are certainly warranted. In a world with an enforced Proposition 187, undocumented mothers could be sentenced to five years in prison for sending their children to public school.'

"But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep."2

Taken from a popular poem by Robert Frost, these two lines could serve as an anthem for Mexican women in the Southwest, women who, as a social and economic group, still find themselves at or near the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder. How large is this population? According to the Bureau of the Census, over twenty-five million Latinos (Puerto Rico included) live in the United States and Mexicans constitute over 61 percent of this growing population.3

By 1993, 51 percent of Mexican women in the United States held jobs outside the home.4 Drawn primarily from census materi-

147

% 148 |- From Out of the Shadows

als, the tables located in the Appendix illustrate quite starkly the disparities that exist in individual earnings, education, and house- hold incomes. In Texas and California, where the majority of Mex- ican women live, they were at the bottom of the median income scale. Proportionally, Mexican women earn from forty-six cents (Texas) to fifty-five cents (New Mexico) for every dollar earned by Euro-American men. In general, Euro-American, Asian, African- American, and American Indian women have attained higher levels of education than either Mexican women or men. Only 5 percent of Mexican women in the labor force were college graduates, com- pared to 21 percent of their white, 31 percent of their Asian, and 13 percent of their African-American peers. Furthermore, as Table 5 illuminates, a "minority gap" in California exists where, in almost every educational category, Latinos earn less than other groups and Euro-Americans earn substantially more than comparably edu- cated people of color.

In almost every instance, not surprisingly, female-headed fami- lies were financially disadvantaged in comparison with other fami- lies. Equally important, the standard of living for all households headed by women with children under six was, in general, well be- low the poverty line. According to the 1990 census, over 23 percent of Mexican families "were well below the poverty level." Twenty- eight percent of Mexican women, 19 percent of children, and 25 percent of the elderly live in poverty.5

Mexican women are more than twice as likely to be employed as blue-collar workers than their Anglo and African-American peers.6 Mexican women with blue-collar jobs face the triple obsta- cles of gender, nationality, and class. For recent immigrants, citi- zenship poses an additional barrier. They are overworked and un- derpaid, often struggling to support themselves and their families on less than minimum wage. Cannery, garment, and other forms of factory work mean putting up with production speed-ups, sexual harassment, hazardous conditions, and substandard pay for fear that the plants will downsize or mechanize or pack up shop entirely and move "offshore" to Mexico, Costa Rica, or Honduras. As Patri- cia Zavella has pointed out, only automobile and aerospace indus- tries outpaced food processing in terms of plant closures in Cali- fornia. "The number of canneries in the Santa Clara Valley dropped from a high of fifty-eight in 1930 to eleven in 1982." Some canners relocated to the San Joaquin Valley where they built high-tech, state-of-the-art facilities or moved them south of the border.7

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As indicated previously, grass-roots organizing is far from dor-

nio, Texas. Although Levi-Strauss recorded sales of $3.6 billion and profits exceeding $270 million, the company closed its South Zara- zamora plant (the home of Dockers) in the process of relocating to Costa Rica. Eleven hundred workers (the majority Latina) lost their jobs. Launching a national boycott of Levi products, a rank-and-file caucus emerged. Reminiscent of Unidad Siempre during the Farah strike of the early 1970s, Fuerza Unida initiated a food bank, staged hunger strikes, and filed lawsuits in an attempt to extend pension benefits and severance pay. Betita Martinez has vividly recorded the voices of Fuerza Unida in her coverage for Z Maga- zine. "In the end, we saw that they treated the machines better than us." '"No tenemos hambre de comida, tenemos hambre de justi- cia'—we are hungry for justice, not for food." Although the Levi boycott has had neither the visibility nor success of the "Don't Buy Farah" campaign, Fuerza Unida represents the dignity of the hu- man spirit in the face of seemingly unsurmountable realities asso- ciated with deindustrialization and offshore production.8

To many Americans, sweatshops are factories that exist in other nations, not our own. Homegrown garment sweatshops, however, did not disappear with Progressive reforms or New Deal legisla- tion. Sociologist Maria Soldatenko has poignantly documented the exploitation of undocumented people in Los Angeles' garment shops. Managers and subcontractors intimidate workers from complaining about back pay or contract fraud by threatening to re- port them to the INS.9 Pay scales, especially for homeworkers un- der the subcontracting system, seem analogous to the going rate during the Great Depression. One costurera was paid $3.75 for an intricately sewn cocktail dress. A 1994 survey of sixty-nine Califor- nia garment plants indicated that 93 percent violated health and safety standards and over 50 percent violated minimum wage and overtime laws. Reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City at the turn of the century, some managers had locked or barricaded the exits and in two shops children "as young as 13 [were] working nine hour days."10 Labor activist Angela Bar- cena aptly explains the economic vulnerability of Mexican blue- collar workers:

La mayorfa de las mujeres en las fabricas, la mayoria necessitan el trabajo para ayudar su esposo a mantener la familia o son las je-

mant. One of the most compelling examples is based in San Anto

3 150 fc- From Out of the Shadows

fas de familia. Son las que mantienen su familia, son sola, son di- vorciadas. Asi es que . . . la mujer han sido muy suspectible a la explotacion-la mujer Mexicana.''

Yet there is hope in the faces of a new generation of activists, women like Maria Elena Durazo, Millie Trevino-Sauceda, and Yan- ira Merino. A thirty-one-year-old Salvadoran immigrant, Merino has shown remarkable courage and talent as a union organizer rep- resenting Laborers' International, "one of the nation's largest unions." In less than a year, she has gone from packing shrimp in downtown Los Angeles to unionizing poultry workers in North Car- olina. A survivor of abduction, torture, and rape by unknown as- sailants in Los Angeles, Merino remains undaunted. Reflecting on her methods of organizing, she stated simply: "I don't think you can be an organizer behind a desk. You have to be out there relat- ing . . . to the people so that you will learn. It's not having a theo- retical understanding of what they're going through, but it's know- ing what they're going through."12 Yanira Merino also explains her work within the familiar intertwining of family and community. "I'll always see whatever work I do as an extension of my family." Work- ing with migrant women, Millie Trevino-Sauceda emphasizes wom- en's empowerment as individuals, especially in dealing with do- mestic violence. In her words: "Women . . . have rights, but these rights have no meaning or force unless we exercise them."13

Claiming public space can also involve claiming cultural space. A layering of generations exist among Mexicans in the United States from seventh-generation New Mexicans to immigrants. This layering provides a vibrant cultural dynamic. Artists Amalia Mesa Bains, Judy Baca, Yolanda Lopez, and Carmen Lomas Garza and writers Sandra Cisneros, Denise Chavez, Pat Mora, and Cherrie Moraga (to name a few) articulate the multiple identities inhabit- ing the borderlands of Chicano culture. Entertainers can also in- fluence cultural production. The queen of Tejano music, Selena Quintanilla Perez, known simply as Selena, pushed cultural boundaries by blending sweetness and sensuality within a mestiza performance genre. She showed that a "nice girl" could be a sexy one as well. Only after her tragic death did a larger American pub- lic "discover" her music and her mystique. Although in less visible ways than a public stage, Chicana writers and artists, as chroniclers of consciousness, mark the daily rhythms of life. Poet/historian Naomi Quinonez gives a sense of Los Angeles commutes in an ex- cerpt from "The Confession."

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I was lost at rush hour for two of those three days and nirvana was a freeway offramp at 6th and Olympic where I found shelter at a 7-11, the urban temple of immediate gratification.14

Reminiscent of Luisa Moreno's "Caravan of Sorrow" speech,15

over 1,500 artists, scholars, writers, and activists wrote an open let- ter condemning the beatings of undocumented immigrants by Riverside County deputies in April 1996. A passage follows:

Just what crime did the beating victims, and the nineteen immi- grants with them at the time, commit? They crossed the border between the U.S. and Mexico looking for work. They are among the immigrants who labor daily in the picking fields of California, Washington, and Pennsylvania. They clean hotel rooms in Dal- las, toil in the canneries in Alaska, sell flowers on the street cor- ners in New York City . . . the immigrants make life easier, pret- tier, and less expensive for those of us who have the luxury of calling ourselves "legals."16

Nativism has not gone unchallenged. The coalition against Proposition 187 and its implementation brought together high school and college students with labor and community groups, such as Justice for Janitors. On October 16, 1994, over 70,000 people marched in downtown Los Angeles to protest Proposition 187, "one of the largest mass protests in the city's history." Since 1900, Mexican women in the United States have sparked grass roots movements at work, church, neighborhood, and, within the last thirty years, on college campuses. Perhaps the motto of Fuerza Unida states it best. "La mujer luchando. El mundo transfor- mando" ["Women in struggle transform the world"].17

Afterword

1 FEEL like I have been given a history," wrote Selina Gonzalez, a California community college student. Her message, like others I have received over the last decade, reminds me of the power of telling stories long ignored or silenced. The erasure of the Latino presence persists despite a spate of award-winning books and essays over the past twenty years. Yet during this period, bringing Mexican women "out of the shadows" has become a collective endeavor shared by a growing group of interdisciplinary scholars, not just historians and not just Chicanas. In 1982, I became the fourth Mexican American woman awarded a Ph.D. in history. When Shadows was published in 1998, the list had swelled to seventeen. Ten years later, to my knowledge, there are forty- eight Mexican American women historians making a difference in liberal arts settings, community colleges, state schools, and research universities. This rising generation is pushing Chicana history in transformative directions, uncovering stories and events virtually unknown a decade ago. In reading their work and think- ing about trends in historical scholarship, I found four themes I would develop more thoroughly if I were writing Shadows today. Rather than offer an exhaustive overview, this afterword highlights region, religion, rhythm, and rights through new work in the field.

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As historians have increasingly studied transnational ties, region takes on new dimensions that complicate our understanding of how Mexican American women think about community and identity across national borders, on the border and beyond. Gabriela Arre- dondo introduces the concept of "lived regionalities" in which women's memories and migrations "shaped the lens through which they experienced and understood subsequent places and spaces in their lives." Arredondo's Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916—39 traces how immigrants, relying on evolving notions of womanhood, manhood, and Mexican-ness, made community in the absence of ethnic neighborhoods not exclusively their own. Assembling an array of fragmentary sources, she deftly explores ethnic identity in the everyday from a transnational Mexicanidad to strategic acts of "passing."4 Chicago as a site rich in Chicana history also comes through in the work of Lilia Fernandez, who chronicles coalition building among Puerto Ricans and Mexicans in response to post—World War II urban renewal and displacement. Far from a declension narrative, her work examines the persistence of community institutions that neighborhood organizations, such as Mujeres Latinas en Accion, created and the continuing presence of women as leaders in local non-profit social service organizations.

Beyond shifting the gaze of Shadows outward from the South- west I would configure the claiming of public space somewhat differently to account more fully for the importance of "home," especially in the light of recent scholarship by Yen Le Espiritu, Maria Montoya, and Monica Perales. In her influential study of Filipino Americans, sociologist Le Espiritu defines home making as "the processes by which diverse subjects imagine and make them- selves at home at various geographic locations." She envisions "home" as creating a homeland and creating domestic space. Em- phasizing gender relations, she underscores how both men and women contributed to home making. Recovering migration mem- ories in the absence of oral narratives requires a nimble historical imagination. The physical act of making a home and the meaning women attached to domestic labor come to life in Maria Montoya's essay on Colorado coal camps. In company records, Montoya finds hints of Hispana lives as miners' wives, including photographs that reveal the great pride women took in their homes and gardens. Company towns are not limited to rural areas, as Monica Perales shows in her study of El Paso's Smeltertown. With working-class domesticity at the center of her analysis, Perales conveys the "emotional ownership" that smelter workers and their families

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expressed for their neighborhood, work, and parish church, a shared identity as esmelitanos that extended across generations.

Stories of community engagement as a way of making new regions into homelands are as important to the present as to the past. As executive director of NeighborWorks Salt Lake, Maria Garciaz, a Utah native, secures the resources of government agen- cies, businesses, and private foundations to revitalize low-income areas. Developing local leadership among residents, predomin- ately Mexican but also Sudanese, Bosnian, and Iraqi, Neighbor- Works builds new homes, renovates older ones, conducts home ownership classes, and, more recently, offers foreclosure counsel- ing. Through its YouthWorks program, at-risk teenagers earn money and learn a trade as they refurbish neighborhood homes. Noting that "we talk about building communities, but then we don't live there. We talk about celebrating diversity, but then we live in all-white neighborhoods," Maria Garciaz and her husband, David Galvan, decided to raise a family among their clients."8

In privileging grassroots movements and the women who led them, I paid scant attention to other expressions of public service in Shadows. Elizabeth Salas details the rise of Mexican American women as elected officials in the state of Washington, women who pursue divergent political agendas though most grew up in farm worker families. Her profile of conservative state legislator Mary Skinner challenges the notion of a shared ethos of commu- nity activism, a prevalent theme of Chicana Studies scholarship, including my own.

Whether as touchstone or flashpoint, the U.S.-Mexico border further complicates discussions of community in Chicano history. As physical place and liminal space, the border embodies both homeland and diaspora. Noted folklorist Jovita Gonzalez, writing during the late 1920s, captured the sense of home among Spanish- speaking residents of South Texas. Reading Maria Eugenia Cotera's stunning literary biography, Native Speakers, one can visualize Gonzalez driving down the back roads of Texas, stopping to chat with elderly Mexican Americans, collecting their stories for her master's thesis not with pen and paper but with her yarn, knitting needles, and finely honed memory.10

Conversely, Alicia Schmidt Camacho's Migrant Imaginaries; Cultural Politics in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands accentuates elem- ents of violence, alienation, and ambiguity associated with con- temporary border life. Blending history, ethnography, literature, and critical theory, Schmidt Camacho interrogates transnational-

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ism through those who bear its weight. Her narrators, however, are not victims but conscious actors constructing "a new order of citizenship." As Guadalupe Gomez, explained, "It has been our lot to be people who are neither from here nor from there. Now we will be people from here and there, both at the same time."

Seeking solace, belonging, and mutual aid, Mexican women immigrants, whether in 1908 or 2008, have frequently found refuge in religion. Focusing on the Rose Gregory Houchen Settle- ment House in Chapter 2, I explored missionary-client relation- ships, especially the ways in which Mexican women utilized social services and health care while they side-stepped Methodist mes- sages. As a result, the Catholic Church is practically absent in my narrative. Fortunately, Yolanda Chavez Leyva's rich study of chil- dren on the border recounts how Catholic clergy and religious, in direct competition with Houchen, made concerted efforts to min- ister to barrio residents, especially to youth. Like the Methodist missionaries, they, too, found El Paso a difficult place to raise funds for the poor. For example, the orphanage established for Mexican girls in 1920 by the Sisters of the Society of the Servants of the Sacred Heart received such limited support from local well- heeled Catholics that the Sisters had to resort to selling flowers on city streets. Shifting the lens toward parishioners, Gina Marie Pitti offers a compelling portrait of Mexican American women in the San Francisco Bay Area after World War II. Her dissertation, "To 'hear about God in Spanish,'" reveals a range of church-related community labor that often goes unnoticed. Yet, these acts of claiming public space in the name of faith may be the most common forms of civic engagement or philanthropy for Mexican

12women. With the exception of picketing priests supporting Cesar Cha-

vez, studies of the Chicano movement have typically dismissed Catholicism as a space for social change. Focusing on a radical organization of nuns and laity dedicated to social justice, Lara Medina offers a very different view in Las Hermanas: Chicana/ Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church. In an elegant review essay, Anne Martinez situates the significance of Medina's revisionist history. "Las Hermanas took the Catholic Church to the Chicano movement and the Chicano movement to the Church. Members of Las Hermanas were active in most sectors of the Chicano movement: school walk-outs, the farm worker movement, and numerous local Chicano community struggles." Negotiating the Church, Chicano nationalism, and the communi-

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ties they served, Las Hermanas contributed materially and spiritu- ally to their neighborhoods as they pioneered strategies of em- powerment through grassroots groups steeped in liberation theology and Alinsky-style organizing (as defined in Chapter 6). As Martinez noted, mujerista theology, with its blend of "social activism and women-centered community-based experiences of spirituality," animates Las Hermanas, and in essence these Latina feminists have "created a church within the Catholic church."13

Sister Rosa Marta Zarate, profiled in Chapter 6, exemplifies mujer- ista theology in action.

While Las Hermanas represents a social movement predicated on sisterhood, Estela Ruiz of South Phoenix relies on visitations from the Virgin Mary. From 1988 to 1998, at special rosary services held in her backyard, Ruiz conveyed public messages from the Virgin of the Americas, a modern "new mestiza ,,, bilin- gual and bicultural" distinct from la Virgen de Guadalupe. Organ- izing those who regularly attended the rosaries, she founded Mary's Ministries, an evangelical Catholic outreach group. In The Virgin of El Barrio: Marian Apparitions, Catholic Evangelizing, and Mexican American Activism, Kristy Nabhan-Warren offers a loving ethnography of Ruiz, her family, and her followers. A for- mer school teacher and feminist, Estela Ruiz stresses women's empowerment through religious study, prayer, and community labor. Filled with evangelical zeal, members of Mary's Ministries have more in common with Latino Pentecostals than with Las Hermanas, especially given the emphasis placed on women's trad- itional roles within a traditional family.

Arlene Sanchez Walsh's acclaimed Latino Pentecostal Identity presents a historical sweep of Mexican American Pentecostals in Los Angeles, tracing how they weave their cultural ideations into their spiritual beliefs whether worshipping at Spanish-speaking storefronts or high profile megachurches. In separate studies, historian Sanchez Walsh and religious studies scholar Luis Leon move past the sensationalism of local media and the fervor of converts to write sensitive, respectful portraits of Victory Out- reach, an evangelical ministry that reaches out to individuals haunted by addictions, gang life, and homelessness. Leon, in particular, conveys poignant stories of women who struggle for a better life for themselves and their children. While articulating subordinate gender roles based on biblical verse, women express a heightened confidence in their abilities through their efforts as volunteers and evangelists. However, they downplay their con-

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tributions. As an example, Julie Arguinizoni, known for her suc- cess in converting addicts and prostitutes and as a global evangel- ist for Victory Outreach in her own right, is a formidable presence in Pentecostal circles, but she expresses her work in muted tones so as not to overshadow her husband Sonny's ministry. In teasing out lived experiences, Sanchez Walsh and Leon address the com- plexities in interviewing narrators who are less interested in shar- ing their life histories, than in "witnessing" or recounting their conversion stories with the intent to proselytize.

Often performing as generational markers, personal stories speak volumes about the daily rhythms of culture and community. Indeed, oral history can be aptly described as "dancing with mem- ory," not only in terms of individual reflection but also in the negotiation between interviewer and narrator. The practice of conducting interviews includes making sense of the contradic- tions, inconsistencies, and even imagined moments. The complex- ities of sorting out competing narratives is beautifully displayed in Matt Garcia's A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900—1970. As an example, former thespians with the Padua Hills dinner theater in Claremont still passionately disagree about whether their experiences constituted exploitation, opportunity, or both. Garcia lays out the divergent narratives in such an accessible way that readers can sift through the contradictions and arrive at their own interpretations.16

Women's words animate Shadows, and two reviews singled out Chapter 3, "The Flapper and Chaperone," with one calling it a "personal favorite," in part because of the prevalence of oral his- tory. However, while highlighting chaperonage and dating dur- ing the 1920s and 1930s, I regrettably devoted only a few paragraphs to the pachucos and pachucas of World War II. In The Power of the Zoot Luis Alvarez reminds us that the zoot suit was far more than a fashion statement; it was "how working class non-white youth express [ed] their own sense of race, gender, and national identity," a symbol of youthful self-assertion, pride, and rebellion. While former zooters often take pride in their past, the same is not always true for their female companions. I have located several seniors who wore finger-tip coats in their youth but would never divulge their pachuca pasts. Over twenty-five years ago, I interviewed a Mexican American woman who had come of age in a well-known southern California barrio. Reminis- cing in her comfortable middle-class home, she shared several vignettes from her youth—getting the nice clothes from the thrift

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store because a relative worked there, and watching the pachucos and their rucas (girlfriends) jitterbug at the local hall. Several times she repeated that she had been a good girl, unlike her neighbors who were "slick chicks." Nevertheless, she vividly recounted pachuca hair styles, clothing, and cosmetics, even not- ing tattooed beauty marks among the more adventurous. Her face betrayed her memory: between her lip line and cheek was a small green dot, a recuerdo (or souvenir) of youthful rebellion. The next day she asked me to forget our conversation.

Literary critic Catherine Ramirez and historian Elizabeth Esco- bedo have been more successful in reclaiming narratives of former pachucas. With creativity and verve, Ramirez explores cultural representations, including 1940s popular music, the Sleepy Lagoon court case transcript, Luis Valdez's play Zoot Suit, and short stories by contemporary Chicana writers. "The lady zoot suiter," she contends, used fashion, language, and demeanor as conscious tools of resistance. With impressive archival sources and interviews, Escobedo offers a nuanced analysis of the ways in which second-generation daughters staked out their own inde- pendence from their immigrant parents, from dressing in pachuca- style attire to earning their own wages in canneries or defense plants. They could be patriotic Rosie the Riveters by day and daring pachucas by night, pushing the boundaries of propriety across Mexican and American communities. As women who claimed public space and as icons of edgy, forties femininity, pachucas continue to fascinate Chicana scholars, writers, and artists.20

What do we know about the experiences of other Mexican American women who transgressed community norms? Mary Ann Villarreal is the first historian to examine the lives of twentieth- century Mexican women who patronized or managed local cantinas and the ways in which they appropriated or negotiated a very male- identified public space. Her "Cantantes y Cantineras" (Singers and Saloonkeepers) creates warm, personal portraits of women in the world of local entertainment, from the operators of respectable night clubs or dubious lounges to those who built careers through cultural tourism, such as Rosita Fernandez, for decades a fixture on San Antonio's River Walk. In her work, one can almost hear ninety-year-old Ventura Alonzo, the "Queen of the Accordion," per- forming.

While Villarreal delineates the dance of respectability among vocalists, musicians, and club owners, cultural studies scholar

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Deborah Vargas gauges the impact of Tejana entertainers on their audiences and the development of Tejano music. She astutely articulates how the lyrics of the songs they composed and their public performances expressed the hopes of their female fans as well as reflected their own life choices. Intriguingly, she traces how they changed the lyrics of songs written for men in order to resonate with women—changing the "el" to "la." Her scholarship on the singer Selena, whose popularity soared after she was slain by the president of her fan club, transcends the "Santa Selena" discourse that has developed in recent years. Vargas notes that Selena's music and concerts transmitted both traditional and transgressive messages about Tejana womanhood to her audiences.

While scholars have amply documented the political inton- ations of popular culture, looking at the cultural inflections of political activism has long been a staple of Chicano history. Bring- ing to light the pursuit of rights by Mexican Americans within and beyond a cultural nationalist frame has preoccupied more than one generation of Chicano and Chicana historians. Only a few books, however, specifically address the gendered dimensions of labor and political activism, with Shadows being possibly the most visible.24 As Chicana Studies enters the twenty-first century, emerging scholarly works that emphasize a transnational turn show great promise in providing fuller accounts of women's his- toric claims to community leadership.

Drawing on sources from U.S. and Mexican archives, Gabriela Gonzalez traces the overlapping influences of political thought in the United States and Mexico and demonstrates an ideological trajectory from Primer Congreso Mexicanista in 1911 to the de- velopment of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929. As noted in Chapter 4, several distinguished historians have critiqued LULAC's middle-class, assimilationist posture, but Gonzalez makes clear the strategic importance of adopting this gente decente (decent people) stance in the midst of rampant racial discrimination in Texas, including segregation, violence, and lynching. In her comparative profile of Carolina Munguia and Emma Tenayucca, she shows how competing con- servative and radical strands of transnational politics played out on a local stage.

In Shadows, I strived to give readers an appreciation of the political diversity that has marked Mexican American activism. Chapter 5, "La Nueva Chicana," outlined tensions within Chicana

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movement politics, for example between women who clung to cultural nationalist imaginaries (Mi Raza Primero) and those who envisioned themselves as part of a third world sisterhood. Focusing on Los Angeles—based activists, recent articles by Maylei Blackwell and Marisela Chavez argue that these positions are not mutually exclusive; in practice Chicana feminists incorporated elements of both. In her analysis of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc, the first feminist student group, Blackwell recounts both moments of courage and moments of stupidity in Chicana feminism and stu- dent movement politics. She exposes the rampant harassment and downright abuse Hijas faced for their advocacy of women's issues. Equally important, she spotlights their resiliency and resistance through newspaper and magazine articles in which Chicanas en- gaged in critical dialogue with one another as they crafted feminist discourses.26 Taking a different approach, Marisela Chavez chron- icles community organizing by such diverse groups as Comision Femenil Mexicana and CASA (El Centro de Accion Autonoma- Hermandad General de Trabajadores) and in the process puts them at the forefront of the fissures that arose among feminists themselves. Acknowledging Chicana participation in the 1975 International Women's Year Conference in Mexico City, Chavez elaborates on the development of a global consciousness, a con- sciousness tempered by the Chicanas' disconcerting realization that they were Americans. Indeed, Chicanas were perceived nei- ther as sisters in the struggle by third world women nor as mem- bers of the club by the predominately white, middle-class U.S. delegation. Though their "pilgrimage to the homeland" had not gone the way they had planned, they did bring a heightened global awareness to their local endeavors.27

The insights of Blackwell and Chavez are two examples of a spate of interdisciplinary studies that deepen our understanding of the gendered dimensions of Chicano protests, protests against inferior education, farm labor exploitation, the Vietnam War, and involuntary sterilization, among other topics. Furthermore, first person accounts such as Enriqueta Vdsquez and the Chicano Movement and the powerful Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Tra- ditions explore the "synapses of struggle" between the personal and the public. Maylei Blackwell's interviews with former members of Hijas de Cuauhtemoc and Comision Femenil Mexicana can now be listened to on the Web through the Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive.29

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My emphasis on the claiming of public space, however, has cast its own shadows, particularly in the realm of sexuality. As Eliza- beth Rodriguez Kessler astutely and charitably points out in her review of Shadows, "Ruiz's devotion to the political struggle con- sumes the majority of her text; and she devotes only two pages to the struggles Chicana lesbians endure. . . . " In "Breaking the Silence," Yolanda Chavez Leyva lays out an ambitious research agenda for Latina lesbian history, one that has yet to be realized. Calling for recognition of lesbianas on their own terms, she pro- motes a critical consideration of the ways in which "ethnic identity has become a form of social control."31 Such surveillance extended beyond the barrio. In 1960, Sara Quiroz, a permanent U.S. resident, was denied entry at the border on the grounds of "looking like a lesbian." Charting the twists and turns of the legal battle that ensued, author Eithne Luibheid adroitly underscores the difficulty in discerning sexual identities with any degree of historical precision. She also stresses the importance of this case to contemporary border life, for Sara Quiroz's "strategies of resist- ance" lend insight into "how migrant women negotiate sexual identities and communities when the threat of state-sanctioned exclusion . . . structures their options."

Using the past to shape the future may seem like the yearnings of an unreconstructed social historian, but the past holds lessons that bear retelling. For instance, policy makers who advocate for a "guest worker" agreement with Mexico would be well advised to read Ana Rosas's prescient study of families left behind during the Bracero Program (1942—1964). Drawing on government re- cords on both sides of the border as well as on numerous oral histories she conducted, Rosas traces the various strategies under- taken by the wives and children of braceros from staying in the home village, to traveling to the border, to crossing into the United States, with riveting narratives of hope, heartbreak, and deprivation. Her research will be part of a new exhibit on the Bracero Program at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

I admire the scholars profiled in this afterword not only for their innovative research discoveries and theoretical interventions but also for their commitment to civic engagement. Their responsibil- ities do not end at the campus parking lot, as they participate in a gamut of activities from teacher education and public history projects to local school initiatives and even grassroots organizing. As I have reiterated on several occasions, we cannot afford to be

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cloistered academics or armchair activists pontificating from the comfort of our classrooms and offices. Perhaps noted Harvard sociologist Larry Bobo expressed it best: "It is not enough to teach and do research about race, we must also do the groundwork to identify practical strategies for social change."34 Community partnerships are both a privilege and an obligation. The credo of the Chicano student movement to go back to your community with your education resonates as much today as in 1968, the year that marks the birth of the Chicano student movement.

The credo retains its importance, particularly as educational inequities, economic segmentation, and strident nativism persist. According to a UCLA study by Daniel Solorzano and Armida Ornelas, for every one hundred Latino children who enter first grade, only forty-seven will become high school graduates and then only eight will complete an undergraduate degree."35 Do economic prospects improve for Mexican Americans by gener- ation? Certainly one can point to the mobility of individual fam- ilies, mine included. In a sweeping assessment of economic and social advancement among Mexican Americans, sociologists Edward Telles and Vilma Ortiz encapsulate their findings in the very title of their new book, Generations of Exclusion. Locating the raw data from a landmark 1965 UCLA survey on Mexican Ameri- cans, Telles and Ortiz tracked down the families interviewed in order to gauge the extent of intergenerational mobility. This am- bitious longitudinal study, covering four decades, shatters any illusions about linear assimilation or stair step progress as the authors delineate how primarily institutional barriers, in particu- lar those related to education, blunt opportunities for meaningful mobility.

To combat these trends, educational programs targeting Mex- ican American youth have been founded, among them Arizona State University's Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program (HMDP), begun in 1984. HMDP annually involves over seven hundred middle and high school girls and their mothers in a program of workshops, field trips, and individual mentoring designed to mo- tivate and prepare them for college. Students take classes on finan- cial aid and SAT preparation as well as career awareness and money management, while their mothers attend separate bilingual workshops. The Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program has an envi- able record. During the late 1990s almost 90 percent of the high school seniors graduated, over 80 percent college-bound. Almost one-third of the mothers return to school. When Raquel Hidalgo

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signed up for HMDP activities with her daughter, she cleaned houses for a living, but she began taking classes at a local commu- nity college. Both mother and daughter graduated from Arizona State, and Raquel went on to earn a master's degree in social work. As a former advisory board member and workshop facilitator, I can attest to the success of school-university partnerships when both the campus and the school districts share a commitment beyond a monetary one.

The interconnection of scholarship, mentorship, and commu- nity engagement has been at the heart of my career as a historian. In her review of Shadows for the Journal of American History, historian Camille Guerin-Gonzales paid me one of the highest professional compliments I have ever received: "From Out of the Shadows not only celebrates the lives of Mexican women in the United States but provides a blueprint for social justice and human dignity." Another reviewer pointed out that the book pro- vided "many research seedlings for future historians of Mexican

»38women. I am humbled by the reception Shadows continues to receive by

students, colleagues, and the public, especially the numerous citations to cultural coalescence. After my talk at Casa Romantica, a cultural arts center in San Clemente, California, a senior citizen approached me with a copy of Shadows clutched in both hands. Proudly, he introduced himself as the son of Petra Sanchez, and he thanked me for including his mother's border journeys. At that moment I thought of my mother, whose stories animate my work. Erminia Pablita Ruiz Mercer passed into the next life on August 12, 2001, but I take comfort in the words of artist Irma Barbosa: "Stories are the spirit threads passed on from generation to gener- ation."39

Telling stories also involves a certain degree of privileging or choice. Whose voices count and who decides? As my book has been received among different generations of scholars, the cri- tiques of my approach have shaped a productive ongoing dialogue. In his very comprehensive review of Shadows, historian Neil Foley brought up the question in print that I frequently encounter when I give public lectures on Chicana history—"And what of the men?" And Foley is right. While I devote considerable space to interpreting the impact of wage work, labor activism, and commu- nity involvement on women, men remain in the background. I do not regret this decision, as Shadows endeavored to give women a history of their own, one not dominated by the rhythms of men's

% 164 $• Afterword

lives. Moreover, this work is strongly rooted in a women's history tradition separate from gender history. And for Chicano Studies, it was a deliberate counter-narrative to the award-winning books in which women were conspicuous by their absence. As an assistant professor in 1986, I wrote a review essay in which I took to task several Chicano historians for their exclusion of women. In the preface to our co-edited collection, Mapping Memories and Migrations, John R. Chavez recounted my comments:

Some years ago, Vicki Ruiz .. . had the following choice words on my Lost Land: "For John Chavez .. . Chicano history is precisely that—Chicano history. Chavez briefly mentions four notable Mexican American women, providing no sense of women's every- day lives or household relationships." Of course, she was right. I had not consciously looked for female perspectives and had sim- ply missed most. . . . In my own defense, I can only say I was not alone among historians of my generation. With this present book, however, I'm making up for my mistake.42

I should note that we had a terrific collaboration with each other and with the eight authors with whom we gathered to discuss papers before presenting them at a one-day Latina history confer- ence, a 2004 conference I can only describe as magical. The diverse research projects had developed a conversational quality with one another and then with the audience, a packed house of predominately women at the Latino Cultural Center in Dallas.

For me, history remains a grand adventure, one that began at the kitchen table listening to the stories of my mother and grand- mother and then took flight aboard the local bookmobile. As a historian, I have had the privilege of meeting people whose quiet courage made a difference in their lives and in their commu- nities. Recording and representing these historical actors, making their presence known, has defined my scholarly mission. "Latinas in History: An Interactive Project" can be found on the Web through the History Cooperative. Virginia Sanchez Korrol, Carlos Cruz, and I created this online resource for precollegiate teachers and their students as a venue to contribute to a growing awareness of Latina history, especially as layered generations of Mexican Americans, from those long-rooted in the United States to new immigrants, enter classrooms.

The connections to the past can be simple, yet profound. In 2000, I received an e-mail from my colleague historian Laura Briggs, who related how her daughter Maribel responded to

Afterword % 165 $•

Shadows. "It was like water in the desert. My failing-social-studies kid wrestled with that book and loved it and took it to bed and stuck it under the covers with a flashlight." In giving public pre- sentations, I have had more than one senior woman come up to me to confess that as a teenager she had read True Story in her bed with a kerosene lamp or candle, but never did I imagine that Shadows could hold that level of interest. As a graduate student Maria Eugenia Cotera e-mailed me with a confession of sorts—my book had prompted her to write a long overdue letter to her grand- mother. "Your book defamiliarized a very personal history and enabled me to see her life in a larger perspective.... Thank you for honoring our history."43 "The right to remember" (to quote Cherrie Moraga) is a political act, one that counters an erasure from the historical record.44 Scholarship as community engage- ment runs through a vibrant and ever-expanding Chicana history. The histories of Mexican women in the United States will never return to the shadows.

Appendix

Table 1 Occupational Distribution for Mexican Women in the Southwest, 1930-1990 (in percentges)

Occupational Group

White collar Professional/technical Managerial/proprietor Clerical/sales

Blue collar Skilled (Craft) Semiskilled (Operatives) Unskilled (Laborers)

Service Farm

Farm managers Farm workers

1930

15.4 2.9 2.4

10.1 25.3

.6 21.9 2.8

38.4 20.7

1.0 19.7

J950

32.4 4.6 3.9

23.9 30.9

1.4 28.1

1.4 27.8

6.5 .3

6.3

1970

43.9 7.6 2.4

33.9 26.8

2.2 23.1

1.5 26.2

3.1 .1

3.0

J990

54.5 10.9 6.9

36.8 19.2 3.7

12.3 3.2

23.9 2.4

.1 2.2

Source: Mario Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 131; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population, Social and Economic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas (Washington, D. C.: G. P. O., 1993), Tables 50 and 124.

Appendix -^ 167 $f

Table 2 Occupational Distribution for Mexican Women in the Southwest, by State, 1990 (in percentages)

New Occupational Group Colorado Arizona Mexico California Texas

White collar Professional/technical Manager/proprietor Clerical/sales

Blue collar Skilled Semiskilled Unskilled

Service Farm

Farm managers Farm workers

56.3 11.9 8.2

36.2 16.4 3.6 3.3 9.4

26.6 .8 .05 .7

57.6 11.0 7.0

39.6 15.6 3.7 9.5 2.3

25.3 1.5 .12

1.4

60.4 13.6 8.0

38.7 11.8 2.4 7.3 2.1

26.8 1.0 .07

1.0

52.2 9.4 7.0

36.0 22.7

4.2 15.0 3.5

21.6 3.5

.2 3.4

57.1 12.8 6.6

37.7 15.2 3.1 9.7 2.5

26.8 1.0 .08 .9

Note: Farms include forestry and fishing. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population. Social and Economic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas (Washington, D. C.: G. P. O., 1993), Tables 50 and 124.

Table 3 Years of School Completed by Selected Groups of Southwestern Workers, 25 Years and Older, 1990

Years of School Completed

Elementary (8 yrs. or less)

High School (1-3 yrs.) (4 yrs.)

College (1-3 yrs.) (4 yrs. or more)

Anglo Women

8.3

12.4 27.3

31.2 20.7

Asian Women

16.2

9.9 18.8

24.3 30.7

Black Women

9.1

19.4 25.7

32.4 13.4

American Indian Women

16.1

20.9 26.6

28.4 8.0

Mexican Women

37.5

19.3 21.1

17.1 5.3

Mexican Men

37.1

19.8 19.1

17.5 6.5

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, J990 Census of Population. Social and Economic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. (Washington, D. C.: G. P. O., 1993), Tables 47 and 120.

% 168 $• Appendix

Table 4 A Comparison of Median Incomes of Full-Time Workers 15 Years and over According to Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in the Southwest, 1990

Median Incomes (in dollars)

New Colorado Arizona Mexico California Texas

Anglo Men Mexican Men Anglo Women Asian Women Black Women Mexican Women American Indian Women

30,203 20,416 20,270 18,522 18,785 16,413

16,992

29,032 19,594 19,594 17,384 17,551 15,545

15,197

26,772 19,153 17,305 16,523 16,108 14,639

14,274

35,350 19,699 24,349 22,793 22,996 16,607

20,714

29,858 17,255 19,595 19,299 16,682 13,701

17,191

Median Incomes as Percentages of Total Anglo Male Median Income

Mexican Men Anglo Women Asian Woman Black Women Mexican Women American Indian Women

Colorado

67.6 67.1 61.3 62.2 54.3

56.3

Arizona

67.5 67.5 59.9 60.5 53.5

52.3

New Mexico

71.5 64.6 61.7 60.2 54.7

53.3

California

55.7 68.9 64.5 65.1 47.0

58.6

Texas

57.8 65.6 64.6 55.9 45.9

57.6

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population. Social ana Economic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas (Washington, D. C.: G. P. O., 1993), Tables 53 and 125.

Table 5 California Personal Income by Ethnicity and Education, 1989

Educational level Anglo Latino Black Asian

No high school diploma High school diploma Bachelor's degree Master's degree Doctorate Professional degree

$26,115 $27,376 $44,426 $52,787 $59,348 $77,877

$16,487 $21,121 $33,817 $41,431 $46,873 $41,029

$21,678 $22,040 $34,290 $42,254 $54,205 $61,015

$18,517 $21,608 $33,738 $45,550 $53,792 $59,603

Source: Los Angeles Times, January 10, 1993. Note: Professional degrees encompass law and medicine and Latinos can be of any race.

Appendix % 169 $•

Table 6 Median Income for Families in Five Southwestern States, 1990

Anglo two-parent female headed

Asian two-parent female headed

Black two-parent female headed

Mexican two-parent female headed

American Indian two-parent

female headed

Colorado

$37,228 $19,217 $32,286 $16,654 $25,625 $13,206 $22,708 $9,127

$23,517 $11,442

Arizona

$34,735 $19,451 $34,899 $14,286 $24,120 $12,161 $22,000 $11,764

$14,015 $8,037

New Mexico

$30,341 $14,773 $32,211 $11,875 $22,075

$9,918 $19,979

$9,512

$15,367 $9,264

California

$43,980 $24,213 $42,964 $25,977 $29,453 $16,780 $27,411 $15,226

$30,620 $14,702

Texas

$35,080 $18,354 $35,729 $17,133 $20,613 $11,572 $19,807 $7,027

$27,218 $13,325

Female Headed Households with Children Under 6

Colorado Arizona New

Mexico California Texas

Anglo $8,921 $10,858 $7,094 $11,077 $11,487 Asian $8,120 $5,000 $5,000 $12,051 $15,479 Black $5,772 $5,000 $5,000 $8,893 $6,121 Mexican $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $8,463 $5,000 American Indian $5,948 $5,964 $5,671 $8,038 $5,355

Note: $5,000 is a bottom-line figure adopted by the Census Bureau to indicate income at or below this level. The actual median incomes may be lower. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population. Social and Economic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas (Washington, D. C.: G. P. O., 1993), Tables 53 and 125.

"La Nueva Chicana" VIOLA CORREA

Hey, She that lady protesting injustice, Es mi Mama. The girl in the brown beret, The one teaching the children, She's my hermana. Over there fasting with the migrants, Es mi tia. These are the women who worry,

-<f| 170 $}• Appendix

Pray, iron And cook chile y tortillas. The lady with the forgiving eyes And the gentle smile, Listen to her shout. She knows what hardship is all about All about. The establishment calls her a radical militant. The newspapers read she is A dangerous subversive They label her name to condemn her. By the FBI she's called A big problem. In Aztlan we call her La Nueva Chicana.

Source: Teresa C6rdova, "Roots and Resistance: The Emergent Writings of Twenty Years of Chicana Feminist Struggle," in Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology, ed. Felix Padilla (Houston: Arte Piiblico Press, 1994), p. 182.

University Avenue PAT MORA

We are the first of our people to walk this path. We move cautiously unfamiliar with the sounds, guides for those who folllow. Our people prepared us with gifts from the land

fire herbs and song

hierbabuena soothes us into morning rhythms hum in our blood abrazos linger round our bodies. cuentos whisper lesson en espanol. We do not travel alone. Our people burn deep within us

Source: "University Avenue" in Borders by Pat Mora (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1986), p. 19

Notes

Introduction

1. Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Union- ization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1937-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), p. xiv; Cleofas M. Jaramillo, Sombras del pasado/Shadows of the Past (Santa Fe: Ancient City Press, 1941). For a contem- porary literary analysis of Jaramillo's works, see Genaro M. Padilla, My History Not Yours: The Formation of Mexican American Autobiography (Madison: Univer- sity of Wisconsin Press, 1993) and Tey Diana Rebolledo, Women Singing in the Snow: A Cultural Analysis of Chicana Literature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995).

2. Alicia Arrizon, "Monica Palacios: 'Latin Lezbo Comic,'" in Crossroads, no. 31 (May 1993): 25.

3. Ibid.; Alicia Caspar de Alba, "Literary Wetback," in Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature, eds. Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), p. 291.

4. Sonia Saldlvar-Hull, "Feminism on the Border: From Gender Politics to Geopolitics," in Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Chicano Literature, Cul- ture, and Ideology, eds. Hector Calderdn and Jos£ David Saldivar (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1991), p. 220.

5. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Introduction: Cartographies of Struggle Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism," in Third World Women and the Politics of feminism, eds. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lour- des Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 11.

6. Ramon A. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500—1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991); Albert L. Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California

|j 172 % Notes to Introduction

Frontier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Antonia I. Castaneda, "Presi- darias y Pobladoras: Spanish-Mexican Women in Frontier Monterey, Alta Cali- fornia, 1770-1821" (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1990); Antonia I. Castaneda, "Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California," in Building with Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies, eds. Adela de la Torre and Beatriz Pes- quera (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 15-33; Angelina Veyna, "It is my Last Wish That . . . " A Look at Colonial Nuevo Mexicanas Through Their Testaments," in Building with Our Hands, pp. 91—108; James F. Brooks, '"This evil extends especially to the feminine sex': Captivity and Identity in New Mexico, 1700-1847" in Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women's West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997) pp. 97-121.

7. Deena J. Gonzalez, "Spanish-Mexican Women on the Santa Fe Frontier: Patterns of Their Resistance and Accommodation, 1820-1880" (Ph.D. disser- tation, University of California, Berkeley, 1985); Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier (New York: Ox- ford University Press, 1987); Lisbeth Haas, Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769-1936 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). A revised version of Gonzalez's dissertation entitled Refusing the Favor: Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820—1880 is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

8. Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz, Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. xiii.

9. William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" in Poems of William Blake, ed. W. H. Stevenson (London: Longman Group Limited, 1971), p. 585. I would like to thank British historian David Cressy for bringing this poem to my attention.

10. Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1992. Note: The exhibit was organized by El Monte Council member Ernie Gutierrez. Noticing that the museum had rarely incorporated local Mexican—American history, he personally solicited pho- tographs from long-time community residents. Museum staff mounted them for display and later returned the photos to the families without making copies for the museum's permanent collections.

Chapter 1

1. Interview with Jesusita Torres, January 8, 1993, conducted by the author. 2. Marjorie Sanchez-Walker, "Woven Within My Grandmother's Braid: The

Biography of a Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1898-1982" (M.A. thesis, Washing- ton State University, 1993), pp. 24-31, 33, 35-37, 39-40. Sanchez-Walker notes that family stories differ as to why the marriage took place. Indeed, Petra had ex- pressed a desire to become a nun. Another Rocha sister, Luisa, would later explain that Petra had made "a solemn deathbed pledge" to Guadalupe that she would take her dying sister's place (p. 29).

3. Sanchez-Walker, "Woven Within My Grandmother's Braid," pp. 41, 44; Torres interview.

4. For any reader interested in the Spanish Borderlands, the essential first text is Ramon Gutierrez's When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Mar- riage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford: Stanford Uni- versity Press, 1991). Note: Although some settlers would claim "Spanish" blood, the majority of people were mestizo (Spanish/Indian) and many colonists were of

Notes to Chapter 1 ^ 173 £

African descent. [Quintard Taylor, "Exploration and Early Settlement" (unpub- lished chapter draft courtesy of the author), pp. 7—8.]

5. Helen Lara Cea, "Notes on the Use of Parish Registers in the Recon- struction of Chicana History in California Prior to 1850," in Between Borders: Es- says on Mexicana/Chicana History, ed. Adelaida R. Del Castillo (Los Angeles: Flor- icanto Press, 1990), pp. 140-42.

6. For further reading on indentured servitude in the Spanish Borderlands, see Albert L. Hurtado, Indian Survival on the California Frontier (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Douglas Monroy, Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni- versity of California Press, 1990); Antonia I. Castaneda's "Presidarias y Poblado- ras: Spanish-Mexican Women in Frontier Monterey, Alta California, 1770—1821" (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1990); James F. Brooks, '"This evil ex- tends especially to the feminine sex': Captivity and Identity in New Mexico, 1700—1847" in Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women's West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997, pp. 97-121); Miroslava Chavez, "Don't Kill Me Sister: Gender, Race and Power in the Murder Trial of Guadalupe Trujillo in Mexican Los Angeles" (paper presented at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, June 7—9, 1996).

7. Monroy, Thrown Among Strangers, p. 271. Hubert Howe Bancroft offered the following description of women's work:

They had charge of the kitchen and of the sewing which was by no means a light task, for there was a great deal of embroidery . . . In ironing the hand was used instead of a flat iron . . . They also combed and braided every day the hair of their fathers, husbands, and brothers. Many of them made the bread, candles, and soap consumed by the family, and many took charge of sowing and harvesting the crops.

[Hubert Howe Bancroft, California Pastoral, Vol. 34 of The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft (San Francisco: The History Company Publishers, 1888), p. 312].

8. Marylynn Salmon, "Equality or Submission? Feme Covert Status in Early Pennsylvania," in Women of America. A History, eds. Carol Ruth Berkin and Mary Beth Norton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1979), pp. 93-100; Janet Lecompte, "The Independent Women of Hispanic New Mexico, 1821—1846,"in New Mexico Women, pp. 78—80; Alfredo Mirande and Evangelina Enriquez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 67. Note: Salmon also maintained that a few options (e. g., prenuptial contracts) did exist that allowed married women to control their property and other financial in- terests.

9. Albert Camarillo's Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848—1930 (Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, 1979) provides the most comprehensive treat- ment of the downward mobility among Mexicans in the Southwest after 1848.

10. For more on stereotypes, see Tomas Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1994); Cecil Robinson, With Ears of Strangers (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1963); Deena J. Gonzalez, "La Tules of Image and Reality: Euro- American Attitudes and Legend Formation on a Spanish-Mexican Frontier," in Building with Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies, eds. Adela de la

-$ 174 % Notes to Chapter 1

Torre and Beatrix Pesquera (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 75—90. Note: Almaguer asserts that racialization and representation went hand in hand. Ethnic divisions among Europeans and Euro-Americans were put aside as they "railed against racialized groups in an attempt to arrogate for themselves a set of material interests that they ultimately defined as being their due as a 'white population'" [Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines, p. 210.]

11. Richard Griswold del Castillo, La Familia: The Mexican American Fam- ily in the Urban Southwest (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), pp. 81, 86; Mary Bernard Aguirre, "Public Schools of Tucson in the 1870s," Aguirre Family Papers, Arizona Historical Society Library, Tucson, Arizona. As an aside, New Mexico's La revista catdlica in 1877 editorialized that women's suffrage would destroy the family.

12. For further reading on Mexican women and work during the late nine- teenth century, see Deena J. Gonzalez, "Spanish-Mexican Women on the Santa Fe Frontier: Patterns of Their Resistance and Accommodation, 1820—1880" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1985); Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Albert Camarillo, Chicanosina Chang- ing Society.

13. Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, We Fed Them Cactus (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1954), p. 60.

14. Precise population and immigration figures for Mexicans in the United States between 1900 to 1930 do not exist. Oscar Martinez estimates that 375,000 to 552,000 Mexicans lived in the Southwest in 1900. In Mexicans in California, a 1930 study commissioned by Governor C. C. Young, the number of Mexican-born individuals in the United States reached 103,393. This figure includes only those born in Mexico and not the individuals born in the Southwest. See also T. Wilson Longmore and Homer L. Hitt, "A Demographic Analysis of First and Second Gen- eration Mexican Population of the United States: 1930," Southwestern Social Sci- ence Quarterly 24 (September 1943): 138—48. Contemporary scholars posit that over one million (and perhaps as many as two million) Mexicanos migrated to the United States between 1910 and 1930. Ricardo Romo and Albert Camarillo opt for the lower end; George Sanchez and David Gutierrez rely on estimates of 1.5 million; and Devra Weber uses the two million figure. See Oscar Martinez, "On the Size of the Chicano Population: New Estimates, 1850-1900," Aztldn (Spring 1975): 56; California, Governor C. C. Young's Mexican Fact-Finding Committee, Mexicans in California (San Francisco: California State Printing Office, 1930; rpt. R and E Research Associates, 1970), p. 31; Ricardo Romo, East Los Angeles: History of a Barrio (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), pp. 42, 61; Camar- illo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, pp. 200—201; George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 18; David Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity in the Southwest, 1910-1986 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 52.

15. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, p. 6.1 see the layering of generations in the faces of my students who are first, second, third, fourth generations, and beyond. For some, their border journeys were lived experiences and not something they learned about from books and family stories.

Notes to Chapter 1 -% 175 $•

16. Ruth Tuck, Not with the Fist (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946), pp. 209-10.

17. Interview with Ray Buriel, December 21, 1994, conducted by the au- thor.

18. Chain migration generally refers to groups of relatives moving in stages to a specific locale—one family sets out to a new area and other relations gradu- ally follow. Circular migration implies that families move back and forth across the border, with migration as a continuous process rather than as a prelude to permanent settlement. For more discussion, see George Sanchez, Becoming Mex- ican American, pp. 41, 132—33. Emilio Zamora in his study of Mexican workers in Texas also finds evidence of substantial circular migration along the Mex- ico—Texas border, a pattern that significantly shaped their cultural and political consciousness or what Zamora has termed a "Mexicanist identity." See Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1993), especially Chapter 8.

19. In her contemporary study of Mexican immigrant women, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo astutely reminds immigration scholars to look beyond an ab- stract structural analysis of push/pull factors in delineating the myriad of individ- ual motivations for migration. In her words: "Conspicuously absent from the macrostructural perspective is any sense of human agency or subjectivity. Rather than human beings, immigrants are portrayed as homogenous, nondifferentiated objects, responding mechanically and uniformly to the same set of structural forces." [Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experience of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 6.] I have en- deavored in the discussion that follows to tell women's stories, to account for the diverse ways in which they approached migration and settlement, to reclaim their motivations, expectations, and lived experiences.

20. Lawrence A. Cardoso, Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1897-1931: Socio-Economic Patterns (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980), pp. 1, 7, 9-11, 13; Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, pp. 50, 52 [quote is from p. 50]; Linda B. Hall and Don M. Coerver, Revolution on the Border: The United States and Mexico, 1910-1920 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988), pp. 11-13. Hall and Coerver note that in "1910, foreigners—mostly Amer- icans—owned about one-seventh of the land surface of Mexico. Much of this land was located . . . along the U.S.—Mexican border" [p. 12]. For more information on the modernization of Mexico under the Diaz regime, see Michael Meyer and William Sherman, The Course of Mexican History, 5th ed. (New York: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1995), pp. 431-67.

21. Meyer and Sherman, The Course of Mexican History, pp. 498—502, 552-61; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, pp. 33-34; Cardoso, Mexican Emigration, pp. 38—44; Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military: Myth and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 36—48. For further in- formation on Mexican women's revolutionary roles, see also Shirlene Soto, Emer- gence of the Modem Mexican Woman: Her Participation in Revolution and Strug- gle for Equality, 1910-1940 (Denver: Arden Press, 1990) and Anna Macias, Against All Odds: The Feminist Movement in Mexico to 1940 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982).

22. Interview with Lucia R., December 1981, conducted by Margarita C. 23. Meyer and Sherman, Course of Mexican History, pp. 587—89; Cardoso,

Mexican Emigration, pp. 38-49; Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez,

% 176 % Notes to Chapter 1

Decade of Betrayal (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), pp. 12—13; Ricardo Romo, "Mexican Americans in the New West," in The Twentieth Century West, eds. Gerald D. Nash and Richard Etulain (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989), p. 128; Interview with Alma Araiza Garcia, March 27, 1993, conducted by the author.

24. See Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society; Romo, East Los Angeles; and Mario Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest (Notre Dame: Uni- versity of Notre Dame Press, 1979).

25. Barerra, Race and Class in the Southwest, p. 131. 26. Romo, "Mexican Americans," p. 126; Cardoso, Mexican Emigration, pp.

20—23; United States Chamber of Commerce, Immigration Committee, Mexican Immigration (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1930), pp. 3, 8, 27, 32, 38. [Quote is from p. 32.]

27. "Letter to Anthony Caminetti, Commissioner General of Immigration from Y. Bonillas, Mexican Ambassador to the United States," Reel 8, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Part 2: Mexican Immigration, 1906-1930 (University Publications of America microfilm edition), p. 32; "Labor Contract No. 176, Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, March 14, 1918," Reel 8 of 7NS, Mexican Immigration, p. 41.

28. Camille Guerin-Gonzales, Mexican Workers and American Dreams: Im- migration, Repatriation, and California Farm Labor, 1900—1939 (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994), p. 45; Paul S. Taylor, A Mexican-American Frontier: Nueces County, Texas (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), p. 103; Jean Reynolds, "Mona Benitez Pina: An Oral History of a Chicana Farmworker in Phoenix," Palo Verde, 3:1 (Spring, 1995): 67.

29. Erasmo Gamboa, "Oregon's Hispanic Heritage," Oregon Humanities (Summer 1992): 5; Letter from District Headquarters, U.S. Commission of Im- migration, Moscow, Idaho, to Commissioner General of Immigration, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, p. 83; Chamber of Commerce, Mexican Immigration, pp. 9, 23.

30. Jeff Garcilazo, "Taylorism, Patriarchy and Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1880-1930" (unpublished paper), pp. 2-3; Guerin- Gonzales, Mexican Workers, pp. 33—42. Guerin-Gonzales delineates how the U.S. prohibition against contracting labor in Mexico was selectively enforced. Border inspectors only targeted those agencies owned by Mexican Americans.

31. Interview with Ray Buriel, December 21, 1994, conducted by the au- thor; interview with Eusebia Buriel, January 16, 1995, conducted by the author; Chamber of Commerce, Mexican Immigration, pp. 22, 40; Garcilazo, "Taylorism, Patriarchy" p. 2; Jeff Garcilazo, "Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1871-1930" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1995), pp. 192-245.

32. Rudolfo Acuna, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, 2nd edition (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 89; Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Cul- ture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 32, 88, 94; Patricia Preciado Martin, Songs My Mother Sang for Me: An Oral History of Mexican Amer- ican Women (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1992), pp. 199—201; interview with Erminia Ruiz, February 18, 1993, conducted by the author; Manuel Gamio, Mexican Immigration to the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930; rpt. Arno Press, 1969), p. 39.

33. Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the Vnited States, Vol. II (Berkeley:

Notes to Chapter 1 % 111 %

University of California Press, 1932; rpt. Arno Press, 1970), pp. 1—11; Barrera, Race and Class, pp. 86—87; Gamio, Mexican Immigration, pp. 24—25; panel pre- sentation by Yolanda Lopez as part of "Puro Corazon: A Symposium of Chicana Art" held at Pomona College, February 16, 1995; Balderrama and Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal, pp. 6—7.

34. Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr, "The Chicano Experience in Chicago, 1920-1970" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Chicago, 1976), p. 20; Gamio, Mexican Immigration, pp. 16—19; Barrera, Race and Class, p. 66.

35. Weber, Dark Sweat, pp. 58-59; Manuel Gamio, The Life Story of the Mexican Immigrant (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1931; rpt. Dover Publica- tions, 1971); "Biographies and Case Histories," Manuel Gamio Field Notes, Ban- croft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1 box. [see especially "Juana Martinez (Folder I), "Leova Lopez" and "Elisa Morales" (Folder II)]; Reels 8- of INS, Mexican Immigration.

36. Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker, pp. 18—19; Guerin-Gonza- les, Mexican Workers, pp. 38-42; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, pp. 56—58. Note: Families headed by men were also recruited by contractors, notably those representing agribusiness,

37. Torres interview. 38. Ibid. 39. John Reed, Insurgent Mexico (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1914;

rpt. International Publishers, 1969). Rebozo means shawl. 40. "Hearing, Case No. 1439," Board of Special Inquiry, Nogales, Arizona,

July 3, 1917, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, p. 749. 41. Ibid., 749-51. Note: Although Alfonso declared his desire for U.S. citi-

zenship, he was only escorting his sisters to El Paso and expressing no intention of establishing a residence there.

42. Letter to Inspector in Charge, Immigration Service, Nogales, Arizona from Acting Supervisor Inspector, El Paso, dated July 20, 1917, Reel 8, INS, Mex- ican Immigration, p. 744. A portion of the reprimand follows: "As you know, the Mexican dancers and singers employed in cheap variety shows are, for the most part, of an irresponsible, immoral class, and it seems to the writer in this case an investigation properly should have been conducted at El Paso to determine, if pos- sible, the character of the relatives living here and their mode of living before fa- vorable actions was taken upon the applications."

43. Mario T. Garcia, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 2, 46-48. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, pp. 55—57, 59 [quote is from p. 56]; Balderrama and Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal, p. 9. The head tax was $8.00 per person. Be- cause of a perceived labor shortage by southwestern growers, the literacy test and other provisions of the 1917 Act were waived for agriculture-bound workers. [Garcia, Desert Immigrants, p. 47.]

44. Garcia, Desert Immigrants, p. 2; Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor, Vol. II, p. vi. The original text in Spanish is as follows:

Pues me decian que aqui los dolars se pepenaban y de a monton que las muchachas y que los teatros y aqui todo era vacilon.

45. Manuel Gamio, The Life Story, pp. 159—62; Torres interview [quote is from p. 159].

% 178 % Notes to Chapter 1

46. Ibid. 47. Ruth Allen, "Mexican Peon Women in Texas," Sociology and Social Re-

search, Vol. 16 (September-August 1931-1932): 131. 48. Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Union-

ization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930—1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987). For a richly detailed family and commu- nity ethnography, but one that perhaps overaccentuates the positive, see Robert R. Alvarez, Jr., Familia: Migration and Adaptation in Baja and Alta California, 1800-1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).

49. Torres interview. 50. Interview with Julia Luna Mount, November 17, 1983, conducted by

the author. 51. Torres interview. 52. Gilbert Gonzalez, Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Vil-

lages in a Southern California County, 1900—1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), especially Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 43-98; Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker, p. 5; Weber, Dark Sweat, p. 60.

53. Rosalinda Gonzalez, "Chicanas and Mexican Immigrant Families 1920—1940: Women's Subordination and Economic Exploitation," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920-1940, eds. Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983), pp. 63-64, 72-73. Gilbert Gonzalez contends that compadrazgo (ties of godparenthood for men and women) created a "regional network" among Mexican citrus workers in Orange County. [Gonzalez, Labor and Community, pp. 75-76.] Referring to women's participation in these networks, Devra Weber writes, Women "cooked for each other when they were sick, helped take care of each other's children, provided support among themselves, and facilitated mutual aid within the community." [Weber, Dark Sweat, p. 66.]

54. Irene Castaneda, "Personal Chronicle of Crystal City: Part II," in Liter- atura Chicana, eds. Antonia Castaneda, Tom£s Ybarra-Frausto, and Joseph Som- mers (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1972), p. 247.

55. Gonzalez, Labor and Community, p. 57; Interview with Clemente Lin- ares conducted by Lydia Linares Peake, June 11, 1992; Mary Romero and Eric Margolis, "Tending the Beets: Campesinas and the Great Western Sugar Com- pany," Revista Mujeres, 2 (Junio, 1985): 21.

56. "Chicano!: History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement," proposal submitted to the National Endowment for the Humanities by the Na- tional Latino Communications Center (August 1994), Appendix B, p. 4.

57. Interview with Maria Arredondo, March 19, 1986, conducted by Car- olyn Arredondo.

58. Torres interview; Linares interview. 59. Isabel Flores, "I Remember," El Grito, Vol. 7 (September 1973): 80. 60. "Copies of Newspaper Clippings on the Deplorable Conditions Under

Which Mexicans Are Forced to Live and Work in the State of Michigan," Box 14, File 2, Carey McWilliams Collection [the older material, call number 1243], Spe- cial Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; "Migratory Workers of Southwestern Michigan," Prepared by John DeWilde, Marguerite Dewan, Ben Graham, and Bernard Litwin, August 5, 1940, Michigan Works Projects Administration, Box 14, File 2, McWilliams Collection. [Quote taken from p. 9.]

61. "Copies of Newspaper clippings," McWilliams Collection, p. 2.

Notes to Chapter 1 -% 179 fc-

62. Ray Buriel interview; interview with Josefina Fierro de Bright, August 7, 1977, conducted by Albert Camarillo; Ray Buriel, "The Cultural Adaptation of Hispanic Immigrants in the Citrus Belt, 1920-Present" (unpublished paper cour- tesy of the author); I. Castaneda, "Personal Chronicle," loc. cit.; Vicki L. Ruiz, "By the Day or the Week: Mexicana Domestic Workers in El Paso," in Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change (Winchester, Mass.: Allen and Unwin, 1987), pp. 61—76. Irene Castaneda remembered her mother's laundry routine. "When she was washing clothes, she would sit us down beside her and she taught us to read Spanish."

63. Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, Vol. I (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1930, rpt. Arno Press, 1970), pp. 356-57.

64. Torres interview. 65. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, "From Servitude to Service Work: Historical

Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor," Unequal Sisters, 2nd ed., eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 425.

66. Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, pp. 51—53, 131—32; Gonzalez, Labor and Community, p. 66; Linares interview.

67. Romero and Margolis, "Tending the Beets," p. 26. 68. John Steinbeck, "Their Blood Is Strong," Simon J. Lubin Society pam-

phlet (1938), pp. 2-4, 21-22, 36-38; Arredondo interview. 69. Devra Anne Weber, "Raiz Fuerte: Oral History and Mexicana Farm-

workers," Unequal Sisters, 2nd ed., p. 399. 70. "Labor Contract No. 176, Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, March 14,

1918," Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, p. 41; Report of Fred A. Caine, Utah- Idaho Sugar Company labor agent, January 25, 1918, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Im- migration, pp. 108-10; "Letter to Anthony Caminetti, Commissioner General of Immigration from Wilson J. McConnell, District Head, U.S. Commission of Im- migration, Moscow, Idaho, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, pp. 83—86. [Quotes from pp. 86 and 83, respectively.]

71. Letter to Charles L. Andrews, Inspector-in-charge, U.S. Immigration Service, Helena Montana, dated January 4, 1918, from Utah-Idaho Sugar Com- pany, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, pp. 88—89. Immigration officials did indeed search for these families in Idaho and Nevada. If apprehended, they would have two choices: return to the company or face deportation. [Letter to Immigra- tion Inspector, Moscow, Idaho, dated January 27, 1919, from Office of Supervis- ing Inspector, El Paso, Reel 8 of INS, Mexican Immigration, pp. 99—100.]

72. Gonzalez, Labor and Community, pp.75-98; Buriel, "The Cultural Adap- tation of Hispanic Immigrants." [Quote is from Gonzalez, Labor and Community, p. 75.]

73. Eusebia Buriel interview; Gonzalez, Labor and Community, p. 76. 74. Ray Buriel interview. 75. Garcilazo, "Traqueros," p. 192. 76. Ibid., pp. 208-12,217-18. [Quote is from p. 212.] 77. Ibid., pp. 222-23. 78. Ibid., pp. 210-11; John Culhane, "Hero Street, USA," Reader's Digest

(May 1985): 82. Gracias a Jesus Trevino for providing me with this article. 79. Ray Buriel interview; Eusebia Buriel interview. 80. "Un cuento—una vida," unpublished interview with Gregoria Sosa con-

ducted by Adaljiza Sosa Riddell. Gracias a Adaljiza Sosa Riddell for providing me with a copy of this interview with her mother.

-% 180 % Notes to Chapter 1

81. Reader's Digest, pp. 81-82. [Quote is from p. 82.] 82. Eusebia Buriel interview. 83. Cabeza de Baca, We Fed Them, p. 60. 84. Patricia Preciado Martin, Songs My Mother Sang to Me (Tucson: Uni-

versity of Arizona Press, 1992). The discussion that follows is taken from the fore- word I wrote for the volume.

85. Ibid., pp. 150-51. 86. Ibid., p. 32. 87. Ibid., pp. 199, 146, 161. 88. Thomas Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson,

1854-1941 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986), p. 147. Sheridan also provides an illuminating discussion of the interplay of religion and agrarian tradi- tions. [Seepages 159—63.]

89. Martin, Songs My Mother Sang, pp. 206, 111-12. 90. Ibid., p. 129; Raquel Rubio Goldsmith, "Shipwrecked in the Desert: A

Short History of the Mexican Sisters of the House of the Providence in Douglas, Arizona, 1927-1949," in Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987), pp. 177-95.

91. Martin, Songs My Mother, p. 207. 92. Richard White, It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History

of the American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 288. 93. Ruiz interview; Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, pp. 155—58. 94. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization,

Western Hemisphere Immigration, H.R. 8523, H.R. 8530, H.R. 8702, 71st. Cong., 2ndsess. (1930), p. 436.

95. Ibid. 96. Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depres-

sion: Repatriation Pressures, 1929— 1939 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), p. 29; Roy L. Garis, "The Mexican Invasion," The Saturday Evening Post (April 19, 1930): 43-44; Kenneth L. Roberts, "Wet and Other Mexicans," The Saturday Evening Post (February 4, 1928): 10-11, 137-38, 141-42, 146; Ray- mond G. Carroll, "The Alien on Relief," The Saturday Evening Post (January 11, 1936): 16-17, 100-103; Kenneth L. Roberts, "The Docile Mexican," The Satur- day Evening Post (March 10, 1928): 39,41, 165-66. [Quotes are from pp. 41 and 165, respectively.] For the best survey of Depression-era stereotypes, see Neil Bet- ten and Raymond Mohl, "From Discrimination to Repatriation: Mexican Life in Gary, Indiana, During the Great Depression," in The Chicano, ed., Norris Hund- ley (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio Books, 1975), pp. 124^t2.

97. George Horace Lorimer, "The Mexican Conquest," The Saturday Even- ing Post (June 22, 1929): 26.

98. Acuna, Occupied America, 2nd ed., pp. 138, 140-41; Camarillo, Chi- canos in California (San Francisco: Boyd & Fraser, 1984), pp. 48-49; Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans, pp. 43—46; Francisco Balderrama, In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Community, 1929-1936 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982), pp. 16-20; Betten and Mohl, "From Discrimination to Repatriation," pp. 132, 138—39.

99. George Sanchez, "The Rise of the Second Generation: The Mexican American Movement" (unpublished paper courtesy of the author), p. 10.

100. Balderrama and Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal, pp. 121-22; 216. [Quote is from p. 216.]

Notes to Chapter 2 % 181 $•

101. Douglas Guy Monroy, "Mexicanos in Los Angeles, 1930-1941: An Ethnic Group in Relation to Class Forces" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cal- ifornia, Los Angeles, 1978), p. 231. La migra refers to immigration agents.

102. Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1949; rpt. Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 193.

103. The two most comprehensive studies of deportation and repatriation to date include Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal and Camille Guerin Gonzales, Mexican Workers and American Dreams.

104. Torres interview. She has lived in that house for over five decades. 105. Sanchez-Walker, "Woven Within My Grandmother's Braid," pp. 44,

46. 106. Ibid, p. 46. 107. Ibid., pp. 60-62. 108. Ibid., pp. 71-74. [Quotes are from pp. 73, 74, respectively.] 109. Ibid,, pp. 81, 83—87. The "nice ladies next door" who gave the daugh-

ters food in exchange for errands were probably prostitutes. With the exception of the youngest, all the children were native-born U.S. citizens and could cross the border with impunity. However, Petra and her infant could not; they would have to enter the United States with the services of a coyote or smuggler.

110. Betten and Mohl, "From Discrimination to Repatriation," p. 140. 111. Sanchez-Walker, "Woven Within My Grandmother's Braid," pp.

90—96. Back in the United States, Petra would bear two more children, one of whom would die as a toddler [pp. 100, 105-106].

112. Mario Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930-1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 53-59; 62-83; Garcfa interview. For the more information on the Mexican American middle class, see Richard Garcfa, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class, San Antonio, 1929-1941 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991).

113. "Senora ," Manuel Gamio field notes.

Chapter 2

1. Interview with Elsa Chavez, April 19, 1983, conducted by the author. Note: Elsa Chavez is a pseudonym used at the person's request.

2. Recent scholarship on Americanization programs aimed at Mexican com- munities includes George J. Sanchez, '"Go After the Women": Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1915-1929," in Unequal Sisters: A Multi- cultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 2nd ed., eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 284-97; Sarah Deutsch, No Sep- arate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on the Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 63—86; Gilbert Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadel- phia: Balch Institute Press, 1990), pp. 30-61; Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, "Gary Mexicans and 'Christian Americanization': A Study in Cultural Conflict," in Forg- ing a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919—1975, eds. James B. Lane and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987), pp. 115-34; Susan Yohn, A Contest of Faiths: Missionary Women and Pluralism in the American Southwest (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); Vicki L. Ruiz,

-$ 182 $• Notes to Chapter 2

"Dead Ends or Gold Mines?: Using Missionary Records in Mexican American Women's History," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, 12:1 (1991): 33—56.

3. Pearl Idella Ellis, Americanization Through Homemaking (Los Angeles: Wetzel Publishing Co., 1929), preface [no page number].

4. Ibid.,p. 13. 5. M. Dorothy Woodruff, "Methodist Women Along the Mexican Border"

(Women's Division of Christian Service pamphlet, ca. 1946) [part of an uncata- logued collection of documents housed at Houchen Community Center, El Paso, Texas; heretofore referred to as HF for Houchen Files]. This pamphlet provides brief descriptions of each of the twenty-one "centers of work" operated by Meth- odist missionaries. For a celebratory overview of Methodist women's missionary endeavors throughout the United States, see Noreen Dunn Tatum, A Crown of Service (Nashville, Tenn.: Parthenon Press, 1960).

6. Steven Seidman, ed.,Jiirgen Habermas on Society and. Politics: A Reader (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), p. 171.

7. Oscar J. Martinez, The Chicanos of El Paso: An Assessment of Progress (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1980), pp. 6, 17.

8. Martinez, Chicanos, pp. 10, 29—33. Mario Garcia meticulously docu- ments the economic and social stratification of Mexicans in El Paso. See Mario T. Garcia, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981). Note: In 1960, the proportion of Mexican workers with high white-collar jobs jumped to 3.4 percent. [Martinez, Chicanos, p. 10.]

9. "South El Paso's Oasis of Care," paso del none, Vol. I (September 1982): 42-43; Thelma Hammond, "Friendship Square," (Houchen Report, 1969) [HF]; "Growing with the Century" (Houchen Report, 1947) [HF].

10. Garcia, Desert Immigrants, p. 145; Effie Stoltz, "Freeman Clinic: A Re- sume of Four Years Work" (Houchen Pamphlet, 1924) [HF]. It should be noted that Houchen Settlement sprang from the work of Methodist missionary Mary Tripp who arrived in South El Paso in 1893. However, it was not until 1912 that an actual settlement was established. ["South El Paso's Oasis of Care," p. 42].

11. Stoltz, "Freeman Clinic"; Hammond, "Friendship Square"; M. Dorothy Woodruff and Dorothy Little, "Friendship Square (Houchen Pamphlet, March 1949) [HF]; "Friendship Square" (Houchen Report, circa 1940s) [HF]; Health Center (Houchen Newsletter, 1943) [HF]; "Christian Health Service" (Houchen Report, 1941) [HF]; El Paso Times, October 20, 1945.

12. "Settlement Worker's Report" (Houchen Report, 1927) [HF]; Letter from Dorothy Little to E. Mae Young dated May 10, 1945 [HF]. Letter from Bessie Brinson toTreva Ely dated September 14, 1958 [HF]; Hammond, "Friend- ship Square"; Elmer T. Clark and Dorothy McConnell, "The Methodist Church and Latin Americans in the United States" (Board of Missions pamphlet, circa 1930s) [HF]. My very rough estimate is based on the documents and records to which I had access. I was not permitted to examine any materials then housed at Newark Hospital. The most complete statistics on utilization of services are for the year 1944 in the letter from Dorothy Little to E. Mae Young. Note: Because of the deportation and repatriation drives of the 1930s in which one-third of the Mexi- can population in the United States were either deported or repatriated, the Mex- ican population in El Paso dropped from 68,476 in 1930 to 55,000 in 1940. By 1960 it had risen to 63,796. [Martinez, Chicanos, p. 6]

13. El Paso Herald Post, March 7, 1961; El Paso Herald Post, March 12, 1961; "Community Centers" (Women's Division of Christian Service Pamphlet,

Notes to Chapter 2 % 183 $•

May 1963); Funding Proposal for Youth Outreach and Referral Report Project (April 30, 1974) [Private Files of Kenton J. Clymer, Ph.D.]; El Paso Herald Post, January 3, 1983; El Paso Times, August 8, 1983.

14. Letter from Tom Houghteling, Director, Houchen Community Center to the author December 24, 1990; Tom Houghteling, telephone conversation with the author, January 9, 1991.

15. Dorothy Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement" (Houchen Report, February 1942) [HF].

16. Ibid.; "Our Work at Houchen" (Houchen Report, circa 1940s) [HF]; Woodruff and Little, "Friendship Square"; Jennie C. Gilbert, "Settlements Under the Women's Home Missionary Society pamphlet, circa 1920s) [HF]; Clark and McConnell, "Latin Americans in the United States."

17. Anita Hernandez, "The Kindergarten" (Houchen Report, circa 1940s) [HF]; A Right Glad New Year (Houchen Newsletter, circa 1940s) [HF]; Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement"; "Our Work at Houchen"; Woodruff and Lit- tle, "Friendship Square." For more information on the Franciscans, see Ramon Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500—1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).

18. Settlement Worker's Report (1927); Letter from Little to Young; letter from Brinson to Ely; Friendship Square Calendar (1949) [HF]; interview with Lucy Lucero, October 8, 1983, conducted by the author; Chavez interview; dis- cussion following presentation, "Settlement Houses in El Paso," given by the au- thor at the El Paso Conference on History and the Social Sciences, August 24, 1983, El Paso, Texas [tape of presentation and discussion is on file at the Institute of Oral History, University of Texas, El Paso],

19. Chavez interview; discussion following "Settlement Houses in El Paso." Note: The Catholic Church never established a competing settlement house. However, during the 1920s in Gary, Indiana, the Catholic diocese opened up the Gary-Alerding Settlement with the primary goal of Americanizing Mexican immi- grants. The bishop took such action to counteract suspected inroads made by two local Protestant settlement houses. See Crocker, "Gary Mexicans," pp. 123—27.

20. "Christian Health Service"; "The Freeman Clinic and the Newark Con- ference Maternity Hospital" (Houchen Report, 1940) [HF]; El Paso Times, Au- gust 2, 1961; El Paso Herald Post, May 12, 1961. For more information on Amer- icanization programs in California, see George J. Sanchez, '"Go After the Women,'" pp. 250—63. Note: The documents reveal a striking absence of adult Mexican male clients. The Mexican men who do appear are either Methodist min- isters or lay volunteers.

21. Sanchez, "'Go After,'" pp. 250-83; Deutsch, No Separate Refuge; "Amer- icanization Notes," The Arizona Teacher and Home Journal, 11:5 (January 1923): 26. Note: The Methodist and Presbyterian settlements in Gary, Indiana, also couched their programs in terms of "Christian Americanization." [Crocker, "Gary Mexicans," pp. 118-20]

22. "Settlement Worker's Report" (1927); Friendship Square Calendar (1949) [HF]; letter from Brinson to Ely; Chavez interview.

23. "News Clipping from The El Paso Times" (circa 1950s) [HF]. 24. Clara Gertrude Smith, "The Development of the Mexican People in the

Community of Watts" (M.A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1933), p. 104.

-$ 184 % Notes to Chapter 2

25. Rayna Green, "The Pocahontas Perplex," in Unequal Sisters, pp. 15—21. 26. Sanchez, "'Go After the Women,'" p. 260; Newark-Houchen News, Sep-

tember 1975.1 agree with George Sanchez that Americanization programs created an overly rosy picture of American life. In his words: "Rather than providing Mex- ican immigrant women with an attainable picture of assimilation, Americaniza- tion programs could only offer these immigrants idealized versions of American life." [Sanchez, Joe. cit.]

27. Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement." 28. Garcia, Desert Immigrants, pp. 110—26; Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in

the United States, Vol. I (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930, rpt. Arno Press, 1970), pp. 79, 205-206. [Quote is from Taylor, Mexican Labor, p. 79.]

29. Margarita B. Melville, "Selective Acculturation of Female Mexican Mi- grants," in Twice a Minority: Mexican American Women, ed. Margarita B. Melville (St Louis: C.V. Mosby, 1980), pp. 159-60; John Garcia, "Ethnicity and Chicanos: Measurement of Etnic Identification, Identity, and Consciousness," Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 4 (1982): 310—11. For an insightful, brief overview of Mexican-American ethnic identification, see David Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnic- ity in the Southwest, 1910-1986 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 1-11.

30. Edward Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Crit- ical Social Theory (New York and London: Verso Press, 1989), p. 23. Gracias a Matthew Garcia for bringing this text to my attention.

31. "Settlement Worker's Report" (1927); Hernandez, "The Kindergarten" [HF]; A Right Glad New Year; Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement"; "Our Work at Houchen"; Woodruff and Little, "Friendship Square"; "South El Paso's Oasis of Care," loc. cit.; El Paso Herald Post, March 7,1961; El Paso Herald Post, March 12, 1961; El Paso Herald Post, May 12, 1961.

32. C. S. Babbitt, "The Remedy for the Decadence of the Latin Race" (El Paso: El Paso Printing Company) (Presented to the Pioneers Association of El Paso, Texas, July 11, 1909, by Mrs. Babbitt, widow of the author), p. 55. Pamphlet courtesy of Jack Redman.

33. George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 156; Robert McLean, That Mexican! As He Is, North and South of the Rio Grande (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1928), pp. 162-63, quoted in E. C. Orozco, Republican Protestantism in Aztldn (Santa Barbara: The Petereins Press, 1980), p. 162. Note: Immigration has frequently been linked with food from the "melting pot" of assimilation to the "salad bowl" of cultural pluralism. McLean's metaphor of Uncle Sam as a diner at the immigration cafe follows:

Fifty and one hundred years ago Uncle Sam accomplished some remarkable digestive feats. Gastronomically he was a marvel. He was not particularly choosy! Dark meat from the borders of the Mediterranean or light meat from the Baltic equally suited him, for promptly he was able to assimilate both, turning them into bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh—But this chili con carne! Always it seems to give Uncle Samuel the heartburn; and the older he gets, the less he seems to be able to assimilate it. Indeed, it is a question whether chili is not a condiment, to be taken in small quantities rather than a regular article of diet. And upon this conviction ought to stand all the l a w . . . as far as the Mexican immigrant is concerned.

Notes to Chapter 2 % 185 $•

34. Account Book/or Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement (1903-1913) [HF]; Hammond, "Friendship Square"; "Growing with the Century"; El Paso Times, September 5, 1975; Stoltz, "Freeman Clinic": Woodruff and Little, "Friendship Square"; El Paso Times, October 3, 1947; "Four Institutions. One Goal. The Christian Community" (Houchen pamphlet, circa early 1950s) [HF]; Houghtel- ing conversation; "A City Block of Service" (Script of Houchen Slide Presenta- tion, 1976) [HF]; El Paso Times, January 19, 1977; "Speech given by Kenton J. Clymer, Ph.D." (June 1975) [Clymer Files]; El Paso Times, May 23, 1975; Newark-Houchen News, September 1975. It should be noted that in 1904 local Methodist congregations did contribute much of the money needed to purchase the property on which the settlement was built. Local civic groups occasionally donated money or equipment and threw Christmas parties for Houchen children. [Account Book; El Paso Herald Post, December 14, 1951; El Paso Times, Decem- ber 16, 1951]

35. Vernon McCombs, "Victories in the Latin American Mission" (Board of Home Missions pamphlet, 1935) [HF]; "Brillante Historia De La Iglesia 'El Buen Pastor' El Paso," Young Adult Fellowship Newsletter, December 1946 [HF]; Soledad Burciaga, "Yesterday in 1923" (Houchen Report, 1939) [HF].

36. This study is based on a limited number of oral interviews (five), but they represent a range of interaction with the settlement from playing on the play- ground to serving as the minister for El Buen Pastor. It is also informed by a pub- lic discussion of my work on Houchen held during an El Paso teachers' confer- ence in 1983. Most of the educators who attended the talk had participated, to some extent, in Houchen activities and were eager to share their recollections. [C.f. note 13]. I am also indebted to students in my Mexican-American history classes when I taught at the University of Texas, El Paso, especially the reentry women, for their insight and knowledge.

37. Woodruff and Little, "Friendship Square"; Hammond, "Friendship Square"; Greetings for 1946 (Houchen Christmas Newsletter, 1946) [HF]; Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement'; Soledad Burciaga, "Today in 1939" (Hou- chen Report, 1939) [HF]; "Our Work at Houchen"; "Christian Social Service" [Houchen Report, circa 1940s) [HF]; Interview with Fernando Garcia, Septem- ber21, 1983, conducted by the author; El Paso Times, June 14, 1951; Lucero in- terview; Vicki L. Ruiz, "Oral History and La Mujer: The Rosa Guerrero Story," in Women on the U.S.—Mexico Border: Responses to Change (Boston: Allen and Un- win, 1987), pp. 226-27; Newark-Houchen News, September 1975.

38. Woodruff, "Mexican Women." 39. Spanish-American Methodist News Bulletin, April 1946 [HF]; Ham-

mond, "Friendship Square"; McCombs, "Victories"; "El Metodismo en La Ciu- dad de El Paso," Christian Herald, July 1945 [HF]; "Brillante Historia"; "The Door: An Informal Pamphlet on the Work of the Methodist Church Among the Spanish-speaking of El Paso, Texas" (Methodist pamphlet, 1940) [HF]; "A City Block of Service" (script of slide presentation); Garcia interview; Houghteling in- terview. Note: From 1932 to 1939, services for El Buen Pastor were held in a church located two blocks away from the settlement.

40. A. Ruth Kern, "There Is No Segregation Here," Methodist Youth Fund Bulletin (January-March 1953): 12 [HF].

41. Ibid.; "The Torres Family" (Houchen Report, circa 1940s) [HF]; inter- view with Estella Ibarra, November 11, 1982, conducted by Jesusita Ponce; Hazel Bulifant, "One Woman's Story" (Houchen Report, 1950) [HF]; "Our Work at Houchen."

-% 186 % Notes to Chapter 2

42. Clara Sarmiento, "Lupe" (Houchen Report, circa 1950s) [HF]. 43. Ibarra interview. 44. Bulifant, "One Woman's Story"; letter from Little to Young. 45. Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, pp. 64-66, 85-86; Sanchez, "'Go After

the Women,'" pp. 259—61; Crocker, '"Gary Mexicans,'" p. 121. 46. Sarmiento, "Lupe." In her study, Ruth Crocker also notes the propensity

of Protestant missionaries to focus their energies on children and the selective uses of services by Mexican clients. As she explained, "Inevitably, many immi- grants came to the settlement, took what they wanted of its services, and remained untouched by its message." [Crocker, "Gary Mexicans," p. 122.]

47. Newark-Houchen News, September 1975. 48. Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, pp. 78—79; Ibarra interview; interview

with Rose Escheverria Mulligan, Volume 27 of Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War II Work Experience, ed. Sherna Berger Gluck (Long Beach: CSULB Foundation, 1983), p. 24.

49. Paul S. Taylor, "Women in Industry," field notes for Mexican Labor in the United, States, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, Box 1. Note: Referring to Los Angeles, two historians have argued that "Mexicans expe- rienced segregation in housing in nearly every section of the city and its outlying areas." [Antonio Rios-Bustamante and Pedro Castillo, An Illustrated History of Mexican Los Angeles (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, 1986), p. 135.]

50. Interview with Alicia Mendeola Shelit, Volume 37, Rosie the Riveter Re- visited, p. 32; Mulligan interview, p. 14. Anthropologist Ruth Tuck noted that Euro-Americans also employed the term "Spanish" to distinguish individuals "of superior background or achievement." [Ruth Tuck, Not with the Fist (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946; rpt. Arno Press, 1974), pp. 142-43.]

51. Interview with Alma Araiza Garcia, March 27, 1993, conducted by the author.

52. Tuck, Not with the Fist, p. 133. 53. Friendship Square Calendar (1949); Beatrice Fernandez, "Day Nursery"

(Houchen Report, circa late 1950s) [HF]. 54. "Friendship Square" (Houchen pamphlet, circa 1950s) [HF]; letter to

Houchen Girl Scouts from Troop 4, Latin American Community Center, Alpine, Texas, May 18, 1951 [HF].

55. A Right Glad New Year; News clipping from the El Paso Times (circa 1950s); "Our Work at Houchen"; Little, "Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement"; "Anglo Settlement Worker's Journal" (entry for December 1952) [HF].

56. Newark-Houchen News, September 1975; Sarmiento, "Lupe." 57. Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue: The Search for Moral Authority in the

American West, 1874-1939 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 112-39; Woodruff, "Methodist Women."

58. Datebook for 1926 (entry: Friday, September 9, 1929) (Settlement Worker's private journal) [HF]; "Brillante Historia"; "Report and Directory of As- sociation of Church Social Workers, 1940" [HF]; "May I Come in? (Houchen brochure, circa 1950s) [HF]; "Friendship Square" (Houchen pamphlet, 1958) [HF]; Mary Lou Lopez, "Kindergarten Report" (Houchen Report, circa 1950s) [HF]; Sarmiento, "Lupe"; "Freeman Clinic and Newark Hospital" (Houchen pam- phlet, 1954) [HF]; El Paso Times, June 14, 1951; "Houchen Day Nursery" (Houchen pamphlet, circa 1950s) [HF]; El Paso Times, September 12, 1952.

Notes to Chapter 3 % 187 £-

59. Chavez interview; Martha Gonzalez, interview with the author, October 8, 1983; Lucero interview; Newark-Houchen News, September 1974.

60. Letter from Little to Young; "The Door"; Woodruff and Little, "Friend- ship Square."

61. "Houchen Day Nursery"; "Life in a Glass House" (Houchen Report, circa 1950s) [HF].

62. Program for First Annual Meeting, Houchen Settlement and Day Nurs- ery, Freeman Clinic, and Newark Conference Maternity Hospital (January 8, 1960) [HF]. It should be noted that thirty years later, there seems to be a shift back to original settlement ideas. Today, Houchen Community has regularly scheduled bible studies. [Letter from Houghteling to the author.]

63. Program for Houchen production of "Cinderella" [HF]; letter from Brin- son to Ely. For more information on LULAC, see Mario T. Garcia, Mexican Amer- icans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930—1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

64. Bulifant, "One Woman's Story"; News from Friendship Square (Spring newsletter, circa early 1960s) [HF].

65. My understanding and application of the ideas of Jilrgen Habermas have been informed by the following works. Jiirgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, trans. Christian Lenhardt and Sherry Weber Nich- olsen, introd. Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990); Seidman, ed., Jiirgen Habermas on Society and Politics; Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989); Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell, "Introduction: Beyond the Politics of Gender," in Feminism as Critique, eds. Seyla Benhabib and Drucilla Cornell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

66. As an example of this typology, see Mario Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 13-22, 295-302. Richard Griswold del Castillo touches on the dynamic na- ture of Mexican culture in La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to the Present (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).

67. Escheverria Mulligan interview, p. 17. 68. Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr, "The Chicano Experience in Chicago,

1920-1970" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, 1976), p. 104.

Chapter 3

1. Interview with Maria Ybarra, December 1, 1990, conducted by David Perez.

2. For colonial New Mexico, Ramon Gutierrez convincingly demonstrates how family honor was tied, in part, to women's verguenza (literally, shame or vir- ginity). See Ramon Gutierrez, "Honor, Ideology, and Class Gender Domination in New Mexico, 1690-1846," Latin American Perspectives 12 (Winter 1985): 81—104, and Ram6n Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Power and Sexuality in New Mexico, 1500—1846 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). I contend that since mothers and elder female relatives played ma- jor roles in enforcing chaperonage, strict supervision of daughters related more to what I term "familial oligarchy" than to patriarchal control.

3. Donna R. Gabaccia, From Sicily to Elizabeth Street (Albany: SUNY Press,

% 188 £ Notes to Chapter 3

1984); Sydney Stahl Weinberg, "The Treatment of Women in Immigration His- tory: A Call for Change," in Seeking Common Ground: Multidisciplinary Studies of Immigrant Women in the United States, ed. Donna Gabaccia (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1992), pp. 3—22; Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, Channels of De- sire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982); Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1985); Andrew Heinze, Adapt- ing to Abundance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Susan A. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).

4. Interview with Erminia Ruiz, February 18, 1993, conducted by the au- thor. In 1919, True Story Magazine began an industry of romance and scandal magazines; by 1929, this publication had over two million subscribers. See Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880—1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 129-33.

5. Interview with Jesusita Torres, January 8, 1993, conducted by the author. 6. George Lipsitz, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular

Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), p. 13; Nirwan De- wanto, "American Kitsch and Indonesian Culture: A Sketch," paper presented at the Third Annual International Symposium: American Studies in the Asia-Pacific Region, "The Impact of American Popular Culture on Social Transformation in Asian Countries" (April 3, 1992) Tokyo, Japan. For the most comprehensive ex- amination of the impact of mass culture on immigrants and their children, see Liz- beth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

7. Ruth Tuck, Not with the Fist (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946; rpt. Arno Press, 1974), pp. 185-88; Vicki L. Ruiz, "Oral History and La Mujer: The Rosa Guerrero Story," in Women on the U.S.—Mexico Border: Responses to Change (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987)," pp. 226—27; interview with Belen Martinez Mason, Volume 23 of Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War I Work Experience, ed. Sherna Berger Gluck (Long Beach: CSULB Founda- tion, 1983), pp. 24-25; Ruiz interview (1993); Interview with Ruby Estrada, Au- gust 4, 1981, conducted by Maria Hernandez, "The Lives of Arizona Women" Oral History Project (On File, Special Collections, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona), p. 6, I gratefully acknowledge ASU archivist Chris- tine Marin for providing me with this interview. For a scholarly overview of the ed- ucational experiences of Spanish-speaking children in southwestern schools, see Gilbert Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadelphia: Balch Institute Press, 1990).

8. Interview with Mary Luna, Vol. 20 of Rosie the Riveter Revisited, p. 10. During the 1940s, bilingual education appeared as an exciting experiment in cur- riculum reform. See "First Regional Conference on the Education of the Spanish- Speaking People in the Southwest," ed. George I. Sanchez (December 1945) reprinted in Aspects of the Mexican American Experience.

9. Luna interview, p. 9. 10. Valerie J. Matsumoto, Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American

Community in California, 1919-1982 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993); Valerie J. Matsumoto, "Growing Up with Jeanette MacDonald and Dear Deidre: Nisei Girls in the 1930s" (unpublished paper courtesy of the author); Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

Notes to Chapter 3 % 189 £-

11. Mauricio Mazon's The Zoot Suit Riots (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984) and the Luis Valdez play and feature film, Zoot Suit provide examples of the literature on pachucos. A doctoral student at Princeton University, Eduardo Pagan is completing a dissertation on pachucos and the politics of race during World War II.

12. I would like to introduce these women by grouping them geographically. Maria Fierro, Rose Escheverria Mulligan, Adele Hernandez Milligan, Beatrice Morales Clifton, Mary Luna, Alicia Mendeola Shelit, Carmen Bernal Escobar, Belen Martinez Mason, and Julia Luna Mount grew up in Los Angeles. Lucy Acosta and Alma Araiza Garcia came of age in El Paso and Erminia Ruiz in Den- ver. Representing the rural experience are Maria Arredondo, and Jesusita Torres (California), Maria Ybarra (Texas), and Ruby Estrada (Arizona). As a teenager, Eusebia Buriel moved with her family from Silvis, Illinois, to Riverside, California. Note: Of the seventeen full-blown life histories, nine are housed in university archives, seven as part of the Rosie the Riveter collection at California State University, Long Beach. I appreciate the generosity and longstanding support of Sherna Gluck who has given me permission to use excerpts from the Rosie in- terviews. This sample also does not include oral interviews found in published sources.

13. The age breakdowns for the fourteen interviewees are as follows: nine were born between 1908 and 1919 and eight between 1920 and 1926. This sam- ple includes some who were chaperoned during the 1920s and others who were chaperoned during the thirties and forties. As a result, the sample does not a rep- resent a precise generational grouping, but instead gives a sense of the pervasive- ness and persistence of unremitting supervision.

14. Estrada interview, pp. 2, 15, 17, 19. Note: Most families were nuclear, rather than extended, although kin usually (but not always) resided nearby. Car- men Bernal Escobar and Alma Araiza Garcia grew up in single-parent households with extended kin present, Carmen reared by her mother, Alma by her father.

15. George J. Sanchez, '"Go After the Women': Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman 1915-1929," in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 2nd ed., eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 285.

16. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flappers and Philosophers (London: W. Collins Sons and Co., Ltd., 1922), pp. 209—46; Emory S. Bogardus, The Mexican in the United States (Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, 1934), p. 741; Mar- tinez Mason interview, p. 44. During the 1920s, Mexican parents were not atypi- cal in voicing their concerns over the attitudes and appearance of their "flapper adolescents." A general atmosphere of tension between youth and their elders ex- isted—a generation gap that cut across class, race, ethnicity, and region. See Paula Pass, The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

17. Interview with Alicia Mendeola Shelit, Volume 37 of Rosie the Riveter, p. 18; Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, Volume II (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1932), pp. 199—200; Interview with Maria Fierro, Vol- ume 12 of Rosie the Riveter, p. 10. Changing clothes at school is not peculiar to our mothers and grandmothers. As a high school student in the early 1970s, I was not allowed to wear the fashionable micro-mini skirts. But I bought one anyway. I left home in a full dirndl skirt with a flowing peasant blouse, but once I arrived at

% 190 % Notes to Chapter 3

school, I would untie the skirt (which I would then dump in my locker) to reveal the mini-skirt I had worn underneath.

18. Manuel Gamio, Mexican Immigration to the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930; rpt. Arno Press, 1969), p. 89. The verse taken from "Las Pelonas" in the original Spanish follows:

Los pafios colorados Los tengo aborrecidos Ya hora las pelonas Los usan de vestidos. Las muchachas de S. Antonio Son flojas pa'l raetate Quieren andar pelonas Con sombreros de petate. Se acabaron las pizcas, Se acab6 el algodon Ya andan las pelonas De puro vacil6n.

19. Taylor, Mexican Labor, Vol. II, pp. vi—vii. 20. Rodolfo F. Acufta, Community Under Siege: A Chronicle of Chicanos

East of the Los Angeles River, 1945-1975 (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Publications, 1984), pp. 278, 407-408, 413-14, 418, 422; FTA News, May 1, 1945; interview with Carmen Bernal Escobar, June 15, 1986, conducted by the author. For an example of the promotion of a beauty pageant, see issues of La Opinion, June-July 1927.

21. Escobar interview, 1986. 22. Sherna B. Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, The War and So-

cial Change (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987), pp. 81, 85. 23. The best elaboration of this phenomenon can be found in Roland Marc-

hand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

24. For examples, see La Opinion, September 26, 1926; May 14, 1927; June 5, 1927; September 9, 1929; January 15, 1933; January 29, 1938. Lorena Chambers is currently writing a dissertation focusing on the gendered representa- tions of the body in Chicano cultural narratives. I thank her for our wonderful dis- cussions.

25. Vicki L. Ruiz, '"Star Struck': Acculturation, Adolescence, and Mexican American Women, 1920—1940" in Small Worlds: Children and Adolescents in America, eds. Elliot West and Paula Petrik (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992): 61-80; Roberto R. Trevino, "Prensa YPatria: The Spanish-Language Press and the Biculturation of the Tejano Middle Class, 1920-1940," The Western His- torical Quarterly, Vol. 22 (November 1991): 460.

26. La Opinion, September 29, 1929. 27. Hispano-America, July 2, 1932. Gracias a Gabriela Arredondo for shar-

ing this advertisement with me, one she included in her seminar paper, "'Equality' for All: Americanization of Mexican Immigrant Women in Los Angeles and San Francisco Through Newspaper Advertising, 1927—1935 (M.A. seminar paper, San Francisco State University, 1991).

28. La Opinion, June 5, 1927; La Opinion, February 8, 1938.

Notes to Chapter 3 -% 191 |-

29. Richard A. Garcia, Rise of the Mexican American Middle Class: San An- tonio, 1929-1941 (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1991), pp. 118-19; Tre- vino, "Prensa YPatria," pp. 459-60.

30. For examples, see La Opinion, September 23, 1926; La Opinion, Sep- tember 24 1926; La Opinion, September 27, 1926; La Opinion, September 30, 1926; La Opinion, June 4, 1927; La Opinion, February 27, 1931; and La Opin- ion, August 17, 1931.

31. For an elaboration of this theme, see Ruiz, '"Star Struck'." The quote is taken from La Opinion, March 2, 1927.

32. Ewen and Ewen, Channels of Desire, pp. 95—96. 33. Lipsitz, Time Passages, p. 16. 34. The struggles young Mexican-American women faced just to talk freely

with men and attend the movies unchaperoned stand in stark contrast to their Euro-American peers who had passed first base and were headed toward greater liberties, like having a drink in a bar without tainting their reputations. See Mary Murphy, "Bootlegging Mothers and Drinking Daughters: Gender and Prohibition inButte, Montana," American Quarterly, 46:2 (June 1994): 174-94.

35. Martinez Mason interview, pp. 29—30; Ybarra interview; Escobar in- terview; Fierro interview, p. 15; Estrada interview, pp. 11—12; interview with Er- minia Ruiz, July 30, 1990, conducted by the author; Ruiz interview, 1993, con- ducted by the author; interview with Alma Araiza Garcia, March 27, 1993, con- ducted by the author. Chaperonage was also common in Italian immigrant communities. Indeed, many of the same conflicts between parents and daughters had surfaced a generation earlier among Italian families on the East Coast, al- though in some communities chaperonage persisted into the 1920s. See Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Tum-of-the Century New York (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), pp. 69-70, 152.

36. Interview with Adele Hernandez Milligan, Volume 26 of Rosie the Riv- eter, p. 17.

37. Evangeline Hymer, "A Study of the Social Attitudes of Adult Mexican Immigrants in Los Angeles and Vicinity: 1923" (M.A. thesis, University of South- ern California, 1924; rpt. San Francisco: R and E Research Associates, 1971), pp. 24—25. Other ethnographies that deal with intergenerational tension include Helen Douglas, "The Conflict of Cultures in First Generation Mexicans in Santa Ana, California" (M.A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1928) and Clara Gertrude Smith, "The Development of the Mexican People in the Community of Watts" (M.A. thesis, University of Southern California, 1933).

38. Escobar interview, 1986; Estrada interview, pp. 11, 13; interview no. 653 with Lucy Acosta conducted by Mario T. Garcia, October 28, 1982 (on file at the Institute of Oral History, University of Texas, El Paso), p. 17. I wish to thank Rebecca Graver, coordinator of the Institute of Oral History, for permission to use excerpts from the Acosta interview.

39. Estrada interview, p. 12; Shelit interview, p. 9; Antonio Rios-Bustamante and Pedro Castillo, An Illustrated History of Mexican Los Angeles, 1781-1985 (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center, UCLA, 1986), p. 153.

40. Paul S. Taylor, "Women in Industry," field notes for his book, Mexican Labor in the Unites States, 1927—1930, Bancroft Library, University of California, 1 box; Richard G. Thurston, "Urbanization and Sociocultural Change in a Mexi- can-American Enclave" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Ange-

-% 192 % Notes to Chapter 3

les, 1957; rpt. R and E Research Associates, 1974), p. 118; Bogardus, The Mexi- can, pp. 28-29, 57-58. Note: Paul S. Taylor's two-volume study, Mexican Labor in the United States, is considered the classic ethnography on Mexican Americans during the interwar period. A synthesis of his field notes, "Women in Industry," has been published. See Taylor, "Mexican Women in Los Angeles Industry in 1928," Aztlan, 11 (Spring 1980): 99-131.

41. Martinez Mason interview p. 30; Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993); Thomas Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986), pp. 131-32.

42. Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses, loc. cit. 43. Interview with Beatrice Morales Clifton, Volume 8 of Roiie the Riveter,

pp. 14-15. 44. Smith, "The Development of the Mexican People," p. 47. 45. Ybarra interview. Ethnographies by Smith, Thurston, and Douglas refer

to elopement as a manifestation of generational tension. 46. Discussion following my presentation of "The Flapper and the Chaper-

one" at the Riverside Municipal Museum, May 28, 1995. Comment provided by Rose Medina, co-curator with Vincent Moses of the museum's special exhibition: "Nuestros Antepasados: Riverside's Mexican American Community, 1917—1950."

47. Shelit interview, pp. 9, 24, 30; Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993); Escobar in- terview; Garcia interview; Martinez Mason interview p. 30; Hernandez Milligan interview, pp. 27—28; interview with Maria Arredondo, March 19, 1986, con- ducted by Carolyn Arredondo; Taylor notes.

48. Interview with Julia Luna Mount, November 17, 1983, by the author; Fierro interview, p. 18; Luna interview, p. 29; Ruiz interview (1993); Gregorita Rodriguez, Singing for My Echo (Santa Fe: Cota Editions, 1987), p. 52; Martinez Mason interview, p. 62.

49. "Elisa Morales," interview by Luis Recinos, April 16, 1927, Biographies and Case Histories II folder, Manuel Gamio Field Notes, Bancroft Library, Uni- versity of California; Taylor, Mexican Labor, Vol. II, pp. vi—vii; Gamio, Mexican Immigration, p. 89. The corrido "El Enganchado" in Volume two of Mexican La- bor offers an intriguing glimpse into attitudes toward women and Americaniza- tion.

50. Ruth Alexander in her study of wayward girls in New York City makes an important point about this balancing of boundaries among teenagers.

Using a variety of strategies, the great majority of adolescent girls and young women must have negotiated America's urban terrain in relative safety, enjoy- ing and inventing a sexualized lifestyle while acknowledging the limits of their freedom and acting to protect themselves from social stigma or state action.

[Ruth Alexander, "'The Only Thing I Wanted Was Freedom': Wayward Girls in New York, 1900-1930," in Small Worlds, p. 294.]

51. Ruiz interview (1993). 52. Carmen and Diego are pseudonyms used to ensure the privacy of the

family. Carmen's oral interview is in the author's possession. 53. Discussion following my presentation, of "The Flapper and the Chaper-

one," May 28, 1995. Comment provided by B.V. Meyer. 54. Douglas Monroy, "An Essay on Understanding the Work Experiences of

Mexicans in Southern California, 1900-1939, Aztlan, 12 (Spring 1981): 7Q.Note: Feminist historians have also documented this push for autonomy among the

Notes to Chapter 3 -% 193 fc-

daughters of European immigrants. In particular, see Peiss, Cheap Amusements, Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, E. Ewen, Immigrant Women; and Alexander, "The Only Thing I Wanted Was Freedom." See also Meyerowitz, Women Adrift.

55. Heller Committee for Research in Social Economics of the University of California and Constantine Panuzio, How Mexicans Earn and Live, University of California Publications in Economics, XIII, No. 1, Cost of Living Studies V (Berkeley: University of California, 1933), pp. 11, 14, 17; Taylor notes; Luna Mount interview; Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993); Shelit interview, p. 9. For further delineation of the family wage economy, see Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978).

56. These observations are drawn from my reading of the seventeen oral in- terviews and the literature on European immigrant women.

57. Luna Mount interview. 58. Garcia interview. 59. Rev. F. X. Lasance, The Catholic Girl's Guide and Sunday Missal (New

York: Benziger Brothers, 1905), Esther Perez Papers, Cassiano-Perez Collection, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas, pp. 279-80. I have a 1946 reprint edition passed down to me by my older sister who had received it from our mother.

60. Gutierrez, "Honor, Ideology," pp. 88-93, 95-98. 61. Estrada interview, p. 12. Focusing on the daughters of European immi-

grants, Elizabeth Ewen has written that "the appropriation of an urban adolescent culture" served as "a wedge against patriarchal forms of social control." This holds true, to some degree, for the women profiled here. But, for Mexican Americans, the underlying ideological assumption was familial oligarchy rather than patri- archy. See Ewen and Ewen, Channels of Desire, p. 95.

62. Lasance, Catholic Girl's Guide, pp. 249-75. [Quote is on p. 270.] 63. lbid.,p.27l. 64. George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture,

and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 167; Mary Helen Ponce, Hoyt Street (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1993), pp. 258, 266-71. [Quote is taken from p. 258.] "Las vistas" is slang for the movies.

65. Ponce, Hoyt Street, p. 266; Margo McBane, "Tale of Two Cities: A Com- parative Study of the Citrus Heartlands of Santa Paula and LaVerne" (unpub- lished paper courtesy of the author), pp. 15—16. Discussion following my presen- tation of "The Flapper and the Chaperone," May 28, 1995. Comment provided by Rose Medina. Jamaicas are church bazaars or festivals.

66. Interview with Eusebia Buriel, January 16, 1995, conducted by the au- thor; interview with Ray Buriel, December 21, 1994, conducted by the author.

67. Patricia Preciado Martin, Songs My Mother Sang to Me (Tucson: Uni- versity of Arizona Press, 1992), pp. 19-20.

68. Interview with Rose Escheverria Mulligan, Volume 27 of Rosie the Riv- eter, p. 24.

69. Taylor notes; Monroy, "An Essay on Understanding," p. 70; Rosalinda Gonzalez, "Chicanas and Mexican Immigrant Families 1920-1940: Women's Subordination and Economic Exploitation," in Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920—1940, eds. Lois Scharf and Joan M. Jensen (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983), p. 72; Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry,

-% 194 % Notes to Chapter 3

J930-J950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), pp. 10-12, 17—18; Ruiz interview (1990); John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), pp. 233—35, 239—41. Note: Intimate Matters provides a thought-provoking analysis of sexual liberalism during the interwar period.

70. La Opinion, May 9, 1927. 71. Tuck, Not with the Fist, p. 134. 72. Only two (Ruby Estrada and Alma Garcia) achieved a solid, consistent

middle-class standard of living. Six of the thirteen California women took their place at the shop floor in the aerospace, electronics, apparel, and food-processing industries. Two became secretaries and one a sales clerk at K-Mart. Jesusita Tor- res has been a farm and nursery worker since the age of nine. The remaining three narrators can be considered amas de casa or homemakers.

73. Among the husbands of the California women, many were skilled work- ers in the aerospace industry and the highest occupation for a spouse was fire- fighter. Note: While intermarriage among Mexican American is generally con- ceptualized in terms of Euro-American husbands, in the Imperial Valley of California, substantial numbers of Mexican women married Punjabi men. See Karen Isaksen Leonard, Making Ethnic Choices: California's Punjabi Mexican Americans (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).

74. Margaret Clark, Health in the Mexican American Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 20.

75. Albert Camarillo, "Mexican American Urban History in Comparative Ethnic Perspective," Distinguished Speakers Series, University of California, Davis (January 26, 1987); Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America: A History ofChi- canos, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 310, 318, 323, 330-31; Shelit interview, p. 15.

76. Paul S. Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, Vol. I (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1930; rpt. Arno Press, 1970), pp. 221-24; Arredondo interview; Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993).

77. Ruiz interview (1993). 78. Ibid. 79. Ibid. 80. Ibid. At the age of twenty, Erminia would marry an Anglo Army Air Corps

lieutenant after a brief courtship. Neither family attended the ceremony held in a Denver church rectory. Her husband would later describe Erminia as "the work horse of the family." After her marriage, she regularly sent her mother money and later she and two of her sisters would take turns caring for their elderly mother.

81. Ruiz, Cannery Women, pp. 18—19, 35—36. For a splendid study on the nexus between acculturation and wage work among contemporary Mexican immi- grant women, see Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigrations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).

82. Nicolas Kanellos, A History of Hispanic Theatre in the United States (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 39, 42-43. As Maria Teresa Mon- toya explained, "'nuestros compatriotas no son ni mexicanos ya, ni americanos."' [p. 39].

83. Acosta interview; Tuck, Not with the Fist, pp. 126-27; Thurston, "Ur- banization," pp. 109, 117-19; Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993).

84. Bernice Zamora, "Pueblo, 1950," in Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature, eds. Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero (Tucson: Univer- sity of Arizona Press, 1993), p. 315.

Notes to Chapter 4 % 195 £-

85. Ruiz interviews (1990, 1993); personal experience of author. I should note that during the early 1960s, I served as my sister's chaperone whenever she had a date at the drive-in movie.

Chapter 4

1. Letter from Carey McWilliams dated October 3, 1937, to Louis Adamic, Atlantic File, Carton 1, Carey McWilliams Collection, Older material [call num- ber 1243], Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

2. Ibid. 3. Ibid.; Interview with Dorothy Ray Healey, January 21, 1979, conducted by

the author. 4. Founded in 1927, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LU-

LAC) is the oldest civil rights organization among Mexican Americans. Women's participation in LULAC will be addressed later in this chapter.

5. Born in Guatemala, Luisa Moreno brought Latinos together in labor and political causes from organizing Puerto Rican and Cuban seamstresses in New York City to orchestrating the Spanish-speaking Peoples Congress. The daughter of a prominent New Mexican ranching family, Concha Ortiz y Pino was the first Hispana elected to the state of House of Representatives. Although having differ- ent political orientations, both women were advocates for bilingual education. I will address their contributions later in the chapter.

6. Cynthia E. Orozco, "Beyond Machismo, La Familia, and Ladies Auxil- iaries: A Historiography of Mexican-Origin Women's Participation in Voluntary Associations and Politics in the United States, 1870-1990," in Renato Rosaldo Lecture Series Monograph, Vol. 10 (Tucson: University of Arizona Mexican Amer- ican Studies and Research Center, 1992-93), p. 39.

7. Ibid., p. 40. Though not covering union organization, Orozco's overview essay provides the most prescient historical survey of Mexican women's commu- nity activism.

8. Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1903. Despite their efforts, the strike col- lapsed. Although not mentioning women's involvement, historian Charles Wol- lenberg has published the most extensive treatment of Mexican rail workers' first attempt to unionize. See Charles Wollenberg, "Working on El Traque: The Pacific Electric Strike of 1903," in The Chicano, ed., Norris Hundley (Santa Barbara: ABC Clio, 1978), pp. 96-107.

9. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), p. 807.

10. Sam Kushner, Long Road to Delano (New York: International Publish- ers, 1975), pp. 64—65, 72; Healey interview; "Elizabeth Nicholas: Working in the California Canneries" [interview conducted by Ann Baxandall Krooth and Jaclyn Greenberg], Harvest Quarterly, Nos. 3-4 (September-December, 1976): 21; Cle- tus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History1 of California Farmworkers, 1870—1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 110-11.

11. Carey McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Boston: Little, Brown, 1935; rpt. Santa Barbara: Peregrine, 1971), pp. 214-29; Daniel, Bitter Harvest, pp. 219-20; Walter]. Stein, California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973), p. 224; Ramon Chacon, "The 1933 San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike: Strikebreaking Ac- tivities in California Agriculture," in Work, Family, Sex Roles, Language, eds.

% 196 % Notes to Chapter 4

Mario Barerra, Alberto Camarillo, and Francisco Hernandez (Berkeley: To- natiuth-Quinto Sol, 1980), p. 34.

12. Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cot- ton, and the New Deal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 91. We- ber provides the most nuanced and detailed examination of the 1933 San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike. See Chapter three, "As the faulting of the earth . . . The Strike of 1933," pp. 79-111.

13. Chacon, "1933 Strike," pp. 36-38, 43-62; Pledge Sheet (circa October 1933), CAWIU File, Simon J. Lubin Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Weber, Dark Sweat, pp. 100-102; 107-109; Rudolfo Acuna, Occupied America, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 222-26. [Quote is excerpted from p. 223.]

14. Weber, Dark Sweat, pp. 94-97. [Quote is from p. 96.] 15. Ronald W. Lopez, "The El Monte Berry Strike of 1933," Aztldn, Vol. 1

(Spring 1970): 103-104; Charles S. Spaulding, "The Mexican Strike at El Monte, California," Sociology and Social Research, Vol. 18 (September—August, 1933-1934): 572-73; Interview with Jesusita Torres, January 8, 1993, conducted by the author.

16. Spaulding, "The Mexican Strike," p. 571; Lopez, "The El Monte Strike," p. 103; Acuna, Occupied America, p. 220; Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1992; Torres interview.

17. Acuna, Occupied America, pp. 220—21; Lopez, "The El Monte Berry Strike," pp. 105-106, 108-109.

18. Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1992; Lopez, "The El Monte Berry Strike," p. 106; Torres interview. Zenaida "Sadie" Castro made quite an impres- sion on Holguin who described Castro as follows: "She was one of the few people who spoke English back then. . . . She had some Indian blood in her. She was feisty, and she would boss her husband around. There was no bumbling around her." [Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1992.]

19. Torres interview; Spaulding, "The Mexican Strike of 1933," p. 578; Lopez, "The El Monte Berry Strike," pp. 108-109. L6pez contends that the pub- lic ploy was not very successful because the strikers verbally and physically intim- idated the bargain hunters.

20. Lopez, "The El Monte Berry Strike," pp. 108-109; Acuna, Occupied America, p. 221; Spaulding, "The Mexican Strike," pp. 578-80; Torres interview.

21. John Steinbeck, "Their Blood Is Strong." Simon J. Luhin Society pam- phlet (1938), pp. 19-21,31-33.

22. Healey interview. 23. San Francisco News, July 22, 1940. For slightly different takes on the de-

grees of worker consciousness among Mexican field hands during the 1930s, see Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold; Camille Guerin-Gonzales, Mexican Workers and American Dreams: Immigration, Repatriation, and California Farm Labor, 1900-1939 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994); Victor B. Nelson-Cisneros, "UCAPAWA and Chicanos in California: The Farm Worker Pe- riod, 1937-1940," Aztldn, Vol. 7 (Fall 1976): 453-77.

24. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor Viola- tions of Free Speech and Rights of Labor Part 70, pp. 25736. [commonly known as the LaFollette Committee Hearings]. The Associated Farmers were bankrolled by powerful corporate interests in California, including the Pacific Gas and Electric

Notes to Chapter 4 % 197 $•

Company. For more information on this vigilante group, see Vicki L. Ruiz, Can- nery Women, Cannery Lives (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1937), pp. 50-55; Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold, pp. 118-23, 189-98.

25. U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings Before a Sub- committee of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor Part 71, pp. 26394-97.

26. "Blood on the Cotton," UCAPAWA pamphlet (1939), p. 1; U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Sen- ate Committee on Education and Labor Violations of Free Speech and Rights of La- bor Part 51, pp. 18653, 18838-39, 18913.

27. U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings on the Rights of Labor Part 71, pp. 26262, 26270-71, 26275-77, 26282-303; Clarke Alexan- der Chambers, "A Comparative Study of Farm Organizations in California During the Depression Years, 1929—1941" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1950), pp. 158, 160; Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold, pp. 196-98. [Quote is from p. 198.]

28. Agricultural Bulletin, November 15, 1939. This was the monthly newsletter of the National Council to Aid Agricultural Workers.

29. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, pp. 55-57; Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold, pp. 195, 198-99, 207-10.

30. Acufia, Occupied America, p. 234; Robert Garland Landolt, "The Mexi- can-American Workers of San Antonio, Texas" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, 1965), pp. 228-35; Julia Kirk Blackwelder, Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1984), p. 143. [Quote is from Acufia, p. 234.]

31. "San Antonio: the Cradle and the Coffin of Texas Liberty" (Texas Civil Liberties Union pamphlet, 1938), George Lambert Collection, Labor Archives, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas, p. 3.

32. Ibid., pp. 5-8; The Daily Worker, June 28, 1938; Irene Ledesma, "Texas Newspapers and Chicana Workers' Activism, 1919—1974," Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 26 (Autumn 1995): 317-20; Roberto R. Calderon and Emilio Zamora, "Manuela Solis Sager and Emma Tenayuca: A Tribute," in Chicana Voices: Intersections of Class, Race, and Gender, eds. Teresa Cordova et al. (Austin: University of Texas, Center for Mexican American Studies, 1986), pp. 33,37.

33. Zaragosa Vargas, '"La Pasionaria de Tejas': Emma Tenayuca, 1930s Mexican American Communist Labor Organizer of San Antonio, Texas" (unpub- lished paper, courtesy of the author), p. 43. The Daily Worker described Emma Tenayuca: "The beautiful young girl looked hardly big enough or old enough to have become a leader of the Mexican workers' fight for economic and civil rights in Texas." [The Daily Worker, June 28, 1938.]

34. Acuna, Occupied America, pp. 234—36; Interview with Luisa Moreno, August 12—13, 1977, conducted by Albert Camarillo; interview with Luisa Moreno, July 27, 1978, conducted by the author; Decision of the Board of Arbi- tration in San Antonio Pecan Strike, San Antonio, Texas (April 13, 1938), Lam- bert Collection, UTA Labor Archives. Note: Henderson's decision to send Luisa Moreno "infuriated" Emma Tenayuca, who reluctantly stepped aside. As a result, the working relationship between the two women proved tenuous and tense. [Var- gas, "La Pasionaria," pp. 31—32; Moreno interviews, 1977 and 1978.] Julia Kirk Blackwelder argues that "Tenayuca and the Workers Alliance wrestled with the

% 198 % Notes to Chapter 4

CIO for control of the workers"; but Tenayuca "agreed to take a back seat" to en- sure the strike's success. Blackwelder does not mention Luisa Moreno in her nar- rative. [Blackwelder, Women of the Depression, p. 148.]

35. Landolt, "The Mexican American Workers," pp. 228, 234-35. 36. Ledesma, "Texas Newspapers and Chicana Activism," p. 321; letter from

Maizie Tamez to Donald Kobler, June 3, 1942, Lambert Collection, UTA Labor Archives.

37. Interview with Carmen Bernal Escobar, February 11, 1979, conducted by the author. For more information, see Chapter 1 of my monograph, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives. [Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987).]

38. See Chapters 2 and 4 of Cannery Women. Quotes are from Escobar in- terview and Moreno interview, 1978, respectively.

39. See Chapters 2 and 4 of Cannery Women, Cannery Lives. 40. See Chapter 4 of Cannery Women, Cannery Lives or the article version

of the Cal San Strike—Vicki L. Ruiz, "A Promise Fulfilled: Mexicana Cannery Workers of Southern California," in The Pacific Historian, 30 (Summer 1986): 50-61.

41. Ibid. 42. Sara Evans has defined "social space" as an area "within which members

of an oppressed group can develop an independent sense of worth in contrast to their received definitions as second-class or inferior citizens." [Sara M. Evans, Personal Politics: The Rise of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 219.]

43. Escobar interview. 44. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, pp. 78—80; Carmen R. Chavez,

"Coming of Age During the War: Reminiscences of an Albuquerque Hispana," New Mexico Historical Review, 70:4 (October 1995): 396-97; interview with Ali- cia Mendeola Shelit, Volume 37 of Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War I Work Experience, ed. Sherna Berger Gluck (Long Beach: CSULB Foundation, 1983), pp. 13, 52-55. See also Sherna Berger Gluck, Rosie the Riv- eter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987).

45. Interview with Julia Luna Mount, November 17, 1983, conducted by the author.

46. Ibid. 47. Patricia Rae Adler, "The 1943 Zoot Suit Riot: Brief Episode in a Long

Conflict," in An Awakening Minority: The Mexican-Americans, ed. Manuel P. Servin quoted in Mauricio Mazon, The Zoot Suit Riots: The Psychology of Symbolic Annihilation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1984), p. 64; Carmen Lomas Garza, "Pachuca with a Razor Blade" (original in the collection of Sonia Saldivar Hull). Note: Of course, pachucas represented only one segment of the Mexican- American adolescent population.

48. Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1949; rpt. Greenwood Press, 1968), p. 257; La Opinion, August 26, 1942, as cited in Jesus Francisco Malaret, "Of Pachucos, Zoot Suiters, and the Press" (unpublished seminar paper, Univer- sity of California, Davis, 1992), pp. 90-91.

49. McWilliams, North from Mexico, pp. 257-58.

Notes to Chapter 4 -% 199 $•

50. Stark's statement appears in the Los Angeles Evening Herald Express, May 20, 1943. For more information on the Zoot Suit Riots, see McWilliams, North from Mexico and Mazon, The Zoot Suit Riots.

51. My interpretation is not meant to excuse the tiny minority of women who engaged in delinquent behavior, but to bring out the voices of those unfairly castigated on the basis of ethnicity, gender, youth, and personal appearance.

52. William H. Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Eco- nomic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 137-43, 146; Mario Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), pp. 131, 140^5.

53. Interview with Josefina Fierro de Bright, August 7, 1977, conducted by Albert Camarillo; William M. Tuttle, Jr., "Daddy's Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives of American Children (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 166—67. In retrospect, Negrete felt remorse at taunting her Japanese- American neighbors.

54. Gilbert Gonzalez, Chicano Education in an Era of Segregation (Phila- delphia: Balch Institute Press, 1990), pp. 136-56; "Episode 3: Blow-Outs" of the PBS documentary CHICANO.' (Galan Productions, 1996); Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, pp. 112—23; "Moreno, Luisa," by Vicki L. Ruiz, Encyclo- pedia of the American West, eds., Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod (New York: Macmillan, 1996), p. 1030. In 1944, UCAPAWA changed its name to the more manageable Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers of America (FTA). For more information on the demise of the union, see Chapter 6 of Cannery Women, loc. cit.

55. Michael Wilson and Deborah Silverton, Salt of the Earth (Old Westbury: Feminist Press, 1978), pp. 93-154; Salt of the Earth, feature film, Paul Jarrico, producer (1954); New York Times, May 3, 1982. [Quotes are from p. 122.] Gra- cias a Tom Miller for providing me with this news clipping.

56. Wilson and Rosenfeldt, Salt of the Earth, pp. 124-25, 137-38, 140-41. 57. Ibid., pp. 93-95, 130-32, 171-76, 183-84; New York Times, May 3,

1982. See Herbert Biberman, Salt of the Earth: The Story of a Film (Boston: Bea- con Press, 1965). [Quotes are from pp. 171 and 176.] Although the film was roundly criticized and played in only a few American theaters in 1954, it received recognition in Europe and enjoyed a rebirth in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the heyday of both the Chicano Movement and Women's Liberation.

58. New York Times, May 3, 1982. In her commentary, Rosenfelt offers a more complicated reading of gender relations among Mexican mining families. She contends that, for many women, their families "reverted back to the old way" in the years following the strike. [Wilson and Rosenfelt, Salt of the Earth, pp. 142-45.]

59. Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueb- los to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848—1930 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 147-48; Juan Gomez- Quinones, Roots of Chicano Politics, 1600—1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), pp. 312—14; Thomas Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986), pp. 107-108; Mario T. Garcia, Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 294. See also Roberto R. Calderon, "Union, Paz y Trabajo: Laredo's Mutual Aid Soci-

% 200 % Notes to Chapter 4

eties, 1890s" in Historical Scholarship in Texas: Proceedings of the Mexicans in Texas History Conference, eds. Emilio Zamora, Cynthia E. Orozco, and Rudolfo Rocha (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming). Note: Mutualistas origi- nated among workers in Mexico during the 1850s. In addition, they exemplified the types of mutual aid societies created by immigrants across the globe. [Calderon, "Union, Paz y Trabajo," p. 3; Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses, p. 108.]

60. Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses, pp. 108, 112; Mario T. Garcia, Desert Immi- grants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 226.

61. Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, pp. 148—51; Richard A. Gar- cia, Rise of the Mexican Middle Class, San Antonio, 1929-1941 (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1991), pp. 110-12.

62. Orozco, "Reyond Machismo," pp. 48—51; Camarillo, Chicanos in a Changing Society, pp. 150-51.

63. Gilbert Gonzalez, Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Vil- lages in a Southern California County, 1900—1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), p. 82; Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexi- can Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917—1933 (Rerkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1993), p. 155; G6mez-Quinones, Roots of Chicano Poli- tics, p. 312; Calderon, "Union, Paz y Trabajo," pp. 11—12 (typescript courtesy of author).

64. David G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Im- migrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Herkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 96-99. [Quote is on p. 97.]

65. F. Arturo Resales, "Shifting Self-Perception and Ethnic Consciousness Among Mexicans in Houston, 1908-1946," Azlldn, Vol. 16 (1985); 76.

66. Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses, p. 167; Gomez-Quinones, Roots of Chicano Politics, p. 312.

67. Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995), p. 43; Resales, "Shifting Self-Perceptions," p. 74; Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the American Southwest, 1850-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 154; Vargas, Proletarians of the North, pp. 150, 152; Acuna, Occupied America, p. 310.

68. Francisco E. Ralderrama, In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexi- can Consulate and the Mexican Community, 1929 to 1936 (Albuquerque: Univer- sity of New Mexico Press, 1982), p. 39; Garcia, Rise of the Mexican American, pp. 11-112.

69. Louise Ano Nuevo Kerr, "The Chicano Experience in Chicago, 1920-1970" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, 1976), p. 49.

70. The Lemon Grove Incident, documentary produced by Paul Espinosa (1985); Balderrama, In Defense of La Raza, pp. 58-61; Robert R. Alvarez, Jr., Fa- milia: Migration and Adaptation in Raja and Alta California, 1800—1975 (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 152—55. [Quote is from p. 154.] Note: Balderrama cites a 1931 survey that indicated "that more than 80 percent of the school districts in southern California enrolled Mexicans and Mexican Americans in segregated schools" [p. 56].

71. The Lemon Grove Incident; Balderrama, In Defense of La Raza, pp. 60—61; Alvarez. Familia, pp. 152—55. [Quote is from p. 154.]

Notes to Chapter 4 -% 201 £-

72. Orozco, "Beyond Machismo," p. 49; Sheridan, Los Tucsonenses, p. 168. 73. The pattern of voluntarist politics among Mexican women appears con-

gruent with activities by African-American and Anglo women during the same pe- riod. See Sara M. Evans, Bom For Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: The Free Press, 1989).

74. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, p. 6. 75. Ibid. 76. Benjamin Marquez, LULAC: The Evolution of a Mexican American Po-

litical Organization (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993), pp. 17-38; Gutier- rez, WaHs and Mirrors, pp. 74—87. [Quote is from p. 77.]

77. Mario T. Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity, 1930-1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 35; Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, p. 84.

78. Ibid, p. 78. 79. Ibid,; Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 56-57; Marquez, LULAC, pp.

53-55. 80. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 84—85; Garcia, Rise of the Mexi-

can American Middle Class, p. 63; Marquez, LULAC, pp. 30-33. [Quote is from p. 33.]

81. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 80-81. 82. Orozco, "Beyond Machismo," pp. 53-55; Cynthia E. Orozco, "The Ori-

gins of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement in Texas with an Analysis of Women's Political Participation in a Gendered Context, 1910—1929" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992). [Quote is from Orozco, "Beyond Machismo," p. 55.]

83. "Alicia Dickerson Montemayor (1902-1989)" in Las Mujeres: Mexican American/Chicana Women (National Women's History Project curriculum book- let, 1991), p. 15; Orozco, "Beyond Machismo,"p. 53. [Quote is from "Alicia Dick- erson Montemayor," loc. cit.] For further reference, see Cynthia E. Orozco, "Ali- cia Dickerson Montemayor: The Feminist Challenge to the League of United Latin American Citizens, Family Ideology, and Mexican American Politics in Texas in the 1930s," in Writing the Range: Race, Class, and Culture in the Women's West, eds. Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997, pp. 435-56).

84. Elizabeth Salas, "Ethnicity, Gender and Divorce: Issues in the 1922 Campaign by Adelina Otero-Warren for the U.S. House of Representatives," New Mexico Historical Review, 70:4 (October 1995): 367, 369-71; Charlotte Whaley, Nina Otero-Warren of Santa Fe (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), pp. 8, 11-15, 27, 47, 74-75. While in New York, Otero Warren also kept house for her brother, a student at Columbia.

85. Whaley, Nina Otero-Warren, pp. 77-100. [Quotes are on pp, 86 and 94, respectively.]

86. Ibid., p. 94. Note: Joan Jensen touches on Otero Warren's lobbying skills and on her later impact on voter turnout among Hispanic women in '"Disenfran- chisement Is a Disgrace': Women and Politics in New Mexico, 1900-1940," in New Mexico Women: Intercultural Perspectives, eds. Joan Jensen and Darlis Miller (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986), pp. 301-31.

87. Whaley, Nina Otero-Warren, pp. 95-98; Salas, "Ethnicity, Gender, and Divorce," pp. 373, 376-77, 379 [Quote is from p. 377.]

88. Salas, "Ethnicity, Gender, and Divorce," pp. 375-80. Note: During the

% 202 % Notes to Chapter 4

1922 election, Democrat Soledad Chavez de Chacon was elected Secretary of State.

89. Ibid., p. 372; Whaley, Nina Otero-Warren, pp. 116-21, 130, 148-49, 152; Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero, Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993), pp. 17—19; Tey Diana Rebolledo, Women Singing in the Snow: A Cultural Analysis of Chicana Lit- erature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), pp. 34—37. For an interesting discussion on the politics of Spanish identity during this period, see Philip B. Gonzales, "Spanish Heritage and Ethnic Protest in New Mexico: The Anti-Frater- nity Bill of 1933," New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 61 (October, 1986): 281—98. I would also note that Maricela Chavez is conducting insightful research on Hispana cultural resistance through writing. Maricela R. Chavez, "Nuevomex- icana Cultural Invention as Cultural Resistance: Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, Cleofas M. Jaramillo, and Nina Otero Warren, 1880—1955" (graduate seminar paper, Ari- zona State University, 1996).

90. "Resume of Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven," Collection #457 Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven Collection, Box 1, Folder 1, University of New Mexico, Special Collections, University of New Mexico General Libraries. [Hereafter the collection will be referred to as OPK-UNM] "Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven (b. 1912)," in Las Mujeres, p. 19; newsclippings, n.d., Private Scrapbook of Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, Box 2, OPK-UNM; interview with Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, September 16, 1988, conducted by the author; newsclippings on Concha Ortiz y Pino, n.d., Collection #303 Women in New Mexico Collection, Box 1, Folder 9, UNM; Albuquerque Journal, March 22, 1941. Concha Ortiz y Pino was also the first woman legislator in the United States to hold the position of major- ity whip.

91. Connie Meyer, "Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven," Century: A Southwest Journal of Observation and Opinion (July 15, 1981), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 15. Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven's Spanish colonial heritage is mentioned in every featured news story. For example, the text under a photo caption reads as follows: EL GRECO MIGHT HAVE painted this highbred face. La Senora Dona Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven with her aquiline features, green eyes, and sable hair is the de- scendant of a Spanish family that came as colonizers 400 years ago to what is now the State of New Mexico." [The Los Angeles Times (n.d.), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 12.]

92. Ortiz y Pino de Kleven interview. 93. Ibid. 94. "New Mexico's Aristocratic Lady" (newsclipping from Albuquerque Jour-

nal, n.d.), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 13. 95. "Vignette: Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven," The Santa Fean (December

1974-1975): 18-19; Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, "Biographical Statement" (3 pp., typescript), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 1; "Her achievements reflect proud heritage" (newsclipping, n.d.), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 13; "Long Cultural Her- itage Backs Her Interest in Fine Arts" (newsclipping, n.d.), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 14; newsclipping (n.d.), Private Scrapbook; Ortiz y Pino de Kleven inter- view. On the first page of her biographical statement, she explained how the school functioned. "And the money earned . . . went to the artisan until he could afford to purchase his own materials. Then he was able to buy and sell as he pleased, but continued to operate in the school aiding the less skilled."

96. Concha Ortiz y Pino's Voting Record (field notes compiled by Thomas Jaehn based on legislative documents housed at the New Mexico State Records

Notes to Chapter 4 -% 203 $•

Center and Archive, Santa Fe); Santa Fe New Mexican, February 5, 1937; Albu- querque Journal, March 22, 1941. Again, I would like to thank Thomas Jaehn for graciously sharing his research materials.

97. Ortiz y Pino de Kleven interview. During our interview, she stated, "I was not a feminist. I was a humanist. I saw no difference between men and women." In 1977, she was a bit more blunt with a local reporter. "I refuse any mail that comes addressed 'Ms'. I want my identity and my 'Mrs'." ["Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven: Civic Leader" (newsclipping, July 14, 1977), OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 13.]

98. "Resume of Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven"; Joan M. Jensen, "Pioneers in Politics," El Palacio, Vol. 92 (Summer-Fall, 1986): 16; Ortiz y Pino de Kleven interview. Concha remains very proud of her efforts with regard to civil service re- form.

But the one thing I did fight for, I wanted to see the merit system. I had seen so many of the girls who had gone to work in the capital and had ended up with babies. ... It was my dream and it did come true."

[Ortiz y Pino de Kleven interview.] 99. Newsclippings (ca. January—March, 1941), Private Scrapbook; "Resume

of Concha Ortiz y Pino"; Outlook, July 14, 1982, OPK-UNM, Box 1, Folder 13. 100. Newspaper Engagement Announcement (ca. 1943), OPK-UNM, Box

1, Folder 13; Albuquerque Tribune, June 6, 1983; Albuquerque Journal, Decem- ber 4, 1966; "Her achievements mark proud heritage." Note: Ortiz y Pino de Kleven was also involved in establishing a high school equivalency program in the state prison.

101. "New Mexico's Aristocratic Lady"; Outlook, July 14, 1982; "Resume of Concha Ortiz y Pino de Kleven"; Ortiz y Pino de Kleven interview; New York Times, April 9, 1982. [Quote is from the New York Times.]

102. Moreno interviews (1977, 1978). 103. Moreno interviews (1977, 1978); Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in Cali-

fornia (San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1984), p. 61; Gutierrez, Walls and Mir- rors, p. I l l ; Acufia, Occupied America, p. 317.

104. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 112—15; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, pp. 246-49; Camarillo, Chicanos in California, pp. 63-64.

105. Gomez-Quinones, Boots of Chicano Politics, pp. 383-87; Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 112—15; Camarillo, Chicanos in California, pp. 63—64; Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 154—57.

106. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, p. 246. 107. "Moreno, Luisa loc. cit."; Moreno interviews (1977, 1978); interview

with Luisa Moreno, September 4—6, 1979, conducted by the author; interview with Luisa Moreno, August 3, 1984, conducted by the author. Her parents chris- tened her Blanca Rosa Rodriguez Lopez, but when she began organizing in the United States she took the name Luisa Moreno. In 1927, her critically acclaimed collection of poems entitled El Venedor de Cocuyos was published in Mexico City (copy in author's possession).

108. Garcia, Mexican Americans, p. 155; Fierro de Bright interview. [Quote is from interview.] For more information on the popularity of Mag6n and his party among Mexican women, see Emma M. Perez, "A La Mujer: A Critique of the Par- tido Liberal Mexicano's Gender Ideology on Women," in Between Borders, pp. 459-82.

109. Fierro de Bright interview; Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 155—56.

I 204 % Notes to Chapter 5

John Bright would later be blacklisted as a member of the Hollywood Ten. 110. Fierro de Bright interview; Moreno interviews (1977, 1978, 1979);

Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 158—59. [Quote is from p. 159]. 111. Moreno interviews (1977, 1978, 1979); Garcia, Mexican Americans,

p. 158. [Quote is from p. 158.] 112. Moreno interviews (1977, 1984); Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp.

164—65; Fierro de Bright interview. [Quote is from Fierro de Bright interview.] 113. Luisa Moreno, "Caravans of Sorrow" presentation given at the panel on

Deportation and the Right of Asylum at the Fourth Annual Conference of the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (Washington, D.C., March 3, 1940), McWilliams Collection, Box 1, Folder 1.

114. Louisa [sic] Moreno, "Non Citizen Americans of the South West" (New York: ACPFB pamphlet, 1942), La Gente exhibit, Colorado Historical Society Li- brary, Denver, Colorado; Garcia, Mexican Americans, pp. 159—60.

115. The American G.I. Forum, a post-World War II organization, has worked for the rights of Mexican-American veterans and their families and, like LULAC, has kept a political distance from immigrants. Asociacion Nacional Mex- ico-Americana (ANMA) grew out of the labor movement and addressed local is- sues such as police brutality. The Community Service Organization (CSO), es- tablished in California in 1947, blended voter registration drives, citizenship programs, and civil rights activism. Like El Congreso, CSO sought to address the needs of both Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. For more informa- tion, see Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors and Garcia, Mexican Americans. For women's activism in CSO, see Margaret Rose, "The Community Service Organi- zation, 1947—1962," in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), pp. 177-200. In addi- tion, Chicana historian Linda Apodaca is currently writing a book focusing on women in the CSO.

116. Victor Becerra, "The Untold Story of Chavez Ravine" (unpublished pa- per), history research holdings, Chicano Studies Library, University of California, Los Angeles, p. 12. Becerra further observed: "The case of Chavez Ravine is more than a story of baseball in Los Angeles, or the struggle of Ravine residents to save their homes and their community. Rather, it is a statement about City Planning and how capitalists create programs such as urban renewal and redevelopment to legitimize [their] exappropriation of resources for personal profit" (p. 13).

117. Acuna, Occupied America, p. 350; Thomas P. Carter, Mexican Ameri- cans in School: A History of Educational Neglect (Princeton: College Entrance Ex- amination Board, 1970), p. 23.

Chapter 5

1. In<>s Hernandez, "Sara Estela Ramirez: Sembradora," Legacy, 6:1 (1989): 22. The original in Spanish follows:

Surge! Surge a la vida, a la actividad, a la belleza de vivir realmente; perso surge radiante y poderosa, bella de cualidades, esplendente de virtudes, fuerte de energias.

[La Cronica, April 9, 1910.]

Notes to Chapter 5 -̂ 1 205 £-

2. For information on Sara Estela Ramirez, see Hernandez, "Sara Estela Ramirez," pp. 13-26; Emilio Zamora, Jr., "Sara Estela Ramirez: Una Rosa Roja en el Movimiento," in Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Pre- sent, eds. Magdalena Mora and Adelaida R. Del Castillo (Los Angeles: UCLA Chi- cano Studies Research Center Publications, 1980), pp. 163-69.

3. Jose E. Limon, "El Primer Congreso Mexicanista de 1911: A Precursor to Contemporary Chicanismo," Aztldn, 5:1—2 (Spring and Fall, 1974): 91—99; Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1993), pp. 97-99; Alfredo Mirande and Evangelina Enn'quez, La Chicana: The Mexican-American Woman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 223; Marta Cotera, Diosa y Hembra: The History and Heritage of Chi- canas in the U.S. (Austin: Information Systems Development, 1976), pp. 68-71 [Quote is from p. 70.]

4. Examples include Carlos Munoz, Jr., Youth, Identity, and Power: The Chi- cano Movement (New York: Verso, 1989), p. 160; Marguerite V. Marin, Social Protest in an Urban Barrio: A Study of the Chicano Movement, 1966—1974 (Lan- ham, Md.: University Press of America, 1991) pp. 135—39; Rlanche Linden-Ward and Carol Hurd Green, American Women in the 1960s: Changing the Future (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993); Sara Evans, Born for Liberty (New York: Free Press, 1989). The poem "La Nueva Chicana" by Viola Correa can be found in the Appendix. It is quoted from Teresa Cordova, "Roots and Resistance: The Emergent Writings of Twenty Years of Chicana Feminist Struggle," in Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology, ed. Felix Padilla (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1994), p. 182.

5. Adela de la Torre and Beatriz Pesquera, eds., Building with Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana S. Rivero, eds., Infinite Divisions: An An- thology of Chicana Literature (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1993). Ruben Martinez has referred to Chicano culture as "swirls of cultural contradictions." [Ruben Martinez, "The Role of the Intellectual Chicano/Latino in our Communi- ties," talk given at The Claremont Graduate Humanities Center, October 6, 1993.]

6. Elizabeth Martinez, "Chingon Politics Die Hard: Reflections on the First Chicano Activists Reunion," Z Magazine (April 1990): 48.

7. Mario T. Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leadership, Ideology, and Identity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 164. The second El Congreso con- vention was held in December, 1939 [p. 335, fn. 54].

8. Myra Marx Ferree, "Working Class Feminism: A Consideration of the Consequences of Employment," The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 21 (Spring, 1980): 175. See Chapter 4, "Women and UCAPAWA" in Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987).

9. Letter from Luisa Moreno to the author, August 12, 1983. 10. Interview with Dorothy Ray Healey, January 21, 1979, conducted by the

author; interview with Carmen Bernal Escobar, February 11, 1979, conducted by the author; interview with Luisa Moreno, September 6, 1979, conducted by the author. See Chapter 4, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives for more detail.

11. Interview with Julia Luna Mount, November 17, 1983, conducted by the author; letter from Shifra M. Goldman to the author, June 26, 1984; Los Angeles Times, June 12, 1983; Garcia, Mexican Americans, p. 220.

% 206 % Notes to Chapter 5

12. Cynthia E. Orozco, "Hernandez, Maria L. De," in Handbook of Texas (Austin: The Texas State Historical Association, 1996), pp. 572—73; Cotera, Diosa y Hembra, pp. 73—82. [Quotes are from Orozco, p. 573, and Cotera, pp. 81—82, respectively.]

13. This phrase is often heard when the man in question appears to have said something or behaved in a way that seemingly belied his feminist principles. Or the phrase can signify a political pedestal on which the companero is placed.

14. Thomas P. Carter, Mexican Americans in School: A History of Educa- tional Neglect (Princeton: College Entrance Examination Board, 1970), p. 31. The seven schools included University of Texas; University of Colorado; Univer- sity of Arizona; University of California, Riverside; Cal State, Los Angeles; North- ern Arizona University; and New Mexico Highlands.

15. Marin, Social Protest in an Urban Barrio pp. 114—16; Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 58-59, 130.

16. Chicano Student News, March 15, 1968; "Proposals Made by High School Students of East Los Angeles to Board of Education, March, 1968," Chi- cano Blowouts Collection, Chicano Resource Center, East Los Angeles Public Li- brary; Edward J. Escobar, "The Dialectics of Repression: The Los Angeles Police Department and the Chicano Movement, 1968—1971,"Journal of American His- tory, 79:4 (March 1993): 1495; Script for Episode 3, "The Blowouts: The Strug- gle for Educational Reform," of CHICANO.' (Galan Production, 1996), pp. 6-7, 10—18. [Quote is from p. 6.] Note: The most detailed overview of events leading to the walkouts is Angel Cervantes's '"The Beginning of Our Being . . .': The East Los Angeles Rebellion of 1968" (M.A. thesis, Claremont Graduate School, 1996).

17. Episode 3, Chicano!, p. 5. 18. Rudolfo Acuna, Community Under Siege: A Chronicle ofChicanos East

of the Los Angeles River, 1945-1975 (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Research Studies Center, 1984), p. 142; Rudolfo Acuna, Occupied America, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 358; Episode 3, Chicano!, pp. 11-14. [Quote is on p. 14.] Note: Sal Castro and twelve others were indicted on conspiracy charges for their participation in the blowouts. The case against the LA Thirteen was thrown out of court two years later.

19. Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 64-65; Episode 3, CHICANO!, pp. 14, 16.

20. La Raza, 1:11 (March 31, 1968): 6; Escobar, "The Dialectics of Repres- sion," pp. 1495-96; Chicano Student News, March 15, 1968; Chicano Student News, April 25, 1968; Episode 3, CHICANO!, pp. 20-21, 35. [Quotes are on pp. 20 and 35, respectively.] Dolores Bernal, a doctoral student in the School of Edu- cation at UCLA, is writing her dissertation on Chicana leadership in the blowouts.

21. Acuna, Occupied America, p. 358; Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 68—70. 131—32, 158. Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), pp. 24, 26. [Quote is on p. 26.]

22. Episode 1, "The Land," of CHICANO.', pp. 21-22, 25-26; Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 75-78.

23. Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, p. 78. 24. Ibid., pp. 76—84; Ramon A. Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and In-

dividualism: The Politics of Chicano History and the Dream of Equality," Ameri- can Quarterly, 45 (March 1993): 46—47; Juan Gomez-Quinones, Mexican Stu- dents Par La Raza (Santa Barbara: Editorial La Causa, 1978), pp. 13, 15. Note:

Notes to Chapter 5 % 207 %

MECHA continues to be the most visible Chicano student group on college cam- puses.

25. Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, p. 192. 26. Ibid., pp. 7, 15—16, 51; Gomez-Quinones, Mexican Students, pp. 15—16.

For information on textbook stereotypes, see Vicki L. Ruiz, "Teaching Chic- ano/American History: Goals and Methods," The History Teacher 20 (February 1987): 167-68.

27. David G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 184-85, 190-93; Albert Camarillo, Chicanos in California (San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1984), pp. 92—103. Carlos Munoz in Youth, Identity, Power offers the most detailed treatment of student participation in La Raza Unida as well as in the genesis of Chicano Studies programs [pp. 113—16; 124-25, 127-67]. The most comprehensive case study of Chicano activism is Ernesto Chavez's "Creating Aztlan: The Chicano Student Movement in Los An- geles, 1966—1978" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1994).

28. Martinez, "Chingon Politics," p. 47. 29. Mirande and Enriquez, La Chicana, pp. 24—31; Octavio Paz, Labyrinth

of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico (New York: Grove Press, 1961), pp. 65—87; Adelaida R. Del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenepal: A Preliminary Look into a New Perspective," in Essays on la Mujer, eds. Rosaura Sanchez and Rosa Martinez Cruz (Los Angeles: University of California Chicano Studies Publications, 1977), pp. 124-40; and Ramon Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and Individualism," pp. 51—52. Note: My family and I were frequent customers of the El Cerezo Restaurant in downtown El Paso during 1982—1985 when I was an assistant pro- fessor at U.T. El Paso. I understand that the restaurant is no longer in business.

30. Mirande and Enriquez, La Chicana, pp. 27-28, 247. The original stan- zas in Spanish read as follows:

Se nos quedo el Maleficio de brindar al extranjero nuestra fe, nuestra cultura, nuestro pan, nuestro dinero.

Oh! Maldicion de Malinche! enfermedad del presente, cuando dejaras mi tierra? cuando, haras libre a mi gente!

31. Del Castillo, "Malintzin Tenepal," pp. 124-26, 141-43. 32. Lucha Corpi, "Marina Mother," trans. Catherine Rodriguez-Nieto in In-

finite Divisions, eds. Rebolledo and Rivero, p. 196. 33. Cordelia Candelaria, "La Malinche, Feminist Prototype," Frontiers, 5

(Summer 1980): 6; Carmen Tafolla, "La Malinche," in Infinite Divisions, eds. Re- bolledo and Rivero, pp. 198-99.

34. Naomi Helena Quinonez, "Hijas de la Malinche (Malinche's Daugh- ters): The Development of Social Agency Among Mexican American Women and the Emergence of First Wave Chicana Cultural Production "(Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1996), pp. 226—27. I thank Naomi for our conver- sations regarding her experiences as a Chicana cultural worker.

-% 208 % Notes to Chapter 5

35. Examples of El Grito, Encuentro Femenil, and Regeneration can be found in the Coleccion Tloque Nahuaque, Chicano Studies Library, University of California, Santa Barbara. [Hereinafter referred to as CTN.] A complete run of El Chicano is available on microfilm in the Newspaper Files, University Library, Uni- versity of California, Riverside. For a lively and intriguing examination of literary rebellions against sexism and familial oligarchy among Chicana writers, see Ramon Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and Individualism."

36. Anna Nieto G6mez, "La Feminista," Encuentro Femenil, 1:2 (1973): 36, CTN; Sonia A. Lopez, "The Role of the Chicana within the Student Movement," in Essays on La Mujer, eds. Sanchez and Martinez Cruz, pp. 23-24; Enriqueta Longauex y Vasquez, "The Mexican-American Woman," in Sisterhood Is Powerful, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), p. 379.

37. Lopez, "The Role of the Chicana," p. 24; Francisca Flores, "Comisi6n Femenil Mexicana," Regeneration 2:1 (1971): 6, CTN.

38. Mirta Vidal, "New Voice of La Raza: Chicanas Speak Out," International Socialist Review, 32:9 (October 1971): 7; Elizabeth Olivarez, "Women's Rights and the Mexican American Women," Regeneration, 2:4 (1974): 40—42, CTN; Lopez, "The Role of the Chicana," pp. 24—25. [Quotes are from Lopez, loc. tit.]

39. Antonio Carmejo, ed. "Why a Chicano Party? Why Chicano Studies?" (pamphlet) (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970), p. 9.

40. Ibid., p. 10. 41. Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, "Chicanas and El Movimiento," AztZon 5:1 (1974):

156. 42. Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and Individualism," p. 49; "El

Movimiento and The Chicana," La Raza 1:6 (1971): 40; La Causa, 1:2 (July 10, 1969), p. 6.

43. La Causa, 1:2 (July 10, 1969), loc. cit. 44. Nieto Gomez, "La Feminista," pp. 34-37; Jennie V. Chavez, "Women of

the Mexican American Movement," Mademoiselle (April 1972): 82, 150-52; Ade- laida Del Castillo, "La Vision Chicana," Regeneration, 2:4 (1974): 48, CTN; Anna Nieto Gomez, "The Chicana Perspective for Education," Encuentro Feme- nil, 1:1 (Spring 1973): 50-53, CTN; "El Movimiento and The Chicana," p. 42. [Quotes are from Del Castillo and "El Movimiento," respectively.] In her early ar- ticles, Ana Nieto Gomez's name appears in print as Anna Nieto Gomez.

45. Sylvia Gonzalez, "The White Feminist Movement: The Chicana Per- spective," The Social Science Journal, 14:2 (April 1977): 70—71; Anna Nieto Gomez, "Chicana Feminism" (undated pamphlet), p. 5, CTN. [Quote is from Nieto Gomez, "Chicana Feminism," loc. cit.]

46. Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy and Individualism," p. 66. 47. Del Castillo, "La Vision Chicana," loc. tit. 48. Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, eds., This Bridge Called My Back,

2nded. (New York: Kitchen Table Press, 1983), see especially pp. 61-101; Chrys- tos, "I Don't Understand Those Who Have Turned Away from Me," in Bridge, eds. Moraga and Anzaldua, p. 69. For a scholarly overview of the divisions between Chicana and Euro-American feminists, see Alma M. Garcia, "The Development of Chicana Feminist Discourse, 1970—1980," in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 2nd ed., eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 531-44.

49. Jo Carrillo, "And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You," in Bridge, eds. Moraga and Anzaldua, pp. 63-64. This exotic othering has persisted.

Notes to Chapter 5 -% 209 %

As I told a reporter for the Chronicle of Higher Education, "For the most part Chi- canas are still viewed as exotic in women's studies, so we're marginalized." [Karen Winkler, "Scholars Say Issues of Diversity Have Revolutionized Chicano Studies," Chronicle of Higher Education, September 26, 1990.]

50. Denise A. Segura and Beatriz M. Pesquera, "Beyond Indifference and Antipathy: The Chicana Movement and Chicana Feminist Discourse," Aztlan, 10 (Fall 1988-1990): 70; Quinonez, "Hijas de la Malinche," pp. 195-97.

51. Nieto Gomez, "La Femenista," pp. 34-35. 52. Sosa Riddell, "Chicanas and El Movimiento," p. 156; Nieto Gomez, "La

Femenista," pp. 35—36; Ana Nieto Gomez de Lazarin, "The Chicana Perspective for Education" (ca. 1973), CTN, p. 53; Garcia, "Chicana Feminist Discourse," pp. 536-38.

53. Elizabeth Salas, Soldaderas in the Mexican Military, Myth and History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), pp. 115-22; La Causa, 1:10 (1970), p. 10; Norma Cantu, "Women, Then and Now: An Analysis of the Adelita Image ver- sus the Chicana as Political Writer and Philosopher," in Chicana Voices: Intersec- tions of Class, Race, and Gender, eds. Teresa Cordova, et al. (Austin: UT Austin Center for Mexican Studies Publications, 1986), pp. 8—10. [Quote is from p. 9.]

54. Salas, Soldaderas, pp. 115—17, 122; La Raza 2 (ca. November—Decem- ber, 1969), courtesy of Ernesto Chavez.

55. La Raza 2 (ca. November-December 1969). 56. Ibid. 57. Marta Cetera, "Mexicano Feminism," Magazin 1:9 (September, 1973),

p. 30; Maria Eugenia Matute-Bianchi, "A Chicana in Academe" (typescript), pp. 4, 7, CTN; Quinonez, "Hijas de la Malinche," p. 261; Muftoz, Youth, Identity, Power, p. 160; Angie Chabram-Dernesesian, "I Throw Punches for My Race, but I Don't Want to Be a Man: Writing Us-Chica-nos (Girl, Us)/Chicanas—into the Movement Script," Cultural Studies, eds. Lawrence Grossberg et al. (New York: Routledge, 1992), p. 83. [Quotes are from Cotera, "Mexicano Feminism," and Chabram-Dernesesian, "I Throw Punches," respectively.] Note: One of Naomi Quinonez's narrators stated that she couldn't say whether or not Chicano profes- sors were involved in the harassment on Nieto Gomez. However, she described how her Chicano assailants "slashed her tires, they broke her windshield ... [and] somebody threatened her with a gun." Doctoral student at UC Santa Cruz Maylei Blackwell is currently writing about Ana Nieto Gomez and her contributions to Chicana feminist discourse.

58. Sosa Riddell, "Chicanas and El Movimiento," pp. 162—63; Nieto Gomez, "Chicana Feminism," p. 3; Del Castillo, "La Vision Chicana," pp. 1, 3.

59. Acuna, Occupied America, p. 403; Virginia Espino, "Women Sterilized as You Give Birth: Forced Sterilization and Chicana Resistance in the 1970s" (pa- per presented at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, Chicago, II: March 21—23, 1996), pp. 8—9. [Quote is from Espino, "Women Ster- ilized," loc. cit.]

60. Espino, "Women Sterilized," pp. 3, 9-10; Flores, "Comision Femenil Mexicana," pp. 6—8; Carlos G. Velez I., "The nonconsenting sterilization of Mex- ican women in Los Angeles. Issues of psychocultural rupture and legal redress in paternalistic behavioral environments," in Twice a Minority: Mexican American Women, ed. Margarita B. Melville (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, Co., 1980), pp. 239-40, 244. [Quote is from Espino, "Women Sterilized," pp. 9-10. Note: Many Comision women had been active in the Chicano Student Movement and envi-

% 210 % Notes to Chapter 5

sioned their organization as a means of applying their education for community empowerment. For an insider's look at the sterilization suit, see Antonia Hernan- dez "Chicanas and the Issue of Involuntary Sterilization: Reforms Needed to Pro- tect Informed Consent." Chicano Law Review, 3:3 (1976): 3-37. [In the footnotes of the article Richard Avila is listed as a co-author.]

61. Hernandez, "Chicanas and Sterilization," p. 9. This article provides sear- ing testimony of the impact sterilization had on the lives of the women who filed suit.

62. Velez-I., "The nonconsenting sterilization," p. 246. 63. Ibid.; Espino, "Women Sterilized," p. 11; Acufia, Occupied America, p.

405. [Quote is from Velez-I., "The nonconsenting sterilization," Joe. cit.] Exam- ples of these news articles can be found in the Los Angeles Times, December 2—3, 1974.

64. Acufia, Occupied America, p. 403; Ana Nieto G6mez, "Chicanas in the Labor Force," Encuentro Femenil, 1:2 (n.d.), pp. 29—30, CTN; [Quotes are from Acuna, Occupied America, loc. cit., Nieto Gomez, "Chicanas in Labor Force," p. 30, respectively.]

65. Yolanda M. Nava, "The Chicana Employment Needs Analysis and Rec- ommendations for Regulation," Regeneration, 2:3 (1973), p. 8, CTN.

66. Regeneration, 2:3 (1973), p. 3, CTN. For a glimpse at the lobbying ef- forts of Comision, see Nava, "The Chicana and Employment," pp. 7-9.

67. Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 126—42; Escobar, "The Dialectics of Re- pression," pp. 1505—1506; Ralph Guzman, "Mexican American Casualties in Vietnam," La Raza, 1;1, p. 12 as quoted in Acuna, Occupied America, p. 367; Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, "Como Duele," in Infinite Divisions, eds. Rebolledo and Rivero, p. 214. Note: Because of police and FBI harassment, intimidation, and vi- olence, militant organizations, such as the Chicano Moratorium and the Brown Berets, would disband during the early 1970s. [Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 139—40; Escobar, "The Dialectics of Repression," p. 1506; Munoz, Youth, Iden- tity, Power, pp. 172-74.]

68. La Raza, 1:11 (March31, 1968), p. 7. Gracias aAngel Cervantes forpro- viding me with this issue.

69. Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 112-23; Escobar, "The Dialectics of Re- pression," pp. 1500—1504; Acuna, Occupied America, pp. 367—71; Episode One, CHICANO!, p. 34. [The Esparza quote is from Episode One.] According to histo- rian Edward Escobar, the rally became a riot "when the owner of a liquor store a block away from the rally . . . called [police] to complain that teenagers had stolen cold drinks. Sheriffs deputies responded in squad cars with their sirens and lights blazing. The young people who allegedly stole the drinks threw rocks and bottles at the deputies and then ran off toward the . . . demonstration. The deputies fol- lowed." [Escobar, "The Dialectics of Repression," pp. 1500-1501.]

70. Episode Four: "Raza Unida" of CHICANO!, pp. 12, 15-19, 36; Cotera, DiosayHembra, pp. 80, 107-108, 169-70; Carlos Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 99-113; Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 144-62. The only book-length study of La Raza Unida is Ignacio Garcia's United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989). Garcia, unfortunately, includes little information on women's participation.

71. Cotera, DiosayHembra, pp. 107-108, 168-73; Cotera, "Mexicano Fem- inism," toe. cit.; Episode Four, CHICANO!, p. 18.; Cynthia E. Orozco, "Mujeres For La Raza," in Handbook of Texas, pp. 878—79; Mary Ann Villarreal, "Tejanas of

Notes to Chapter 5 ^ 211 £

La Raza Unida" (graduate seminar paper, Arizona State University, 1996). Luz Gutierrez further noted that "half the men" left the party rather than share power with women, although, according to Orozco, women formed approximately one- third of the delegates at the party's first state meeting in 1971. [The Gutierrez quote in the text is from Episode Four, loc. cit.]

72. Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, pp. 113-16, 120-24; Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 150-55, 178; Carmejo, "Why a Chicano Party?," p. 6. [Quotes are from Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," p. 174, and Carmejo, "Why a Chicano Party?," p. 6, respectively.] California activist Armando Navarro dramatically summarized this nationalist vision: "La Raza Unida must become more than a political orga- nization. It must symbolize the creation of a nation within a nation, a spiritual unification for effective action of all persons of Mexican descent in the United States." [Munoz, p. Youth, Identity, Power, p. 120.]

73. Episode Four, pp. 37—38. Not all Mexican American political leaders would agree with this assessment. Respected Texas Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez believed that LRU represented "false and mistaken voices of hatred." [Ibid., p. 26.]

74. Mario T. Garcia, Memories of Chicano History: The Life and Narrative of Ben Corona (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 297-308; Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, pp. 190—92. The section on CASA is also informed by conversations with friends (including my companero Victor Becerra) who shared with me their insights as insiders.

75. Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 186—92; Garcfa, Memories of Chicano History, pp. 297-315. [Quote is from p. 314.]

76. Chavez, "Creating Aztlan," pp. 200-205. 77. Adelaida Del Castillo, ed., Between Borders: Essays on Mexicana/Chi-

cana History (Encino: Floricanto Press, 1990), p. i; "Raiz Fuerte que no se Ar- ranca," memorial program in honor of Magdalena Mora (June 13, 1981). Gracias a Devra Weber for sending me a copy. [Quotes are from the memorial program, pp. 17, 23, and 20, respectively.] I also refer readers to her article, "The Role of Mexican Women in the Richmond Tolteca Strike," in Mexican Immigrant Work- ers in the U.S., ed. Antonio Rios-Bustamante (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Stud- ies Research Center Publications, 1981), pp. 111-18 and the anthology she co- edited with Adelaida Del Castillo, Mexican Women in the United States (cf. fn 2).

78. Marisela Chavez, '"We Lived and Breathed and Worked the Movement": Women in el Centro Accion Social Autonoma (CASA), 1975-1978" (graduate seminar paper, Arizona State University, 1996), pp. 3, 11-16. [Quote is on p. 16.] Conversations with former CASA members reveal a gamut of perspectives re- garding gender politics within the organization. The work-in progress of Marisela Chavez, a history graduate student at ASU, holds much promise for getting be- neath the rhetoric and nostalgia that surrounds CASA.

79. Ibid., pp. 19, 22. [Quote is on p. 22.] Informal conversations with sev- eral Casistas suggest that some companeras, such as Adelaida del Castillo, de- fined and embraced Chicana feminism and certainly women placed issues, such as involuntary sterilization, on the table of the organization.

80. Velia G. Hancock, "La Chicana, Chicano Movement, and Women's Lib- eration," Chicano Studies Newsletter, University of California, Berkeley (Febru- ary-March 1971): 6, CTN; Martha P. Cotera, The Chicana Feminist (Austin: In- formation Systems Development, 1977), p. 31.

81. Gutierrez, WaZJs and Mirrors, p. 196; interview with Graciela M.

-$ 212 % Notes to Chapter 5

Moreno, January 10, 1983, conducted by the author; interview with Ernest Moreno, January 10, 1983, conducted by the author.

82. Munoz, Youth, Identity, Power, p. 201; personal observations by the au- thor.

83. "University Avenue," reprinted from Borders by Pat Mora (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1986), p. 19. Cuentos are stories.

84. Marcela Christine Lucero Trujillo, "Machismo Is Part of Our Culture," as quoted in Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and Individualism," p. 48.

85. Matute-Bianchi, "A Chicana in Academe," p. 3; personal experience of author. In fairness, I want to add that this scholar, with age and maturity, has changed his tune and has demonstrated support for gender issues.

86. Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicul- tural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. xv.

87. Cherrie Moraga, "La Guera," in Bridge, eds. Anzaldua and Moraga, pp. 28-29.

88. Garcia, "Chicana Feminist Discourse," p. 537; Martinez, "Chingon Pol- itics," p. 46.

89. Maria C. Gonzalez, "Cultural Conflict: Introducing the Queer in Mexi- can-American Literature Classes," in Tilting the Tower: Teaching/Lesbians in the Queer Nineties, ed. Linda Garber (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 59.

90. Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestizo (San Fran- cisco: Spinsters/aunt lute, 1987); Gloria Anzaldua, ed., Making Face, Making Soul: Hacienda Caras (San Francisco: an aunt lute foundation book, 1990); Cher- rie Moraga, Loving in the War Years (Boston: South End Press, 1983); Juanita Ramos, ed., Companeras: Latino Lesbians (An Anthology) (New York: Latina Les- bian History Project, 1987); Carla Trujillo, Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About (Berkeley: Third Woman Press, 1991). See also Norma Alarc6n, Ana Castillo, and Cherrie Moraga, "The Sexuality of Latinas," special is- sue of Third Woman, 4 (1989) and Alicia Caspar de Alba, "Tortillerismo: Work by Chicana Lesbians," Signs, 18:4 (Summer 1993): 956—63. Caspar de Alba's review essay provides an excellent introduction to this literature.

91. Anzaldua, Borderlands, p. 80. 92. Yolanda Levya is a doctoral student in history at the University of Arizona

and Alice Horn is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the Claremont Graduate School. In 1996, Ms. Horn received the National Women's Studies Association Disserta- tion Award for Lesbian Studies. Her dissertation-in-progress is titled "Creating Sites of Resistance: Lesbian of Color Organizing and Activism in Los Angeles and New York, 1969 to the Present."

93. Trujillo, Chicana Lesbians, p. ix; Emma Perez, "Sexuality and Discourse: Notes from a Chicana Survivor," in Chicana Lesbians, p. 178; Personal observa- tions by the author who attended the workshop.

94. Carmen Tafolla, To Split a Human (San Antonio: Mexican American Cultural Center, 1985), p. 12.

95. Personal experience of the author. 96. Noticiera de M.A.L.C.S., 1 (November 1983): 1. 97. Letter to Professor Ruth Schwarz from MALCS chapter members and

concerned students at UCLA dated June 20, 1989 (copy in author's possession). Perhaps as the result of these protests, UCLA hired a Chicana playwright Edith Villarreal the following year for a tenure-track position.

Notes to Chapter 6 % 213 $•

98. Ibid. 99. Cordovoa, "Roots of Resistance," p. 175. 100. Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers; Anzaldua, Making Face, Making

Soul, p. xxvii. 101. Segura and Pesquera, "Beyond Indifference," pp. 69—88. [Quotes

taken from pp. 81, 85, respectively.] 102. Segura and Pesquera, "Beyond Indifference and Antipathy," p. 82. 103. Cynthia Orozco, "Sexism in Chicano Studies and the Community," in

Chicana Voices, p. 13; Anzaldua, "Foreword to the Second Edition," Bridge, p. iv.

Chapter 6

1. Interview with Elsa Chavez, April 19, 1983, conducted by the author; Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig, "Women at Farah: An Unfin- ished Story," in Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Present (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, 1980), pp. 117, 119; The San Francisco Bay Area Farah Strike Support Committee, "Chi- canos Strike at Farah," pamphlet (January, 1974), pp. 2—3, 6—7; letter from Sid- ney Metzger, Bishop of El Paso to the Bishop of Rochester dated October 31, 1972 ,reprinted in Viva La Huelga: Farah Strike Bulletin no. 15 (ACW newsletter) Note: Elsa Chavez is a pseudonym used at the person's request.

2. Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," p. 135. 3. Allen Pusey, "Clothes Made the Man," Texas Monthly (June, 1977), pp.

133, 136—37; "A boycott to aid garment workers," Business Week, August 26, 1972: 53-54; Lubbock Avalanche Journal, November 26, 1972; El Paso Times, June 6, 1983; SF Farah Strike Support Committee, "Chicanos Strike at Farah," p. 9; John Rebchook, "El Paso Is a Minimum Wage Town," Special Report: The Border (El Paso Herald Post, Summer 1983), p. 74. Note: In 1983, the El Paso Chamber of Commerce honored Willie Farah as its "Manufacturer of the Year," an "award bestowed on a businessman who has excelled int the advancement of his career while demonstrating an exceptional measure of concern for the com- munity" (El Paso Times, June 6, 1983).

4. SF Farah Strike Support Committee, "Chicanos Strike at Farah," pp. 4, 7; Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," pp. 127, 128-30; Viva La Huelga: Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 1; Washington Post, September 28, 1972; Busi- ness Week, August 26, 1972.

5. Viva La Huelga: Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 6; Washington Post, September 28, 1972.

6. El Paso Herald Post, June 27, 1973; El Paso Times, November 29, 1973; ElPasoTimes, February 22, 1974; El Paso Herald Post, January 11, 1974;fiiPaso Herald Post, January 7, 1974; Paul Newton Poling, "For the Defense of the Farah Workers" (pamphlet published by Farah Manufacturing, ca. 1973); Chavez inter- view; Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, pp. 128—30. "Farah Workers Group Diverts Yule Donation from Church" represents a typical headline in El Paso papers (El Paso Herald Post, December 22, 1972).

7. Guardian, March 6, 1974. 8. Examples of such letters can be found in the El Paso Herald Post, No-

vember 23, 1973; El Paso Times, December 15, 1973; El Paso Times, January 14,

% 214 % Notes to Chapter 6

1974; El Paso Herald Post, January 28, 1974; El Paso Herald Post, February 15, 1974; El Paso Times, January 25, 1974. Quote is taken from the El Paso Herald Post, December 15, 1973.

9. Examples of letters supporting the strikers can be found in the El Paso Times, January 14, 1974; El Paso Times, January 27, 1974; El Paso Times, Febru- ary 2, 1974. [Quote is taken from the El Paso Herald Post, January 23, 1974.1

10. The Washington Post, September 28, 1972. 11. Ibid.; The Advance [ACW National Newspaper] (January 1973), pp.

5-16; Deborah DeWitt Malley, "How the Union Beat Willie Farah," Fortune (Au- gust, 1974): 167, 238; Viva La Huelga, Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 1 (1972); Viva La Huelga, Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 4 (1972); Viva La Huelga: Farah Strike Bul- letin, no. 8 (1972); Viva La Huelga, Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 10 (1972); El Paso Times, September 12, 1972; El Paso Herald Post, February 2, 1973. Note: Sena- tor Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) chaired the Citizens' Committee for Justice for Farah Workers and the legendary African American labor leader A. Philip Ran- dolph served as honorary chair. National figures who publicly joined the commit- tee included Senator Edward Kennedy, Carey McWilliams, Joanne Woodward, Vernon Jordan, Archibald MacLeish, Ramsey Clark, Clark Kerr, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. [Viva La Huelga, Farah Strike Bulletin, no 4. (1972). Further- more, the El Paso Herald Post, in announcing the arrival of Democratic vice-pres- idential candidate Sergeant Shriver, mentions Shriver's "advance man" Bill Clin- ton. [El Paso Herald Post, September 12, 1972. The headline reads, "Democrats Plan Big Love-In."]

12. Texas Monthly (June, 1977): 137. 13. Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," pp. 134-35; 141.

[Both quotes are taken from p. 134.] 14. Chavez interview. In 1972, Farah employed from 9,000 to 10,000 work-

ers. Farah strike support publications and the classic scholarly study "Women at Farah" place the number of strikers at 4,000. The anti-union piece "In Defense of the Farah Workers" and an article in Fortune magazine underestimates their numbers by one-half or 2,000 strikers. The Washington Post judges the strikers at 3,000 out of 8,500 workers. [See Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," p. 117; SF Farah Strike Support Committee, "Chicanos Strike at Farah," p. 1; Poling, "In Defense of the Farah Workers,"pp. 5, 13; Fortune magazine (Au- gust 1974): 165, 167; Washington Post, September 28, 1972.

15. Chavez interview. 16. Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," pp. 117, 129,

131—34; Chavez interview; Portland [Oregon] Strike Support Committee, "The Farah Strike: Our Struggle, Too," pamphlet (1973), pp. 7, 12.

17. Rose Pesotta, Bread upon the Waters (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Com- pany, 1944), pp. 50-51. Note: During the 1959-1961 Tex-Son garment strike in San Antonio, Mexican-American children passed out balloons to children enter- ing local department stores imprinted with the message "Don't Buy Tex-Son Chil- dren's Clothes." [Tex-Son strike photographs, George Lambert Collection, Labor Archives, University of Texas, Arlington, Arlington, Texas.] For more information on these strikes, see Clementina Duron, "Mexican Women and Labor Conflict in Los Angeles: The ILGWU Dressmakers Strike of 1933," Aztldn, 15:1 (1984): 145—61; Irene Ledesma, "Texas Newspapers and Chicana Workers' Activism, 1919-1972," Western Historical Quarterly, 26:3 (Autumn 1995): 309-31.

Notes to Chapter 6 ^ 21 5 £

18. Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," pp. 133—34. 19. SF Farah Strike Support Committee, "Chicanos Strike at Farah," p. 16. 20. Chavez interview; Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," pp.

117, 138-42. 21. Coyle, Hershatter, and Honig, "Women at Farah," p. 143, 22. Chavez interview. 23. Jacques Levy, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa (New York: W.

W. Norton, 1975) provides a comprehensive and intimate portrait of Cesar Chavez and the birth of the United Farm Workers. See especially Book IV, "The Birth of Union," pp. 149—218, and Book V, 'Victory in the Vineyards," pp. 219—325. An outstanding scholarly monograph on the UFW is Linda C. Majka and Theo J. Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State (Philadelphia: Tem- ple University Press, 1982). Figures on union membership taken from the Los An- geles Times, March 27, 1994.

24. Barbara Baer and Glenna Matthews, "Women of the Boycott," in Amer- ica's Working Women: A Documentary History—1600 to the Present, eds. Rosalyn Baxandall and Susan Reverby (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), pp. 363—72; in- terview with Graciela Martinez Moreno, January 10, 1983, conducted by the au- thor; interview with Ernest Moreno, January 10, 1983, conducted by the author; interview with Maria del Carmen Romero, January 8, 1983; quote is taken from Levy, Cesar Chavez, p. 160. The best historical survey on women's involvement in the United Farm Workers is Margaret Eleanor Rose's "Women in the United Farm Workers: A Study of Chicana and Mexicana Participation in a Labor Union, 1950 to 1980" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1988). For further details on family involvement, see Chapter 6 of this dissertation.

25. Martinez Moreno interview; Moreno interview; Romero interview. 26. Martinez Moreno interview; Rose, "Women in the United Farm Work-

ers," pp. 9, 150-51,243-89. 27. Fran Leeper Buss, ed., Forged under the Sun/Forjada bajo del Sol: The

Life of Maria Elena Lucas (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 195, 216-17. [Quotes taken from pp. 216 and 217, respectively.]

28. Buss, Forged under the Sun, pp. 220-21; 225-31, 258. [Quote is from p. 258.]

29. With regard to sexism within the union, Maria Elena Lucas stated, "There's been times as a woman with the FLOC that I've felt swatted like a fly, and as a woman, I think that's wrong." [Buss, Forged under the Sun, p. 258]. In a re- cent scholarly study of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, the authors make no mention of the contributions of Maria Elena Lucas, referring to her briefly as a victim of pesticide poisoning. "Usually a bright and cheerful woman, she told her story of pesticide poisoning . . . with tears on her face." It is a strictly male- centered narrative that erases women's roles as leaders and rank-and file-activists. See W. K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994). [Quote is from p. 31.]

30. Rose, "Women in the United Farm Workers," pp. x, 7-10, 46, 68-80, 96-103. Quote is taken from p. 101. An excellent portrait of Dolores Huerta can be seen in "Act One: Work and Family," in the TBS series "A Century of Women" (1994). This segment was produced by noted Chicana filmmaker Sylvia Morales.

31. Rudolfo Acuna, Occupied America : A History of Chicanos, 3rd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1988), p. 269; Alan Covey, ed., A Century of Women (At-

% 216 % Notes to Chapter 6

lanta: TBS Books, 1994), p. 46. [This is the companion volume to the TBS series of the same name, cf. n. 30.]

32. Covey, A Century of Women, p. 47. 33. Levy, Cesar Chavez, p. 168. 34. Ibid., pp. 168-69. 35. Rose, "Women in the United Farm Workers," pp. 117, 134-37, 140,

144-51. Quote is from p. 150. Rose refers to "political familialism" in fn 45, p. 160. See Maxine Baca Zinn, "Political Familialism: Toward Sex Role Equality in Chicano Families," Aztldn, 8:1 (1975): 13-26.

36. Barbara Kingsolver, Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Min- ing Strike of!983 (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1989), pp. 1-21. [Quote is taken from p. 17.] For historical background on Arizona mining, see James W. Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982) and "Los Mineros," a PBS American Experience series, produced by Hector Galan (1991). Note: The historical consultant for "Los Mineros," Christine Marin, a doctoral student and archivist at Arizona State University, is writing on the history of Mexican mining families in Arizona.

37. lbid.,pp. 15,31-33, 146-49, 157-62, 176-90. [Quotes are from pp. 15, 186, respectively.]

38. Karen Anderson, Changing Woman: A History of Racial Ethnic Women in Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 147-48; Acuna, Occupied America, p. 448. [Quotes are from Anderson, Changing Woman, loc. cit.\

39. Marta P. Cotera, Diosa y Hembra: The History and Heritage of Chicanas in the U.S. (Austin: Information Systems Development, 1976) , p. 179.

40. Patricia Zavella, Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).

41. Louise Lamphere, Patricia Zavella, Felipe Gonzales with Peter B. Evans, Sunbelt Working Mothers: Reconciling Family and Factory (Ithaca: Cornell Uni- versity Press, 1993), p. 285. Note: "Hispana" is a common term of self-identifica- tion for Mexican-American women in New Mexico and Colorado.

42. Lamphere, Zavella, et al., Sunbelt Working Mothers, pp. 290-91. Lam- phere's Chapter 5, "Management Ideology and Practice in Participatory Plants" (pp. 138—82), seems particularly enlightening. For more examples of the struc- tural difficulties in organizing women in southwestern industries, see Vicki L. Ruiz,'"And Miles to go . . .': Mexican Women and Work, 1930-1985," in Western Women, Their Land, Their Lives, eds. Lillian Schlissel, Vicki L. Ruiz, and Janice Monk (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988): 117—36.

43. Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1993; Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1992; Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1994.

44. Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1992. 45. Los Angeles Times, March 20, 1994. 46. Mary Helen Ponce, Hoyt Street: An Autobiography (Albuquerque: Uni-

versity of New Mexico Press, 1993); Personal observations by the author; Yolanda Tarango, "The Hispanic Woman and Her Role in the Church," New Theology Re- view, Vol. 3 (November 1990): 58. Cascarones are eggshells filled with confetti.

47. Joseph D. Sekul, "Communities Organized for Public Service: Citizen Power and Public Policy in San Antonio," in The Politics of San Antonio: Com- munity, Progress, and Power, eds. David R. Johnson, John A. Booth, and Richard J. Harris (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 176-77; Sara M.

Notes to Chapter 6 % 217 £

Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: The Free Press, 1989), p. 309.

48. Peter Skerry, Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (New York: The Free Press, 1993), pp. 177-78.

49. Sekul, "Communities Organized for Public Service," pp. 175—90; Skerry, Mexican Americans, pp. 176—80; Sidney Plotkin, "Democratic Change in the Urban Political Economy: San Antonio's Edwards Aquifer Controversy," in The Politics of San Antonio, pp. 167—71; Acuna, Occupied America, pp. 433—34; John A. Booth, "Political Change in San Antonio, 1970—82: Toward Decay or Democracy," in The Politics of San Antonio, pp. 195—96, 200. [Quotes are from Sekul, "Communities Organized for Public Service," pp. 175, 181, respectively.]

50. "Adelante Mujeres," video produced by the National Women's History Project (1992); Arnoldo De Leon, Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History (Arlington Heights, 111.: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1993), pp. 37, 139; Booth, "Polit- ical Change in San Antonio," pp. 200, 202, 204.

51. Skerry, Mexican Americans, pp. 176—80; Acuna, Occupied America, p. 436; Sekul, "Communities Organized for Public Service," p. 190.

52. Evans, Born for Liberty, p. 309. 53. Skerry, Mexican Americans, p. 149. 54. Evans, Born for Liberty, p. 309. 55. Ibid., p. 313. 56. For differing views of contemporary Alinksy-based groups in Los Ange-

les, contrast Acuna, Occupied America with Skerry, Mexican Americans. 57. Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1994. 58. Ibid, 59. Gilbert Cadena and Lara Medina, "Liberation Theology and Social

Change: Chicanas and Chicanos in the Catholic Church" (unpublished manu- script), pp. 12-17; Lara Medina, "Calpulli: A Chicano Self-Help Organization," La Gente (1990). Gracias a Lara Medina for this news clipping and for our con- versations on Latino liberation theology. [Quote is taken from La Gente. ]

60. Cadena and Medina, "Liberation Theology and Social Change," p. 13. 61. Cadena and Medina, pp. 14-16. I gave an oral history workshop for

calpulli in January 1994. During the workshop, Sister Rosa Martha Zarate articu- lated the need to make links with local Native Americans and recognize the sig- nificance of Mesoamerican indigenous traditions.

62. La Gente (1990). 63. Mary Pardo, "Identity and Resistance: Mexican American Women and

Grassroots Activism in Two Los Angeles Communities" (Ph.D. dissertation, Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles, 1990); Acuna, Occupied America, p. 424; Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 28, 1986. Gracias a Howard Shorr for send- ing me this clipping. [Quote is from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.]

64. Tom Chorneau, "Molina Lays Siege to Prison," Los Angeles Downtown News (ca. June 1986), p. 6. [News clipping courtesy of Howard Shorr.]

65. Skerry, Mexican Americans, p. 181; Pardo, "Identity and Resistance"; Los Angeles Herald Examiner, September 28, 1986.

66. Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1995; Los Angeles Times, September 7, 1995; Nina Schuyler, "LA Moms Fight Back," Progressive, 56:8 (August 1992): 13. [Quote is from Schuyler, "LA Moms," loc. cit.] Gracias a Betsy Jameson for sharing these clippings with me.

67. Richard Steven Street, Organizing for Our Lives: New Voices from Rural

% 218 % Notes to Epilogue

Communities (Portland, Ore.: Newsage Press and California Rural Legal Assis- tance, 1992). Photo is on p. 29. Gracias a Richard Street for sending me a copy of this important book.

68. Street, Organizing for Our Lives, pp. 66—81. [Quote is taken from pp. 69-70.]

69. Ibid., p. 68. 70. Ibid., p. 75. 71. Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 24, 1990; New York Times, August 20,

1990. [Quotes are from the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the New York Times, re- spectively.] Gracias a the National Women's History Project for sending me these news clippings. With regard to Los Ganados del Valle's efforts to secure coopera- tive grazing rights, see Laura Pulido, Environmentalism and Economic Justice: Two Chicano Struggles in the Southwest (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996).

72. Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 102.

73. Chela Sandoval, "U.S. Third World Feminism: The Theory and Method of Oppositional Consciousness in the Postmodern World," Genders Vol. 4 (1991): 15.

74. El Paso Times, February 6, 1974.

Epilogue

1. Anne Larson, "A Comparative Analysis of Proposition 187 and the Immi- gration Action of 1924" (seminar paper, the Claremont Graduate School, 1994); "U.S. Citizen Opinion Poll on America's Illegal Alien Crisis" by American Immi- gration Control, a project of "We the People" (1995); Los Angeles Times, October 30, 1994; Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1995. Proposition 187 purports to deny all public services, except for emergency health care, to undocumented workers and requires doctors and teachers to report to the INS people they suspect as un- documented.

2. Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," in Complete Po- ems of Robert Frost (New York: Holt, Rinehart,and Winston, 1958), 275.

3. U.S. Bureau of the Census, We the American . . . Hispanics (November 1993), pp. 2—3; According to the 1990 census, the five southwestern states ac- count for over 60 percent of the Latino population in the United States.

4. Denise A. Segura, "Chicanas and Education: Implications for Occupa- tional Mobility" (unpublished paper, 1995).

5. Ibid., p. 9. For an excellent study on Mexican women and aging, see Elisa Facio, Understanding Older Chicanas (Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, 1995) and Mexican families, in general, see Norma Williams, The Mexican Amer- ican Family: Tradition and Change (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990).

6. U.S., Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population. Social and Eco- nomic Characteristics: Colorado, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1993), Tables 50 and 124.

7. Patricia Zavella, Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 162-66 [quote is from p. 164]; Vicki L. Ruiz, "'And Miles to Go: Mexican Women and

Notes to Epilogue -% 219 $•

Work, 1939-1985," in Western Women: Their Land, Their Lives, eds., Lillian Schlissel, Vicki L. Ruiz, and Janice Monk (Albuquerque: University of New Mex- ico Press, 1988), pp. 127-34.

8. Elizabeth Martinez, "Levi's, Button Your Fly—Your Greed Is Showing," 2 Magazine (January 1993): 22—27. [Quotes are from pp. 24, 26, respectively.]. Martinez points out that "Levi's has closed . . . 26 plants across the U.S. since 1985" (p. 27).

9. Mark Thompson, "Threadbare Justice," California Lawyer, Vol. 10 (May 1990): 30, 32, 84; Maria Angelina Soldatenko, "Organizing Latina Garment Workers in Los Angeles," Aztldn, Vol. 20:1-2 (1991): 79-81; Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1995.

10. Soldatenko, "Organizing Latina Workers," p. 86; Los Angeles Times, April 15, 1994; California Lawyer, pp. 28—32. [Quote is on pp. 30—31.] According to California Lawyer, apparel companies receive "a virtual slap on the wrist" for vi- olating child labor laws. For an insider's view of life as a costurera, see Maria An- gelina Soldatenko, "The Everyday Lives of Latina Garment Workers in Los An- geles: The Convergence of Gender, Race, Class, and Immigration" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992).

11. Interview with Angela Barcena, August 2, 1979, conducted by Oscar Martinez, Mario Galdos, and Virgilio Sanchez (on File at the Institute of Oral His- tory (IOH), University of Texas at El Paso). Barcena interview. The English trans- lation is as follows:

The majority of women in the factories, the majority need the work to help their husbands support the family or they are heads of households. They are the ones that support the families, they are single, they are divorced. That is why the Mexican women has been very susceptible to exploitation.

Barcena's observations, which she made in 1979, continue to the present. On June 7, 1996, an article appearing in the Los Angeles Times elaborated on the ma- terial conditions of undocumented women wage earners. "Women are less likely than men to speak English and therefore, more at risk for exploitation, more often working below minimum wage, and more often the subjects of sexual harassment and deportation." The journalist, however, cannot attribute exploitation to lan- guage barriers alone. As the appended tables indicate, persistent disparities in in- come and education along gender and racial/ethnic lines belie any single cause or remedy. [Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1996. Gracias a Valerie Matsumoto for send- ing me clippings from the Los Angeles Times.]

12. Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1996. 13. Ibid.; Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1996. 14. "The Confession," reprinted from Sueno de Colibri/Hummingbird

Dream by Naomi Quinonez (Los Angeles: West End Press, 1985), p. 57. 15. This speech has recently been published in its entirety. See Luisa

Moreno, "Caravans of Sorrow: Noncitizen Americans of the Southwest," in Be- tween Two Worlds: Mexican Immigrants in the United States, ed. David G. Gutier- rez (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1996): 119-23.

16. Si Magazine, (Summer 1996): 6. Note: contrary to the stereotype of im- migrants as a drain on social services, they "are considerably less likely than the native born to receive public assistance." Separate studies by economists and de- mographers "concluded that public-resource utilization by Mexican undocu-

% 220 % Notes to Afterword

merited immigrants is negligible, that only 2 to 6 percent have ever received any type of AFDC, Social Security payments, or food stamps." [Pierrete Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigra- tion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 170—71].

17. Flyer announcing a march against Proposition 187 scheduled for October 16 in Los Angeles (in author's possession); Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1994; La Opinion, October 17, 1994; Martinez, "Levi's,"p. 23.

Afterword

1. Selina Gonzalez, e-mail to author, October 22, 2007. 2. I was preceded by Louise Afio Nuevo Kerr, Shirlene Soto, and Gloria

Miranda. 3. With deep admiration, I acknowledge the labors of Louise Afio Nuevo-

Kerr, Gabriela Arredondo, Adriana Ayala, Maria Raquel Casas, Antonia Cas- taneda, Marisela Chavez, Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, Carolina Castillo Crimm, Rose Diaz, Elizabeth Escobedo, Lilia Fernandez, Maria Eva Flores, Rhonda Gonzales, Deena Gonzalez, Gabriela Gonzalez, Luz Maria Gordillo, Camille Guerin-Gonzales, Yolanda Chavez Leyva, Christine Marin, Anne Martinez, Patricia Mazon, Lara Medina, Valerie Mendoza, Gloria Miranda, J. Michelle Molina, Natalia Molina, Maria Montoya, Laura Munoz, Lorena Oropeza, Cynthia Orozco, Lydia Otero, Monica Perales, Emma Perez, Gina Marie Pitti, Naomi Quinonez, Lisa Ramos, Barbara Reyes, Stephanie Reyes-Tuccio, Monica Rico, Yolanda Romero, Ana Rosas, Elizabeth Salas, Marjorie Sanchez Walker, Arlene Sanchez-Walsh, Laura Isabel Serna, Mary Ann Villarreal, and Charlotte Negrete White. While some specialize in Latin America and to a lesser extent Europe and Africa, the majority are U.S. historians and Chicano Studies scholars.

4. Gabriela F. Arredondo, "Lived Regionalities: Mujeridad in Chicago, 1920—1940," in Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua and Chicana Histories, eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and John R. Chavez (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 96; Gabriela F. Arredondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-39 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008). Arredondo found instances of light-complected Mexicans passing as "Spanish" to gain mainstream social acceptance and better employment opportunities.

5. Lila Fernandez, "Latina/o Migration and Community Formation in Postwar Chicago: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Gender, and Politics, 1945— 1975" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, San Diego, 2005).

6. Yen Le Espiritu, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives Across Cul- tures, Communities, and Countries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003): 85.

7. Maria E. Montoya, "Creating an American Home: Contest and Ac- commodation in Rockefeller's Company Towns," Memories and Migrations, eds. Ruiz and Chavez, 13—43; Monica Perales, "Smeltertown: A Biography of a

Notes to Afterword % 221 $•

Mexican American Community, 1880—1973" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford Univer- sity, 2003).

8. Latinos in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia, s.v. "Garciaz, Maria"; "NeighborWorks Salt Lake" website, www.slnhs.org (accessed June 29, 2008); interview with Maria Garciaz conducted by the author, October 2, 2004.

9. Elizabeth Salas, '"The Floating Borderlands': Identity, Farmwork, and Politicas in Washington State," in Memories and Migrations, eds. Ruiz and Chavez, 151—69.

10. Jovita Gonzalez Mireles, Life Along the Border: A Landmark Tejana Thesis, ed. Maria Eugenia Cotera (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 2006); Maria Eugenia Cotera, Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita Gonzalez, and the Poetics of Culture (Austin: University of Texas Press, forthcoming).

11. Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Migrant Imaginaries: Cultural Politics in the Mexico-U.S. Borderlands (New York: New York University Press, 2008).

12. Yolanda Chavez, Leyva, '"Que son los ninos?': Mexican Children along the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1889-1930" (Ph.D. diss., University of Ari- zona, 1999); Gina Marie Pitti, "To 'hear about God in Spanish': Ethnicity, Church, and Community Activism in the San Francisco Archdiocese's Mex- ican American Colonias, 1942—1965" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2003).

13. Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) and Anne M. Martinez, "Holy Wars at Home: Religion and Activism in U.S. Social Movements," American Quarterly, 58:2 (June 2006): 535—43, esp. 538—39. For a fascinating transnational view of Mexican Cath- olics , see Anne M. Martinez, "Bordering on the Sacred: Religion, Nation, and U.S-Mexican Relations, 1910-1929" (Ph.D. diss., University of Minne- sota, 2003).

14. Kristy Nabhan-Warren, The Virgin of El Barrio: Marian Apparitions, Catholic Evangelizing, and Mexican American Activism (New York: New York University Press, 2005). Note: The Virgin of the Americas has not been recognized by the Catholic Church, although many local priests support Ruiz and Mary's Ministries.

15. Arlene Sanchez-Walsh, Latino Pentecostal Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003); Luis Leon, "Born Again in East LA: The Congregation as Border Space," in American Dreaming, Global Realities: Re- Thinking U.S. Immigration History, eds. Donna R. Gabaccia and Vicki L. Ruiz (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 504—29; Latinos in the United States, s.v. "Pentecostal Church (1906-2000)."

16. Matt Garcia, A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001). The phrase "dancing with memory" can be attributed to the 14th International Oral History conference held on July 12—14, 2006, in Sydney, Australia. The conference theme was "Dancing with Memory: Oral History and Its Audiences."

www.slnhs.org

% 222 % Notes to Afterword

17. Louise Lamphere, "The best of both worlds," Women's Review of Books, 15:2 (September 1998): 24; Mark Saad Saba, "Book Review," Hispanic Outlook, 31 (2000): 47.

18. Luis Alvarez, The Power of the Zoot: Identity and Resistance in U.S. Youth Culture during World War II (Berkeley: University of California, Press, 2008), 9.

19. Personal experience of the narrator. I have removed identifying de- tails so as to preserve her anonymity.

20. Catherine Sue Ramirez, "The Pachuca in Chicana/o Art, Literature and History: Reexamining Nation, Cultural Nationalism and Resistance" (Ph. D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000); Catherine S. Ramirez, "Saying 'Nothin': Pachucas and the Language of Resistance," Frontiers: Jour- nal of Women's Studies, 27:3 (2006): 1—33: Elizabeth R. Escobedo, "Mexican American Home Front: The Politics of Gender, Culture, and Community in World War II Los Angeles" (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 2004); Elizabeth R. Escobedo, "The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battle- grounds in World War II Los Angeles," Western Historical Quarterly, 38:2 (2007): 133-56: Latinos in the United States, s.v. "Pachucas," 555.

21. Mary Ann Villarreal, "Cantantes y Cantineras: Mexican American Communities and the Mapping of Public Space" (Ph.D. diss, Arizona State University, 2003); Mary Ann Villarreal, "Becoming San Antonio's Own: Rein- venting 'Rosita,'" Journal of Women's History, 20:2 (2008): 86—10 S; Latinos in the United States, s.v. "Alonzo, Ventura (1904-2000)," 39.

22. Deborah Rose Vargas, "Las tracaleras: Texas-Mexican Women, Music, and Place" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Cruz, 2003); Deborah R. Vargas, "Cruzando Frontejas: Remapping Selena's Tejano Music Crossover," in Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change, eds. Norma Cantu and Olga Najera Ramirez (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002): 224—36; Latinos in the United States, s.v. "Quintanilla Perez, Selena (1971-1995)."

23. See, for example, George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Robin D. G. Kelley, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class (New York: Free Press, 1994); Nan Enstad, Ladies of Labor, Girls of Adventure: Working Women, Popular Culture, and Labor Politics at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

24. A sampling of Chicano labor and political history include the follow- ing: Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987); Mario T. Garcia, Mexican Americans: Leader- ship, Ideology, and Identity, 1930—1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Juan Gomez Quinones, Chicano Politics (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1990); Emilio Zamora, The World of Mexican Workers in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1993); Gilbert Gonzalez, Labor and Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Camille Guerin-Gonzales, Mexican Workers and American Dreams (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994); David Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Berkeley:

Notes to Afterword % 223 $•

University of California Press, 1995); Neil Foley, The White Scourge (Berke- ley: University of California Press, 1997); Ernesto Chavez/ Mi Raza Primero! (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Zaragosa Vargas, Labor Rights Are Civil Rights (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Jose Alamillo, Making Lemonade Out of Lemons (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006); and Ellen R. Baker, On Strike and On Film: Mexican American Families and Blacklisted Filmmakers in Cold War America (Chapel Hill: Uni- versity of North Carolina Press, 2007).

25. Gabriela Gonzalez, "Two Flags Entwined: Transborder Activists and the Politics of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in South Texas, 1900— 1950" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2005); Gabriela Gonzalez, "Carolina Munguia and Emma Tenayucca: The Politics of Benevolence and Reform," Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies 24: 2-3 (2003): 200-229.

26. Maylei Blackwell, "Geographies of Difference: Mapping Multiple Feminist Insurgencies and Transnational Public Cultures of the Americas" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Cruz, 2000); Maylei Blackwell, "Contested Histories: Las Hijas de Cuauhtemoc, Chicana Feminisms, and Print Culture in the Chicano Movement, 1968—1973," in Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader, eds. Gabriela F. Arredondo et al. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003): 59—89. Alma M. Garcia has compiled a terrific collection of these early Chicana feminist expressions in Chicana Feminist Thought (New York: Routledge, 1997).

27. Marisela R. Chavez, "iDespierten Hermanas y Hermanos!: Women, The Chicano Movement, and Chicana Feminisms in California, 1966—1981" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 2004); Marisela R. Chavez, "Pilgrimage to the Homeland: California Chicanas and International Women's Year, Mexico City," in Memories and Migrations, eds. Ruiz and Chavez, 170—95.

28. Dolores Delgado Bernal, "Chicana School Resistance and Grassroots Leadership: Providing an Alternative History of the 1969 East Los Angeles Blowouts" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1997); Dionne Espinoza, "Pedagogies of Nationalism and Gender: Cultural Resistance in Selected Representational Practices of Chicana/o Movement Activists, 1967— 1972" (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1996); Alicia Chavez, "Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers," in Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community, eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Virginia Sanchez Korrol (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 240—54; Lorena Oropeza, iRaza Si! Guerra No!: Chi- cano Protest and Patriotism During the Viet Nam War Era (Berkeley: University of California, Press, 2005); Virginia Espino, "Women Sterilized As they Give Birth: Forced Sterilization and Chicana Resistance in the 1970s," in Las obreras: Chicana Politics of Work and Family, eds. Vicki L. Ruiz (Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, 2000), 65-81; Elena R. Gutier- rez, Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican-Origin Women's Reproduction (Aus- tin: University of Texas Press, 2008).

29. Enriqueta Longeauz y Vasquez, Enriqueta Vdsquez and the Chicano Movement: Writings from El Grito del Norte, eds. Lorena Oropeza and Dionne Espinoza (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2006); Luz del Alba Acevedo, et al., Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2001); Mary Ann Villarreal," The Synapses of Struggle: Martha Cotera

% 224 % Notes to Afterword

and Tejana Activism," in Las ohreras, ed. Ruiz, 273—95; "Chicana Feminists," VOAHA: The Virtual Oral/Aural History Archives, California State University Long Beach website, http://saltacid .nmc.csulb.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/ OralAural.woa/wa/project?ww=1003 &wh=546&pt=109&bi=l&co- I=al000&ser=al001 (accessed July 16, 2008).

30. Elizabeth Rodriguez Kessler, "New Texts in Chicana Studies," NWSA Journal, 10 (Fall 1998): 210.

31. Yolanda Chavez Leyva, "Breaking the Silence: Putting Latina Lesbian History at the Center," in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History, 3rd ed., eds. Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois (New York: Routledge, 2000), 403-8, esp. 406.

32. Eithne Luibheid, "'Looking Like a Lesbian:' The Organization of Sexual Monitoring at the United States-Mexican Border," in Women and Migration in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, eds. Denise A. Segura and Patricia Zavella (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2007), 106-33, esp. 128.

33. Ana Elizabeth Rosas, "Familias Flexibles (Flexible Families): Bracero Families' Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries, 1942—1964" (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 2006).

34. Larry Bobo, "Getting Real About Race," CCSRE Newsletter (Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University), Winter 2007, 3.

35. University of California Latino Equity Group (contact persons Ramon Gutierrez, Chon Noriega, and Patricia Zavella), memorandum to UC President Robert Dynes, March 29, 2004 (in author's possession).

36. Edward E. Telles and Vilma Ortiz, Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2008).

37. Vicki L. Ruiz, "Citizen Restaurant: American Imaginaries, American Communities, "American Quarterly, 60:1 (March 2008): 13—14; Latinos in the United States, s.v. "Hispanic Mother-Daughter Program (HMDP)"; ASU His- panic Mother-Daughter Program website, www.asu.edu/enroll/hmdp/ (ac- cessed July 20, 2008). In 1999 and 2001, HMDP parents and staff honored the author with their Community Recognition Award.

38. Camille Guerin Gonzales, "From Out of the Shadows," Journal of American History, 85:3 (December 1999): 1159; Teresa Palomo Acosta, "From Out of the Shadows," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 52: 2 (October 1998): 256.

39. Maria Ochoa, Creative Collectives: Chicana Painters Working in Community (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 68.

40. Neil Foley, "We Met in Spinach, Fell in Love in Peaches, and Mar- ried in Tomatoes," Reviews in American History, 27 (1999): 288.

41. Vicki L. Ruiz, "Texture, Text, and Context: New Approaches in Chicano Historiography," Estudios Mexicanos/Mexican Studies, 2 (Winter 1986): 145—52. Perhaps the best example of Chicano history is David Mon- tejano's Anglos and Mexicans and the Making of Texas, 1836—1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987).

www.asu.edu/enroll/hmdp/

http://saltacid.nmc.csulb.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/OralAural.woa/wa/project?ww=1003&wh=546&pt=109&bi=1&co-I=al000&ser=a1001

Notes to Afterword % 225 £-

42. John R. Chavez, "Preface," Mapping Memories and Migrations, eds. Ruiz and Chavez, ix.

43. Laura Briggs, e-mail to author, September 7, 2000; Maria Eugenia Cotera, e-mail to author, October 14, 1998.

44. "Keynote Lecture: Cherrie Moraga," UCI Education Series (February 22, 2007).

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Newspapers and Newsletters

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Workers, ca. 1930s) Albuquerque Journal Albuquerque Tribune Chicago Tribune Chicano Student News Chicano Studies Newsletter (UC Berkeley) Chronicle of Philosophy Daily Worker El Chicano, (Riverside) El Paso Herald Post El Paso Times ElGrito Encuentro Femenil (Los Angeles) FTA News (newspaper of Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers

Union). Guardian (San Francisco) Hispano America (San Francisco) La Causa (Los Angeles) La Cronica La Gente (UCLA Chicano student paper) La Opinion (Los Angeles) La Raza (Los Angeles) Los Angeles Downtown News Los Angeles Evening Herald Express Los Angeles Herald Examiner Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Weekly News Lubbock Avalanche Journal Magazm New York Times Noticiera de M.A.L.C.S. (UC Davis) People's World Regeneration (Los Angeles) San Francisco Examiner San Francisco News Santa Fe New Mexican Sin Fronteras (Los Angeles) Washington Post

Manuscript Collections

Aguirre Family Papers, Arizona Historical Society Library, Tucson, Arizona. Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Chicano Blowouts Collection, Chicano Resource Center, East Los Angeles Pub-

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Manuel Gamio Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California.

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University of New Mexico. Esther Perez Papers, Cassiano-Perez Collection, Daughters of the Republic of

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sity, Las Graces, New Mexico. Carmen Tafolla Papers, Benson Library, University of Texas, Austin, Texas. Paul S. Taylor Collection, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley,

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Correspondence and Miscellaneous Documents

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1972. In Viva la Huelga: Farah Strike Bulletin, no. 15. McWilliams, Gary to Louis Adamic, dated 3 October 1937, Adamic File, Carey McWilliams Collection, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles, Cali- fornia.

Moreno, Luisa, to Vicki L. Ruiz, 12 August 1983. MALCS chapter members and concerned students at UCLA to Professor Ruth

Schwarz, Department of Film and Television, UCLA dated 20 June 1989

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Carmejo, Antonio, ed. Why a Chicano Party? Why Chicano Studies? Pamphlet. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970.

Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 24, 1990. Flyer announcing a march against Proposition 187 scheduled for October 16 in

Los Angeles. National Latino Communications Center. "Chicano! History of the Mexican

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National Women's History Project. Los Mujeres: Mexican American/Chicana Women. Curriculum Booklet. Windsor, Calif.: National Women's History Project, 1991.

Poling, Paul Newton. For the Defense of the Farah Workers. Pamphlet. El Paso, Tex.: Farah Manufacturing Co., ca. 1973.

Portland (Ore.) Strike Support Committee. "The Farah Strike: Our Struggle, Too." Pamphlet, 1973.

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San Francisco Bay Area Farah Strike Support Committee. "Chicanos Strike at Farah." Pamphlet, 1974.

Si Magazine (Summer 1996): 6. Viva la Huelga: Farah Strike Bulletins New York: Amalgamated Clothing Workers

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gration. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1930. Winkler, Karen. "Scholars Say Issues of Diversity Have Revolutionized Chicano

Studies." Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 September 1990

Interviews

Acosta, Lucy. Interview no. 653 by Mario T. Garcia, 28 October 1982. Institute of Oral History, University of Texas, El Paso, Texas.

Arredondo, Maria. Interview by Carolyn Arredondo, 19 March 1986. Barcena, Angela. Interview by Oscar Martinez, Mario Galdos, and Virgilio

Sanchez, 2 August 1979. Institute of Oral History, University of Texas, El Paso, Texas.

Buriel, Eusebia. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 16 January 1995. Buriel, Ray. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 21 December 1994. Chavez, Elsa [pseud.]. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 19 April 1983. Clifton, Beatrice Morales. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World

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Escobar, Carmen Bernal. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 11 February 1979. . Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 15 June 1986.

Estrada, Ruby. Interview by Maria Hernandez, 4 August 1981. The Lives of Ari- zona Women Oral History Project, Special Collections, Hayden Library, Ari- zona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

Fierro, Maria. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War II Work Experience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 12.

Fierro de Bright, Josefina. Interview by Albert Camarillo, 7 August 1977. Garcia, Alma Araiza. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 27 March 1993. Garcia, Fernando. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 21 September 1983. Gonzalez, Martha. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 8 October 1983. Healey, Dorothy Ray. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 21 January 1979. Ibarra, Estella. Interview by Jesusita Ponce, 11 November 1982. Linares, Clemente. Interview by Lydia Linares Peake, 11 June 1992. Lucero, Lucy. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 8 October 1983. Luna, Mary. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War II Work Ex-

perience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 20. Mason, Belen Martinez. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War

II Work Experience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 23. Milligan, Adele Hernandez. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World

War II Work Experience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 26 Moreno, Ernest. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 10 January 1983. Moreno, Graciela Martinez. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 10 January 1983. Moreno, Luisa. Interview by Albert Camarillo, 12—13 August 1977.

. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 27 July 1978.

. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 4-6 September 1979.

. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 3 August 1984. Mount, Julia Luna. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 17 November 1983. Mulligan, Rose Escheverria. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World

War II Work Experience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 27. "Elizabeth Nicholas: Working in the California Canneries." [interview conducted

by Ann Baxandall Krooth and Jaclyn Greenberg]. Harvest Quarterly, nos. 3-4, September—December 1976.

Ortiz y Pino de Kleven, Concha. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 16 September 1988. R., Lucia. Interview by Margarita C., December 1981. Romero, Maria del Carmen. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 8 January 1983. Ruiz, Erminia. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 30 July 1990.

. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 18 February 1993. Shelit, Alicia Mendeola. In Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women and the World War

II Work Experience, ed. Gluck, Vol. 37. "Un cuento—una vida." Unpublished interview with Gregoria Sosa conducted by

Adaljiza Sosa Riddell. Torres, Jesusita. Interview by Vicki L. Ruiz, 8 January 1993. Ybarra, Maria. Interview by David Perez, 1 December 1990.

Poems

Blake, William. "Auguries of Innocence." In Poems of William Blake, edited by W. H. Stevenson, 585. London: Longman, 1971.

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Carillo, Jo. "And When You Leave, Take Your Pictures with You." In Bridge, eds. Moraga and Anzaldua, 63-64.

Corpi, Lucha. "Marina Mother." Translated by Catherine Rodriguez-Nieto. In In- finite Divisions, eds. Rebolledo and Rivero, 196—97.

Correa, Viola. "La Nueva Chicana" In Cordova, "Roots and Resistance," in Handbook of Hispanic Cultures, ed. Padilla, 182.

Flores, Isabel. "I Remember." El Grito 7 (September 1973): 80. Frost, Robert. "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening." In Complete Poems

of Robert Frost. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1958. Lucero Trujillo, Marcela Christine. ''Machismo Is Part of Our Culture," In

Gutierrez, "Community, Patriarchy, and Individualism," 48. Mora, Pat. "University Avenue." In Borders. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1986. Quinonez, Naomi. "The Confession." In Sueno de Colibri/ Hummingbird Dream.

Los Angeles: West End Press, 1985. Ramirez, Sara Estela. "Surge! (A la mujer)." In Ines Hernandez, "Sara Estela

Ramirez: Sembradora," Legacy, 6:1 (1989):22. Sosa Riddell, Adaijiza. "Como Duele." In Infinite Divisions, eds. Rebolledo and

Rivero, 213-15. Tafolla, Carmen. "La Malinche." In Infinite Divisions, eds. Rebolledo and Rivero,

198-99.

Visual Media

Adelante Mujeres! Produced by National Women's History Project, 1991. Video- cassettes.

A Century of Women. 3 vols. Produced by Turner Home Entertainment, 1994. Videocassettes.

CHICANO! 4 vols. Produced by National Latino Communications Center and Galdn Productions, 1996. Videocassettes.

The Lemon Grove Incident. Produced by Paul Espinosa, 1985. Videocassette. Los Mineros. Produced by Galan Productions, 1991. Videocassette. "Pachuca

with a Razor Blade." By Carmen Lomas Garza. Original artwork in the col- lection of Sonia Saldivar Hull.

Salt of the Earth. Produced by Paul Jarrico, 1954. 16 mm. Available in Videocas- sette.

Index

Abraham Lincoln High School, 103 Acosta, Lucy, 59 Acuna, Rudy, 76, 95, 118, 136 Adamic, Louis, 72 Adelante Mujeres, 139. African Americans, 78, 103, 141 Aguirre, Julia, 17 Alatorre, Chole, 117. See also CASA Albuquerque Journal, 94. See also Ortiz y

Pino, Concha Albuquerque, N. Mex., labor relations in,

137 Alinsky style organizing, 138—39, 141. See

also Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS)

Allen, Ruth, 14-15 Amalgamated Clothing Workers, 128-29.

See also Farah textile strike American Association of University

Women, 86 American Committee for the Protection of

the Foreign Born (ACPFB), 97. See also Moreno, Luisa

American Federation of Labor, 96 American G.I. Forum, 97 American Immigration Control, 147 Americanization, 33, 52. See also

"Christian Americanization" Anderson, Karen, 136

Anzaldua, Gloria, 110, 121-22, 126. See also This Bridge Called My Back

Araiza, Eduardo, 31 Armendariz, Pedro, 111 Arredondo, Maria, 17, 20 Arriz6n, Alicia, xiv-xv Asociacion Nacional Mexico-Americana

(ANMA), 102 Associated Farmers, 78-79 Aztec iconography; Chicano nationalism,

in, 104; Chicano Student Movement, in, 105-6; El Cerezo Restaurant, 106; "Mi Amor," 109. See also La Malinche

Aztecs, the, 87 Aztlan; concept of, 104. See also Aztec

iconography

Babbitt, C.S., 40-41 Baca, Judy, 123, 150 Bains, Amalia Mesa, 150 Balderrama, Francisco, 11 Bancroft Library, 45 Barcena, Angela, 149-50 Barrera, Mario, 9 Barreras, Catalina, 85. See also Salt of the

Earth beauticians, 56 beauty pageants, 55; La Reina de Cinco de

Mayo, 56; Orange Queen, 56

% 250 % Index

Becerra, Victor, 98, 118 Becoming a Writer. See Welty, Eudora beet harvesting, 11 Belen, N. Mex., 22 Belmont High School, Los Angeles, 104 Bernal, Diana, 84 Betancourt family, 21 Bethelem Steel, Pa., 10 Biberman, Herbert, 85. See also Salt of the

Earth Black Student Union (BSU), 103 Blackfoot, Idaho, 10 Blake, William, xvi Blissfield, Mich., 18 Bonilla, Febe, 47 Bright, John, 96. See also Fierro de Bright,

Josefina Brooks, James, xv Brown v. Hoard of Education, 84 BuenaPark, 4, 30-31 Building With Our Hands, 100 Bullock's [department store], 53 Burciaga, Soledad, 41 Bureau of the Census, 147 Buriel, Eusebia Vasquez de, 10, 22, 24, 66 Buriel, Frederico, 66 Buriel, Ray, 7, 22 Buss, Fran Leeper, 133

Cabeza de Baca, Fabiola, 24. See also We Fed Them Cactus

Calderon, Juana, 23 California Rural Legal Assistance, 144 California Sanitary Canning Company

(Cal San), 82, 101; labor force at, 80-81; strike at, 81

California Senate UnAmerican Activities Committee, 84

Calpulli, 141-42 Camacho, Irma, 129 Camarillo, Albert, 8-9, 68 Cameron House, San Francisco, 47 Candelaria, Cordelia, 107 Cannery and Agricultural Workers

Industrial Union (CAWIU), 74-75 Cannery Women, Cannery Lives, xiii, 15.

See also Ruiz, Vicki Cantii, Norma, 111 Cardoso, Lawrence, 9 Carmona, Maria "Cuca," 144 Carrillo, Jo, 110 Casa Blanca, barrio of, 7 Castaneda, Antonia, xv Castaneda, Irene, 16-17, 19 Castillo, Ana, 121, 125

Castillo, Aurora, 143 Castro, Rosie, 100 Castro, Sadie, 76 Castro, Sal, 103 Castro, Vicki, 103 Catholic Church; Calpulli, 141^*2; femi-

nist criticisms of, 108; UFW, support for, 132; warnings against dancing, 65-66; women in, 132-33, 138

Chabram-Dernersesian, Angle, 112 Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles,

77 Chambers, Pat, 74 Changing Women. See Anderson, Karen chaperonage. See familial protectiveness Chavez Ravine, 97-98 Chavez, Carmen, 82 Chavez, Cesar, 105, 119, 130. See also

United Farm Workers Chavez, Denise, 150 Chavez, Elsa, 33, 38; as Farah textile strik-

er, 127-28, 130-32 Chavez, Ernesto, 116 Chavez, Helen, 134-35 Chavez, Isabel Rodriguez, 118. See also

CASA Chavez, Marisela, 118. See also CASA Chavez, Ofilia [sic], 47 Chem Waste, 144 Chicana Action Service Center, 112, 114.

See also Chicana feminism Chicana Critical Issues, 123. See also

MALCS Chicana feminism; consciousness of, 125;

The Chicana Feminist, 119; "hierarchy of oppression" in, 122-23; "La Adelita" (soldadera), 111; machismo, reaction to, 120; MALCS, 122-23; male reaction to, 109; Mexican-American women and, 99-100; relations between Chicanas, 102, 110; relations between white and Chicana feminists, 110; relations with Chicano nationalists, 111—12; steriliza- tion and Comisfon Femenil Mexicana, 112-14; This Bridge Called My Back, 110; Marxism, 100. See also Chicana lesbianism

Chicana lesbianism, 100, 121-22 Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers

Warned Us About, 121-22 Chicana Welfare Rights Organization,

113 Chicana, as feminist, xv; as writer, xv;

meaning of term, xiv Chicanismo, 105

Index % 251 $•

Chicano Moratorium (August 29, 1970), 115

Chicano/a, origin of, 98 Chicano Student Movement, xiv, 97—98,

122; birth of, 102—3; feminism in, 108-9; work for United Farm Workers, 119

Chicano Studies, 105, 112; California State University at Los Angeles program, 103; UCLA, 124

Chiquita, Gloria, 133 "Christian Americanization," 32, 34,

38-39, 41, 46, 50. See also Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House

Cinco de Mayo, 54, 87, 107 Cinderella Ballroom, xvii, 59 Cisneros, Sandra, 150 Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, 3,31 Clark, Margaret, 68 Coachella Valley, 144 Colton, Calif, 23 Columbine Strike of 1927, 27 Comision Femenil Mexicana, 112. See also

sterilization commadrazgo; concept of, 4, 16, 102. See

also mutualistas Communidades Ecclesiales de Base

(CEBs), 141 Communist Party, 74, 84; El Congreso, 95;

Texas, 79 Communities Organized for Public Service

(COPS), 138-41; Alinksy methods, 138-39; Cisneros, Henry, 139; Community Development Block Grants, 139

Community Redevelopment Agency, 141

Community Service Organization (CSO), 132

Companeras: Latina Lesbians, 121—22 Congressional Union, 91 consumer ethic, 52, 56—57 contraception, 49, 62 C6rdova, Teresa, 125 Corona, Bert, 86, 95, 117 Corpi, Lucha, 107. See also La Malinche Corpus Christi, Tex., 90 Correa, Viola, 100, 156-57 corridos, 62 Cort&, Ernie, Jr., 138, 140 Cortis, Hernan, 106. See also La Malinche Cortez, Beatrice, 140 Cotera, Martha, 115, 119. See also The

Chicana Feminist Coyle, Laurie, 128, 130, 132

Cristero Revolt, 8 Cristonomo, Paula, 104 Crocker, Ruth, 44 Crusade for Social Justice, 104 Crystal City, Tex., 115. See also La Raza

Unida Cuaron, Mita, 104 cultural coalescence, concept of, xvi,

49-50 curanderas (healers), 25 Curtis, Jesse Judge, 113—14. See also

Madrigal v. Quilligan; sterilization

Dark Sweat, White Gold, 16. See also Weber, Devra

Davis, Mike, 138 de la Torre, Adela. See Building With Our

Hands De Le6n, Angel, 96. See also Moreno,

Luisa, 96 Decker, Caroline, 74 Del Castillo, Adelaida, 106-7, 110, 112 Del Rio, Dolores, 96, 111 Delhi, Calif., 17 Demographics, of Mexican-American1

women, 147—48; educational levels of, 154; incomes of, 148-49, 155-56; gar- ment workers, 149; occupational distrib- ution of, 153-54

Denver, Colo., 104 Deukmejian, George, 143 Deutsch, Sarah, xv, 27, 44—45. See also No

Separate Refuge Dewanto, Nirwan, 52—53 Diaz, Porfiro, 7—8. See also Mexican immi-

gration "dime-a-dance," 14 Dockers jeans. See Levi-Strauss Dodger Stadium, 98 Donald Henderson, 79. See also

UCAPAWA Douglas Aircraft, 82-83 Douglas, Ariz., 26 Durango, Mexican state of, 3 Durazo, Maria Elena, 123, 137-38, 150 Dust Bowl, 30, 77. See also "Okie"

migration

East Los Angeles high school Chicano stu- dent walkout (1968), 103-4

East Valleys Organization (EVO), 141 Eastside Sun, The (East Los Angeles),

83-84 El Buen Pastor, 42, 48. See also Rose

Gregory Houchen Settlement House

% 252 % Index

El Centre de Accion Autonoma- Hermandad General de Trabajadores (CASA); Marxism of, 117-18; origins of, 116—17; role of women in, 118—20; Sin Fronteras, 117-18

El Chicano, 107-8. See also Harrison, Gloria Macias

El Congreso de Pueblos de Hablan Espanola (Spanish Speaking people's Congress), 73, 79, 96-97; Corona, Bert, role in, 95; empowering women, 97; Fierro de Bright, Josefina, role in, 95, 97; Moreno, Luisa, role in, 94-95; sec- ond California convention, 100—101; Quevedo, Eduardo, role in, 95

El Grito, 107. See also Martinez, Betita El Monte Berry Strike of 1933, 75-77 El Monte Hicks Camp Barrio, 76 El Monte Historical Museum, xvi-xvii El Movimiento Estudantil Chicano de

Aztlan, 105, 119 El Nogal Pecan Shellers Union, 79-80 El Paso, Tex., 10, 25, 31-32, 127;

Community Chest of, 41; demographics of, 35, U.T. El Paso, 132; See also Farah textile strike; Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House; Segundo Barrio

El Plan de Acci6n de Calpulli. See Calpulli El Plan de Santa Barbara, 105, 119 El Primer Congreso Mexicanista, 99 El Rebozo, 111 Elko, Nev., 21 Ellis Island, 13 Ellis, Pearl, 33 Empire Zinc, 85. See also Salt of the Earth Encuentro Femenil, 107, 109. See also

G6mez, Ana Nieto Escalante, Alicia, 112 Escobar, Carmen Bernal, 59, 61-63, 80,

82. See also California Sanitary Canning Company and UCAPAWA

Esparza, Moctezuma, 115 Esparza, Pasquala, 3, 11, 14 Espino, Virginia, 113 Estrada, Ruby, 54, 58-59, 65 Evans, Peter, 137 Evans, Sara, 140 Ewen, Elizabeth, 52, 58

familial oligarchy, 52, 69, 71. See also familial protectiveness

familial protectiveness, 58—59; Catholic Church, 66—67; chaperonage, 61, 63—67, 70—71; early marriage as

response to, 60, 61; elopement as response to, 60—61; vergiienza (female chastity), 65

family wage economy, 63 Farah textile strike, 127-32; children, role

of, 131; Farah Distress Fund, 130; Farah, Willie, 128, 145^6; impact on families, 130; national boycott against, 130-31; picketing controversy at, 128-29; production quotas at, 127; set- tlement of, 131; Unidad Para Siempre, 130, 149; women, role of 131

Farah, Willie. See Farah textile strike Farm Labor Organizing Committee

(FLOC), 133 Fernandez, Beatrice, 46—47 Ferreira, Enrique, 88 Fierro de Bright, Josefina, 73, 100; El

Congreso, 95, 97; family background, 96; Zoot Suit Riots, witness of, 84. See also Bright, John

Fierro, Marfa, 55 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 55 flappers, 55, xiii Florence Crittenden Home for Unwed

Mothers, 71 Flores, Francisca, 108, 114. See also

Chicana Action Service Center in East Los Angeles, 114

Flores, Isabel; "I Remember" (poem), 18 Floyd Street Settlement, Dallas, Tex., 47 Food 4 Less, 141 forced repatriation, 29-31 Frances De Pauw School, 42^13 Franco, Minerva, 45 Freeman Clinic, 36, 41 Friendly House, Phoenix, 34 Frost, Robert, 147 Fuentes, Carlos, 106 FuerzaUnida, 149, 151

Gabaccia, Donna, 52 Galisteo, N. Mex., 92 Gallo, Juana, 112 Gallegos, Beatrice, 139 Gamio, Manuel, 11, 62. See also The Life

Story of the Mexican Immigrant Garcia, Alma Araiza, 46, 64 Garcia, Alma, 121 Garcia, Fernando, 42 Garcia, Mario, 36, 40, 90 Garcflazo, Jeffrey, 10, 22 Garris, Dr. Roy, 28 Gary, Ind., 29, 33

Index -% 253 £-

Garza, Carmen Lomas, 83, 150 Caspar de Alba, Alicia, xv, 121 Gastelum, Maria del Carmen Trejo de,

26 Girl Scouts, 39, 46-47 Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 19-20 Glenn, Susan, 52, 70 G6mez Palacios, 3 G6mez, Ana Nieto, 107, 111-12, 1H. See

also Chicana feminism and Encuentro Femenil

Gomez, Estela, 145-46 Gomez, Mira, 39 G6mez-Quifionez, Juan, 117 Gonzales, Corky, 104 Gonzales, Felipe, 137 Gonzalez, Deena, xv Gonzalez, Elsie, 8 Gonzalez, Gilbert, 16-17, 22, 34. See also

Labor and Community Gonzalez, Maria C., 121 Great Depression, 20, 22, 29, 38, 76-77,

96, 149 Green, Rayna, 39 Guadalupe I. Calvo, Chihuahua, 8 Guanajuato, Mexico, 11 Guerin-Gonzales, Camille, 9 Guillen, Father Patricio. See Calpulli Gutierrez, David, 6, 87, 90, 117, 119. See

also Walls and Mirrors Gutierrez, Juana, 142—43 Gutierrez, Ram6n, xv, 65, 109

Haas, Lisbeth, xv Habermas, Jiirgen, 35, 49 hair bobbing, 5 5 Hancock, Velia Garcfa, 118-19 Harrison, Gloria Macias, 107—8. See also

El Chicano Healey, Dorothy Ray, 72, 77; Cal-San orga-

nizer, 81—82; Communist Party, identifi- cation with, 74. See also United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA)

Heinze, Andrew, 52, 70 Hermosillo, Mexico, 62 Hernandez, Isabel, 116 Hernandez, Maria, 102, 115. See also

mutaalistas Hernandez, Antonia, 113, 124 Hershatter, Gail, 128, 130, 132 Hijas de Cuauhtemoc, 108 Hispana, meaning of term, xiv Hispanic, meaning of term, xiv

Hispano America, 57 Hispanos, 6 Holding the Line. See Kingsolver, Barbara Holguin, Margaret, 42 Hollywood, Calif., 14, 57-58, 85, 96 Horn, Alice, 122 Honig, Emily, 128, 130, 132 Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union,

Local 11 (Los Angeles). See Maria Elena Durazo

Houchen Community Center. See Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House

Houchen, Rose Gregory, 41. See also Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House

Houston, Texas, 108 Hoyt Street, 66, 138. See also Ponce, Mary

Helen Huerta, Dolores, 119, 134, 143. See also

United Farm Workers Hughes, Howard, 85 Hull House, 34 Hurtado, Albert, xv

Ibanez, Carlos Velez, 113 Ibarra, Estella, 44-45 Idar, Jovita, 99. See also El Primer

Congreso Mexicanista Immigration Act of 1917, 13 Immigration and Naturalization Service

(INS), 12, 20-21, 149; Boards of Special Inquiry, 11-13; Revueltas, Rosaura, harrassment of, 85. See also Salt of the Earth

Infinite Divisions, 100 International Ladies Garment Workers

Union (ILGWU), 118 International Union of Mine, Mill and

Smelter Workers, 85. See also Salt of the Earth

Jackson, Donald, 85 Jalisco, Mexico, 4, 11 Japanese Americans, 75—77; internment of,

84; Nisei, 54. See also El Monte Berry Strike of 1933

Jaramilo, Cleofas, xiii Jencks, Clint and Virginia, 85. See also Salt

of the Earth John Steinbeck Committee to Aid

Agricultural Organization, 78 Justice for Janitors, 137 juvenile delinquency, 83—84 Juventud Cat6lica Feminina Mexicana

(JCFM), 66

-% 254 % Index

Kleven, Victor, 94. See also Ortiz y Pino, Concha

Kern County, Calif., 75 Kerr, Louise Ano Nuevo, 50 Kettleman City, Calif., 144 Kingsolver, Barbara, 135—36 kissing, 67

La Confederacidn de Uniones de Campesinos y Obreros del Estado de California (CUCOM), 76

La Conferencia de Mujeres For La Raza, 108; controversy over feminism at, 108-9

la duena, 51, 63, 65, 70. See also familial protectiveness

La Malinche; origins of, 106; "The Curse of La Malinche," 106; Corpi, Lucha, "Marina Mother," 107; Chicana femi- nist, as, 107

la migra, 29, 32. See also Immigration and Naturalization Service

La Mujer Modema, 99. See also Villarreal, Andrea and Teresa

"La Nueva Chicana," 100, 156. See also Correa, Viola

La Opinion (Los Angeles), 56—58, 67, 83.

LaRazaUnida, 100, 102, 105, 112; Mujeres por la Raza, 116; political ori- gins of, 115-16

Labor and Community, 16. See also Gonzalez, Gilbert

Lamphere, Louise, 137 Las Cruces, N. Mex., 127 "Las Pelonas," 55 Las Posadas, 26 Latina, meaning of term, xiv League of United Latin American Citizens,

(LULAC), 31, 89-90, 97; Houchen Community Center, at, 49; Montemayor, Alicia Dickerson, 73,91; Mendez v. Westminster, 90; Pecan Shelter's Strike of 1938, 90; women's activities in, 91. See also NAACP

Legion of Decency, 66. See also Catholic Church

Le6n, Livia, 67 Levi-Strauss, 149 Levya, Yolanda Chavez, 122 Linares, Clemente, 17-18, 20 Lipsitz, George, 52, 58. See also Time

Passages Little, Dorothy, 37, 44

Longauex y Vasquez, Enriqueta, 108 Lopez, Mary Lou, 47 L6pez, Sonia, 108 L6pez, Yolanda, 11, 150 Los Angeles Community College District,

124. See also Romero, Gloria Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors,

124. See also Molina, Gloria Los Angeles Dressmakers Strike (1933),

131 Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD);

high school student strike, during, 104

Los Angeles Times, xvi, 104; Chicano Moratorium, 115; on sterilization of Mexican-American women, 114

Los Angeles, Calif., 14, 33, 59, 103-4, 113-15, 137, 150-51; Mexican popula- tion of, 6; forced repatriation of Mexicans, 29

Los Ganados del Valle, 145 Loyola University, Los Angeles, 103 Lucas, Marfa Elena, 133—34 Lucero, Lucy, 42 Lucero-Trujillo, Marcela Christine, 120 Lucia, R., 8 Luna, Grace, 17 Luna, Mary, 53, 61

Madera Cotton Strike, 78 Madero uprising, 8 Madrigal v. Quilligan, 113—14. See also

sterilization Magon, Juan Flores, 96 Making Face, Making Soul/Haciendo

Caras, 121-22, 125. See also Anzaldiia, Gloria.

Margolis, Eric, 17 Marquez, Benjamin, 90 Martin, Carlotta Silvas, 26 Martin, Patricia Preciado, 24. See also

Songs My Mother Sang to Me Martinez, Elizabeth, 100, 105, 107, 149.

See also El Grito Martinez, Sally, 114 Marx Ferree, Myra, 101 Matsumoto, Valerie, 53 Matute-Bianchi, Maria Eugenia, 120 Max Factor cosmetics, 54 McCormick, Paul, 84. See also Mendez v.

Westminster McCrea and Son, strike at, 136 McDonnell-Douglas, 68, 101-2 McLean, Reverend Robert, 41

Index % 2 5 5 £

McWilliams, Carey, 29, 72, 83

Mediola, Tatcho, 116 "Melting Pot," 37 Mendez v. Westminster, 84 Merino, Yamira, 150 Mestiza; feminist understanding of, 125;

meaning of term, xiv Methodist Church, 33-34, 37. See also

Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House

Mexicali, Mexico, 96 Mexican American Legal Defense Fund

(MALDEF), 124. See also Hernandez, Antonia

Mexican Chamber of Commerce, 55 Mexican Consul, 87-88 Mexican immigration, assimilation, 25;

destinations, 9-10; occupations, 9-10; "push/pull" model, 7, 10; reaction against, 28-30, 147

Mexican Mothers Club of the University of Chicago Settlement, 50

Mexican Revolution, 8 Mexican-American; meaning of term, xiv;

per-capita income of, 98; population, 147

Mexicana, meaning of term, xiv "Mi Amor," 109 Michoacan, Mexico, 11 Milligan, Adele Hernandez, 59 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, xv Molano, Elvira, 85. See also Salt of the

Earth Molina, Gloria, 124, 143. See also Los

Angeles County Board of Supervisors Molina, Priscilla, 39 Moncaya, Hortensia, 99. See also El

Primer Congreso Mexicanista Montemayor, Alicia Dickerson. See

LULAC Montiel, Fermfn, 66-67 Mora, Magdalena, 117-18. See also CASA Mora, Pat, 119, 150, 157-58 Moraga, Cherrie, 110, 121, 150. See also

This Bridge Called My Back Morales, Elisa "Elsie," 62 Moreno, Graciela Martfnez, 133 Moreno, Luisa, 73, 100, 151; American

Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born (ACPFB), 97; departs for Guatemala, 84; Cal San organizer, 81-82, 101; Communist Party member- ship, 84; El Congreso organizer, 94-95;

El Nogal Union, 79-80; family back- ground, 96. See also UCAPAWA

Moreno, Maria, 47 Mothers of East Los Angeles, 142—43 Mount, George, 102. See also Mount, Julia

Luna Mount, Julia Luna, 15, 64, 82-83, 115;

biography of, 101—2 Mount, Tanya Luna, 115 Mujeres Activas En Letras Y Cambio

Social (MALCS), 122-23; "Animal Attraction," controversy over, 124

Mujeres Mexicanas, 144 Mulligan, Rose Eschevema, 45, 67 Musquiz, Virginia, 115 mutualistas, 55, 86-89, 102; Alianza

Hispano-Americana, 86; Club Femenino Orquidia, 86-87; Club Mexicano Independencia (CMI), 86; el Comiti de Vecinos de Lemon Grove, 88—89; La Asociaci6n Hispano-Americana, 140; La Cruz Azul, 88; Liga Protectora Latina, 88; Orden Cabelleros de America, 102; Sociedad Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, 87; Sociedad Mutualista Hispano- Azteca, 88

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 90. See also LULAC

National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference, 104; controversy over femi- nism, 108

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), 76

National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), 129, 136-37

National Women's Party, 91 Nava, Yolanda, 114 Negrete, Theresa, 84 New York, N.Y., 91 Newark Methodist Maternity Hospital, 36.

See also Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House

Newark-Houchen News, 45 Nicholas, Elizabeth, 74 No Separate Refuge, 45. See also Deutsch,

Sarah Nogales, Ariz., 12 Nu-Pike amusement park, Long Beach, 59 nuclear freeze movement, 102. See also

Mount, Julia Luna, 102 Nueces County, Texas, 9 Nyssa, Oregon, 10

Medina, Lara, 142

% 256 % Index

Ochoa, Kathy Ledesma, 118. See also CASA

"Okie" migration, 30, 77. See also Dust Bowl

Old Spain and the Southwest. See Warren, Adelina Otero

Olguin, Carmen, 114 Olsen, Culbert, 97 Orange County, California; citrus commu-

nities of, 16,22 Orellana, Trinidad, 12. See also Immigra-

tion and Naturalization Service Organizing for Our Lives: New Voices from

Rural Communities. See Street, Richard Orozco, Cynthia; on Chicana feminism,

125-26; 73-74, 90, 102 Ortiz y Pino, Concha, 73, 91-93; bilingual

education, 94; marriage to Victor Kleven, 94; the New Deal, views on, 93-94

Ortiz, Castulo, 87 Ospinaldo, Orinio, 141 Otero, Miguel, 92 Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine, 22, 66

pachucas, las, 83 pachucos, 53 Pacific Electric Railway Company, 74 Padilla, Polita, 45 Palacios, Monica, xiv Pardo, Mary, 142-43 Parra, Edna, 39 Partido Liberal Mexicano, 96 Pascoe, Peggy, 47 pateras (midwives), 25 Paul, Alice, 91 Payan, Maria, 47 Peace and Freedom Party, 102 Pefia, Soldedad, 99. See also El Primer

Congreso Mexicanista Perez de Valdez, Jacinta, 60 P£rez, Emma, 122 P£rez, Selena Quintanilla ("Selena"), 150 Pesotta, Rose, 131 Pesquera, Beatriz, 125. See also Building

With Our Hands Phelps Dodge copper strike (1983),

135-36 Phoenix, Ariz., 104 Pocatello, Idaho, 21 Ponce, Mary Helen, 66. See also Hoyt

Street Progressive Era, 34 Proposition 187, 147, 151

Public space, concept of claiming, xiii, xv-xvi, 49, 73, 127-28, 145

Quevedo, Eduardo, 73, 95 Quinn, Anthony, 96 Quinonez, Naomi, 107, 150-51

railroad work, 11, 22-24 Rainbow Room, 69 Ramirez, Mariana, 85 Ramirez, Sara Estela, 99, 102 Rebolledo, Diana, 92 Relations of Rescue. See Pascoe, Peggy Resurrection Parish, 142 Revueltas, Rosaura, 85. See also Salt of the

Earth Rickford, Millie, 36-38, 42 Rico, Maria, 47 Rillito, Ariz., 67 Riordan, Richard Mayor, 141 Rivera, Aida, 39 Rivera, Carmen, 85. See also Salt of the

Earth Riverside Ballroom, 60 Riverside, Calif., 7, 22 Robert Kennedy, 104 Roberts, Kenneth, 28 Robles de Mendoza, Margarita, 86-87 Rock Island Railroad, 10, 24 Rockefeller, Nelson, 130 Rodriguez, Gregorita, 61 Rodriguez, Raymond, 11 Rodriguez, Severiano, 9 Romero, Gloria, 123-24 Romero, Mary, 17 Romo, Ricardo, 9 Roosevelt High School, Los Angeles,

104 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 76 Rose Gregory Houchen Settlement House,

32, 33-34; "Americanization" activities of, 36, 46; bilingual education, 40; con- stitution of, 48; "Friendship Square," 42-43, 45, 46-48; goals of, 35-36; Latina missionaries, 47; named for, 37; Protestantism of, 43-45; use of by Mexican-American women, 48-50

Rose, Margaret, 134 Rosie the Riveter, 82 Roybal, Hon. Edward, 130 Ruiz, Alice, 39 Ruiz, Erminia, 27, 62, 68-69 Ruiz, Maria de las Nieves Moya de, 69,

Index % 257 £

Ruiz, Petra, 112 Ruiz, Vicki, 11, 132; childhood of, riii;

experiences at Stanford, 121

Sal si Puedes, 68 Salas, Elizabeth, 92 Salazar, Rosalia, 24 Salazar, Ruben, 115, 119. See also Chicano

Moratorium Saldfvar-Hull, Sonia, xv Salt of the Earth, 84-86, 136 San Antonio, Tex., 18; Chicano student

walkout, 104; Chicano activists' reunion, 121; COPS, 138; El Nogal, 79, 84; Levi- Strauss, 149; Pecan Shelter's strike of 1938, 90

San Bernardino, Calif., 6-7 San Diego County, Calif., 6 San Francisco News, 77-78 San Joaquin Valley cotton strike of 1933,

20, 74-75 San Joaquin Valley, 96,119 San Julian, Mexico, 4, 30 Sanchez, Angela, 86. See also Salt of the

Earth Sanchez, George, 13, 34, 44, 95 Sanchez, Petra, 4, 30-31 Sanchez-Walker, Marjorie, 4, 30 Sandoval, Chela, 145 Santa Fe County, Tex., 92 Sarmiento, Clara, 44-45, 47 Scottsbluff, Neb., 84 segregation, 68 Segundo Barrio, 33, 44, 48; demographics

of, 34-35. See also El Paso, Tex. Segura, Denise, 125 Sekul, Joseph, 139 Seligman, Julius, 79 separate spheres, concept of, xvi Shelit, Alicia Mendeola, 46, 61, 82 Sheridan, Thomas, 25, 60 Shriver, Sergeant, 130 Silvis, 111., 10, 23 Simon J. Lubin Society, 78 Singing for My Echo, 61. See also

Rodriguez, Gregorita Sisters of the Company of Mary, 26 Skerry, Peter, 139-40, 143 Smith, Clara, 39, 60 Soja, Edward, 40 solas (single mothers), 11 soldaderas, 8, 111—12. See also Chicana

feminism Soldatenko, Maria, 149

Songs My Mother Sang to Me, 24-25. See also Martin, Patricia Preciado

Sosa Riddell, Adaljiza, 119, 123 Sosa, Gregoria, 23 Soto, Elizabeth, 42, 47 South Central Organizing Committee

(SCOC), 141 Southern Pacific Railroad, 23 Southwest, as a concept, xv Spanish American, meaning of term, xiv Spanish-Mexican settlement; myth about,

5 Spaulding, Charles, 77 Stanford University, Calif., 120-21 Stark, Herman, 83 Steinbeck, John, 20, 77. See also The

Grapes of Wrath sterilization, 113-14. See also USC/Los

Angeles County Medical Center Stoltz, Effie, 36. See also Freeman Clinic Street, Richard, 143-44. See also

Organizing for Our Lives Student Non-Violent Coordinating

Committee (SNCC), 104, 144 Students for a Democratic Society, 103 Sunbelt Working Mothers. See Evans,

Peter; Gonzales, Felipe; Lamphere, Louise; Zavella, Patricia

Superior, Ariz., 25

Tafolla, Carmen, 122-23. See also To Split a Human

Tarrango, Yolanda, 138 Taylor, Paul, 9, 45, 59 Teamsters Union, 84 Tejana, meaning of term, xiv Tellez, Jesse, 136 Tenayuca, Emma, 79 Tene'pal, Malintzin. See La Malinche The Arizona Teacher and Home Journal,

38 The Chicana Feminist, 119. See also

Cotera, Martha The Grapes of Wrath, 77, 97. See also

Steinbeck, John The Life Story of the Mexican Immigrant,

11 The Saturday Evening Post, 28 Third World Strike at UC-Berkeley (1969),

104 This Bridge Called My Back, 110, 121-22.

See also Moraga, Cherrie; Anzaldua, Gloria

Thompson, E.P., 74

-% 258 % Index

Time Passages, 58. See also Lipsitz, George, 58

To Split a Human, 122-23. See also Tafolla, Carmen

Torres, Jesusita, xvii, 3-4, 14-16, 18-19, 30, 52, 75-77

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 5 Trevino, Roberto, 56 Trevino-Sauceda, Millie, 144, 150 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, 149 Trinidad, Colo., 27 True Story magazine, 52, 81 Trujillo, Carla, 121-22 Tuck, Ruth, 6-7, 46, 67-68 Tucson, Arizona, 60 Tulare County, California, 75

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 9—10 U.S.-Mexican War, xv, 5; UCLA Film and Television Department,

124 Unbound Feet. See Yung, Judy Unidad Para Siempre. See Farah textile

strike United Auto Workers, 82, 102. See also

Mount, George United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and

Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA- C1O), 77-79, 140; cannery workers in, 80-82; gender awareness, 101; Healey, Dorothy Ray, 72, 77; Moreno, Luisa, 73, 79-80, 96; red scare, 84; walnut work- ers, in, 72—73

United Farm Workers (UFW), 103, 105; background of, 132; Farah textile strike, support for, 130; grape boycott, 119, 132; UFW Service Center, 133. See also Chavez, Cesar; Chavez, Helen; Huerta, Dolores; Lucas, Maria Elena

United Mexican American Students, 103 United Neighborhood Organization

(UNO), 141 "University Avenue." See Mora, Pat University of California at Los Angeles

(UCLA), 113, 117 University of California at Santa Barbara,

105 USC/Los Angeles County Medical Center,

113-14 Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 9, 21, 23

Valdez, Patissi, 103 Varela, Maria, 104-5, 144^5

Vargas, Zaragosa, 79 Vasquez, Felix and Frederica, 10, 22-24 Velasquez, Baldemar, 133. See also Farm

Labor Organizing Committee Velez, Julia Yslas, 25 Vellanoweth, Patricia, 118. See also

CASA verguenza (female chastity), 65. See also

familial protectiveness Veyna, Angelina, xv Victoria, Tex., 127 Vietnam War, 105, 114-15. See aho

Chicano Moratorium Villarreal, Andrea and Teresa, 99. See also

La Mujer Moderna

Walls and Mirrors, 89. See also Gutierrez, David

Walsenberg, Colorado, 27 Warren, Adelina Otero, 91-92. See also

Old Spain and the Southwest We Fed Them Cactus, 24. See also Cabeza

de Baca, Fabiola Weber, Devra, 8, 11, 16, 20, 74-75. See

also Dark Sweat, White Gold Weinberg, Sydney Stahl, 52 Welty, Eudora, 145 Whatley, Charlotte, 9 ] . See also Warren,

Adelina Otero White, Richard, 27 Women's Home Missionary Society of

Newark, New Jersey, 41 Women's Work and Chicano Families. See

Zavella, Patricia Workers'Alliance, 79, 101 World War I, 9 World War II, 53, 90, 101-2

Xicana, meaning of term, xiv Xicanisma, 125

Ybarra, Maria, 51, 61 Yung, Judy, 53. See also Unbound Feet

Zamora, Bemice, 70—71 Zarate, Sister Rosa Marta. See also

Calpulli Zavella, Patricia, 136—37. See also Sunbelt

Working Mothers and Women's Work and Chicano Families

Zinn, Marine Baca, 135 Zoot Suit Riots, 83-84

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Border Journeys
2. Confronting "America"
3. The Flapper and the Chaperone
4. With Pickets, Baskets, and Ballots
5. La Nueva Chicana: Women and the Movement
6. Claiming Public Space
Epilogue
Afterword
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index