Ethnic Community Builders: Mexican-Americans in Search of Justice and Power is an oral history of Mexican-American activism in San Jose, California, over the last half century. The authors present interviews of 14 people of various stripes--teachers, politicians, radio personalities--who have been influential in the development of a major urban center with a significant ethnic population. These activists tell the stories of their lives and work with engaging openness and honesty, allowing readers to witness their successes and failures. This vivid ethnography of a Mexican-American community...

San Antonio, Texas, lies geographically and culturally at the crossroads of Mexico, Texas, and the larger United States. During the Great Depression it lay also at the crossroads of these cultures' myths, memories, and identities. Between 1929 and 1941, in this city's West Side barrio, a generation of Mexican immigrants developed into a new middle class and forged an identity that has shaped Southwestern experience since then: the identity of the Mexican American.
Richard Garcia presents an innovative study of the tension between change and continuity in thought, culture, and community...