Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Ethnic Studies - American - Hispanic American Studies

Two decades after Cesar Chavez's death, this timely book chronicles the drive for a union of one of American society's most exploited groups--farm workers. "Encyclopedia of Cesar Chavez" is a valuable one-volume source based on the most recent research and available documentation. Historian Roger Bruns documents how Chavez and his United Farm Workers (UFW), against formidable odds, organized farm laborers into a force that for the first time successfully took on the might of California's agribusiness interests to achieve greater wages and better working conditions.

Set against the...

Chicanismo, the idea of what it means to be Chicano, was born in the 1970s, when grassroots activists, academics, and artists joined forces in the civil rights movimiento that spread new ideas about Mexican American history and identity. The community murals those artists painted in the barrios of East Los Angeles were a powerful part of that cultural vitality, and these artworks have been an important feature of LA culture ever since. This book offers detailed analyses of individual East LA murals, sets them in social context, and explains how they were produced. The authors,...

Why do Mexicans migrate to the United States? Is there a typical Mexican migrant? Beginning in the 1970s, survey data indicated that the average migrant was a young, unmarried man who was poor, undereducated, and in search of better employment opportunities. This is the general view that most Americans still hold of immigrants from Mexico. On the Move argues that not only does this view of Mexican migrants reinforce the stereotype of their undesirability, but it also fails to capture the true diversity of migrants from Mexico and their evolving migration patterns over...

Today the achievement gap is hotly debated among pundits, politicians, and educators. In particular this conversation often focuses on the two fastest-growing demographic groups in the United States: Asian Americans and Latinos. In Academic Profiling, Gilda L. Ochoa addresses this so-called gap by going directly to the source. At one California public high school where the controversy is lived every day, Ochoa turns to the students, teachers, and parents to learn about the very real disparities--in opportunity, status, treatment, and assumptions--that lead to more than just gaps...

Many Americans are wondering (and maybe worrying) about the impact of the growing Latino population. That's not surprising: in 1970 there were only 9 million Latinos (4.5% of the nation's population) but today they're fifty million strong-and by 2050, that number is projected to grow to ninety-five million. So maybe it's time to reflect on this important trend, not by isolating Latinos but by considering their role within the larger national context.

Much of the nation's attention has centered on immigration or more specifically, illegal immigration. That's unfortunate...

The link between private corporations and U.S. world power has a much longer history than most people realize. Transnational firms such as the United Fruit Company represent an earlier stage of the economic and cultural globalization now taking place throughout the world. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources in the United States, Great Britain, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, Colby combines "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to provide new insight into the role of transnational capital, labor migration, and racial nationalism in shaping U.S. expansion into Central America and the...

Digging through memories long buried, she embarks upon a journey not only into her ancestry but also into her own...