Tag: mexico

The Young Woman of Devil’s Alley: An Excerpt from “Surgery & Salvation”

The following is an excerpt from the introduction of Surgery & Salvation: The Roots of Reproductive Injustice in Mexico, 1770–1940 by Elizabeth O’Brien, which is now available wherever books are sold. In the early morning hours of March 12, 1884, a pregnant eighteen-year-old walked on a derelict pathway in Mexico City. Known colloquially as Devil’s Alley, the street has been… Continue Reading The Young Woman of Devil’s Alley: An Excerpt from “Surgery & Salvation”

Social Metabolisms: Precious Metal Mining and it’s Demands on Local Environments and People

The following is an excerpt from The Three Deaths of Cerro de San Pedro: Four Centuries of Extractivism in a Small Mexican Mining Town, by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, available now wherever books are sold. Social Metabolisms As the rate and scale of precious metal mining increased with each cycle of extractivist mining, its demands on local environments and people rose proportionally.… Continue Reading Social Metabolisms: Precious Metal Mining and it’s Demands on Local Environments and People

Women’s History Month 2022 Reading List (Curated by Andreina Fernandez)

Happy Women’s History Month! Women’s History Month had its origins as a national celebration in 1981 when Congress passed Pub. L. 97-28 which authorized and requested the President to proclaim the week beginning March 7, 1982 as “Women’s History Week.” Throughout the next five years, Congress continued to pass joint resolutions designating a week in March as “Women’s History Week.” In… Continue Reading Women’s History Month 2022 Reading List (Curated by Andreina Fernandez)

Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

The following is an excerpt from Dennis Merrill’s Negotiating Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America. Accounts of U.S. empire building in Latin America typically portray politically and economically powerful North Americans descending on their southerly neighbors to engage in lopsided negotiations. Dennis Merrill’s comparative history of U.S. tourism in Latin America in the twentieth century demonstrates that… Continue Reading Negotiating Paradise: Mass Tourism, Empire, and Soft Power

Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis:  Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Roads and Walls in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Jessica M. Kim: Why Trump’s Wall Will Fail

Today we welcome a guest post from Jessica M. Kim, author of Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941, published this month by UNC Press. In this compelling narrative of capitalist development and revolutionary response, Jessica M. Kim reexamines the rise of Los Angeles from a small town to a global city against the backdrop… Continue Reading Jessica M. Kim: Why Trump’s Wall Will Fail

Benjamin T. Smith: Fake News, Chinese Boxes, and the Mexican Art of Manipulating the Press

Today we welcome a guest post from Benjamin T. Smith, author of The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976:  Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street, just published by UNC Press. Mexico today is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report the news, and Mexicans have taken to the street to defend freedom of expression.… Continue Reading Benjamin T. Smith: Fake News, Chinese Boxes, and the Mexican Art of Manipulating the Press

Hannah Gill: Silent Sam in Carolina del Norte

Today we welcome a guest post from Hannah Gill, author of the new revised and expanded edition of The Latino Migration Experience in North Carolina:  New Roots in the Old North State, just published by UNC Press. Now thoroughly updated and revised—with a new chapter on the Dreamer movement and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA)—Hannah Gill’s book… Continue Reading Hannah Gill: Silent Sam in Carolina del Norte

Benjamin T. Smith: Por Qué, Por Qué?

Today we welcome a guest post from Benjamin T. Smith, author of The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1976:  Stories from the Newsroom, Stories from the Street, just published by UNC Press. Mexico today is one of the most dangerous places in the world to report the news, and Mexicans have taken to the street to defend freedom of expression.… Continue Reading Benjamin T. Smith: Por Qué, Por Qué?

Mireya Loza: 100 Years of Mexican Guest Workers in the United States

The experiences of braceros reveal contradictions within U.S. immigration policy that render Mexican laborers as necessary and Mexican settlement as unnecessary and unwarranted. The Bracero Program cemented the idea that in modern America, Mexican workers could come in, contribute their labor and expect no avenues of permanent incorporation into American life and no legal protections as workers. The termination of the Bracero Program did not bring an end to Mexican guest workers as Mexicans found themselves recruited for H2 visas. This category of visa was first introduced in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and by 1986 the status was subdivided and the letter “A” was added for agricultural workers. H2-A laborers not only walk in the historical footprints of the braceros that came before them but many are the children and grandchildren of braceros, creating one more link in the century of Mexican guest workers in America. So after 100 years of guest workers policies, do we continue to create an unequal system in which a group of people are only valued as laborers and never given the opportunity of true belonging as American citizens? Continue Reading Mireya Loza: 100 Years of Mexican Guest Workers in the United States

Video: Julie Weise on the History of Mexicans in the U.S. South

When Latino migration to the U.S. South became increasingly visible in the 1990s, observers and advocates grasped for ways to analyze “new” racial dramas in the absence of historical reference points. However, as this book is the first to comprehensively document, Mexicans and Mexican Americans have a long history of migration to the U.S. South. Corazón de Dixie: Mexicanos in the… Continue Reading Video: Julie Weise on the History of Mexicans in the U.S. South

Excerpt: Home Grown, by Isaac Campos

Yet despite today’s typical view of marijuana as a “soft” drug in comparison to, say, the opiates and cocaine, Mexicans of a century ago believed it to be perhaps the “hardest” drug of them all, one that triggered sudden paroxysms and delirious violence. Continue Reading Excerpt: Home Grown, by Isaac Campos

Excerpt: Chinese Mexicans, by Julia María Schiavone Camacho

The complex ties Mexicans and Chinese formed in northern Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the integration of Chinese men into local communities led to racial and cultural fusion and over time to the formation of a new cultural identity—Chinese Mexican. Racially and culturally hybrid families straddled the boundaries of identity and nation. They made alternating claims on Chineseness and Mexicanness during their quest to belong somewhere, especially as social and political uproar erupted in Mexico, the United States, and China. Continue Reading Excerpt: Chinese Mexicans, by Julia María Schiavone Camacho

Isaac Campos: Today’s Synthetic Drugs Provoking New Reefer Madness

Have the recently reported bizarre behaviors related to synthetic drugs been primarily caused by these chemical compounds or by the set and setting of their ingestion? The answer is still unclear, but history and science suggest that anxiety produced by unfamiliarity with these drugs and the accompanying horror stories in the press are probably contributing in some way. Continue Reading Isaac Campos: Today’s Synthetic Drugs Provoking New Reefer Madness

Loveman’s ‘No Higher Law’ gets the page 99 test

The “Page 99 Test” takes its name and inspiration from Ford Madox Ford, who said,”Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.” As part of the Campaign for the American Reader, Marshal Zeringue has built a blog based on the idea, asking authors to turn to page 99 of… Continue Reading Loveman’s ‘No Higher Law’ gets the page 99 test

Battle Without End: Raúl Ramos on the politics of Texas history

Today brings us a guest post from Raúl Ramos, author of Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. In his book, Ramos introduces a new model for the transnational history of the United States as he focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores… Continue Reading Battle Without End: Raúl Ramos on the politics of Texas history

Today in history: the Mexican Revolution begins

When Francisco I. Madero called for an uprising against dictatorial Mexican president Porfirio Diaz on November 20, 1910, he triggered a revolution in Mexico that would last until 1920. To understand the situation that led up to this event, it’s helpful to take a look at Patrick McNamara’s book Sons of the Sierra: Juarez, Diaz, and the People of Ixtlan,… Continue Reading Today in history: the Mexican Revolution begins