New book spotlights the experiences of Mexicans in Chicago – entitled “In Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation” by Gabriela Arredondo

Chicago is home to one of the largest populations of Mexicans in the United States, and the experiences of Mexican immigrants in the Windy City offer a revealing lesson in how the forces of racism work, according to the author of the new book Mexican Chicago.

In Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008) historian Gabriela Arredondo, an associate professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, focuses on the period 1916-1939.

Chicago’s major industries–steel, meat-packing, railroads, and agriculture–fed the initial wave of Mexican immigration that began in 1916 to address the labor shortage of World War I, said Arredondo. “Industry lobbied for exemptions to legislative restrictions and began recruiting in Mexico and Texas, looking for workers–especially nonunion laborers–lured with promises of opportunity and paid transportation,” she said.”*

*From: www.ucsc.edu
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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