Mexican workers and American dreams : immigration, repatriation, and California farm labor, 1900-1939 / Camille Guerin-Gonzales.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guerin-Gonzales, Camille.

Series:

Class and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mexican agricultural laborers--California--History--20th century.

Mexican agricultural laborers.

Mexican American agricultural laborers--California--History--20th century.

Mexican American agricultural laborers.

Repatriation.

History.

Emigration and immigration.

California--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.

California.

Mexico--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.

Mexico.

Repatriation--Mexico--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

xi, 197 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [1994]

Summary:

Earlier in this century, over one million Mexican immigrants moved to the United States, attracted by the prospect of work in California's fields. The Mexican farmworkers were tolerated by Americans as long as there was enough work to go around. During the Great Depression, though, white Americans demanded that Mexican workers and their families return to Mexico. In the 1930s, the federal government and county relief agencies forced the repatriation of half a million Mexicans--and some Mexican Americans as well. Camille Guerin-Gonzales tells the story of their migration, their years here, and of the repatriation program--one of the largest mass removal operations ever sanctioned by the U.S. government. She exposes the powers arrayed against Mexicans as well as the patterns of Mexican resistance, and she maps out constructions of national and ethnic identity across the contested terrain of the American Dream.

Contents:

Part I White American Dreams

1. Pastoral Dreams in California: Foreign Workers and the Business of Family Farming 11

2. Mexican "Birds of Passage": Representations of Mexicans as Foreign Sojourners 25

Part II Racial Limitations of the American Dream

3. Whiteness and Ethnic Identity: Being Mexican in California 51

4. "Mexicans Go Home!": Mexican Removal Programs during the Great Depression 77

Part III Dreaming America

5. Los Repatriados: America's Exiles in Mexico 97

6. Class War in the Fields: Workers, Growers, and New Deal Reformers 111.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0813520479 :

0813520487

OCLC:

28410911