Backroads pragmatists : Mexico's melting pot and civil rights in the United States / Ruben Flores.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Flores, Ruben, 1967- author.

Contributor:

William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies.

Series:

Politics and culture in modern America.

Politics and Culture in Modern America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cultural pluralism--Mexico--History--20th century.

Cultural pluralism.

Nationalism--Mexico--History--20th century.

Nationalism.

Education and state--Mexico--History--20th century.

Education and state.

Civil rights movements--United States--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements.

Social movements--Southwest, New--History--20th century.

Social movements.

Social reformers--Mexico--History--20th century.

Social reformers.

Social reformers--United States--History--20th century.

Mexico--Politics and government--1910-1946.

Mexico.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (360 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, [Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Like the United States, Mexico is a country of profound cultural differences. In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), these differences became the subject of intense government attention as the Republic of Mexico developed ambitious social and educational policies designed to integrate its multitude of ethnic cultures into a national community of democratic citizens. To the north, Americans were beginning to confront their own legacy of racial injustice, embarking on the path that, three decades later, led to the destruction of Jim Crow. Backroads Pragmatists is the first book to show the transnational cross-fertilization between these two movements. In molding Mexico's ambitious social experiment, post revolutionary reformers adopted pragmatism from John Dewey and cultural relativism from Franz Boas, which, in turn, profoundly shaped some of the critical intellectual figures in the Mexican American civil rights movement. The Americans Ruben Flores follows studied Mexico's integration theories and applied them to America's own problem, holding Mexico up as a model of cultural fusion. These American reformers made the American West their laboratory in endeavors that included educator George I. Sanchez's attempts to transform New Mexico's government agencies, the rural education campaigns that psychologist Loyd Tireman adapted from the Mexican ministry of education, and anthropologist Ralph L. Beals's use of applied Mexican anthropology in the U.S. federal courts to transform segregation policy in southern California. Through deep archival research and ambitious synthesis, Backroads Pragmatists illuminates how nation-building in post revolutionary Mexico unmistakably influenced the civil rights movement and democratic politics in the United States. Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. A Symphony of Cultures

Chapter 2. Shock Troops

Chapter 3. The Language of Experience

Chapter 4. The School and Society

Chapter 5. The Yaqui Way of Life

Chapter 6. ‘‘The Sun Has Exploded’’: Integration and the California School

Chapter 7. Texas and the Parallel Worlds of Civil Rights

Epilogue. Pragmatism and the Decline of Dewey

Notes

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Includes index.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780812224146

0812224140

9780812209891

0812209893

OCLC:

881137418