On Becoming Mexican American
Sanchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. pp. 400. Paperback.
This is a nice study that emphasizes Mexican immigrants’ creation of a new culture in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. The text starts in Mexico and covers the movement of Mexicans to Los Angeles, before spending time discussing the way that both Americans and Mexicans tried to “assimilate” them further into their respective nationalities. However, Mexicans in the United States had already begun to create a hybrid identity. With the highest number of Mexicans in the United States by 1928, Los Angeles was the destination for many, but the crux of the creation of Chicano culture was the Great Depression.
During the Great Depression, between the economic collapse (with Mexicans’ choice to return) and mass deportation carried out by the newly-created Border Patrol, Los Angeles lost 1/3 of its Mexican population. Those who stayed became increasingly aware of the fragility of their situation. To maintain their status, both economically and culturally, numerous Mexican immigrants and their children began to join unions en masse. Much like African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans, Mexican-Americans increasingly became active in Civil Rights struggles. Between the drastic transformations brought about the Great Depression, Mexican-American hybridity emerged in a context of increasingly hostility to their existence.
Notably, most historians of immigration to the United States have emphasized the importance of social mobility to the “Americanization” or “ethnicization” of immigrant groups. However, Sánchez’s text is interesting in that his subjects lacked social mobility. They were racialized and classified as fundamentally working class (or lower). The Great Depression actually destroyed what little prospects Mexican immigrants to the United States had. But, by becoming increasingly involved in unions and fighting for their rights, they combined the culture of their homeland with that of the US. Reallly interesting stuff here.
I don’t love debates over Americanization or assimilation, but Sánchez does a good job here.