The essays contained in The Latina/o Midwest Reader, edited by Omar Valerio-Jiménez, Santiago Vaquera-Vázquez, and Claire F. Fox, contest the notion that the Midwest is monolithically white. These scholars also set out to establish that Latinos did not just recently arrive in the Midwest. Instead, as these essays amply show, Latinos arrived in this region in the late-nineteenth century and have continued to migrate to this region as a result of various labor agreements and immigration policies. Contributors to this collection discuss Latinos in the Midwest from several angles, focusing on the social and political challenges they face, for example. In their essays, these scholars do not depict the Midwest as a fixed pastoral geopolitical landscape but rather as a multiracial region that is vibrant and continuously changing as a result of Latinos' presence.
The Latina/o Midwest Reader is organized into five sections: The Browning of the Midwest, Essential Laborers and Neighbors, La educación adelanta, Performeando the Midwest, and Movimientos. Although the essays are divided into these different sections, there are several thematic similarities across all seventeen essays. For instance, scholars establish that Latinos have been in this area for decades. José E. Limón, in fact, points out that some Mexicans who initially migrated to Texas in the late-nineteenth century later moved further north and established roots in the Midwest. Later, during World War II, the Latino population grew tremendously, primarily as a result of the Bracero Program, which imported labor mostly from Mexico. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans moved to the Midwest as a result of Operation Bootstrap. As Lilia Fernández points out, these Latinos chose the Midwest because the region's industrial jobs "promised potentially higher wages" than those offered in agricultural work in the Southwest (87). Jane Blocker, meanwhile, touches upon the Cuban immigrants who moved to the Midwest as a result of Operation Peter Pan, which brought Cuban minors to the United States after the Cuban Revolution. Carolyn Colvin, Jay Arduser, and Elizabeth Willmore discuss the challenges faced by Salvadorians and Guatemalans who immigrated in the 1980s during the civil wars that engulfed their countries. Thus, collectively, these scholars show that Latinos migrated to the United States as a result of a multitude of push-and-pull factors, similar to the ones that brought European Americans to this country.
Another thematic thread that binds these essays is their shared focus on the variegated challenges Latinos face and their responses to these obstacles. For example, Felipe Hinojosa writes about Latinos' efforts to make the Mennonite church more racially inclusive. Meanwhile, Darrel Wanzer-Serrano discusses a brief history of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican activist group that centered their efforts on issues related to poverty and police brutality. Janet Weaver brings attention to Mexican Americans' activism in Iowa in the late 1960s, a period that saw this community join forces with fellow activists in California. In a separate essay, Weaver and Theresa Delgadillo similarly write about the activism of Latinas in Wisconsin and Iowa during the same period. These essays are welcome additions to the Mexican American civil rights movement historiography that still predominantly focuses on activism in the Southwest.
Addressing more recent issues are the essays by Amelia María de la Luz Montes, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, Rebecca M. Schreiber and by Carolyn Colvin, Jay Arduser, and Elizabeth Willmore. Montes writes about an incident at the University of Nebraska that involved the university deciding to abruptly move the Ethnic Studies Department to another building on short notice. Rather than kowtowing to the university, Montes led a protest that culminated in the department staying in the same building. Rivera-Servera's essay focuses on the work of Miss Ketty, a Latina drag queen, whose performances are based on traditional Latino dances. Rivera-Servera comments that Miss Ketty's style, deeply rooted in Latino traditions, nurtures gay Latino's sense of belonging in Chicago. Schreiber writes about the No Papers, No Fear movement, which sought to bring attention to the constant fear of deportation that looms over immigrants' lives. Lastly, the essay by Colvin, Arduser, and Willmore challenges the myth that Latino parents are uninterested in their children's education. They argue that parents often cannot fully participate because of language barriers, and suggest that school districts address the needs of these immigrant groups. In total, these stories reveal that Latinos not only have survived these challenges across many decades but have thrived in spite of them.
While as a whole The Latina/o Midwest Reader achieves the goals it sets, there are some minor issues. This collection, for example, largely focuses on Mexicans and Puerto Ricans, the two largest Latino groups in the United States. Scholars can expand on this collection by providing similar research on immigrants from Central and South America. The stories from these immigrants are different than Mexicans' and Puerto Ricans' and deserve more attention. Similarly, the chapters on the Young Lords' and Latinos' contributions to California's farmworkers boycott could be further developed, as they are only two and three pages in length, respectively. Lastly, the book could be organized differently, as the categories in which the chapters are placed are very broad. Perhaps organizing the book chronologically would have provided a clearer picture of Latinos' continued and growing presence in the Midwest. Aside from these minor issues, The Latina/o Midwest Reader certainly contributes to this nascent literature by bringing much needed attention to the struggles and contributions of Latinos in the Midwest.
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[Review length: 894 words • Review posted on March 8, 2018]