Mexicanos

May 3, 1999
Exhaustive and destined for controversy, this survey of the historical literature about Mexicans in what has become the United States is also a critique of the Chicano studies field. A specialist in the American Southwest and currently a professor of history at Diablo Valley College, Gonzales (The Hispanic Elite of the Southwest) aims to balance what he views as the prevailing liberal, "good guys versus bad guys" bias that is the legacy of the activists who pioneered the field in the late 1960s. his pugnacious approach sometimes creates a hybrid of straight history and diatribe, most evident when he brandishes verbal sabers at his colleagues, although his argument about the shortcomings of the existing scholarship is largely persuasive. In Gonzales's view, too much of the literature focuses on the historical life of the American Southwest, with Mexico as an almost mythical backdrop to a timeline that ends in the 1970s. In particular, his discussions of WWII and its aftermath, including the migratory surge to the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, and the successes and misfortunes of the 1990s, help create a more three-dimensional panorama. Gonzales makes an effort to include many lesser-known figures; he also emphasizes the role of Mexicanas. In the end, Gonzales brings a bracing perspective to this epic story. The lack of maps, however, is unfortunate. 20 b&w photos.