Rise of the Mexican American middle class : San Antonio, 1929-1941 /

In recent years many sociologists and historians have published studies of particular American ethnic communities. The best of these go beyond descriptions of confrontations between minorities and those in the dominant society, and responses to discrimination. Instead--or, often, in addition--they provide an intimate sense of changing social organizations and subcultures in what are generally dynamic environments. Some of the investigators, like the Swedish anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, author of Soulside (CH, Sep'70), an impressive study of a black ghetto in Washington, DC, are skillful outsiders who find ways to successfully penetrate the puzzling character of unfamiliar territory. Many more are insiders who, unlike the strangers, must often balance firsthand knowledge through personal involvement with detached objectivity. To be successful in this is no small accomplishment. Garcia's book about San Antonio's Mexican Americans is a superb example of work in the latter category. Divided into several main sections, it is at once a study of what Herbert Gans (in writing about an Italian neighborhood in Boston) called an "urban village"; a commentary on American-style "ethnicization" (indicating how Mexican immigrants became Mexican Americans); an assessment of the role of communal institutions--family, economy, education system, and political organizations (including LULAC, the United Latin American Citizens League) in one Texas city; and an analysis of social interaction, stratification, and mobility, focusing on the expatriate ricos and the new middle class. College, university, and public libraries. -P. I. Rose, Smith College