Review by Choice Review
Patino (Chicana/o and Latina/o studies, Minnesota) examines the historical foundation of the Chicana/o power and immigrant rights movements in San Diego. He focuses on the various stages of political struggles that led to development of the immigrant rights movement within the larger local Chicana/o power movement. Individual chapters contextualize the historical construction of the Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR), the San Diego chapter of La Raza Unida Party, the rise of Chicana/o activist Herman Baca, and the Chicano National Immigration Conference and Tribunal. The author challenges similar published scholarship that centers on the Los Angeles Mexican and Chicana/o political experience. The San Diego area has a strong people of color social movement history that has been overlooked by various Chicana/o studies historians and scholars. Patino is influenced by a body of new social movement scholarship that introduces cross-cultural coalition perspectives to existing literature on this critical subject matter. He summarizes the social and ideological impact that this social movement made to the current struggle for immigrant rights in the US. This is the first scholarly text that investigates the transnational question of the Mexican immigrant rights experience on both sides of the US border. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Jose Gomez Moreno, Northern Arizona University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review