Review by Choice Review
Langley, a historian of US-Latin American relations, has written an impressionistic and personal account of a trek across "MexAmerica"--the vaguely defined nation within two nations that embraces much of the US and Mexico. The author poses the question: What impact is MexAmerica having on the US? His answer is that the influence of Mexican Americans in politics, the economy, and culture is large and growing: "The mexicano imprint is deeper than we want to admit." This book, a blend of history and travel narrative, focuses on cities: El Paso/Juarez, Chicago, Monterrey, Denver, Mexico City, Houston, etc. Through travel vignettes laced with historical background, Langley relentlessly makes the case for the value and importance of the Mexican American and his culture. Quantitative data are absent; notes and bibliography are thin. The contribution of this book will be in popularizing the work of scholars in Mexican American and border studies. It will serve the general reader and the undergraduate student. -T. C. Wright, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Langley (Central America: The Real Stakes) here assesses the complex relations within MexAmericageographically encompassing Southern California and the Southwest but increasingly involving the entire U.S.and the impact of values, contributions and problems brought by Mexican immigrants to our economy, politics and culture. With keen, persuasive analysis, he compares urban and rural communities where Mexicans predominate and shows that while the people outwardly adapt to American ways, most, fiercely attached to their native heritage, resist acculturation. He discusses the dilemma of a Mexican-American middle-class of such recent status that its members are unable to consolidate ethnic and class concerns. He cites the heated issues of bilingualism and boarder control and provocatively argues that volatile U.S. immigration laws challenge America's tradition as a multicultural society. Employed in low-paying service jobs or as factory workers, or as stoop labor in California, the majority of Mexican-Americans, according to the author, remain primarily refugees from Mexico's disastrous agricultural policies and corrupt bureaucracy rather than integrated and respected participants in American life. (March) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Langley, a Latin American specialist at the University of Georgia, offers an insightful, readable interpretation of obstacles to the melding of Mexican-U.S. culture. He first explores those regions in the United States where Mexicans aboundChicago, San Antonio, Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Kansas City, and Denverand follows this with a portrait of representative regions in Mexico. Langley offers a personal account, lively and anecdotal, of Mexicans and their reactions to North Americans, contrasting with Oscar J. Martinez's academic Troublesome Border ( LJ 6/15/88) or Alan Weisman and Jay Dusard's visual and travel experiences in La Frontera ( LJ 2/1/87), but stylistically similar to Tom Miller's On the Border ( LJ 6/15/81), all of which focus on the border, not the interior. Suitable for most libraries. Roderic A. Camp, Central Coll., Pella, Ia. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Eschewing academics as well as the sloganeering usually found in discussions of America's largest immigration camp, Langley (Foreign Relations and Latin American History/Georgia) takes the reader on a refreshingly candid journey through MexAmerica, the geographic and cultural entity formed by the confluence of two nations' histories. Beginning with the Texas Panhandle of his youth, Langley provides an ""impressionistic and personal"" sweep of cities and towns on the border and in Mexico, and shows how the continually dashed hopes of Mexico's rural poor lead a third of their workers to travel northward. (Lately, these are increasingly skilled workers.) Once here, laborers follow the trend they follow back home--they eventually crowd into cities, and many of them prosper. But are Hispanics assimiliated in the way other immigrant groups have been'? Unfortunately not, according to the author. Treated as outcasts, opportunists, or just as threats to jobs and security, Hispanics continue to be marginalized by prejudice, political gerrymandering, and outright neglect. As Langley points out, we value Mexican labor, but not Mexicans. Yet, with the proliferation of the US-operated maquila, or cheap labor, plants in Mexico, the steady flow of millions of immigrants, and the ever-tightening relationship of the two nations' economies, MexAmerica cannot be marginalized for long. A very readable and informative book. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
