Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of
Mexican history in the United States--and Mexico--than did the
coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for
the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and
Midwest. Construction crews soon became railroad workers proper,
along with maintenance crews later. Extensive Mexican American
settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the
result of the railroad. The substantial Mexican American
populations in these regions today are largely attributable to
19th- and 20th-century railroad work. Only agricultural work
surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans.
The full history of Mexican American railroad labor and
settlement in the United States had not been told, however, until
Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo's groundbreaking research in "Traqueros."
Garcilazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the
first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers
across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest.
He first explores the origins and process of Mexican labor
recruitment and immigration and then describes the areas of work
performed. He reconstructs the workers' daily lives and explores
not only what the workers did on the job but also what they did at
home and how they accommodated and/or resisted Americanization.
Boxcar communities, strike organizations, and "traquero culture"
finally receive historical acknowledgment. Integral to his study is
the importance of family settlement in shaping working class
communities and consciousness throughout the Midwest.
General
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