Latinos in the U.S. are a major political, economic, and cultural force that is fast changing the national identity of this country. Mexican Americans, specifically, account for nearly two thirds of this population. Mexicans are the oldest settlers of the United States and the nation's largest group of recent immigrant arrivals. Their population is increasing faster than that of all other Latino groups combined. The growing importance of this minority group--which will be felt strongly in twenty-first-century America--calls for a fresh assessment of Mexican-American history. The second edition of Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from the Colonial Period to the Present Era includes a new final chapter that examines such issues as increased anti-immigrant activity after 2006, the crucial role of Latinos in the election of Barack Obama, increased border enforcement and deportation in the wake of the U.S. Senate's failure to pass amnesty legislation, Latinos and private detention centers, the role of individual states in immigration reform, the surge of unaccompanied children from Central America, and more.

"Professor Zaragosa Vargas has penned an extraordinary book. "Labor Rights Are Civil Rights" not only demonstrates the long-standing integration of workers' rights and civil rights but also provides a provocative, comprehensive sweep of Mexican-American labor history. I highly recommend it."--Vicki L. Ruiz, author of "From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in 20th Century America"

"Zaragosa Vargas has provided us with an insightful and revealing study of the crucial role of Mexican and Mexican American workers in struggles for union rights and civil rights in Southwestern agriculture and industry during the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing on his extensive original research he has effectively situated those struggles in the context of both national and international political changes, producing a book that should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of these decades."--David Montgomery, author of "Citizen Worker: The Experience of Workers in the United States with Democracy and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century"

""Labor Rights Are Civil Rights" is a brilliant and much-needed contribution. Vargas not only compels us to re-think 20th century American working-class and civil rights history, but he tells a powerful transnational story, reminding us that so-called U.S. history doesn't stop at the Rio Grande."--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of "Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination"

Zaragosa Vargas stunningly chronicles the vast oppression and previously hidden history of Mexican American workers, especially women. His hard-hitting, comprehensive narrative shows how their battles for labor rights, like those of African American workers, simultaneouslybecame struggles for freedom. This is a major work exposing the radical and working-class roots of the civil rights movements of the twentieth century."--Michael Honey, author of "Black Workers Remember, An Oral History, and Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights,"

"Impressively grounded in primary sources and bolstered by a sharp analysis of the best of the secondary literature, the book is simultaneously a powerful piece of synthesis and a strong and original new interpretation."--David Gutierrez, University of California, San Diego

Between the end of World War I and the Great Depression, over 58,000 Mexicans journeyed to the American Midwest in search of employment. Many found work in agriculture, but thousands more joined the growing ranks of the industrial proletariat. Throughout the northern Midwest, and especially in Detroit, Mexican workers entered steel mills, packing houses and auto plants, becoming part of the modern American working class. Zaragosa Vargas' work focuses on this little-known feature in the history of Chicanos and American labour. In relating the experiences of Mexicans in workplace and neighbourhood, and in showing the roles of Mexican women, the Catholic Church and labour unions, this study provides insights into immigrant urban life.

documents the presence of the largest Spanish-speaking Latino subgroup in the United States while it marks its contributions to the nation's life. The primary aim of this volume is to illustrate the Chicano experience from as many vantage points as possible, and with as many Chicano views as possible. The documents and essays gathered [in this book] invite readers to see Chicanos in their everyday life and in their organizational life"--Pref.