1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910786997003321

Autore

Innis-Jiménez Michael

Titolo

Steel Barrio : The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940 / / Michael Innis-Jiménez

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY : , : New York University Press, , [2013]

©2013

ISBN

0-8147-6043-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (250 p.)

Collana

Culture, Labor, History ; ; 10

Disciplina

305.896872077311

Soggetti

Steel industry and trade - Illinois - Chicago - History - 20th century

Working class - Illinois - Chicago - Social conditions - 20th century

Immigrants - Illinois - Chicago - Social conditions - 20th century

Mexican Americans - Illinois - Chicago - History - 20th century

Chicago (Ill.) History 20th century

South Chicago (Chicago, Ill.) History 20th century

Mexico Emigration and immigration History 20th century

Chicago (Ill.) Emigration and immigration History 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages 219-228) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Mexico and the United States -- 2. Finding Work -- 3. People and Patterns -- 4. Home and Work -- 5. Great and Small -- 6. Resistance -- 7. The Great Depression -- 8. Teamwork -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the author

Sommario/riassunto

Since the early twentieth century, thousands of Mexican Americans have lived, worked, and formed communities in Chicago’s steel mill neighborhoods. Drawing on individual stories and oral histories, Michael Innis-Jiménez tells the story of a vibrant, active community that continues to play a central role in American politics and society. Examining how the fortunes of Mexicans in South Chicago were linked to the environment they helped to build, Steel Barrio offers new insights into how and why Mexican Americans created community. This book investigates the years between the World Wars, the period that witnessed the first, massive influx of Mexicans into Chicago. South



Chicago Mexicans lived in a neighborhood whose literal and figurative boundaries were defined by steel mills, which dominated economic life for Mexican immigrants. Yet while the mills provided jobs for Mexican men, they were neither the center of community life nor the source of collective identity. Steel Barrio argues that the Mexican immigrant and Mexican American men and women who came to South Chicago created physical and imagined community not only to defend against the ever-present social, political, and economic harassment and discrimination, but to grow in a foreign, polluted environment. Steel Barrio reconstructs the everyday strategies the working-class Mexican American community adopted to survive in areas from labor to sports to activism. This book links a particular community in South Chicago to broader issues in twentieth-century U.S. history, including race and labor, urban immigration, and the segregation of cities.