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More of Dr. Samora's publications will soon be available on the JSLP media website: samoralegacymedia.org.
| Dr.
Samora wrote five books and many
journal articles. The books, La
Raza, Forgotten Americans (1966),
Mexican Americans in the Southwest
(Galarza, Gallegos, Samora, 1969),
Los Mojados: The Wetback Story
(1971), Gunpowder Justice: A Reassessment
of the Texas Rangers (Samora,
Bernal, Pena, 1979) and A History
of the Mexican American People
(Samora, Simon, 1993)
Eventually this section of
the website will host critical
essays about the books Dr.
Samora wrote, both book reviews
from the time period and current
essays discussing the seminal
nature of each work. The essays
will discuss each book's place
in history and what was important
about each work.
It is also planned to publish
some of Dr. Samora's journal
articles and both his Master's
thesis and Doctoral dissertation
on this site. For now, there
is a picture of each of the
books and the accompanying
text from the fly leaf.
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LA RAZA:
FORGOTTEN AMERICANS
Julian Samora, contributing
editor
Today in five Southwestern
states there
are more than four million
Spanish-speaking
Americans.
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It is the largest ethnic group
in the five-state area of California,
Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado and
one of the largest minority groups in the United States. The action potential of this
group is so great that area
politicians refer to it as
the "sleeping giant."
The purpose of this book is
to bring together a summary
of material about this group
on the related subjects of
religion, political activity,
civil rights, and the emerging
middle class. This compilation
attempts a general assessment
of the current status of the
Spanish-speaking people of
the South- west and implication
of their future growth and
development.
The circumstances
of history formed this minority.
The colonizing efforts of
Spain in North and South America,
the mission chains, Indian
resistance, the assimilation
of the conquerors, the open
Mexican Border, and the elements
of resistance and aggression
were so strongly persistent
that sixteenth- century Spain
and modern Mexico survive
today in the Southwest. Isolation
was geographic as well as
ethnic, and the mainstream
of Anglo-American political
thought and historical evolution
bypasses this part of the
world. Through the Mexican
War the United States acquired
a substantial part of Mexican
territory. Although the Spanish-
speaking people have gone
through a triple integration
of Spanish, Mexican, and United
States citizenship, they have
remained essentially Spanish-Mexican
and are still in many instances
highly resistant to complete
acculturation.
The plan
of presentation in this study
includes the areas of history,
church participation, labor
problems, living conditions,
education, civil rights status,
and the difficulty minority
groups encounter in participating
in the politics of a dominant
society.
In this research
on one of the largest ethnic
groups in the United States
today, past, present, and
future are thoroughly examined
and the conclusion is one
of current activity and future
development. The results of
this study indicate that the
Spanish-speaking people are
achieving a new sophistication
in terms of education, the
labor market, action programs,
minority status, and language.
Contributors are Julian Samora,
head of the Department of
Sociology, University of Notre
Dame, George I. Sanchez, University
of Texas, Rev. John A. Wagner,
executive secretary of the
National Catholic Council
for Spanish-Speaking People,
John R. Mar- tinez, Arizona
State University, Rev. Wil
liam E. Scholes, western field
director of the National Council
of the Churches of Christ,
Lawrence B. Click, United
States Commission on Civil
Rights, Paul M, Sheldon, Occidental
College, Donald N. Barrett,
University of Notre Dame, Lyle Saunders, associate,
population program of the
Ford Foundation, and Herman
Gallegos, director of the
Hunter's Point Youth Opportunity
Center in San Francisco.
Buy
Now-La
Raza: Forgotten Americans can be ordered from the Notre
Dame Press
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MEXICAN-AMERICANS
IN THE SOUTHWEST
Ernesto Galarza, Herman Gallegos,
and Julian Samora
All of the authors are widely
recognized authorities in
Mexican-American affairs.
They have served as consultants
to government and private
institutions and are active
in Mexican-America community
organizations.
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Ernesto Galarza is a teacher,
editor, university lecturer,
and labor organizer. He holds
a Ph.D. degree from Columbia University,
and is the
author of several books and reports
dealing with Latin- American affairs.
His book, Merchants of Labor:
The Mexican Bracero Story, is
currently being used in colleges
and universities as a required
text in Sociology,
Economics, History and Mexican-American
Studies courses.
Herman Gallegos is executive director
of the Southwest Council of La
Raza.
He has an M.A. degree in social
work, and is active in the Mission
district
Of his home city of San Francisco,
where he has been instrumental
in
forming a coalition of minority
groups for political and social
action.
Julian Samora is a professor
of sociology at the University
of Notre Dame.
He took his Ph.D. degree in
Sociology and Anthropology,
and has done
extensive research on subjects
concerning the Spanish-speaking
people of
the United States. His work
has been widely published
in scholarly books
and journals.
The result of a two-year study,
this book surveys the effects
of farm
mechanization, urban redevelopment,
population squeeze, and other
root
causes of upheaval on Mexican-American
communities in California,
Texas,
Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Tracing the immigration movement
from its origins in rural Mexico,
the authors assess the current
economic,
political, cultural, and educational
status of the Spanish-speaking
people
of the Southwest and project
the form and direction of
growth of the nation's second- largest minority.
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LOS MOJADOS:
THE WETBACK STORY
Julian Samora
Each year a movement of hundreds
of thousands of people takes
place from Mexico to the United States,
a unique phenomenon. Professor
Samora presents an outline of this problem
as he approaches it from many
angles.
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The experience
of a researcher in crossing the
United States border as a
"wetback" highlights
the human dimensions involved
and verifies the
conditions and feelings of thousands
in this traffic of humans. In
"Through
the Eyes of a Wetback-A Personal
Experience" the swim across
the Rio
Grande, capture by ranchers and
the Border Patrol, and detention
and return to Mexico are related
along with the comradeship found
with other wetbacks and the situations
encountered. It becomes quickly
apparent that this movement of
people is a problem as its various
and far-reaching
implications are explored. It
is costly to the American taxpayer,
as a vast array of officials and
officers of the Immigration and
Naturalization
Service, together with the necessary
support equipment and facilities,
try to cope with the tide of wetbacks.
These illegal aliens create a
series of problems in communities
where they live, involving housing,
public health,
welfare, delinquency and crime
among others. They are a threat
to American labor, especially
in agriculture, and are an obstacle
to unionization and collective
bargaining.
Yet the wetbacks are a source
of enormous profit to those
who employ them and exploit them for their
labor. And the smugglers enjoy
a most lucrative business.
In his examination of the many
factors involved, Professor
Samora first
provides the reader with the
historical background of the
region, including
the bracero program and the
commuter situation, in order
to place the
wetback story in its proper
perspective.
A profile of the wetback is
given, along with the reasons
why he plays the
game. The range and extent
of this illegal traffic in
human beings, the
type of work wetbacks perform,
and their living conditions
while being
outside of a society they
work within are revealed against
the grandiose
expectations of the wetbacks.
Julian Samora is Professor
of Sociology and Anthropology
and he is director of the
US-Mexico Border Studies Project
at the University of Notre
Dame. He is the editor of
La Raza, Forgotten Americans.
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GUNPOWDER
JUSTICE:
A REASSESSMENT
OF THE TEXAS RANGERS
Julian Samora, Joe Bernal,
and Albert Pena
Since their establishment over
a century and a half ago the
Texas Rangers have been portrayed
as heroic figures in American
folklore, yet the myths and
legends of the Rangers mask
historical facts, generally
unpublicized
outside of Texas, that tarnish
their popular image as defenders
of law and order. |
This reassessment
of the Rangers attempts to separate
fact from fiction and update their
history in light of their recent
activities.
The authors show how the Rangers,
originally assigned to protect
the frontier from Indian and Mexican
raiders, lost their rationale
for existence by 1881. They then
became a statewide law enforcement
agency whose ruthlessness, corruption,
and political patronage led to
their reorganization in 1935 and
the sharing of their police powers
with the Texas Highway Patrol.
The Rangers have continued as
a conservative and elite group,
interfering with the rights of
Mexican-American voters and picketing
farm workers in the 1960s and
70s. In light of the Rangers'
frequent violations of civil liberties
and because their powers are duplicated
by other law enforcement agencies,
the authors recommend that the
Texas Rangers be abolished, made
more accountable for their actions,
or limited to ceremonial functions.
Julian Samora is a professor
of sociology and anthropology
and director of the Mexican-American
studies program at the University
of Notre Dame. He is the author
of Los Mojados: The Wetback
Story, co-author of A History
of the Mexican -American People,
and editor of La Raza: Forgotten
Americans. Joe Bernal is a
regional director of Action.
He is a former Texas state
senator who authored the first
minimum wage law in that state.
Albert Pena, a political activist
who has held public office
for many years, is now a municipal
judge in San Antonio.
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A HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE
Julian Samora and Patricia Vandel Simon
When A History of the Mexican-American
People was first published
in 1977 it was greeted with
enthusiasm for its straightforward
objective account of the Mexican-American
role in U.S. history. Since
that time the text has been
used with great success in
high school and university
courses such as United States
History, Chicano History,
and the history of the American
southwest.
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The opening section covers the
years of exploration and northward
expansion into what is the present-day
United States. The book then scans
the North American continent in
the 19th century, highlighting
Mexico's achievement of independence
from Spain and consequent loss
of its northernmost territories
to the United States. Samora examines
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
that ended the Mexican-American
War, U.S. violations of the treaty,
and contemporary repercussions.
The third part of the book evaluates
the impact of the Mexican Revolution
on both sides of the border and
the effect of mass migrations
from Mexico.
Samora then tackles the complex
and decisive events from the mid-1950s
through the present such as the
problems of transition from rural
to urban life, the question of
discrimination, and the search
for civil rights. This new edition
contains a revised chapter on
Chicano contributions to art,
literature, music, and theater,
and a completely new chapter on
the religious life of Mexican-Americans.
An extensive bibliography of Chicano
literature covering the past 50
years is also included.
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Most of these books are currently out of print, but
can be purchased through Alibris
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