Milwaukee's small but vibrant Mexican and Mexican American community of the 1920s grew over succeeding decades to incorporate Mexican, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central American, and Caribbean migration to the city. Drawing on years of interviews and collaboration with interviewees, Theresa Delgadillo offers a set of narratives that explore the fascinating family, community, work, and career experiences of Milwaukee's Latinas during this time of transformation. Through the stories of these women, Delgadillo caringly provides access to a wide variety of Latina experiences: early Mexican settlers entering careers as secretaries and entrepreneurs; Salvadoran and Puerto Rican women who sought educational opportunity in the U.S., sometimes in flight from political conflicts; Mexican women becoming leather workers and drill press operators; and second-generation Latinas entering the professional classes. These women show how members of diverse generations, ethnicities, and occupations embraced interethnic collaboration and coalition but also negotiated ethnic and racial discrimination, domestic violence, workplace hostilities, and family separations. A one-of-a-kind collection, Latina Lives in Milwaukee sheds light on the journeys undertaken then and now by Latinas in the region, and lays the foundation for the further study of the Latina experience in the Midwest. With contributions from Ramona Arsiniega, María Monreal Cameron, Daisy Cubías, Elvira Sandoval Denk, Rosemary Sandoval Le Moine, Antonia Morales, Carmen Murguia, Gloria Sandoval Rozman, Margarita Sandoval Skare, Olga Valcourt Schwartz, and Olivia Villarreal.| Cover Title Copyright Contents Preface 1. Latinas in Milwaukee 2. Antonia Morales: It Wasn't Bad to Live without a Car 3. Elvira, Gloria, Margarita, and Rosemary Sandoval: Hilitos de Oro 4. María Monreal Cameron: On the Shoulders of Women 5. Olga Valcourt Schwartz: A Life Dedicated to Education 6. Ramona Arsiniega: My Group of Mexican Comadres Made All the Difference 7. Olivia Villarreal: It's the Hispanic Community That Keeps Us in Business 8. Daisy Cubías: You Have to Believe It and You Have to Do It 9. Carmen Alicia Murguia: It Was Okay to Be Mexican, but I Wanted More Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Index | "Not only excellent but timely as well. The book will undoubtedly prove to be a valuable resource guide that will not only introduce the literature but also provide an impressive study for experts in Latina cultural studies."—Alvina E. Quintana, author of Home Girls: Chicana Literary Voices
"Teresa Delgadillo and her collaborators create a living archive that highlights the rich and varied experiences, histories, and cultures of a Midwestern Latino community. This book provides the personal stories often absent from required course reading lists, while at the same time demonstrating the importance of region in shaping identity and the immigrant experience."
—Natalia Molina, author of How Race Is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts
"Delgadillo's Latinas in Milwaukee. . . is a text that provokes many important questions that must be considered in the advancement of Latino studies."—Latino Studies
|Theresa Delgadillo is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. She is the author of Spiritual Mestizaje: Religion, Gender, Race, and Nation in Contemporary Chicana Narrative.