Below is a detailed book review I had to do for my Latino History (HIST507) course at Adams State University. This was one of five primary text books we had for the course. As an educator I feel that it is important that I also keep up my own education and renew the experience of what it is to be a student. It also helps me review what text books are currently in use for what subjects. 3 stars out of 5 or a C.
Rodriguez,
Marc S. Rethinking the Chicano Movement.
New York, NY: Routledge, USA, 2015.
Seeing protesters marching with signs has
become a visual image that people today are used to seeing in the media. At
present the Black Lives Matter movement has taken front stage, but they are not
the first of social movements to try and make change in their communities. Many
other groups have also fought for equality through history. Sometimes these
groups are not as loud, but they find their own way to bring attention to their
causes. Marc Simon Rodriguez tried to bring awareness to the history of the
Chicano Movement in his book Rethinking
the Chicano Movement. Many social movements are linked to violent or
‘radical’ actions, but Rodriguez showed that the Chicano Movement found other
ways to be successful at making changes.
Rodriguez looked at the larger actions of the movement
and did not just focus on the major known names linked to the Chicano Movement.
By doing this he was to show how actions other than protesting could make
change. The movement did many of the same things that others had done, such as
sit-ins, boycotts, and marches. Then they expanded to have a more lasting
impact on their communities. Some of the groups focused on community service,
where instead of using education for self upward mobility, educated Chicanos
would take the skills they gained back to help the community they came from.[1] Chicanos
also used murals to not only be visual representations of what they were going through
and where they had come from, but also as a way to save buildings from urban
destruction.[2]
He also pointed out some of the Chicano Movement’s achievements like helping
grape harvesters labor rights and in Los Angeles getting educational equality
for children.[3]
Rodriguez presented examples that showed how it was the common peoples’ participation
in the movement that helped to make the change. The stories he presented also
looked past the violent or radical events that others focused on. These were
still presented, but served to help shape the reactions of the Chicano
communities. These communities also did not live in a vacuum. He also presented
how the Chicano Movement was linked to other movements like the Black Power
Movement.[4] The one
section of the movement that seemed to have less coverage then other authors
have presented was on women’s role in the movement. Even when they were
mentioned it was only a quick reference. Rodriguez still had a narrow vision of
women which could be seen when he focused on ‘machismo’ issues being part of
the revolution while women’s issues were left behind.[5] Even
with this, he still expanded the voices of the movement that could be heard.
Rodriguez has worked in the field of history for years
with a focus on Chicano issues. The Chicano Movement’s unionization efforts
also come close to him personally with his past experience of being a part of
different unions in different fields.[6] These
experiences helped to shape his approach to the subject. By using a social
historical he was able to take a broader look at the subject then if he just
did the classical historical approach. Most other writers that have talked
about the Chicano Movement have taken the classic historical approach, like Manuel
G. Gonzales. Gonzales also wrote about the Chicano Movement in his book Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the
United States. In this work he talked about the major leaders of the
movement and even included Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.[7]Gonzales’s
approach looked at how the leadership within the movement influenced what the
movement did and the events that happened. This is the same approach that most
classical historians have taken. Rodriguez’s approach on the other hand showed
that the common movement member could influence what happened. The only time he
fell short on this approach was with women. Even though he mentioned as being a
part of the movement he seemed to not notice their true support of the causes
that they also fought for. It was a very masculine approach and could have been
expanded to include more of a feminine approach. Throughout the book Rodriguez
was not arguing against how others had addressed the subject, but was trying to
bring more to the story.
Rodriguez
backed up his approach to the Chicano Movement by using many different types of
sources. These sources were everything from newspaper articles to books. The
problem is that most of his sources seemed to focus on the works of others.
Compared to other authors he used very little personal research or interviews
for his data. Even though some question the reliability of oral histories, this
work could have gained a lot if it would have used more from this perspective.
One specific section of his book really suffered from lack of sources and that
was his chapter on murals and community spaces. Pictures as a resource was
missing. Including these for readers to look at would have helped them to
understand not only what the artists were putting into the murals, but would have
also allowed them to see how they fit into the social landscape. Pictures of
these murals can be found online with a Google search. It would take a motivated
reader to go searching for this this information, but is needed to understand a
whole chapter of his book. He may have viewed these murals personally or in
pictures, but from his descriptions it is unclear if he was describing them
from that or other people’s work. The use of the sources was also jam packed
for such a short work. This was more of a survey and could have been better
done if he would have built out his argument more and used less sources. It
felt like he got bogged down trying to present so much information that the
goal of the book was unclear.
Some
of the clarity issues could have come from how the book was written. Juan
Angulo, writing for the Journal of Southern Texas, noted that Rodriguez had
chosen to chop up the information into subsections, but found the writing to
still be ‘fluid.’[8]
Angulo does make a good point about why Rodriguez could have had issues
presenting a clear narrative and that is overreach. The problem was actually
with the movement itself and “with so many locations to keep focus on, it can
be hard to weave a thematic line through all these events transpiring (at
times) hundreds of miles from one another.”[9] Even
though Leah Savage, commenting from the historical perspective, found the book
good for the most part there were still issues with it. She noted that
“Rodriguez’s efforts to be thorough sometimes make the descriptions too dense
or hard to follow for students new to the subject.”[10] She
also noticed that there was some issue with his use of sources. For his primary
sources he did a very limited analysis and she also noted that he needed images
for his section on murals. When comparing these two different peer reviews it
is interesting that the one from the interdisciplinary journal, Aztlan, was
more critical of the book. Personally I agreed more with this perspective. I
felt that Angulo was being way to generous pushing off choppy writing on the
movement and should have put the blame on Rodriguez since he choose how to
structure the book. I understand that he was trying to do a survey of the
topic, but he either tried to put in way too much info and didn’t know how to
organize it or just turned each chapter into its own work. To me the missing
images not only cut into key information that would have helped readers
understand the points he was trying to make, but would have also broken up the
writing a little. It would have been nice if he would have collected some
primary source material himself, like some interviews of artists or educators.
Savage also pointed out that even his primary source material was not new to
the historiography on the subject.[11] For
Latino history in general interviews and oral history in general is very
important to the subject because there is just so much missing in the written
record about the lives of Latinos that there is a lot of room for research. I
feel that someone who specializes in the field of Chicano history and culture
would know this. That type of research takes time and may have taken more time
then what he wanted to put into the book. All of this together could be
accounted for if this book was a rush job. Many positions in academia requires
that professionals publish frequently and this could have been a work quickly
turned out to meet these requirements. This is conjecture, but would account
for many of the issues with the book.
This book
does not seem to be very significant to the Chicano Movement or history. The
book has not received very many reviews by people linked to either history or
social fields. It was actually very hard to find professional reviews of this
book and I was actually only able to find three. It is a newer book which may
have impacted how many people know about it, but it seems more likely that it
is being overlooked for some reason. One could say it may have some
significance due to it being one of the first books to look at the Chicano
History movement from the social historical approach, but many others are also
using this approach to address topics in history. It seems like only a matter
of time before others also try to tackle the movement in this ways and they
more do it in a more concise or organized way. I think that the issues around
its writing and sources could have a negative impact on its significance. The
most significance that this book will have is to its author as a starting point
to build more developed works off of.
Bibliography
Angulo,
Juan. “Rethinking the Chicano Movement.” Journal
of Southern Texas 30, no. 1 (Sept,
2016): 131-132. Accessed October 8, 2020.
Gonzales,
Manuel G. Mexicanos: A History of
Mexicans in the United States, Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, USA, 2009.
Keough, Matthew. “AHA Member
Spotlight: Marc S. Rodriguez.” Perspectives on History (Jan., 2020). https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2020/aha-member-spotlight-marc-s-rodriguez
. Accessed:
10/03/2020.
Rodriguez,
Marc S. Rethinking the Chicano Movement.
New York, NY: Routledge, USA, 2015.
Savage,
Leah. “Rethinking the Chicano Movement.” Aztlan
42, no. 2 (Sept, 2017): 303-306.
Accessed October 8, 2020.
[1] Marc S. Rodriguez, Rethinking the Chicano Movement (New
York: Routledge, USA,2015) 99.
[2] Rodriguez, 150-151.
[3] Rodriguez, 5.
[4] Rodriguez, 60.
[5] Rodriguez, 61.
[6] Matthew Keough. “AHA Member
Spotlight: Marc S. Rodriguez,” https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2020/aha-member-spotlight-marc-s-rodriguez . Accessed 10/03/20.
[7] Manuel G. Gonzales. Mexicanos: A
History of Mexicans in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, USA, 2009) 195-196.
[8]
Juan Angulo.
“Rethinking the Chicano Movement.” Journal
of Southern Texas 30, no. 1 (Sept. 2016): 131, accessed October 8, 2020.
[9] Angulo, 131.
[10]Leah Savage.
“Rethinking the Chicano Movement.” Aztlan
42, no. 2 (Sept, 2017): 305, accessed October 8, 2020.
[11] Savage, 305.
This is really good, helped me get a better view of the book without having to read its entirety, thanks.
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