REVIEWS
“With astute attention to the parallel trajectories and overlapping nature of Mexican Americans’ and Puerto Ricans’ histories, Lilia Fernández paints a rich portrait of neighborhood life, moving beyond broad strokes and the white-black racial binary. Told with detail, substance, and nuance, Brown in the Windy City is an important story that is likely to become a foundational book.”
— Carmen Teresa Whalen, From Puerto Rico to Philadelphia: Puerto Rican Workers and Postwar Economies
"Lilia Fernandez’s Brown in the Windy City is a rich, historically-nuanced examination of the social, political, and cultural forces that shaped the formation of Chicago’s Puerto Rican and ethnic Mexican community. In pointing our attention to this history, Fernandez’s careful examination of the process of displacement, neighborhood change, and public housing construction unveils how Puerto Ricans and, at times, Mexicans disturbed the racial hierarchy and destabilized the rigid housing color line in Chicago. Brown in the Windy City is a valuable contribution to Latino History, urban history, and immigration history."
— Adrian Burgos, Jr., University of Illinois
“A work of striking originality, scope, and nuance, Brown in the Windy City provides the most comprehensive treatment of the entwined histories of ethnic Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in Chicago. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Fernandez’s study marks a major intervention in the history of race and racialization, urban history, and interdisciplinary Latino studies scholarship.”
— David G. Gutiérrez, University of California, San Diego
"Brown in the Windy City portrays the struggle of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans as they made their way to a postwar Chicago already bifurcated by race. Neither black nor white, these newcomers carved an important place for themselves in the city’s social, economic, and political sphere. Their experiences both overlapped and diverged as they settled in the inner city and developed into an important component in the city’s life while struggling with unresolved issues of integration and economic development. Brown in the Windy City explores these matters in subtle and instructive ways shedding light on the immigrant experience and the development of community in an urban post-industrial setting."
— Dominic Pacyga, author of Chicago: A Biography
"Brown in the Windy City is an essential read."
— Time Out Chicago
"This book is a crucial addition to the scholarship and a must-read for those interested in the history of urban Latinos/as in the United States, racialization of non-European immigrants, the role of Latina women in advancing the community, as well as the more general history of post-World War II America."
— Michael Innis-Jiménez, University of Alabama, Journal of American Ethnic History
“Fernández offers nuanced and meticulous analysis throughout. . . . The first historical study to examine Chicago’s Mexican and Puerto Rican populations in the same frame. . . . [and] the first to consider the central role of Latino Chicagoans in the city’s fabled urban planning history.”
— Journal of Social History
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0001
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Mexican and Puerto Rican Labor Migration to Chicago - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0002
[mass labor importation programs, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Bracero, Operation Bootstrap]
From the Second World War to the 1960s, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans became subjects of state-sponsored mass labor importation programs in the United States. They served as labor pools to fill the country’s economic needs, but they were beckoned by the American government through contradictory and competing policies. The Emergency Farm Labor Program (Bracero) called for the transient recruitment of Mexicans for agricultural and railroad work. This was called for due to the severe labor shortages during the war. Puerto Ricans became labor migrants as part of their government’s economic development campaign known as Operation Bootstrap, which aimed to alleviate their country’s rampant unemployment rate and also to control their rising population. Though the status of the Mexican and Puerto Rican labor pools was different, these workers were still left vulnerable to exploitative methods. (pages 23 - 56)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Putting Down Roots: Mexican and Puerto Rican Settlement on the Near West Side, 1940–60 - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0003
[immigrants, Operation Wetback, Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants, Near West Side, Chicago]
The Near West Side in Chicago has housed one of the oldest Mexican communities in the state. During the First World War, nearby railroad yards began recruiting Mexican immigrants in the area along with Eastern European immigrants. By the advent of the Second World War, these long-time Mexican American communities had outlasted deportations and repatriations during the Great Depression and had successfully established different community organizations and civic groups to improve their members’ living conditions. When economic recession hit the country during the Korean War, Spanish-speaking immigrants became the target of scorn and suspicion. This culminated in 1954 when the government kicked off Operation Wetback, which aimed to round up all Spanish-speaking illegal immigrants. Because of this, the native-born Americans started to view these newly-arrived immigrants as the cause of the economic decline. (pages 57 - 90)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Race, Class, Housing, and Urban Renewal: Dismantling the Near West Side - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0004
[redevelopment, Near West Side, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Richard Daley]
In the 1950s, the Near West Side district of Chicago went through a profound change. The slowly decaying neighborhood caught the attention of Mayor Richard Daley, who initiated a modernization program to help save the district. With the slums of Near West Side cleared, the cleared area would be open for potential commercial or real estate investments to help the dwindling downtown economy. This redevelopment was not entirely aimed at improving the lives of the former non-white inhabitants of the district, but for the middle-class whites—a population the government wished to increase. This led to massive displacements of both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. (pages 91 - 130)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Pushing Puerto Ricans Around: Urban Renewal, Race, and Neighborhood Change - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0005
[local social order, Puerto Ricans, whites, cultural group, blue-collar white neighborhoods]
When Puerto Ricans moved into the blue-collar white neighborhoods, they started a process meant to assign them a place in the local social order. European immigrants had successfully assimilated themselves into the social order and were considered as American whites. However, Puerto Ricans were a new and unfamiliar cultural group. They seemed like immigrants, and yet they brought US citizenship with them. They also presented themselves with the most diverse skin color, ranging from the whitest and fairest skin to the darkest complexions. White residents had mixed reactions toward Puerto Ricans; they did not rebuke them as they did with African Americans. Whites lived peacefully with them, but this does not mean that they accepted them as equals. This caused tension between Puerto Ricans and the white population. (pages 131 - 172)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Evolution of the Young Lords Organization: From Street Gang to Revolutionaries - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0006
[gangs, youth, Americanization, ethnic groups, Lincoln Park]
When the Puerto Ricans moved into the Lincoln Park in the fifties and sixties, they were not well received by the existing residents. Many had experienced hostility and racial antagonism from some of the white working-class, who felt threatened by the newcomers. Then suddenly, violence and gang warfare erupted. These neighborhood conflicts began first as physical contests among male youths. This occurred throughout the city’s working class neighborhood among various ethnic groups. Eventually, the gang rivalries grew to be more violent. These same gangs became an important factor in the social structure of urban immigrants, as this was used by the youth to negotiate for Americanization of their ethnic group. They were also relied on by their respective community leaders to become enforcers of the boundaries of their respective ethnic groups. (pages 173 - 206)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
From Eighteenth Street to La Dieciocho: Neighborhood Transformation in the Age of the Chicano Movement - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0007
[community, Chicano movement, Lower West Side, protests, Mexicans, Pilsen]
Pilsen, Eighteenth Street, or the “Lower West Side,” resembled much like the rest of Chicago: layered with generations of immigrants from different ethnic groups and racially segregated. During the postwar period, European ethnic whites started to express their concern over the increasing number of the Spanish-speaking immigrants, whom they considered outsiders. During the 1960s, the whites started to move out from the district, and the vacuum they left was fought over by the ethnic groups to determine who would dominate the area. The Mexicans who started to dominate Pilsen began to shape their community and, through the use of Chicano movement, started a series of protests and activist struggles to address their community’s needs. (pages 207 - 238)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Limits of Nationalism: Women’s Activism and the Founding of Mujeres Latinas en Acción - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0008
[activism, Latino Communities, Mujeres Latinas en Acción, Pilsen, education, Latinas]
This chapter examines the role of Latina women in Pilsen’s new politics and how they engaged in local activism. The most significant of these women’s groups was the Mujeres Latinas en Acción (Latina Women in Action), who valiantly asserted various reforms in young Latino education. This activism among Latina women eventually created a foundation that led the entirety of Latino communities to participate in local elections. (pages 239 - 262)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Conclusion - Lilia Fernandez
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226244280.003.0009
[political power, elections, Harold Washington, Latinos, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans]
As the 1970s reached its end, both Mexicans and Puerto Ricans had concentrated in four community areas: Pilsen, Little Village, West Town, and Humboldt Park. Despite their increasing numbers, they still lacked political power. To this end, most Latino activists implored their brethren to get their names listed in the census, so that the government could see their true numbers. This bore fruit in the 1983 elections, when Chicagoans elected Harold Washington, the city’s first black mayor. This served as a breakthrough of the racial boundaries long built by local politics. In the mid-1980s, Latinos started to be elected in various key positions in the city at ward, aldermanic, and state level. (pages 263 - 268)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Notes
Index
