Mexican Americans, Sons of the Southwest is not a book to offend or inspire; it is one more timely addition to the book shelf devoted to Chicanos. While the volume is in parts detailed and cogent, it is on the whole patchy and unbalanced. Two major characteristics of the twentieth century, urban-rural labor conflict and urbanization, receive only passing historical treatment. The book is divided into ten sections: Southwest, Ancient Mexican Heritage, Spanish Legacy, Americans Arrive, Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Gold Rush and After, Great Migration, Civil Rights and Political Activity, Mexican Americans Today, and Bibliography. Of the 198 pages, 105 pages are on the periods prior to 1900, 42 pages are allocated to the 20th century, and there are fifty-one pages of bibliography. Significantly, the author does not seem to be convinced that the subject, Mexican American history, has an underlying unity or that Mexican Americans are distinct in aspects other than surname.
Lamb has written a sympathetic account but one with the usual liberal reservations and some factual misunderstandings. After a short description of the poverty and exploitive work conditions of rural labor and the inherent difficulties in organizing agricultural workers, Lamb states, “Chavez wants what amounts to a closed shop. This means that for now at least, Chavez’ goal, however unpalatable is a legal one” (p. 134). Earlier the author compares the crew leader-contractor with the patrón of the colonial hacienda. There are precise figures for Anglo deaths at the Alamo and Goliad, but not a word on Mexican and Chicano men, women and children killed by Anglo Texans from 1834 to 1934 in Texas and Mexico. To explain the origin of the contemporary Mexican American community and the “awakening” of the Chicano is the following: “Those who can escape the vicious circle of farm labor have gone into other types of work” (p. 109). As opposed to what Lamb asserts, the May conference (1969) which resulted in the “Plan de Santa Barbara” (California) was hardly an Educational Opportunity Programs’ meeting as the publication of its workshop statements clearly demonstrates. Because of its seminal impact on Chicano higher education strategy it was of major importance. This impact means that in the future books such as Lamb’s, quick surveys, can not get by simply on sympathy; they will have to be more informative and thoughtful.
The faults of the genre represented by the book of Ruth S. Lamb are thrown in sharp relief by two recent publications which though different in perspective, raise the standards of surveys on Chicano history: Matt S. Meier and Feliciano Rivera, The Chicanos, A History of Mexican-Americans, and Rodolfo Acuña, Occupied America: The Chicano’s Struggle Toward Liberation. Both are competent attempts at presenting the scope of Chicano history to the extent possible by the state of the research. The first is written in clear but prosaic matter-of-fact style, the second is strident and critical. Neither equivocates injustice, nor suffers from confusion regarding class-caste factors nor the unity of the history and distinctiveness of the population. Each begins with a helpful historical overview and each explains assumptions governing the author’s approach. Acuña forthwith begins his narrative in the nineteenth century; Meier and Rivera feel obliged to start with a perfunctory chapter on ancient Mexican civilizations. Understandably both are weakest analytically on the contemporary period; however, Acuña makes good use of first hand knowledge. Thus his concluding section is a natural crescendo to his work; the ending of Meier and Rivera is disjointed. The approach separates the two books. Meier and Rivera stress race and culture; Acuña presents his work in a simple but conceptually cogent framework of internal colonialism which has greater explanatory validity since it allows for an interplay of factors. Despite its coy empathy, Mexican Americans belongs to the past; The Chícanos and Occupied America point to the Chicano historiography of the future.
