This book assembles the oral histories of ten Mexican American women born in Arizona between 1905 and 1920. The compilation was a “journey of the heart” for Patricia Preciado Martin, and she succeeds in her purpose of documenting the history of her grandmother’s and mother’s generations, providing real-life counter-images for stereotypes, and revealing women’s substantive role in forming and preserving community and culture (pp. xxii-xxv). The insightful foreword by Vicki L. Ruiz highlights the significance of the narratives and their common threads.
This is an important contribution in that it records a historical experience that would otherwise be lost to our consciousness. The collection is interesting reading for the general public, a teaching tool for the classroom, and a research source for scholars. The life histories of the ten women and their families provide one of the best correctives to ethnocentric stereotypes and at the same time avoid the polemics of writers who pour their subjects into the paradigm of oppression and resistance. What emerges is a humanity with the universal qualities characteristic of individuals and groups who survive, overcome, create, and leave a legacy—a legacy that can now have an impact beyond the place and time of its creation.
A number of patterns and variations are evident. Most of the women had parents or grandparents who immigrated from Sonora around the turn of the century, when the Anglo population in Arizona was relatively small. Most grew up on family-owned ranches or farms and eventually moved to Tucson or other towns where urban real estate was accessible. While none was wealthy, none went hungry. Success was achieved through hard work; women and children contributed to a wide range of domestic and nondomestic economic activities. Mothers and daughters were cooks, food processors, midwives, curanderas, seamstresses, housekeepers, cowgirls, waitresses, secretaries, bookkeepers, and owners of dining rooms and rooming houses for miners. The ten women interviewed had access to varying degrees of education, and some became writers and community leaders.
As Ruiz notes, the oral histories “move beyond nostalgic renditions of daily life” to reveal broader cultural and economic patterns (p. xii). Dispersed throughout the narratives is the evidence of cultural friction, discrimination, and exploitation: English-speaking teachers for Spanish-speaking children, land companies unfairly monopolizing water, segregated mining towns, and miners dying of silicosis. These narratives, however, are not about the downtrodden in life or mind but about the triumph of the human spirit. This triumph is reflected in the celebration of religious and patriotic feast days and in the dances, music, and songs that hold family and community together and that provide the title for the book.
