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Nation of Nations: Immigrant History as American History
Migrant Imaginaries: Latino Cultural Politics in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Winner of the 2009 Lora Romero First Book Prize from the American Studies Association
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Migrant Imaginaries explores the transnational movements of Mexican migrants in pursuit of labor and civil rights in the United States from the 1920s onward. Working through key historical moments such as the 1930s, the Chicano Movement, and contemporary globalization and neoliberalism, Alicia Schmidt Camacho examines the relationship between ethnic Mexican expressive culture and the practices sustaining migrant social movements. Combining sustained historical engagement with theoretical inquiries, she addresses how struggles for racial and gender equity, cross-border unity, and economic justice have defined the Mexican presence in the United States since 1910.
Schmidt Camacho covers a range of archives and sources, including migrant testimonials and songs, Amrico Parede's last published novel, The Shadow, the film Salt of the Earth, the foundational manifestos of El Movimiento, Richard Rodriguez's memoirs, narratives by Marisela Norte and Rosario Sanmiguel, and testimonios of Mexican women workers and human rights activists, as well as significant ethnographic research. Throughout, she demonstrates how Mexicans and Mexican Americans imagined their communal ties across the border, and used those bonds to contest their noncitizen status. Migrant Imaginaries places migrants at the center of the hemisphere's most pressing concerns, contending that border crossers have long been vital to social change.
2009 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Migrant Imaginaries explores the transnational movements of Mexican migrants in pursuit of labor and civil rights in the United States from the 1920s onward. Working through key historical moments such as the 1930s, the Chicano Movement, and contemporary globalization and neoliberalism, Alicia Schmidt Camacho examines the relationship between ethnic Mexican expressive culture and the practices sustaining migrant social movements. Combining sustained historical engagement with theoretical inquiries, she addresses how struggles for racial and gender equity, cross-border unity, and economic justice have defined the Mexican presence in the United States since 1910.
Schmidt Camacho covers a range of archives and sources, including migrant testimonials and songs, Amrico Parede's last published novel, The Shadow, the film Salt of the Earth, the foundational manifestos of El Movimiento, Richard Rodriguez's memoirs, narratives by Marisela Norte and Rosario Sanmiguel, and testimonios of Mexican women workers and human rights activists, as well as significant ethnographic research. Throughout, she demonstrates how Mexicans and Mexican Americans imagined their communal ties across the border, and used those bonds to contest their noncitizen status. Migrant Imaginaries places migrants at the center of the hemisphere's most pressing concerns, contending that border crossers have long been vital to social change.
388 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 12, 2024
This was required for class, but I really enjoyed it. Nice use of comp lit methods + historical analysis. Lots of references to other things I now want to read. Also loved the use of memory / melancholy to assess and assemble literary, cultural, legal, and social movement histories. A great example of the type of scholarship I hope to create in the future!
November 1, 2011
Alicia Schmidt Camacho’s Migrant Imaginaries explores the “symbolic field in which people come to understand and describe their social being” along the U.S.-Mexico border (5). The bulk of her analysis focuses on the oppositional practices of migrant workers and labor activists in the early to mid-twentieth century. Borrowing from Salman Rushdie, she suggests that the border is not a fixed line but an amorphous place of negotiation between states, individuals, and cultures (2). By emphasizing the experience of migrants and their cultural products, Migrant Imaginaries adds texture to Mae Ngai’s description of the legal constructs that bound migrants into racial, legal, and social categories.
Schmidt Camacho frames the imaginary as kind of “coping” mechanism that allows migrants to retain their humanity in the face of multiple oppressions. Throughout the text, whether examining Chicana Feminists or braceros, Schmidt Camacho emphasizes the role that oral performance, shared narratives, and the vernacular plays in constructing the migrant imaginary and the migrant identity. She notes that these forms of dissemination are important because of their “evocation of deep racial memory” that can “become a material force for change” (105). This holds true for both campfire songs of the braceros and the testimony of the obrera before human rights commissions.
Her source material includes disparate fragments of the migrant imaginary, including photographs, poetry, folk songs, and testimonies before official commissions. Additionally, her methodology mixes formal analysis of images and poetry with history and economics. Migrant Imaginaries uses a Marxist frame with a heavy emphasis on the conditions of labor as well as the production of narratives of resistance. The theoretical basis for the book pulls from such different authors as Amartya Sen, Sigmund Freud, and Donna Haraway. Schmidt Camacho clearly feels confident in all of these realms and each adds a layer of nuance to her arguments. However, this breadth of theory, source material, and methodology created a slightly disjointed book. It strikes me that a truly great interdisciplinary book manages to pull from these different pools of resources without drawing attention to just how different the source materials are from each other.
Schmidt Camacho frames the imaginary as kind of “coping” mechanism that allows migrants to retain their humanity in the face of multiple oppressions. Throughout the text, whether examining Chicana Feminists or braceros, Schmidt Camacho emphasizes the role that oral performance, shared narratives, and the vernacular plays in constructing the migrant imaginary and the migrant identity. She notes that these forms of dissemination are important because of their “evocation of deep racial memory” that can “become a material force for change” (105). This holds true for both campfire songs of the braceros and the testimony of the obrera before human rights commissions.
Her source material includes disparate fragments of the migrant imaginary, including photographs, poetry, folk songs, and testimonies before official commissions. Additionally, her methodology mixes formal analysis of images and poetry with history and economics. Migrant Imaginaries uses a Marxist frame with a heavy emphasis on the conditions of labor as well as the production of narratives of resistance. The theoretical basis for the book pulls from such different authors as Amartya Sen, Sigmund Freud, and Donna Haraway. Schmidt Camacho clearly feels confident in all of these realms and each adds a layer of nuance to her arguments. However, this breadth of theory, source material, and methodology created a slightly disjointed book. It strikes me that a truly great interdisciplinary book manages to pull from these different pools of resources without drawing attention to just how different the source materials are from each other.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews