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.
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