Mexican Americans & the U.S. Economy: Quest for Buenos Dias and Moving From the Margins: A Chicana Voice on Public Policy.

Mexican Americans & the U.S. Economy: Quest for Buenos Dias. By Arturo Gonzalez (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. 165 pp. paper $14.95).

Moving From the Margins: A Chicana Voice on Public Policy. By Adela de la Torre (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002. 150 pp. paper $16.95).

The first book reviewed here evaluates the role of Mexican Americans in the contemporary economy of the United States, using data generated by the census bureau for the year 1999. The data analyzed offer a view at one point in time, and hence do not show change over time. The numerous tables present the data in a simple form using percentages, which is ideal for the undergraduate audience the book has been written primarily for.

The author begins the book with a historical overview with some curious minor gaffes. For example, Gonzalez makes reference to Stephen F. Austin establishing the city of Austin. Austin did establish San Felipe de Austin, located on the Brazos River about an hour or so west of Houston where I currently live, but he did not establish the city of Austin which is the current capital of Texas. The author then examines motives for migration from Mexico to the United States, the socio-demographic status of Mexican-Americans today in the United States, levels of education, passage into the ranks of the middle class, and Mexican-Americans in the labor market.

The author analyzes and rejects many stereotypes commonly held by mainstream Anglo-American society in the United States. For example, Gonzalez argues that the neo-Social Darwinist arguments used by Congressional Republicans in the mid-1990s to enact so-called welfare reform are not valid, and that poverty does not result from sloth but is more a factor of levels of education and proficiency in English. The author bases his interpretation on an analysis along generational lines, arguing that economic status improves with each successive generation, albeit slowly with improved education and English language skills. Gonzalez's argument does make sense.

Generally written at the level of an undergraduate audience, the book is easy to read in my judgment. The author also includes short side-bars with cases of individuals that illustrate points he is making. At a general level I found the book to be effective for the target audience. However, in presenting global figures for the entire Mexican-American population of the United States Gonzalez loses significant regional differences in the experience of Mexican Americans in the economy that would have, in my opinion, made the book more interesting.

The second book reviewed here is a collection of newspaper columns from a syndicated column published in the Los Angeles Times by Adela de La Torre between 1993 and 1996. De La Torre, a native of the San Francisco Bay area with a doctorate in agricultural economics from the University of California, Berkeley, held a position at California State University, Long Beach. Responses to the columns from the public are also included, giving a sense of some reactions to the views presented by the author.

De La Torre addresses a variety of issues of concern for Mexican-Americans in California, and for larger society. They include the problem of access to health care faced by many Mexican-Americans, the controversial issue of affirmative action designed to level the playing field that came under assault in California, the place of Mexican-Americans and other peoples of Hispanic background in higher education, and politics including proposition 187.

Historically there have been waves of intense and racist driven xenophobia in California when there have been economic downturns. The repatriation of Mexican nationals and Mexican-Americans back to Mexico during the depression is one example. The so-called Operation Wetback in the mid- 1950s is another. In the early 1990s the rallying cry of conservative xenophobe demagogues, mostly from the Republican Party, was the financial burden posed to taxpayers by illegal aliens who drained public coffers by receiving social services such as welfare or the benefits of a free education. The advocates of this view claimed that illegal aliens did not contribute to the tax base, a view challenged by empirical evidence, and benefited from free services they were not entitled to. This demagoguery resulted in the passage of Proposition 187, a poorly conceived bill that attempted to prevent illegal aliens from receiving services and would have forced school teachers and other public employees to become agents of the enforcem ent of the bill. The mentality behind proposition 187 was the same, influenced by 19th century social Darwinism, that led the Republicans in Congress to pass the so-called welfare reform that, among other things, made immigrants second class residents of this country.

In her column, Adela de La Torre challenged the underlying assumptions behind proposition 187, and laid bare the latent racism in California that propelled the bill to passage. Moreover, she discussed the inconsistencies in the bill, and particularly the difficulty in making teachers, health care providers, and others to become a new age Gestapo. Reader responses highlight the effectiveness of the demagoguery in swaying Anglo-American opinion in California at the time.

Adela de La Torre was an effective, insightful, and articulate voice presenting an alternative to mainstream views in California in a period of political turbulence. The views presented in her columns published in this volume will provide students much to think about and discuss, and is a good companion volume to the first book reviewed here.