The Mexican Experience in Chicago

Chicagoland's Latino population developed in relation to labor needs in the steel mills, railroad lines and packing houses. First, the Mexican population grew slowly serving as a buffer against African American and striking workers. Many were deported during the Depression; but in spite of continuing deportations, the population grew, as Mexicans and Puerto Ricans arrived in great numbers after World War II. With the 60s, Cubans joined the wave, so that by the 1970s, the city had become a key Latino population center. With large-scale Mexican and Central American immigration in the 1980s, Chicago experienced a Latino population explosion, leading to intensified ethnic and transnational identifications as well as growing political struggle. Indeed, the evolving situation of Chicago Latinos and Mexicans highlights matters crucial to their own future and the future of the city and the nation itself. This book plots the history of Mexican Chicago and the development of Chicago Mexican and Latino studies. Essays about Chicago Latinos and Mexicans set the stage for a telling interview of Luis Leal, an iconic pioneer of Mexican and Chicano literature, and longtime Chicago resident, evoking the city's Mexican life. Next comes a compilation of comments made by and about early Chicago Mexicans as found in the first studies of this population. A final essay shows how the study of Chicago Mexicans from Guanajuato, can offer new insights affecting our overall view of Chicago's Mexican population. Taken together, these materials, sum up and enrich past work, but also anticipate, corroborate and at times challenge research that has been developing in recent years. The materials are a valuable contribution to the new wave of Chicago Latino and Mexican studies. Editor Marc Zimmerman is Emeritus Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the U. of Illinois at Chicago and of World and Hispanic Cultures and Literature, at the U. of Houston. His many books and edited volumes feature several on U.S. and Chicago Latino themes, including studies of Latino transnational processes, Latinos in U.S. cities, U.S. Latino literature, U.S. Puerto Rican culture, and several studies about Chicago Latino artists and writers. His growing body of fiction includes Martín and Marvin: A Chicago Jewish Mexican and their Latin Worlds (2016).