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  • Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II
  • Kevin Allen Leonard
Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II. By Emilio Zamora (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. xviii plus 318 pp. $60.00).

At first glance, this book's narrow focus suggests that it will interest only specialists in the history of the home front during World War II, the history of Mexicans in the United States, or the history of Texas. However, Emilio Zamora's goals are remarkably ambitious. Zamora sets out to add to the small but growing body of literature that internationalizes both the history of Mexico and the history of the United States. He also seeks to challenge dominant interpretations of the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice (FEPC). Zamora's boldest aim is to take issue with "whiteness scholars," particularly Ian Haney Lopez and Neil Foley, who have argued that middle-class Mexican Americans such as the members of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) "made use of the official designation of Mexicans as 'White' to break with the black cause and, in some important cases, deliberately and even spitefully maintain the edifice of race." (9) Although Zamora does not accomplish all of his goals, he does raise good questions about previous interpretations.

Federal war spending led to dramatic increases in agricultural and industrial production in Texas. When the war began, Mexican workers were heavily concentrated in agriculture. Zamora shows that some Mexicans were able to leave the fields and packing sheds and secure more lucrative jobs in war industries, but federal, state, and county officials worked with organizations such as the Farm Bureau to "freeze" Mexicans into agricultural jobs and hinder their movement into industry.

Zamora clearly explains how relations between the United States and Mexico influenced the treatment of Mexicans in Texas during the war. Both U.S. and Mexican officials expressed support for hemispheric unity, but Mexican officials continued to protest discrimination against Mexicans in the United States. In 1942 representatives of both nations negotiated the Bracero Program, under which hundreds of thousands of Mexicans entered the United States as temporary workers. Mexico's government refused to allow braceros to be sent to Texas, due to the state's history of mistreatment of Mexicans. The ban prompted the Texas legislature to pass the "Caucasian Race Resolution," which declared that Mexicans were Caucasians and therefore should not face discrimination in public accommodations. The resolution did not discourage discrimination in employment or in schools, and it sidestepped the issue of discrimination African Americans. Governor Coke Stevenson also established a state Good Neighbor Commission to investigate discrimination against Mexicans and to promote better relations between Anglos and Mexicans.

LULAC continued its efforts to end discrimination against Mexicans in education and public accommodations during the war. LULAC frequently worked with Mexican consular officials to publicize and condemn incidents in which Mexicans—particularly U.S. soldiers and representatives of Mexico's government—were denied service in restaurants. LULAC leader Alonso Perales appealed to international audiences at conferences in Mexico City and at the United Nations meeting in San Francisco for a civil rights law that would protect [End Page 955] Mexicans from discrimination. Zamora concludes that LULAC drew attention to discrimination, but its efforts did not convince Texas officials to take action.

Most historians have focused on the FEPC's efforts to end employment discrimination against African Americans. Zamora shows, however, that many Mexicans filed complaints. Zamora explains that FEPC field examiner Carlos Castañeda relied upon his connections with Mexican civil rights organizations, including LULAC, to convince Mexicans to file complaints. Zamora argues that Castañeda and other FEPC officials had to avoid the appearance of attacking racial segregation. Instead of avidly pursuing complaints by African Americans, he suggests, they employed complaints by officially "white" Mexicans to try to convince employers and unions to implement nondiscrimination policies that would help all workers, including African Americans.

Zamora provides additional support for his general conclusions about the FEPC by focusing more narrowly on oil refining on the upper Gulf Coast and the smelting and...

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