Latina Lives in Milwaukee by Theresa Delgadillo (review)

Since the 1970s, compiling oral histories has been an important task undertaken by early Chicano and Latino studies centers, when Latinos fought for and created outlets for publication and sought to identify and bring forward the specific voices of the community itself. Today, oral histories are found in studies by historians and social scientists, and several books have been published to document the voices of those largely invisible to mainstream society. Not as many, however, document the lives of women. Latina Lives in Milwaukee accomplishes both. As described by scholar Theresa Delgadillo, she “situates its narratives in an interdisciplinary framework, as texts that participate in genres of oral history (history) and life stories (auto/biographical literature)” (13). The result is a book with eleven inspiring accounts.

One of the earliest books to highlight the creative contribution of Chicana/Latina women—in a direct testimony of women’s lived experiences but invisible to mainstream society—was Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1991), compiled by Tey Diana Rebolledo and Eliana Rivero. A more recent book, which has become a landmark text for courses foregrounding women’s presence and production (with its 378 pages), is Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios (2011), which set a precedent by not indicating prominent authors or editors. Instead, the author is listed as the Latina Feminist Group, including eighteen editor/collaborators and numerous other participants. Their process evolved from small study groups to several national and regional meetings; workshops were held in various regions to permit women to testimoniar, and their accounts were recorded. The extensive text makes the premise that the feminist movement—even political organizations or women’s studies programs—often ignores crucial internal differences among Latinas and other women of color, failing to recognize distinctive perspectives of diverse women of mixed race.

These two ways of approaching recording the work and lives of Latina women were revolutionary. Other styles have popped up since the 1990s, in a process that emphasizes particular aspects of their subjects’ collective identity.

Two books recently published go straight to specific Midwest communities and women’s lives. Each would benefit student understanding of Latina immigrant women, in the first case from Guatemala (and one man, a deacon in the church they attend): The Mayans among Us: Migrant Women and Meatpacking on the Great Plains (2016). All hold jobs in chicken-processing plants in Nebraska. Scholar Ann L. Sittig initiated the project, but after meeting and learning of the academic background of one informant, Martha Florinda González, she invited her to coauthor the book. The first chapter is on recent Guatemalan history; then the speakers’ oral commentary is interspersed throughout various sections. This book and one by Guatemalan-heritage journalist Héctor Tobar (years earlier) can help students reflect on how and why we have easy access to packages of cut chicken in grocery stores, as well as understand contemporary continuity in Mayan cultural practices.¹

The second book is Delgadillo’s, an impressive collection that complements and builds on earlier contributions to oral histories, important in relaying lives lived and histories created in the Midwest, and brings attention to the contributions of Latina women in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, often overshadowed by other Midwest cities.

Delgadillo states that the book that most influenced her ideas about how to set up her own book was an early text by Patricia Preciado Martin,² a Tucson native who traveled to ranches, mining towns, and cities throughout southern Arizona to document a variety of experiences from mothers and grandmothers. Her collection of ten stories by ten different informants relates family stories, secular and religious traditions, childhood memories, rites of passage, personal values, environment, and living conditions.

Delgadillo’s oral histories relate when each speaker arrives in Milwaukee—a few are adults, some still children, and others are born there. In one account/chapter, four sisters alternate in relating their and their parents’ histories. Delgadillo indicates that many interviews/recordings...