Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States

Acknowledgments

ix acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the benefit and the luxury of the University of Minnesota’s faculty sabbatical program. Additional assistance was received from the College of Liberal Arts under the leadership of Dean Steven Rosenstone; the Office for Equity and Diversity under the leadership of Vice President and Vice Provost Rusty Barceló; Edén Torres, Chair of the Department of Chicano Studies; and a McKnight Foundation Summer Research Grant. Edna Day, Lisa Sass-Zaragoza, Miguel Vargas, and Jennifer Nevitt, staff members in the Department of Chicano Studies, provided much-needed logistical support along the way. My beloved parents, Joe and Mary Mendoza, and siblings, Rosemary, Mary Ann, Robert, Beatrice, Margie, Cynthia, and Gilda, as well as their spouses and my nieces and nephews, provided support , encouragement, and faith in me. Many of my dear friends provided me with lodging and/or emotional nourishment along the way. Among these are Marianne Bueno; Ben Olguín; Sandy Soto; Miranda Joseph; Sherry Edwards; Jennifer Caron; Emiliano Compean; Omar Valerio and Cathy Komisaruk; Yolanda Chávez Leyva; Verónica Carbajal; Ralph Rodriguez; Luis Marentes and Negar Taradji and their children, Kasra and Katayoun; Sheila Contereas and Salah Hassan and their daughters, Paz and Noor; Rita Alcalá and Raúl Villa and their son, Joseph; Tamara Belknap; Kisa Takesue; Ralph Rodriguez; Brent Beltran; Consuelo Manriquez; Antonio Díaz and Beth Ching and their son, Antonito; Cristal Casares; Kelly O’Brien; and George O’Brien. With more than eighty-five hours of audio to transcribe, resulting in nine hundred pages of text, this work would not have been possible without the assistance of many people, including Sarah Beck-Esmay, Rachel Jennings , Kamala Platt, Terrell Webb, Dora Chalmers, Rene Valdez, Irene Lara Silva, and especially Steven Renderos, who tackled and beautifully captured the nuances of some of the most difficult interviews containing Tex-Mex code switching. I also received invaluable assistance from a number of friends who took the time to help me evaluate which interviews were richest and most insightful. For their time and insights, I would like to thank Angélica Afanador Pujol, Marianne Bueno, Rachel Jennings, Ben V. Olguín, Kamala Platt, Omar Valerio Jimenez, and Sandy Soto. x conversations across our america This project has continued to live in numerous ways, including the opportunity to share my experiences and the words of those I met along the way. A special thanks to the many people and places that hosted me upon my return and have provided me numerous opportunities to speak about this project at academic conferences, universities, K-12 schools, and community settings. At the University of Texas Press, Theresa May, editor in chief, and her staff deserve a special thanks for their skillful guidance in preparing the manuscript for publication. A special thanks to Professor Roberto Calderon for his extraordinarily helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. Finally, it must be said that above all other types of support, this project absolutely depended on the willingness of strangers to meet with me and trust me with their stories. I am deeply indebted to those whose voices are included here, as well as those whose interviews I could not include due to space limitations. They ensured that my experience conducting research in this manner was not only successful but also life altering. Likewise, there were many, many people who reached out to provide friendship and words of support along the way via the Internet, at rest stops, in stores, or on the road. Among these were strangers who helped me when I needed a ride or assistance or simply provided acts of kindness to remind me of my connection to others through our common humanity. To all those listed here by name and the many out there who believe in a vision of the United States that is enriched by our multicultural, multilingual , and multinational heritage, I offer my gratitude for working to make this vision a reality. conversations across our america THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...