El sol de Texas/Under the Texas Sun by Conrado Espinoza (review)

descriptions emphasize, to the exclusion of all other topics, Moody’s successful prosecution of four Klansman for the 1923 assault of an adulterous traveling salesman who refused to heed warnings that he should leave Georgetown or face the consequences of his un-American behavior. Anderson even begins his first chapter by boldly arguing that, “Dan Moody’s courtroom and ballot box successes altered Texas history. As the first real setback for the 1920s Klan, it can also be argued that they altered American history” (p. 2). Anderson undoubtedly makes a contribution by connecting Moody’s successful prosecution of the Klan—he was, in fact, the first district attorney in Texas to obtain prison sentences against Klan members—with the downfall of both the state and national organization. Yet, one might hope for a more thorough treatment of the Klan’s power and control in Texas in the years prior to Moody’s emergence in the Williamson County District Attorney’s office. Instead, readers are left to assume much about Klan motivations and applications of “100% Americanism,” demographic realities and public attitudes (and fears) about Klansmen and their targets in central Texas, or even Moody’s own motivation for going after the Invisible Empire with as much gusto as he did. The pace of the book is so fast as to disallow for such careful treatment, and in barely over three chapters, the Klan is seemingly out of sight after failing to maintain its momentum from the 1922 elections and falling flat among Texas voters in 1924. Rather than focusing the bulk of his attention on this very worthy aspect of Moody’s early career, Anderson offers a thin but generally solid overview of Moody’s career as attorney general, including his battles against Ferguson-sponsored corruption, his defeat of Ma Ferguson for the governorship in 1926, and his two terms at the helm of state government. Anderson relies heavily on the scholarship of historians Charles Alexander (The Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest, 1996) and Norman O. Brown (Hood, Bonnet and Little Brown Jug, 1984). Scholars interested in the Klan and Texas politics in the 1920s would do well to continue using these sources. Readers interested, however, in a thoroughly accessible and well-written overview of Moody’s career and contributions to Texas will probably find Anderson’s account quite enjoyable. (Anderson, it should be noted, is a former district attorney of Williamson County and the author (or coauthor) of seven other books, including the young adult book, You Can’t Do That, Dan Moody!, which he helped to adapt into a successful play of the same name.) Despite the lack of a clear conceptual framework or even roadmaps within the narrative itself, Anderson’s study should find its way onto the shelves of many a casual Texas history buff. Texas Tech University Sean P. Cunningham El sol de Texas/Under the Texas Sun. By Conrado Espinoza, introduction by John Plueker. (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2007. Pp. 288. ISBN 978-1-55885-4802 . $15.95, paper.) Originally published in Spanish in 1926 as El sol de Texas, Conrado Espinoza’s landmark novel is here reprinted by Arte Público Press in conjunction with the 2009 Book Reviews 343 *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 343 “Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage” project as part of a bilingual edition containing the original Spanish text, the inaugural English translation by Ethriam Cash Brammer de Gonzales, and a critical introduction by John Pluecker. The novel depicts how the forces of nationalism, discrimination, and hope variously impacted the fates of economic immigrants from Mexico at the outset of the twentieth century. Many a Mexican immigrant of this time period ultimately faced the decision of remaining in the United States or returning to Mexico. In the novel Espinoza sets out to reveal the diversity of the Mexican immigrant experience by plotting stories of multiple characters that periodically intersect and illustrate the contrasting outcomes to life on the migratory circuit in Texas. The novel takes place in cities and points throughout Texas during the 1920s and involves two Mexican immigrant families—the Quijanos and the Garcías— who fled the strife...