Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States by Louis G. Mendoza (review)

In 2007, Louis Mendoza set out on an 8,500 mile journey bike ride on the perimeter of the United States. On this journey, he conducted formal and informal interviews about the issue of Latino demographics and immigration, covering also the social, cultural, and political issues associated with them. Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States, is divided into seven chapters, each with 4 to 6 interviews. While most of his interviews were arranged in advance, many were also done through contacts he made along the way. Each chapter is thematically arranged, and thus, the interviews reflect the chapter’s topic. For instance, chapter one deals with experiences related to leaving home. Here, and in many other chapters, we find more than the often heard rhetoric of leaving home for economic advancement nowadays typically associated with immigration. For example, Mendoza’s interview with Luis tells us about the cultural oppression he experienced in Mexico because of the very strong cultural stigma against homosexuals. Although he has to continue to secure his immigration status in the United States, Luis has found freedom as a gay man.

Both chapters two and three focus on interviews dealing with the process of adaptation and the transition and effort to build a sense of mutuality. Mendoza’s selection of specific cases offers the perspectives of Latinos of diverse backgrounds. The selected interviews provide us with a rich overview of Latinos from wide economic and education levels, professional backgrounds, as well as the diverse national and generational composition of immigrants. In my view, this approach clearly shows the true diversity of Latinos in the United States, and the diversity of our stories of immigration, adaptation, and community building.

One of the great dimensions of this book is that Mendoza includes interviews from regions typically unexplored or understudied in terms of immigration, for example, the Midwest, which for decades has had a growing Latino population. In an interview with Juan Martínez, a Hispanic farm expert in Michigan, we learn that many Latinos, mainly Mexicans and Central Americans, come to work and thrive in rural communities because of their “sense of landownership that goes back maybe ten or fifteen generations” (50). According to Martínez, Michigan is second in its diversity of crop production which requires a lot of hand labor. As a result, this region has experienced both Latino immigration and migration. Another valuable perspective sprinkled throughout several chapters from different interviewees is that anti-immigrant sentiment is found in many communities, including “among our own gente” (56). Guadalupe Quinn is an activist in Oregon who seeks to bring different groups together such as CAUSA and African American and LGBT communities to help decrease such attitudes. Similarly, Ángel González, in Iowa, has witnessed his own Puerto Rican compatriotas not care about what is happening to other immigrants.

Throughout the author’s journey across the United States, it is clear that the local leadership in small communities has an enormous role in determining “whether the community receives newcomers with open arms or suspicion” (86). So his interviews with non-Latino leaders such as chief of police John Jensen and Peggy and John Stokman in Minnesota show us that they too play a part in changing and educating people about the value of immigrant communities in their towns. It is important to note that the interest that each of these local leaders—Latinos and non-Latinos—show has grown from an intentional to a personal connection they make with newcomers.

Chapters four and five focus on what individuals have done to confront threats to their community and how they defend their rights. It is interesting to read that individuals are motivated by different reasons and continue to be invested in their effort to make communities safer and just, based of those beliefs. For example, Raúl Raymundo in Chicago...