Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915–1940 by Michael Innis-Jiménez (review)

In Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915–1940, historian Michael Innis-Jiménez chronicles the making of Chicago as a hub for Mexican immigration during the first half of the 20th century. With vivid language and an impressive array of primary sources, Innis-Jiménez takes you to the streets, the steel mills, and the social clubs where Mexican immigrants lived, worked, and created vibrant communities. The book is divided into three parts. The first part explains the reasons why Mexicans left their homeland and the routes they took to Chicago. A large percentage of Mexican immigrants arrived in Chicago via Texas from the Mexican states of Guanajuato, Michoacán, and Jalisco as immigrants from these areas were pushed out by the political turmoil brought on by the Mexican Revolution.

Part Two examines the process of community formation in South Chicago where Mexican immigrants settled and where they joined the “seemingly endless stream of ethnic immigrants and African-American migrants from the American South.” (13) Here Innis-Jiménez builds a strong argument and provides two main reasons that explain why Mexican immigration was unlike previous waves of European immigration: racialized experiences and proximity to Mexico. These are two important points that are sometimes dismissed by scholars who insist – incorrectly – that Mexican immigration to the United States is no different from European immigration. In fact, one of the strengths of book is the way in which the author describes in detail the specific experiences with racism and discrimination that Mexican immigrants lived through in South Chicago. Racist discrimination resulted in Mexican immigrants being relegated to substandard housing and some of the worst working conditions in the city. Without questions, these were ideas and sentiments that already had a long history in the region. Rooted in stereotypes in the American Midwest, anti-Mexican sentiment first emerged out of the public narratives in the press during the US/Mexico War, 1846–1848. The belief that Mexicans were not capable of self-government in the 19th century complemented well the biases that “were part of a popular ethnic and racial ideology that classified each immigrant group in a hierarchy.” (54) Mexicans, of course, were at the very bottom of that hierarchy.

In Part Three, Innis-Jiménez shifts the focus to the everyday lives of Mexican immigrants during the Great Depression. Spurred on by the Depression, the swell of anti-Mexican sentiment coupled with high unemployment created a hostile environment for Mexican immigrants. In the midst of these difficult situations, Innis-Jiménez argues, Mexicans forged a community around mutual aid organizations, religious groups, and through leisure activities like baseball leagues. In fact, “between 1917 and 1928 Mexicans in Chicago started a total of thirty-nine organizations.” (119) These movements reveal the long history of struggle that Mexicanos in Chicago have engaged and the ways in which these struggles created an infrastructure that throughout the rest of the 20th century – and even into the 21st century – has served to combat racial discrimination and promoted civil rights for immigrants, workers, and students.

In all three parts, Innis-Jiménez carefully describes the paradoxical realities of Mexican immigrants that on one hand were perceived as ideal workers and on the other were reviled and rejected amidst racially hostile environments. These attitudes ranged from Mexican workers being characterized as the “most cooperative” in one breath to “docile and disposable” in the next breath. (26, 35) Even so, the Mexican immigrant men, or solos (men without family), who arrived in Chicago saw the city as a place of opportunity where they could work for a good while and eventually return to Mexico. For Mexican immigrants, “South Chicago stood for economic opportunity and hope.” (45)

In recent years, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists have published important works on Chicago’s Mexican and Puerto Rican communities. Indeed, Chicago is currently a hot topic of study and for good...