The Women of Smeltertown ed. by Marcia Hatfield Daudistel, Mimi R. Gladstein (review)

Over the years, studies on West Texas have grown to examine how identity, memory, and labor shape place and community in connection with gender identities. The Women of Smeltertown is a welcome addition to these studies. The book complements Monica Perales’s highly recognized Smeltertown: The Making and Remaking of a Southwest Border Community (University of North Carolina Press, 2010), which integrates Latina/o history, environmental history, borderlands history, and historical memory. Taken together, these two books illustrate the implications that community memory, generational conversations, and family connection make in preserving the past.

In particular, The Women of Smeltertown opens a window to the ways women understood their relationship to a West Texas town and, conversely, produces a narrative to explain the impact that industry and environment make on the human experience. Although Smeltertown itself no longer exists, it does remain ingrained in the spirit of many who have created a generational bond.

Smeltertown developed around the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) and was known for the large population of Mexican residents who worked at the company. Located east of the Rio Grande in El Paso County, Smeltertown was a vibrant community that encapsulated Mexican culture, religion, and a sense of belonging. Although living with limited resources, its residents—especially the women—shaped its development. Daudistel and Gladstein incorporate oral histories and visual images to untangle a rich narrative that centers on women’s lives. The stories give credence to the diverse social, cultural, economic, and political relationship that formed between the town’s people and the company.

What makes this book stand out is the diversity of voices, especially the experiences of both working-class Mexican women and middle-class white women. The authors are careful to illustrate the different ways women came to understand the environment within their socio-economic class status. In chapter 2, for example, readers are introduced to the multiple, segregated communities in Smeltertown: Smelter Terrace, El Alto, El Bajo, and La Calavera. Oral histories shed light on white women’s views about people living outside their community, Smelter Terrace. Chapter 3 investigates the daily lives of women, focusing on the different forms of labor that Mexican women engaged in. While the men worked at ASARCO, Mexican women worked in the food industry, as laundresses and seam-stresses, or traveled to El Paso for work.

The editors overlook one opportunity. Established in the late 1800s, Smeltertown’s growth later faced difficult transitions. A lawsuit filed by the City of El Paso charged ASARCO with violating the 1967 Air Safety Code, and reports on the company’s environmental impact listed high levels of lithium in El Paso’s water. These conditions and government interference led to the demise of Smelterown by 1972. An analysis of the effects of industrial pollution in connection to women’s health could have added to the history of women’s health care rights.

The Women of Smeltertown examines other ways to commemorate Smeltertown today. As public history has grown over the years, positioning Smeltertown to remain part of public memory through a photograph exhibit or digital humanities project would generate an extensive collective memory. The book’s contribution to both written knowledge and a wider public audience should be well received.