The Women of Smeltertown

The Women of Smeltertown

Author: Marcia Hatfield Daudistel

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2019-05-02

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 0875657060

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Once there was a place called Smeltertown, and it was known as the largest industrial city on the banks of the Rio Grande. The smokestacks of the American Smelting and Refining Company, which polluted the air for three miles in every direction, grew so tall over the decades that they became a landmark just inside the El Paso side of the US-Mexico border. In a community of small adobe houses, many with dirt floors and without indoor plumbing, both the men employed at the smelter and the women who raised families and made homes there form the history of Smeltertown. Through interviews with the women and their now middle-aged children, the realities of everyday life in Smeltertown are revealed—as is the strength of the women who forged a community and preserved a culture in these primitive conditions. Current photographs of the interviewees and historical photographs of Smeltertown illustrate the history of an area not even native El Pasoans knew.


Book Synopsis The Women of Smeltertown by : Marcia Hatfield Daudistel

Download or read book The Women of Smeltertown written by Marcia Hatfield Daudistel and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-02 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once there was a place called Smeltertown, and it was known as the largest industrial city on the banks of the Rio Grande. The smokestacks of the American Smelting and Refining Company, which polluted the air for three miles in every direction, grew so tall over the decades that they became a landmark just inside the El Paso side of the US-Mexico border. In a community of small adobe houses, many with dirt floors and without indoor plumbing, both the men employed at the smelter and the women who raised families and made homes there form the history of Smeltertown. Through interviews with the women and their now middle-aged children, the realities of everyday life in Smeltertown are revealed—as is the strength of the women who forged a community and preserved a culture in these primitive conditions. Current photographs of the interviewees and historical photographs of Smeltertown illustrate the history of an area not even native El Pasoans knew.


Smeltertown

Smeltertown

Author: Monica Perales

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010-09-13

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9780807899564

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Company town. Blighted community. Beloved home. Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande, at the heart of a railroad, mining, and smelting empire, Smeltertown--La Esmelda, as its residents called it--was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who labored at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas. Using newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews with former residents, including her own relatives, Monica Perales unearths the history of this forgotten community. Spanning almost a century, Smeltertown traces the birth, growth, and ultimate demise of a working class community in the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border and places ethnic Mexicans at the center of transnational capitalism and the making of the urban West. Perales shows that Smeltertown was composed of multiple real and imagined social worlds created by the company, the church, the schools, and the residents themselves. Within these dynamic social worlds, residents forged permanence and meaning in the shadow of the smelter's giant smokestacks. Smeltertown provides insight into how people and places invent and reinvent themselves and illuminates a vibrant community grappling with its own sense of itself and its place in history and collective memory.


Book Synopsis Smeltertown by : Monica Perales

Download or read book Smeltertown written by Monica Perales and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010-09-13 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Company town. Blighted community. Beloved home. Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande, at the heart of a railroad, mining, and smelting empire, Smeltertown--La Esmelda, as its residents called it--was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who labored at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas. Using newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews with former residents, including her own relatives, Monica Perales unearths the history of this forgotten community. Spanning almost a century, Smeltertown traces the birth, growth, and ultimate demise of a working class community in the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border and places ethnic Mexicans at the center of transnational capitalism and the making of the urban West. Perales shows that Smeltertown was composed of multiple real and imagined social worlds created by the company, the church, the schools, and the residents themselves. Within these dynamic social worlds, residents forged permanence and meaning in the shadow of the smelter's giant smokestacks. Smeltertown provides insight into how people and places invent and reinvent themselves and illuminates a vibrant community grappling with its own sense of itself and its place in history and collective memory.


Smeltertown

Smeltertown

Author: Monica Perales

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0807834114

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Traces the history of Smeltertown, Texas, a city located on the banks of the Rio Grande that was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who worked at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas, with information from newspapers, personalarchives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews.


Book Synopsis Smeltertown by : Monica Perales

Download or read book Smeltertown written by Monica Perales and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of Smeltertown, Texas, a city located on the banks of the Rio Grande that was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who worked at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas, with information from newspapers, personalarchives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews.


Smeltertown

Smeltertown

Author: Monica Perales

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13:

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Traces the history of Smeltertown, Texas, a city located on the banks of the Rio Grande that was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who worked at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas, with information from newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews.


Book Synopsis Smeltertown by : Monica Perales

Download or read book Smeltertown written by Monica Perales and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of Smeltertown, Texas, a city located on the banks of the Rio Grande that was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who worked at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas, with information from newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews.


Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way

Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way

Author: Robert Aguero

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2024-06-18

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1648431615

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Just as the time of the vaquero is near to running its course, the days of the full-time sheep and goat shearers—tasinques—are coming to a close. So asserts author Robert Aguero, son and grandson of tasinques and recipient of the proud tradition of those who labored with their hands in the dusty corrals of the Nueces River Valley and the Edwards Plateau, harvesting the wool and mohair that fueled the industry known by the shearers and their families as la trasquila. Aguero, himself a veteran of the shearing sheds, offers stories and perspectives gleaned both from personal experience and interviews with dozens of individuals intimately connected with the Central Texas wool and mohair industry. From the docienteros—virtuosos able to shear 200 animals or more per day—to the rancheros—the owners of the ranches who hired the shearing crews, year after year—Aguero has captured the essence of a way of life that is rapidly passing into history. The work opens with a foreword by esteemed historian Arnoldo De León. A host of photographs accompanies the narrative, capturing visually the dust, sweat, and noise of the atajo—the shearing pen—along with the pride in accomplishment that characterizes the tasinque tradition. Robert Aguero’s Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way: A Legacy of Pride both documents and pays homage to an honored way of life and livelihood that is disappearing from the region.


Book Synopsis Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way by : Robert Aguero

Download or read book Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way written by Robert Aguero and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-18 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as the time of the vaquero is near to running its course, the days of the full-time sheep and goat shearers—tasinques—are coming to a close. So asserts author Robert Aguero, son and grandson of tasinques and recipient of the proud tradition of those who labored with their hands in the dusty corrals of the Nueces River Valley and the Edwards Plateau, harvesting the wool and mohair that fueled the industry known by the shearers and their families as la trasquila. Aguero, himself a veteran of the shearing sheds, offers stories and perspectives gleaned both from personal experience and interviews with dozens of individuals intimately connected with the Central Texas wool and mohair industry. From the docienteros—virtuosos able to shear 200 animals or more per day—to the rancheros—the owners of the ranches who hired the shearing crews, year after year—Aguero has captured the essence of a way of life that is rapidly passing into history. The work opens with a foreword by esteemed historian Arnoldo De León. A host of photographs accompanies the narrative, capturing visually the dust, sweat, and noise of the atajo—the shearing pen—along with the pride in accomplishment that characterizes the tasinque tradition. Robert Aguero’s Shearing Sheep and Angora Goats the Texas Way: A Legacy of Pride both documents and pays homage to an honored way of life and livelihood that is disappearing from the region.


War on the Border

War on the Border

Author: Jeff Guinn

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-05-24

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 1982128879

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"From bestselling author Jeff Guinn, the dramatic story of how U.S.-Mexico border tensions erupted into open warfare in 1916, as a U.S. military expedition crossed the border to try to capture Mexican guerrilla Pancho Villa -- a military incursion whose effects still haunt the border region to this day"--


Book Synopsis War on the Border by : Jeff Guinn

Download or read book War on the Border written by Jeff Guinn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From bestselling author Jeff Guinn, the dramatic story of how U.S.-Mexico border tensions erupted into open warfare in 1916, as a U.S. military expedition crossed the border to try to capture Mexican guerrilla Pancho Villa -- a military incursion whose effects still haunt the border region to this day"--


Writing the Range

Writing the Range

Author: Elizabeth Jameson

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 676

ISBN-13: 9780806129525

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In mythic sagas of the American West, the wide western range offers boundless opportunity to profile a limited cast of white men. In this pathbreaking anthology, Jameson and Armitage brings together 29 essays which present the story of women from that era. Clearly written and accessible, "Writing the Range" makes a major contribution to ethnic history, women's history, and interpretations of the American West. 27 illustrations. 3 maps.


Book Synopsis Writing the Range by : Elizabeth Jameson

Download or read book Writing the Range written by Elizabeth Jameson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In mythic sagas of the American West, the wide western range offers boundless opportunity to profile a limited cast of white men. In this pathbreaking anthology, Jameson and Armitage brings together 29 essays which present the story of women from that era. Clearly written and accessible, "Writing the Range" makes a major contribution to ethnic history, women's history, and interpretations of the American West. 27 illustrations. 3 maps.


Copper Stain

Copper Stain

Author: Elaine Hampton

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

Published: 2019-01-10

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0806163615

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“The convertors would spew it out,” employee Arturo Hernandez recalled, referring to molten metal. “You’d see the ground, the dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, you’d be like a little pat of butter, melting away.” Hernandez was describing work at ASARCO El Paso, a smelter and onetime economic powerhouse situated in the city’s heart just a few yards north of the Mexican border. For more than a century the smelter produced vast quantities of copper—along with millions of tons of toxins. During six of those years, the smelter also burned highly toxic industrial waste under the guise of processing copper, with dire consequences for worker and community health. Copper Stain is a history of environmental injustice, corporate malfeasance, political treachery, and a community fighting for its life. The book gives voice to nearly one hundred Mexican Americans directly affected by these events. Their frank and often heartrending stories, published here for the first time, evoke the grim reality of laboring under giant machines and lava-spewing furnaces while turning mountains of rock into copper ingots, all in service to an employer largely indifferent to workers’ welfare. With horror and humor, anger, courage, and sorrow, the authors and their interviewees reveal how ASARCO subjected its employees and an unsuspecting public to pollution, diseases, and early death—with little in the way of compensation. Elaine Hampton and Cynthia C. Ontiveros weave this eloquent testimony into a cautionary tale of toxic exposure, community activism, and a corporate employer’s dubious relationship with ethics—set against the political tug-of-war between industry’s demands and government’s obligation to protect the health of its people and the environment.


Book Synopsis Copper Stain by : Elaine Hampton

Download or read book Copper Stain written by Elaine Hampton and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The convertors would spew it out,” employee Arturo Hernandez recalled, referring to molten metal. “You’d see the ground, the dirt, catch on fire. . . . If you slip, you’d be like a little pat of butter, melting away.” Hernandez was describing work at ASARCO El Paso, a smelter and onetime economic powerhouse situated in the city’s heart just a few yards north of the Mexican border. For more than a century the smelter produced vast quantities of copper—along with millions of tons of toxins. During six of those years, the smelter also burned highly toxic industrial waste under the guise of processing copper, with dire consequences for worker and community health. Copper Stain is a history of environmental injustice, corporate malfeasance, political treachery, and a community fighting for its life. The book gives voice to nearly one hundred Mexican Americans directly affected by these events. Their frank and often heartrending stories, published here for the first time, evoke the grim reality of laboring under giant machines and lava-spewing furnaces while turning mountains of rock into copper ingots, all in service to an employer largely indifferent to workers’ welfare. With horror and humor, anger, courage, and sorrow, the authors and their interviewees reveal how ASARCO subjected its employees and an unsuspecting public to pollution, diseases, and early death—with little in the way of compensation. Elaine Hampton and Cynthia C. Ontiveros weave this eloquent testimony into a cautionary tale of toxic exposure, community activism, and a corporate employer’s dubious relationship with ethics—set against the political tug-of-war between industry’s demands and government’s obligation to protect the health of its people and the environment.


Migrant Longing

Migrant Longing

Author: Miroslava Chávez-García

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2018-03-22

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1469641046

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Drawing upon a personal collection of more than 300 letters exchanged between her parents and other family members across the U.S.-Mexico border, Miroslava Chavez-Garcia recreates and gives meaning to the hope, fear, and longing migrants experienced in their everyday lives both "here" and "there" (aqui y alla). As private sources of communication hidden from public consumption and historical research, the letters provide a rare glimpse into the deeply emotional, personal, and social lives of ordinary Mexican men and women as recorded in their immediate, firsthand accounts. Chavez-Garcia demonstrates not only how migrants struggled to maintain their sense of humanity in el norte but also how those remaining at home made sense of their changing identities in response to the loss of loved ones who sometimes left for weeks, months, or years at a time, or simply never returned. With this richly detailed account, ranging from the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s to the emergence of Silicon Valley in the late 1960s, Chavez-Garcia opens a new window onto the social, economic, political, and cultural developments of the day and recovers the human agency of much maligned migrants in our society today.


Book Synopsis Migrant Longing by : Miroslava Chávez-García

Download or read book Migrant Longing written by Miroslava Chávez-García and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing upon a personal collection of more than 300 letters exchanged between her parents and other family members across the U.S.-Mexico border, Miroslava Chavez-Garcia recreates and gives meaning to the hope, fear, and longing migrants experienced in their everyday lives both "here" and "there" (aqui y alla). As private sources of communication hidden from public consumption and historical research, the letters provide a rare glimpse into the deeply emotional, personal, and social lives of ordinary Mexican men and women as recorded in their immediate, firsthand accounts. Chavez-Garcia demonstrates not only how migrants struggled to maintain their sense of humanity in el norte but also how those remaining at home made sense of their changing identities in response to the loss of loved ones who sometimes left for weeks, months, or years at a time, or simply never returned. With this richly detailed account, ranging from the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s to the emergence of Silicon Valley in the late 1960s, Chavez-Garcia opens a new window onto the social, economic, political, and cultural developments of the day and recovers the human agency of much maligned migrants in our society today.


Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas

Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas

Author: Monica Perales

Publisher: Arte Publico Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1611922615

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The eight essays included in this volume examine the dominant narrative of Texas history and seek to establish a record that includes both Mexican men and women, groups whose voices have been notably absent from the history books. Finding documents that reflect the experiences of those outside of the mainstream culture is difficult, since historical archives tend to contain materials produced by the privileged and governing classes of society. The contributing scholars make a case for expanding the notion of archives to include alternative sources. By utilizing oral histories, Spanish-language writings and periodicals, folklore, photographs, and other personal materials, it becomes possible to recreate a history that includes a significant part of the state¿s population, the Mexican community that lived in the area long before its absorption into the United States.These articles primarily explore themes within the field of Chicano/a Studies. Divided into three sections, Creating Social Landscapes, Racialized Identities, and Unearthing Voices, the pieces cover issues as diverse as the Mexican-American Presbyterian community, the female voice in the history of the Texas borderlands, and Tejano roots on the Louisiana-Texas border in the 18th and 19th centuries. In their introduction, editors Monica Perales and Raúl A. Ramos write that the scholars, in their exploration of the state¿s history, go beyond the standard categories of immigration, assimilation, and the nation state. Instead, they forge new paths into historical territories by exploring gender and sexuality, migration, transnationalism, and globalization.


Book Synopsis Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas by : Monica Perales

Download or read book Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas written by Monica Perales and published by Arte Publico Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eight essays included in this volume examine the dominant narrative of Texas history and seek to establish a record that includes both Mexican men and women, groups whose voices have been notably absent from the history books. Finding documents that reflect the experiences of those outside of the mainstream culture is difficult, since historical archives tend to contain materials produced by the privileged and governing classes of society. The contributing scholars make a case for expanding the notion of archives to include alternative sources. By utilizing oral histories, Spanish-language writings and periodicals, folklore, photographs, and other personal materials, it becomes possible to recreate a history that includes a significant part of the state¿s population, the Mexican community that lived in the area long before its absorption into the United States.These articles primarily explore themes within the field of Chicano/a Studies. Divided into three sections, Creating Social Landscapes, Racialized Identities, and Unearthing Voices, the pieces cover issues as diverse as the Mexican-American Presbyterian community, the female voice in the history of the Texas borderlands, and Tejano roots on the Louisiana-Texas border in the 18th and 19th centuries. In their introduction, editors Monica Perales and Raúl A. Ramos write that the scholars, in their exploration of the state¿s history, go beyond the standard categories of immigration, assimilation, and the nation state. Instead, they forge new paths into historical territories by exploring gender and sexuality, migration, transnationalism, and globalization.