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By Richard A. Garcia. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991. xvi + 398 pp. $39.50.)
The extensive urbanization of a rural, migrant people was the context of the movement of Mexicans into the cities of the United States in the early twentieth century. This transformation was well under way by 1920, reflecting the dramatic shift of half the nation's population to urban centers. The city of San Antonio was a primary destination for Mexican immigrants, a main labor center for Texas and for the country as a whole. Moreover, San Antonio was a major cultural center and antedated Los Angeles as the "capital of Mexicans" living within the United States. San Antonio embodied the great diversity of this Spanish-speaking population.
San Antonio's west side becomes the laboratory for...