From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century. By John Weber

Abstract

From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century . David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History. By John Weber. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. xiii + 320 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.) “Get me more Mexicans!,” South Texas cotton growers, undoubtedly, commanded labor agents since the 1920s, when migrant families absconded northward to work in the sugar beet fields of Colorado. This developed as revolutions emerged on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas in the early twentieth century. Consequently, John Weber contends niftily that South Texas growers perfected a model of labor relations ultimately emulated by the nation. This entailed a gross surplus of Mexican workers (both U.S. citizens and nationals of Mexico) stripped of civil and … Frank.barajas{at}csuci.edu