Activist Reies López Tijerina earns ovation, 'Ohtli' award

http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_12701700

EL PASO -- Mexican government officials on Friday paid tribute to Reies López Tijerina, one of the most radical leaders of the Chicano movement that fought for greater rights for Mexican-Americans.

An estimated 100 scholars, Chicano activists, friends and South El Paso residents gave Tijerina a standing ovation when Mexican Consul General Roberto Rodríguez Hernández presented him with the prestigious "Ohtli" award for his lifetime commitment to human rights and civil rights for Hispanics in the United States, mostly in the 1960s.

Tijerina, 82 and in failing health, now lives in El Paso. He is perhaps best known across the U.S. for leading an armed raid at the Tierra Amarilla courthouse in northern New Mexico in the mid-1960s.

"I am intoxicated with gusto," Tijerina said upon receiving the award at La Fe Cultural & Technology Center in South El Paso amid the adoration of Chicano activists who said he continues to inspire them, Mexican-Americans and others to fight for their rights.

La Fe Clinic co-sponsored the tribute with the Mexican Consulate in El Paso.

"He's part of the leadership of the Chicano movement, somebody who has spent all his life in the struggle and continues to fight for his people and continues to make the demands that are necessary for us to finally become first-class citizens," said La Fe Clinic Executive Director Salvador Balcorta. "He has given a lot of himself."

Tijerina is often described as one of the great warriors of the Chicano

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movement, along with César Chávez, the California farmworker organizer; Colorado Chicano activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales; and La Raza Unida Party founder José Angel Gutiérrez in Texas.

Tijerina, a former Protestant minister, was the only major activist in the early Chicano movement who served time in prison. His influence is still felt.

"Without the efforts of Mr. Tijerina, we wouldn't be here," said John Estrada, president and chairman of La Fe Clinic's board of directors.

Estrada presented Tijerina a plaque on behalf of La Fe Clinic for "his lifetime commitment to human rights, social justice activism and to the Chicano civil rights movement."

"He deserves to be recognized for all the struggles that he went through, especially at the end of the '50s and the beginning of the '60s," an epoch that was even more racist than today, said Socorro Tabuenca, academic director for the Center of Inter-American and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Tijerina, accompanied by his wife, Esperanza, glowed as he also received kisses, pats on the back, abrazos and white carnations in the shadow of paintings depicting César Chávez and the revolutionary leader Che Guevara, two other Hispanic icons.

Ramón Rentería may be reached at rrenteria@elpasotimes.com; 546-6146.

Comic Book Signing - the Railroad Killer

Jimmy Daze Comics/Death Moon Comics/All Star Comis

Invite you to the comic book premier of

"THE REALROAD KILLER"



June 13, 2009 from 12pm-6pm at All Star Comis, 4406 Dyer, El Paso, Texas 7930

The Railroad Killer is a 24-page horror comic book (PG-13) based in El Paso

Written by Jaime "Jimmy" Portillo, creator of the critically acclaimed vampire graphic novel, "Gabriel."

Art by Arturo Delgado Molina

Juan Felipe Herrera to visit EPT

Hello folks,

Juan Felipe Herrera will visit El Paso on Friday, April 18 at 7:30pm at the UTEP Student Union, Templeton Suite. The event is sponsored by the Rio Grande Review, UTEP Bilingual Program in Creative Writing (so they say), UTEP Center for Inter-American and Border Studies, and Chicano Studies.

Hope you can make it to see one of Chicano Lit's most prolific poets!

Ray

El Paso and WWII: On the Wings of An Angel

I don't remember how old I was, but my brother told all the kids on the block that the man living at the end of the street had said we could swim in his wading pool. My sister even questioned it, but finally we believed my brother and a few of the neighborhood kids changed into their swimming gear and walked to the end of the block and jumped in. Well, the owner of the house came home and found all these kids in his backyard and started yelling at them to get out.

My neighbor is Pete G. Flores, a graphic designer by trade, he has put out a World War II story called ON the Wings of An Angel, the story of Joe Pino, who on his seventh mission he was shot down in France, declared dead, buried in the cemetery in Willers-Cotterets, France. Through the efforts of a young boy who found a piece of the B-17 bomber aircraft, Joe Pino was found alive and well 50 years later.

Pete Flores has been a constant source for Pluma Fronteriza and my articles on El Paso's Chicano barrios.

Recently, Ken Burns completed his forthcoming documentary "The War" on WWII. It was criticism because it did not have any Chicanos or Latinos in it. Last Sunday, The El Paso Times published an article by Ramon Rentiria on how Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez a journalist and University of Texas at Austin associate professor of journalism took on PBS. Check out the article: Historian takes on Ken Burns.

In Chicano(a) Literature, there are a number of books that focus on WWII or use it as a backdrop. My favorite was one I reviewed by the late Sabine Ulibarri who served as a tail gunner in WWII, Mayhem Was Our Business.

Among the valiant: Mexican-Americans in WW II and Korea by Raul Morin was recently republished a few years ago. It has short non-fiction stories on Chicano veterans. When it came out in the 1960s, nobody would publish it until the American G.I. Forum gave their assistance.

We have stories on the homefront also. On New Mexico University Press is Coal Camp Days by Ricardo L. García describes the coalfields of northern New Mexico and the remembrances of six-year-old Matias Montaño, a fictionalized version of the author’s life in the last years of World War II.

Another homefront account is Alejandro Grattan-Domínguez' Dark Side of the Dream, which porays a Mexican family's struggles as new immigrants in Texas at the start of WWII.

For you Chicano(a) literary criticism buff, Don Luis Leal's bio/autobiography Don Luis Leal, una vida y dos culturas, has a part about his experiences in the Philippines.

Don’t Spit on My Corner by Mike Duran is a novel set in WW II-era East Los Angeles. It deals somewhat with gangs.

Down Garrapata Road by Anne Estevis gives us a taste of South Texas during the 1940s and 1950s showing men leaving to WWII and rumors of El Chupasangre (the blood sucker) staling the valley.

Other books worth taking a look at are Shadows & Suposses by Gloria Vado and The Valedictorian and Other Stories by S.D. Navarro.

El Paso and World War II: The Homefront

There are a few book that have World War II-era El Paso as a setting. One is the much university-used, A Place in El Paso by Gloria López-Stafford. The story tells of a girl growing up in the barrio with her father, who she never realizes is white. Arturo Islas Migrant Souls also has some of the novel as a backdrop.

My favorite though is Letters to Louise by my hero, the late Abelardo B. Delgado. Delgado's award-winning autobiographic epistolary novel follows a young boys comming of age. In one part of the book, he describes the officials doing sweeps and arresting Mexican women in the Segundo Barrio so that they would not "spread disease" to soldiers at Fort Bliss.
Also, muralist Ernesto Martinez served in an armor division in Europe during WWII and helped liberate a concentration camp. His oral history was recorded by theUS Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project.

Chicanos and World War II

There are many other books dealing with the War and the Homefront. Some deal with the Zoot Suit Riots and others academic books deal with WWII-era labor movements. In Zaragosa Garcia's book Labor Rights are Civil Rights he describes has the more radical unions of the CIO were more inclusive of people of color but when the CIO merged with the more conservative AFL after WWII, many of those inclusive unions were thrown out.

Karen Brodkin's How Jews Became White Folks: And What that Says About Americas, tell how the GI Bill was passed more specifically to help White WWII veterans, not WWII veterans of color. Though many Chcianos would use the GI Bill to go to college, many applications of others for higher ed, housing, and more went unheeded or were lost (like the Congressional Medal of Honor recommendations).

Veteran journalist and poet, Joe Olvera, has written several articles on Company E, which was almost entirely Mexican. Company E was part of the 141st Regiment of the 36th Infantry Division saw combat in Italy and France, enduring heavy casualties during the controversial crossing of the Rapido River near Cassino, Italy.

There is also books, movies, and documentaries U.S. Army Air Force’s 58^th Fighter Group, in which heroes helped in the liberation of the main Philippine Island of Luzon in the summer of 1945. The pilots flew P-47D Thunderbolt single-seat fighter aircraft carrying out tactical air support missions.

A Wikipedia article on Hispanics and World War II has some writing on Hispanic women service members.

On the Wings of An Angel is a wolcome addition to this literature. A book-signing event will be sponsored by the Veterans Business Association of El Paso:

On the Wings of An Angel: A World War II Story of Life, Death, and Resurrection

Book-signing Event

sponsored by the El Paso Veterans Business Association

Thursday, Aug. 23 2007

Vista Del Sol Conference Centere

11189 Rojas Av.

El Paso, Texas 79935

Luis Jimenez lecture, El Pasoan makes dean at Cal State, El Paso Floods Photo Exhibit

“Las Platicas” EPCC Chicano Studies Program Lecture Humanities Lecture Series

“Luis Jimenez: American Dream.”

El Paso native Luis Jiménez (1940-2006) was one of the most important and influenctial Chicano sculptors and print makers. The lecture will examine issue treated in Jiménez art, such as imagination, conceptions of liberty and American mythologies

Aug. 15, 6pm

EPCC Administrative Service Center, 9050 Viscount

Lecture by Rubén C. Cordova, Ph.D. Cordova is an art historian, critic, and photographer, who is currently a Guest Professor at Sarah Lawrence College.

Lecture will be facilitated by Art Professor Jackie Mitchell. Info. call (915) 831-3101 or email jmitch18@epcc.edu

New Pancho Villa Out

Cinco Puntos Press has released The Face of Pancho Villa: A History in Photographs and Words by Friedrich Katz. “There is no doubt that history is written by the victors,” spoke a eulogizer at Pancho Villa’s funeral, “but it is also true that legends are written by the people. For that reason the name of Francisco Villa has remained enshrined forever in the heart of the poor.”

This book, coupling noted historian Friedrich Katz’s text with 42 archival photographs, provides a deep insight into this revolutionary who was a hero for some, a villain for others. The scholarship of Friedrich Katz has forced Pancho Villa back into historical conversations as a pivotal and complex figure in the Mexican Revolution.

The photographs are culled from the vast Casasola Collection in the Fototeca Nacional of the National Institute of Anthropology and History in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico.

www.cincopuntos.com

Cal State names librarian, dean

Cal State San Bernardino has appointed a new university librarian and dean.

Cesar Caballero, associate university librarian at Cal State Los Angeles, will now run the library. He replaces Johnnie Ann Ralph, the university librarian and dean emeritus who retired at the end of the school year.

Caballero received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Texas at El Paso; his master's degree in library science from the University of Texas at Austin; and his doctorate in higher education administration from Texas Tech University.

The John M. Pfau Library contains more than 750,000 books, bound periodicals and other print items, according to a university statement.

Check out the El Paso Times for a story on the El Paso Floods of 06 Exhibit starting Tuesday

'Troubled Waters': Exhibit shows faces of the flood

El Paso Times senior photographer Rudy Gutierrez knows a journalism adage, "If you want a good picture, you're going to have to get wet." That certainly proved true last summer. Gutierrez and other El Paso Times photographers spent hours in rain and floodwaters ... Full story

Make plans

 What: Opening reception for "Troubled Waters:"Images From the Floods of 2006."

 When: 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday. The exhibit will be on display through Oct. 6.

 Where: Chamizal National Memorial's Abrazos Gallery, 800 S. San Marcial.

 Information:"532-7273.

Check out Daniel Olivas’ review of “Dahilia Season”

Young characters hold their own in debut collection

Myriam Gurba populates her debut story collection, "Dahlia Season" (Manic D Press, paperback $14.95), with young people who are often marginalized by a society too afraid or too exhausted to respond otherwise. Full story

New Books

HE POPEDOLOGY OF AN AMBIENT LANGUAGE (Atelos 2007 ISBN: 978-1-891190-29-2), Edwin Torres Using "ambient language"--fragments, excerpts, stage directions, echoes, conversation snippets, syntactic undulation, and rigorous sonic chaos--Edwin Torres creates an alchemy of language, what he calls "electrobabble" and "algorithmictotem." Amid the fast-paced frenzy of his lyrical style, Torres finds an excited reason for hope and purpose: "one by one/ the rhythmic yuwanna/ will climb the fearist/ the murmuring yugottit/ will find the liminal/ the metronomed howboutit/ will catch the kicker." Amid such restless verbal motion, things will happen, things must happen; as order will emerge from disorder, a sense of calm gradually suffuses THE POPEDOLOGY OF AN AMBIENT LANGUAGE. "This all impossible/ But I appear it on page, so/ Becomes possible on way-through page."

http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=9781891190292

El Paso was a metal town

Growing up Chicano in El Paso deposits you in a variety of music on the border. Living here has exposed me to so much music that when I leave, I marvel how much more cultured El Paso is than other cities.

When I was young, I would hear the ump pas of banda long before it was popular. I hear it and say "turn that off." Same when for norteno and ranchera music. It just did not have a place in my Chicano world. To some, presently, I'm a sort of Mexican music export now. How ironic.

But when I was young, El Paso was a metal town. See when I first started gaining conciousness and memory as a young boy, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal had just begun. But being a Baptist for sevaral generations, this was Satans music, though long after, I'd find out how far removed from Satan it was.

For those of you who don't know metal, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal included Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Def Leopard, and many more. Some say it was a reaction to the decline of metal bands like Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath. Others say it was a reaction against punk and disco. Another is that with its British origin and its idealizing of the working class, it was a protest against Margarat Thachter's regime.

I'm sure you're asking what does this have to do with El Paso. Well, when I was growing up, when you though metal, you though Ysleta High School. The Indians were just known for these metal youth bands. Even into the late 1980s as metal was declining and rap was on the advent, Ysleta still seemed to produce these rockers.

In my sisters time, the rockers were very big. It's hard to describes them now, but they were all denim and metal t-shirts. One guys I met in the late 1980s was a young Jewish guy who played the guitar. I remember him playing the licks to "Sweet Child O mine."

There was one place near Yarbrough and Alameda called the Texas Stakeout. I must have been underage when I got in. The band played covers and all nights some guys kept yelling out, "Billy Squire! Billy Squire" hoping they would cover him. So in the mix of cumbia clubs and lesbian dance clubs down Alameda, you found metal hangouts.

For some reason by the late 1980s, I got really into Oldies. Back then, Oldies meant 50s, 60s. I learned how the growing gang underworld liked this music. Back then KROD was an oldies station and often late evening you hear dedications from Happy to Sleepy. Oldies weren't popular with anyone, but I was looking for music to bring me closer to my dad. My dad was a child of the 50s and Fat Domino, Eddie Valens, and the Big Bopper are to this day still our united favorites. By far, my song was "Rip it up" by Little Richard. I had fallen in love with the Oldmobile 88, the old ones, so this song brought all that back.

Being love with music made me ignore what was going on. Though a delved in the growing gangster rap, especially at the turn of the decade and the growth of gang activity, I missed the New Wave and the coming Alternative Movement.

So, more later....

Castillo to release novel: The Guardians

Closing your business

My friend asked me if I knew a good Mexican restaurant on the Eastside of El Paso. I didn’t recall any, but I mentioned Avila's remembering they had a good plate of enchiladas but not knowing it was now closed. Remember, I just returned to El Paso. I passed by one day and a sign said, “Thank you for so many years” and stated they closed. I think that is how business should do it. I would have like Montwood Theatre to a last show. Maybe advertise saying we will show our last movie and then close. Otherwise it’s sadness.

Ever the activist

Ever the activist that I am, as I already told some, doing some underground research into the state of the working poor in El Paso. One thing that I noticed among the services is all the Violence Against Women Act assistance that organizations in El Paso are providing. The problem is big. Immigrant women are being held hostage by citizen spouses who use the women immigration status against her. They threaten not to file something or play stupid. All through that, they keep abusing the women in many ways.

But looking at El Paso, I get distressed. The university continues to subcontract out. More underpaid workers. Day workers continue to go unpaid in the street. Domestic workers often suffer abuse by El Paso patrons. Janitors are often at the end of the oppression stick. The Segundo Barrio is ever divided. The organizations are competing against each other. Others marking their territory leaving piss at every corner.

One aspect that is good, is that the Industrial Areas Foundation is helping to organize a Border Interfaith Group. Hopefully it will do some good. One criticism I've heard from members and former members of EPISO is the singleissueness and conservatism. Though Chicago organizing institutes can be somewhat top down, the IAF has done some good work with groups such as TogetherOne in Omaha, Nebraska or is it Lincoln. I forget.

EPT Writing

I went to the BorderSenses release party about a week ago. It was nice to see old friends. I was Daniel Chacon and Amit Gosh. The publication has grown so much. I read one of the poems in their new issue. This has been a continue publication, never missing an issue as we have. But they need fund to continue, so if you are an El Pasoan in exile, consider donating. Go to www.bordersenses.com.

Corridos

I’ve somewhat started writing corridos again. I took the guitar out, though shopping for picks, it distresses me that there is no real music store on the eastside since KurlandSaltzman closes. I guess CapshawOlivas closes their eastside store too. I wrote a corridos about the back-door draft.

Military

On that topic, I’ve notices many obnoxious and young G.I.s in town. More then usual with all the build up. I go to restaurants and I can tell. This build up will bring the good and bad people to El Paso. It often brings the racist element to town or more so than usual. But this is the chance for Whites and Blacks who have never lived among Chicanos and Mexicanos to experience the good our people have. I know there has been racial tension in the Northeast between Blacks and Chicanos. Hopefully, something can be done.

Reactionary

It seems many El Paso activist groups are still very reactionary. Throw a protest, a march, or something after something happens. We need to get proactive.

Tim Z. Hernández to visit

Tim Z. Hernández, author of Skin Tax will be coming to town, so says Daniel Chacon. Hopefully, I can finally get my review of Skin Tax published. Tim Z. Hernandez grew up in Visalia and was catapulted into a life of writing and performance art after the tragic death of his much beloved uncle. Hernandez is the recipient of two awards, the Best Solo Production of 2003 Award for his one-man show Skin Tax: Diaries of a Macho, and the James D. Phelan Award for best manuscript by an emerging writer.



Ana Castillo to present new book

Ana Castillo will read from her new book The Guardians at 7pm Friday, at the Mesilla Community Center, 2251 Calle de Sntiago in Mesilla, New Mexico. The event is sponsored by the Border Book Festival. www.borderbookfestival.org. Check out Ramon Renteria and Sergio Troncoso’s El Paso Times book review at: http://origin.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_6432901

Los Pintos de Guantanamo in verse

Also check out the bit on the book by detainees at Guantanamo called Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak (Univ of Iowa Prsss): http://origin.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_6432902

New books

For the Children: Award Winning Book

The Bilingual Picture Book Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado was recently named One of the Best Children’s Books of the Year. Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado by Dawn Jeffers (Raven Tree Press) has been chosen for inclusion in the prestigious Bank Street College of Education’s 2007 edition of The Best Children’s Books of the Year.

Bank Street College of Education is located in New York City and their Children’s Book Committee issues an annotated handbook of children’s books they believe to be the best publications of the prior year.

Considered a guidebook for parents, teachers and librarians, the listings include fiction, nonfiction and poetry titles which are arranged into sections by age and topic. The Children’s Book Committee receives more than 4,000 titles a year for consideration and possible inclusion in their guidebook. Vegetable Dreams / Huerto soñado has also received the Midwest Book Award for Children’s Books, BWI’s Top Pick and is included on the Brodart Español Recommended Book List.

Quixotic vision in Robert Lopez’ new book

Recently released is PART OF THE WORLD by Robert Lopez on Calamari Press (2007 ISBN 978-0-9770723-8-5). PART OF THE WORLD is a fugue in both a musical and psychological sense. It is a canonical juggernaut of lyrical language--ever dissolving, devolving, shifting, then reconstituting itself into a new knowledge of reality.

This language comes straight from a compulsive mind in a Quixotic state--ceaselessly harping on the everyday perturbations and peculiarities of our humdrum lives--our cars, apartments, health, finances.

But if you relax your focus as if staring at some sort of holographic fractal, with each part containing the whole, the superficial meaning is purged, layer by layer, peeling back and revealing the subtext of what the mind is capable of under the burden of trauma and accountability.

"Robert Lopez has written a darkly hilarious exploration of the trickery of memory, the unreliability of personal history, and the strangeness, even uncanniness, of our daily transactions"--Dawn Raffel. "Literary pleasures like this are all too uncommon"--Laird Hunt
http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=097707238X



New Novel in Translation from Host Publications

PONCIA VICENCIO by Evaristo Conceicao has been released on Host Publications (2006 ISBN: 978-0-924047-34-3). It is translated from the Portuguese by Paloma Martinez-Cruz.

The story of a young Afro-Brazilian woman's journey from the land of her enslaved ancestors to the emptiness of urban life. However, the generations of creativity, violence and family cannot be so easily left behind as Poncia is heir to a mysterious psychic gift from her grandfather. Does this gift have the power to bring Ponci back from the emotional vacuum and absolute solitude that has overtaken her in the city? Do the elemental forces of earth, air, fire and water mean anything in the barren urban landscape? A mystical story of family, dreams and hope by the most talented chronicler of Afro-Brazilian life writing today.
http://www.spdbooks.org/Details.asp?BookID=0924047348 (USD 1275462554.44)



City of Write: Latin American Women

The University of Minnesota has put out UNFOLDING THE CITY: Women Write the City in Latin America by Anne Lambright and Elisabeth Guerrero, editors (2007 ISBN 978-0-8166-4812-2) . It is an original look at how Latin American women writers rethink urban space.

The essays in this collection assert that women’s views of the city are unique and revealing. For the first time, Unfolding the City addresses issues of gender and the urban in literature—particularly lesser-known works of literature—written by Latin American women from Mexico City, Santiago, and Buenos Aires.

The contributors propose new mappings of urban space; interpret race and class dynamics; and describe Latin American urban centers in the context of globalization.

Contributors: Debra A. Castillo, Sandra Messinger Cypess, Guillermo Irizarry, Naomi Lindstrom, Jacqueline Loss, Dorothy E. Mosby, Angel Rivera, Lidia Santos, Marcy Schwartz, Daniel Noemi Voionmaa, Gareth Williams. For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/L/lambright_unfolding.html



N O W A V A I L A B L E ! Awesome stories from Cuba

I’ve been reading this and like it very much. Closed for Repairs Stories by Nancy Alonso is a much needed book from the island of Cuba. If there was a Cuban word for Chicanada, this book describes the intelligence of on-the-island Cubans often finding amusing was to survive after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Translated by Anne Fountain, "New voices from Cuba are always welcome. And in this splendid translation by Anne Fountain of short stories by Nancy Alonso, the English-reading public has obtained widened access to facets of daily life in Cuba during the years following the Special Period. The poignancy and pathos resonate, as does the triumph of the human spirit. All in all: a wonderful read"--Louis A. Pérez, Jr., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Closed for Repairs is a series of eleven vignettes that depict Cuban ingenuity in the face of urban problems. Each solution is framed with humor and irony and gives a glimpse of life on the Island today.

Alonso shows us the spirit of resolve on the part of Cubans when faced with such issues as transportation problems, lack of water, and the shortage of consumer goods and construction materials caused by the embargo.

Illuminating the endurance and resilience of the Cuban people, these stories will make you chuckle. Alonso's sly wit is compelling as she satirizes the bureaucracy--an element of her work that will resonate universally.
Closed for Repairs | http://www.curbstone.org/bookdetail.cfm?BookID=195
Closed for Repairs by Nancy Alonso, translated by Anne Fountain (Curbstone
Pub date: June 2007 | ISBN: 978-1-931896-32-0)

Curbstone occasionally sends information about current publications, events and readings via e-mail. If you wish to be added to this list please visit http://www.curbstone.org/optinorout.cfm , or send a message asking to be added to or removed from list to cplist@curbstone.org. You may also write or call Curbstone Press at 321 Jackson St. Willimantic, CT 06226. Phone: 860-423-5110.


The consequences—both positive and negative—of consumer boycotts of sweatshop labor.

Another University of Minnesota gem: UNRAVELING THE GARMENT INDUSTRY: Transnational Organizing and Women’s Work by Ethel C. Brooks (2007 ISBN 978-0-8166-4485-80) is part of their Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series.

Unraveling the Garment Industry investigates the politics of labor and protest within the garment industry. Focusing on three labor rights movements—against GAP clothing in El Salvador, child labor in Bangladesh, and sweatshops in New York City—Ethel C. Brooks examines how transnational consumer protest campaigns effect change, sometimes with unplanned penalties for those they intend to protect.

“Impressive multisited fieldwork meets critical social theory to produce a provocative and insightful account of the production, logics, and meanings of transnational campaigns against labor violations.” —Javier Auyero

“Unraveling the Garment Industry provides a trenchant critique of consumer led campaigns for inadvertently reinforcing the global-local divide both symbolically and materially. Ethel Brooks’s deepest commitments illuminate the testimonies of women workers that are often marginalized by transnational scholarship and activism.” —Amrita Basu
For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book’s webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/B/brooks_unraveling.html

For more information on the Social Movements, Protest, and Contention Series:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/byseries/social.html