A Wicked War


Book Description

The definitive history of the often forgotten U.S.-Mexican War paints an intimate portrait of the major players and their world—from Indian fights and Manifest Destiny, to secret military maneuvers, gunshot wounds, and political spin. “If one can read only a single book about the Mexican-American War, this is the one to read.” —The New York Review of Books Often overlooked, the U.S.-Mexican War featured false starts, atrocities, and daring back-channel negotiations as it divided the nation, paved the way for the Civil War a generation later, and launched the career of Abraham Lincoln. Amy S. Greenberg’s skilled storytelling and rigorous scholarship bring this American war for empire to life with memorable characters, plotlines, and legacies. Along the way it captures a young Lincoln mismatching his clothes, the lasting influence of the Founding Fathers, the birth of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and America’s first national antiwar movement. A key chapter in the creation of the United States, it is the story of a burgeoning nation and an unforgettable conflict that has shaped American history.




Chicano Communists and the Struggle for Social Justice


Book Description

In the 1930s and 1940s the early roots of the Chicano Movement took shape. Activists like Jesús Cruz, and later Ralph Cuarón, sought justice for miserable working conditions and the poor treatment of Mexican Americans and immigrants through protests and sit-ins. Lesser known is the influence that Communism and socialism had on the early roots of the Chicano Movement, a legacy that continues today. Examining the role of Mexican American working-class and radical labor activism in American history, Enrique M. Buelna focuses on the work of the radical Left, particularly the Communist Party (CP) USA. Buelna delves into the experiences of Cuarón, in particular, as well as those of his family. He writes about the family’s migration from Mexico; work in the mines in Morenci, Arizona; move to Los Angeles during the Great Depression; service in World War II; and experiences during the Cold War as a background to exploring the experiences of many Mexican Americans during this time period. The author follows the thread of radical activism and the depth of its influence on Mexican Americans struggling to achieve social justice and equality. The legacy of Cuarón and his comrades is significant to the Chicano Movement and in understanding the development of the labor and civil rights movements in the United States. Their contributions, in particular during the 1960s and 1970s, informed a new generation to demand an end to the Vietnam War and to expose educational inequality, poverty, civil rights abuses, and police brutality.







Mexican Americans and the Law


Book Description

The experience of Mexican Americans in the United States has been marked by oppression at the hands of the legal system—but it has also benefited from successful appeals to the same system. Mexican Americans and the Law illustrates how Mexican Americans have played crucial roles in mounting legal challenges regarding issues that directly affect their political, educational, and socioeconomic status. Each chapter highlights historical contexts, relevant laws, and policy concerns for a specific issue and features abridged versions of significant state and federal cases involving Mexican Americans. Beginning with People v. Zammora (1940), the trial that was a precursor to the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles during World War II, the authors lead students through some of the most important and precedent-setting cases in American law: - Educational equality: from segregation concerns in Méndez v. Westminster (1946) to unequal funding in San Antonio Independent School District vs. Rodríguez (1973) - Gender issues: reproductive rights in Madrigal v. Quilligan (1981), workplace discrimination in EEOC v. Hacienda Hotel (1989), sexual violence in Aguirre-Cervantes v. INS (2001) - Language rights: Ýñiguez v. Arizonans for Official English (1995), García v. Gloor (1980), Serna v. Portales Municipal Schools (1974) - Immigration-: search and seizure questions in U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975) and U.S. v. Martínez-Fuerte (1976); public benefits issues in Plyler v. Doe (1982) and League of United Latin American Citizens v. Wilson (1997) - Voting rights: redistricting in White v. Regester (1973) and Bush v. Vera (1996) - Affirmative action: Hopwood v. State of Texas (1996) and Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (1997) - Criminal justice issues: equal protection in Hernández v. Texas (1954); jury service in Hernández v. New York (1991); self incrimination in Miranda v. Arizona (1966); access to legal counsel in Escobedo v. Illinois (1964) With coverage as timely as the 2003 Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, Mexican Americans and the Law offers invaluable insight into legal issues that have impacted Mexican Americans, other Latinos, other racial minorities, and all Americans. Discussion questions, suggested readings, and Internet sources help students better comprehend the intricacies of law.




Matters of Justice


Book Description

After the fall of the Porfirio Díaz regime, pueblo representatives sent hundreds of petitions to Pres. Francisco I. Madero, demanding that the executive branch of government assume the judiciary's control over their unresolved lawsuits against landowners, local bosses, and other villages. The Madero administration tried to use existing laws to settle land conflicts but always stopped short of invading judicial authority. In contrast, the two main agrarian reform programs undertaken in revolutionary Mexico--those implemented by Emiliano Zapata and Venustiano Carranza--subordinated the judiciary to the executive branch and thereby reshaped the postrevolutionary state with the support of villagers, who actively sided with one branch of government over another. In Matters of Justice Helga Baitenmann offers the first detailed account of the Zapatista and Carrancista agrarian reform programs as they were implemented in practice at the local level and then reconfigured in response to unanticipated inter- and intravillage conflicts. Ultimately, the Zapatista land reform, which sought to redistribute land throughout the country, remained an unfulfilled utopia. In contrast, Carrancista laws, intended to resolve quickly an urgent problem in a time of war, had lasting effects on the legal rights of millions of land beneficiaries and accidentally became the pillar of a program that redistributed about half the national territory.




Beyond the Drug War in Mexico


Book Description

This volume aims to go beyond the study of developments within Mexico’s criminal world and their relationship with the state and law enforcement. It focuses instead on the nature and consequences of what we call the ‘totalization of the drug war’, and its projection on other domains which are key to understanding the nature of Mexican democracy. The volume brings together chapters written by distinguished scholars from Mexico and elsewhere who deal with three major questions: what are the main features of and forces behind the persistent militarization of the drug war in Mexico, and what are the main consequences for human rights and the rule of law; what are the consequences of these developments on the public sphere and, more specifically, on the functioning of the press and freedom of expression; and how do ordinary people engage with the effects of violence and insecurity within their communities, and which initiatives and practices of ‘justice from below’ do they develop to counter an increased sense of vulnerability, suffering and impunity?




Social Justice in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region


Book Description

The U.S.-Mexico Border Region is among the poorest geographical areas in the United States. The region has been long characterized by dual development, poor infrastructure, weak schools, health disparities and low-wage employment. More recently, the region has been affected by the violence associated with a drug and crime war in Mexico. The premise of this book is that the U.S.-Mexico Border Region is subject to systematic oppression and that the so-called social pathologies that we see in the region are by-products of social and economic injustice in the form of labor exploitation, environmental racism, immigration militarism, institutional sexism and discrimination, health inequities, a political economy based on low-wage labor, and the globalization of labor and capital. The chapters address a variety of examples of injustice in the areas of environment, health disparity, migration unemployment, citizenship, women and gender violence, mental health, and drug violence. The book proposes a pathway to development.




Home Grown


Book Description

Historian Isaac Campos combines wide-ranging archival research with the latest scholarship on the social and cultural dimensions of drug-related behavior in this telling of marijuana's remarkable history in Mexico. Introduced in the sixteenth century by the Spanish, cannabis came to Mexico as an industrial fiber and symbol of European empire. But, Campos demonstrates, as it gradually spread to indigenous pharmacopoeias, then prisons and soldiers' barracks, it took on both a Mexican name--marijuana--and identity as a quintessentially "Mexican" drug. A century ago, Mexicans believed that marijuana could instantly trigger madness and violence in its users, and the drug was outlawed nationwide in 1920. Home Grown thus traces the deep roots of the antidrug ideology and prohibitionist policies that anchor the drug-war violence that engulfs Mexico today. Campos also counters the standard narrative of modern drug wars, which casts global drug prohibition as a sort of informal American cultural colonization. Instead, he argues, Mexican ideas were the foundation for notions of "reefer madness" in the United States. This book is an indispensable guide for anyone who hopes to understand the deep and complex origins of marijuana's controversial place in North American history.




Mexico


Book Description

In 2000, Mexico's long invincible Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost the presidential election to Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN). The ensuing changeover--after 71 years of PRI dominance--was hailed as the beginning of a new era of hope for Mexico. Yet the promises of the PAN victory were not consolidated. In this vivid account of Mexico's recent history, a journalist with extensive reporting experience investigates the nation's young democracy, its shortcomings and achievements, and why the PRI is favored to retake the presidency in 2012.Jo Tuckman reports on the murky, terrifying world of Mexico's drug wars, the counterproductive government strategy, and the impact of U.S. policies. She describes the reluctance and inability of politicians to seriously tackle rampant corruption, environmental degradation, pervasive poverty, and acute inequality. To make matters worse, the influence of non-elected interest groups has grown and public trust in almost all institutions--including the Catholic church--is fading. The pressure valve once presented by emigration is also closing. Even so, there are positive signs: the critical media cannot be easily controlled, and small but determined citizen groups notch up significant, if partial, victories for accountability. While Mexico faces complex challenges that can often seem insurmountable, Tuckman concludes, the unflagging vitality and imagination of many in Mexico inspire hope for a better future.




Judicial Politics in Mexico


Book Description

After more than seventy years of uninterrupted authoritarian government headed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico formally began the transition to democracy in 2000. Unlike most other new democracies in Latin America, no special Constitutional Court was set up, nor was there any designated bench of the Supreme Court for constitutional adjudication. Instead, the judiciary saw its powers expand incrementally. Under this new context inevitable questions emerged: How have the justices interpreted the constitution? What is the relation of the court with the other political institutions? How much autonomy do justices display in their decisions? Has the court considered the necessary adjustments to face the challenges of democracy? It has become essential in studying the new role of the Supreme Court to obtain a more accurate and detailed diagnosis of the performances of its justices in this new political environment. Through critical review of relevant debates and using original data sets to empirically analyze the way justices voted on the three main means of constitutional control from 2000 through 2011, leading legal scholars provide a thoughtful and much needed new interpretation of the role the judiciary plays in a country’s transition to democracy This book is designed for graduate courses in law and courts, judicial politics, comparative judicial politics, Latin American institutions, and transitions to democracy. This book will equip scholars and students with the knowledge required to understand the importance of the independence of the judiciary in the transition to democracy.