The Latino Question

Rodolfo D Torres, Carlos Alfredo, Armando Ibarra

Description

While so many Latino/Chicano Americans struggle in pursuit of the 'American dream', while figures such as Donald Trump are accepted in mainstream politics, and scaremongering and paranoia is rife, the need for a vivid, empirically grounded study on Latino politics, culture and society has never been greater.



The Latino Question fulfils this need, offering a cutting-edge analysis of the transformative nature of Latino politics in the US. In a radical alternative to dominant ideas, the authors emphasise the importance of political economy for understanding Latino politics, culture and social issues. It draws from original research and a number of critical traditions including the thought of Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci, to understand the politics of race and ethnicity in a modern capitalist society.



Including case studies of how Latino/Chicano communities across the US are not only resisting, but also reinventing and transforming ethnic politics in the age of neoliberalism, this book is required reading for all those hoping to understand the 'Latino question' in contemporary America.

Figures and Tables

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

1. Mexican Mass Labour Migration in a Not-So-Changing Political Economy

2. Hegemony, War of Position and Workplace Democracy

3. Poverty in the Valley of Plenty: Mexican Families and Migrant Work in California

4. Racism, Capitalist Inequality, and the Cooperative Mode of Production

5. Working but Poor in the City of Milwaukee: Life Stories

6. Feasting on Latina/o Labour in Multicultural Los Angeles

7. After Latino Metropolis: Cultural Political Economy and Alternative Futures

Conclusion

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Minority Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Political Advocacy
• Political Process
• Political Ideologies
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• USA
• United States of America
• Latinos
• Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte
• 21st century
• Communism
• Hispanic and Latino Americans
• Mexican American
• North American Free Trade Agreement
• Activism
• African American
• États-Unis
• Communisme
• California
• Migration
• Latinus
• ICE
• Accord de libre-échange nord-américain
• Los Angeles

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781786800398
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Latino Question
The Latino Question
Politics, Labouring Classes and the Next Left
Armando Ibarra, Alfredo Carlos and Rodolfo D. Torres
Foreword by Christine Neumann-Ortiz
First published 2018 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright Armando Ibarra, Alfredo Carlos and Rodolfo D. Torres.
The right of Armando Ibarra, Alfredo Carlos and Rodolfo D. Torres to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7453 3525 4 Hardback
ISBN 978 0 7453 3524 7 Paperback
ISBN 978 1 7868 0038 1 PDF eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0040 4 Kindle eBook
ISBN 978 1 7868 0039 8 EPUB eBook
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.
Typeset by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Simultaneously printed in the United Kingdom and United States of America
Contents
Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
Background
The Latino Question in Latino Politics
Latinisation , Classes, and Inequality
Book Organisation
1 Mexican Mass Labour Migration in a Not-So-Changing Political Economy
Popular Immigration Theories
Neoclassical Economic Theory
Social Capital Theory
Empire Theory of Migration: An Alternative Theory
The Political Economy of Mexican Migration to the United States
Roots of Contemporary Mass Labour Migration
The Mexican Miracle
NAFTA and the Neoliberalisation of Mexico s Economy
NAFTA s Impact on the Agricultural Sector
Promise Unfulfilled
The People Push Back
Conclusions
2 Hegemony, War of Position and Workplace Democracy
Background
The Changing Nature of Labour: Capitalism and Workplace Democracy
Capitalist Hegemony and a War of Position: Human Nature, Culture, and Ideology
Capital, Labouring Classes, Labour Unions, and the War of Position
An Opportunity to Change the Nature of Labour
3 Poverty in the Valley of Plenty: Mexican Families and Migrant Work in California
Introduction
Into the Valley
The Labour Camps
La Jornada
Migration and Destination
Post-Bracero Generations
The IRCA Migrant Workers
The NAFTA Generation
The Journey-Migrating on the Season
With the Orozcos
Political Socialisation and Identity
4 Racism, Capitalist Inequality, and the Cooperative Mode of Production
Introduction
Identity Challenges within Cooperatives
Paternalism in a Cooperative Environment
Moving Beyond a Politics of Difference
Racism and the Macropolitics of Cooperatives
Cooperatives and a Better Quality of Life
Cooperatives, a Cultural War of Position, and the Formation of the Next Left Historical Bloc
Neoliberal Crises and Space for Counterhegemony
Moving from an Anti-Agenda towards a Cooperative Mode of Production
5 Working but Poor in the City of Milwaukee: Life Stories
Background
Introduction
Population Descriptive
Employment
Donald
Tracy
Neighbourhoods
Low-Wage Immigrant Workers
Survival Strategies
Hope-Action-Change
6 Latina/o Labour in Multicultural Los Angeles
Globalisation and the Cultural Capital of Multicultural Cuisine
Labour in the Nouvelle Restaurant
Constructing the Hispanic Fantasy
California Cuisine
Unions as Cultural Institutions
Conclusion
7 Latino Futures? Cultural Political Economy and Alternative Futures
The City as Narrative Observatory
Answering the Call to Action
Conclusion
Working-Class Latinos
The Election of Trump
The Next Left: Movement-Building for the Future
Notes
Index
List of Figures and Tables
FIGURES
1.1 Mexican Immigration to the United States, 1980-2004
3.1 California OMS Labour Camps
3.2 Poverty Rates of Migrant Farmworker Families by Place of Permanent Residence
3.3 Migrant Farmworkers by Immigrant Era
3.4 Contemporary Migrant-Farmworker Migration Patterns
3.5 Migrant Labour Camp, Parlier, California
3.6 Farmworkers in the Fields and Orchards
3.7 Politics, Labour Law, and Integration
5.1 Latinos in the City of Milwaukee
6.1 Restaurant Worker
TABLES
1 Descriptors of OMS Migrant Farmworkers
2 Milwaukee Low-Wage Workers: Descriptive Statistics
3 City of Milwaukee Neighbourhood Descriptors
Acknowledgments
We have many people to thank, and we want to acknowledge them and hope that those we have overlooked will forgive us.
First and foremost, we would like to thank our families for all their sacrifices, inspiration, support, and wisdom that set the foundation for the accomplishment of this labor. Much simas gracias . Each of you has had a fundamental role in shaping our thoughts and scholarship.
We are humbled and grateful to the study participants who shared with us personal and familial worker narratives. Their testimonials illuminate a reawakening of working-class consciousness that forms the essence of this work. We simply would not have been able to speak on the Latino question in the way we envisioned without their collective knowledge.
We wish to express our sincere appreciation to Victor Valle for allowing portions of original chapters written with Rodolfo D. Torres to be included in this book. Gracias , camarada Victor, your work and thoughts are woven into and rearticulated in chapters 6 and 7 .
Several of our colleagues deserve particular mention. We have learned much from our conversations with Gilbert G. Gonz lez, Eddie Bonilla, Antonia Darder, Rudy Acu a, Romina Robles Ruvalcaba, Mario Barrera, Carolina Sarmiento, Revel Sims, David Nack, Michael Childers, Rosalba Laredo Jim nez, Raul A. Fernandez, Karma Ch vez, Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, Erin Evans, Aaron Roussell, Analicia Mejia, Benjamin Marquez, Zaragosa Vargas, Mariana Pacheco, Ramon Ortiz, Frank D. Bean, Susan Brown and Daniel Malacara.
We would like to thank our university departments. These are the places and spaces where we exchange our intellectual labor for wages that connect us to the broader laboring classes. They are the School for Workers at the University of Wisconsin-Extension, the Chican@ and Latin@ Studies program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Department of Political Science and the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at California State University at Long Beach, and the Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy and Department of Chicano/Latino Studies at the University of California at Irvine, where this project has its intellectual roots and where the three authors met and were inspired and provoked to produce this volume.
We would like to recognize and thank all the rank-and-file social justice movement participants, such as Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Mario Garcia Sierra, Jesus Salas, Robert Nothoff, Biviana Lagunas, Petra Guerra, Jorge Rodriguez, Esmeralda Rodriguez, and Mario Ramirez, who are on the front lines organizing, leading, and participating in collective actions at the intersection of working-class movements. You carry on your shoulders the heavy generational weight of class struggle that aims to change our society into one that dignifies and respects the working class by achieving economic democracy.
We received enthusiastic and unwavering support from the University of Wisconsin s School for Workers. We wish to express our utmost respect for the School, which for more than ninety years has carried out its mission to empower working people and labor organizations at the job site, in the national economy, and in the global economic system through a comprehensive program of lifelong adult learning opportunities. *
We are very grateful to David Shulman, commissioning editor at Pluto Press, for his openness to our ideas, patience, and support, and also at Pluto, design manager and head of marketing Melanie Patrick. We are also grateful to Sarah Grey, a radical thinker and professional copyeditor who helped us find our collective voice.
We offer our deepest respect for working-class people laboring in the United States and abroad. Your pride, sincerity, hard work, and perseverance in the face of adversity are exemplary and are an inspiration to all Americans.
Finally, Ibarra and Carlos hold a deep respect and appreciation for Torres for keeping true to his scholarship, fostering intellectual spaces for heterodox political economy, and mentoring generations of scholars and activists.
Para mi compa era y querida esposa, Veronica D. Ibarra, mis hijos, Sofia Magdalena, Amalia Blanca, y Armando Diego, mis padres, Maria de los Angeles y Armando Ibarra, que con cari o y ejemplo me ense aron las virtudes que forman mi persona: Trabajo, Conciencia de Clase, Amor, Dignidad, Respeto, Derecho y Valor Civil.
Armando Ibarra Salazar
Para mi Hija, my little June bug Amelie Carlos-Martinez, your smile gives me strength and purpose, mis padres Eva Carlos Marquez y Alfredo Carlos Ramirez, gracias por todos sus sacrificios y ense ansas y mas que nada su apoyo y amor, mis hermanas y familia: Lourdes Carlos, Gabriela Carlos, Veronica Carlos. Tia Belen, you are deeply missed, thank you for helping to raise me, may you rest in power. Y para todos los que se esforzaron para que yo me adelantara con valores de justicia, respeto y dignidad.
Alfredo Carlos
To my son Jacob and my wife, Patricia Speier-Torres, I thank you for your love and support. Dedic este libro a Jacob David Torres y su generaci n de activistas por la justicia social en esta era de creciente incertidumbre. I would also like to personally thank Richard Martinez, Deyanira Nevarez Martinez, and their two lovely sons for providing a source of distraction from the pettiness of academic life.
Rodolfo D. Torres

* School for Workers, University of Wisconsin, Education for Workplace Democracy , n.d., htt