Overview

The legacy of the historic mutual aid organizing by US Mexicans, with its emphasis on self-help and community solidarity, continues to inform Mexican American activism and subtly influence a number of major US social movements. In Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans, Julie Leininger Pycior traces the early origins of organizing in the decades following the US-Mexican War, when Mexicans in the Southwest established mutualista associations for their protection. Further, she traces the ways in which these efforts have been invoked by contemporary Latino civil rights leaders. Pycior notes that the Mexican immigrant associations instrumental in the landmark 2006 immigration reform marches echo mutualista societies at their peak in the 1920s. Then Mexican immigrants from San Diego to New York engaged in economic, medical, cultural, educational, and legal aid. This path-breaking study culminates with an examination of Southwest community organizing networks as crucial counterweights to the outsize role of large financial contributions in the democratic political process. It also finds ways in which this community organizing echoes the activity of mutualista groups in the very same neighbourhoods a century ago.

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9781623491284

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Reviews

Julie Leininger Pycior provides a novel, stimulating, and Expansive treatment of the Mexican Mutualist tradition, beginning with the self help and transitional organizational forms of the late nineteenth century to the current cooperative impulses associated with immigrant hometown associations, civil rights groups, workers' organizations, and numerous community collectives --Emilio Zamora, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II -- (01/30/2014) Pycior's analysis of mutualista organizing among Mexicans in the United States, past and present, sheds new light on one of the most important social movements of our time. She beautifully exposes the historical legacy informing today's immigrant hometown associations, labor and community organizations, and the broader immigrant rights movement - a legacy that is all too often forgotten. --Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology at CUNY Graduate Center and author of L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the US Labor Movement -- (01/27/2014) Julie Pycior's finely honed insights from her prodigious research -- no stone or page left unturned -- have produced a rare and marvelous result: a book whose derided, dismissed, and suppressed subjects rise vividly from the shrouded past to offer our troubled democracy its only hope: Solo Juntos Lo Lograremos-- We Will Only Achieve Things Together. --Bill Moyers, journalist, commentator, and author of Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues -- (01/27/2014) This book makes a timely contribution to the field of Mexican migrant community organizing and civic engagement by tracing the trajectory of Mexican mutual-aid organizations, dating them back to the 1880s and explaining their relevance to the contemporary hometown association movement. Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans skillfully reconstructs and vividly describes the goals and aspirations of mutualista members through oral histories and archival research. Individual experiences of interviewees allow readers enter the fascinating world of mutualistas and the multiple ways in which these organizations managed to help immigrants adapt and integrate to their new world while simultaneously preserving their culture, language, and homeland traditions. These important institutions planted the seeds that would later encourage the active engagement of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans in the civil rights and labor movements in the United States. --Xochitl Bada, author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoacan and assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. -- (01/27/2014)

Julie Leininger Pycior provides a novel, stimulating, and Expansive treatment of the Mexican Mutualist tradition, beginning with the self help and transitional organizational forms of the late nineteenth century to the current cooperative impulses associated with immigrant hometown associations, civil rights groups, workers' organizations, and numerous community collectives --Emilio Zamora, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II -- (01/30/2014) Pycior's analysis of mutualista organizing among Mexicans in the United States, past and present, sheds new light on one of the most important social movements of our time. She beautifully exposes the historical legacy informing today's immigrant hometown associations, labor and community organizations, and the broader immigrant rights movement - a legacy that is all too often forgotten. --Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology at CUNY Graduate Center and author of L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the US Labor Movement -- (01/27/2014) This book makes a timely contribution to the field of Mexican migrant community organizing and civic engagement by tracing the trajectory of Mexican mutual-aid organizations, dating them back to the 1880s and explaining their relevance to the contemporary hometown association movement. Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans skillfully reconstructs and vividly describes the goals and aspirations of mutualista members through oral histories and archival research. Individual experiences of interviewees allow readers enter the fascinating world of mutualistas and the multiple ways in which these organizations managed to help immigrants adapt and integrate to their new world while simultaneously preserving their culture, language, and homeland traditions. These important institutions planted the seeds that would later encourage the active engagement of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans in the civil rights and labor movements in the United States. --X chitl Bada, author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoac n and assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. -- (01/27/2014) Julie Pycior's finely honed insights from her prodigious research -- no stone or page left unturned -- have produced a rare and marvelous result: a book whose derided, dismissed, and suppressed subjects rise vividly from the shrouded past to offer our troubled democracy its only hope: Solo Juntos Lo Lograremos-- We Will Only Achieve Things Together. --Bill Moyers, journalist, commentator, and author of Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues -- (01/27/2014)

Julie Leininger Pycior provides a novel, stimulating, and Expansive treatment of the Mexican Mutualist tradition, beginning with the self help and transitional organizational forms of the late nineteenth century to the current cooperative impulses associated with immigrant hometown associations, civil rights groups, workers' organizations, and numerous community collectives --Emilio Zamora, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II -- (01/30/2014) Pycior's analysis of mutualista organizing among Mexicans in the United States, past and present, sheds new light on one of the most important social movements of our time. She beautifully exposes the historical legacy informing today's immigrant hometown associations, labor and community organizations, and the broader immigrant rights movement - a legacy that is all too often forgotten. --Ruth Milkman, professor of sociology at CUNY Graduate Center and author of L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the US Labor Movement -- (01/27/2014) Julie Pycior's finely honed insights from her prodigious research -- no stone or page left unturned -- have produced a rare and marvelous result: a book whose derided, dismissed, and suppressed subjects rise vividly from the shrouded past to offer our troubled democracy its only hope: Solo Juntos Lo Lograremos-- We Will Only Achieve Things Together. --Bill Moyers, journalist, commentator, and author of Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues -- (01/27/2014) This book makes a timely contribution to the field of Mexican migrant community organizing and civic engagement by tracing the trajectory of Mexican mutual-aid organizations, dating them back to the 1880s and explaining their relevance to the contemporary hometown association movement. Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans skillfully reconstructs and vividly describes the goals and aspirations of mutualista members through oral histories and archival research. Individual experiences of interviewees allow readers enter the fascinating world of mutualistas and the multiple ways in which these organizations managed to help immigrants adapt and integrate to their new world while simultaneously preserving their culture, language, and homeland traditions. These important institutions planted the seeds that would later encourage the active engagement of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans in the civil rights and labor movements in the United States. --X chitl Bada, author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoac n and assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. -- (01/27/2014)

Author Information

JULIE LEININGER PYCIOR, Professor of History at Manhattan College, served as a historical adviser to public television and is a contributor to huffingtonpost.com. Her previous book, LBJ and Mexican Americans, won the T. R. Fehrenbach Award from the Texas Historical Commission.

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