University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Spring 2015
"I've always been for education": Mexicana/o
participation in formal, non-formal, and informal
education in the Midwest, 1910-1955
Caran Amber Crawford Howard
University of Iowa
Copyright 2015 Caran Amber Crawford Howard
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1634
Recommended Citation
Howard, Caran Amber Crawford. ""I've always been for education": Mexicana/o participation in formal, non-formal, and informal
education in the Midwest, 1910-1955." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) thesis, University of Iowa, 2015.
http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/1634.
Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons
“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN FOR EDUCATION”: MEXICANA/O PARTICIPATION IN FORMAL, NONFORMAL, AND INFORMAL EDUCATION IN THE MIDWEST, 1910-1955
by
Caran Amber Crawford Howard
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa
May 2015
Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Christine A. Ogren
Copyright by
CARAN AMBER CRAWFORD HOWARD
2015
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
PH.D. THESIS
This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of
Caran Amber Crawford Howard
has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the May 2015 graduation.
Thesis Committee:
Christine A. Ogren, Thesis Supervisor
Katrina Sanders
Scott McNabb
Christine McCarthy
Bruce Fehn
To Aaron and Hugo
ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the many people who facilitated my research in archives across the
Midwest: Kären Mason and Janet Weaver at the University of Iowa’s Iowa Women’s Archive; the
Minnesota Historical Society; Shirley Plumb at the Davenport School Museum, in Davenport, Iowa;
Lynnette Carver at the Davenport, Iowa, Community School District; Jeremy Drouin and Mary Beveridge
at the Kansas City Public Library’s Missouri Valley Special Collections; Mary Nelson at the Wichita
State University Libraries’ Special Collections and University Archives; Caitlin Donnelly and Sheryl
Williams at the University of Kansas Libraries’ Kenneth Spencer Research Library. These individuals
showed me the ins and outs of archival work, responded to multiple emails and phone calls, found boxes
of resources not evident in finding aids, and mailed numerous photocopies and tape-recorded interviews.
I offer many thanks to my professors at the University of Iowa who challenged my thinking, held
high expectations, provided me with opportunities to teach Human Relations and to work as an assistant
book review editor for the History of Education Quarterly, and gave me free rein in determining my
research agenda: Christine Ogren, Katrina Sanders, Scott McNabb, Christine McCarthy, Sonia Ryang,
Margaret Beck, and Michael Chibnik. I give special thanks to my advisor Christine Ogren for reading
many versions of these chapters and offering inspired and critical feedback.
I want to acknowledge and thank the many members of my family and friends who encouraged
me. My grandparents Hugo and Elizabeth, and my mother, Betty Crawford, supported my education from
my earliest years and through graduate school, encouraged my scholarship in history and writing, and
listened to my ideas through every phase of my growing. Thanks to my sister Tiffany Jensen for her love
and support. I would like to thank my parents-in-law, Alan and Mary Howard, for their support. Thanks to
my long-time friend and writing partner through two graduate degrees, Michelle Van Wert Kosalka. My
little son traveled in utero to archives across the Midwest. As an infant, toddler, and preschooler, Hugo
grew alongside my dissertation, a perfect research companion. I especially appreciate the love, support,
and understanding from my partner in life, Aaron, as we have traveled along this bumpy road together.
iii
ABSTRACT
This dissertation provides a history of Mexicana/os’ participation in three systems of education:
formal, non-formal, and informal, in the midwestern states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri,
from 1910 to 1955. The study addresses the social constructions of race, gender, and class as it analyzes
how these ongoing and complex constructions influenced not only how broader communities structured
and practiced education offered to Mexicana/os but also how Mexicana/os participated in education and
made education work for them in parochial and public schools, in settlement houses, in churches and
missions, and in familial and community settings.
iv
PUBLIC ABSTRACT
This dissertation provides a history of Mexicana/os’ participation in formal, non-formal, and
informal education in the Midwest from 1910-1955. While most published histories of Mexican
American education focus on formal schooling in the U.S. Southwest, this dissertation serves to explore
education in schools and other settings in the midwestern states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and
Missouri. The study addresses the social constructions of race, gender, and class as it analyzes how these
ongoing and complex constructions influenced not only how broader communities structured and
practiced education offered to Mexicana/os but also how Mexicana/os participated in education and made
education work for them.
Based on over a hundred existing oral history interviews and other primary and secondary
sources, this dissertation argues that Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth
century valued education. Mexicana/os deliberately pursued formal, non-formal, and informal education.
Mexican/os actively participated in and utilized what was available, they navigated around, resisted, and
challenged racialized structures and practices, and they made education work for themselves, their
children, and their communities.
The first two chapters focus on formal education. Chapter One investigates the schools available
to Mexicana/os and the school structures and practices they encountered, including segregated schools
and English-only policies. Chapter Two explores what formal school meant to Mexicana/os, how they
made choices about schooling, and how they utilized varied educational opportunities through schools.
The study then turns to non-formal education through settlement houses and religious institutions.
Chapter Three explores Mexicana/os’ decisions about participating at two midwestern settlement houses:
Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Guadalupe Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The
chapter explores how Mexicana/os navigated Americanization education and looks at Mexicana/os’
agency in initiating and joining clubs and taking leadership roles. Chapter Four reveals Mexicana/os’
agency in seeking out non-formal educational opportunities in Protestant and Catholic churches and
v
missions, as well as in utilizing these institutions to organize mutual aid societies and devotional societies
through which they taught themselves, other parishioners, and the broader community about service,
faith, and Mexican history and culture. Finally, the study explores informal, or familial and community,
education, investigating how Mexicana/os modeled and taught themselves and their children life skills,
lessons in faith, values, and literacy, and how they developed and transmitted Mexican history and
culture, on their own terms.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................................................... x
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1
Mexicana/os in the Midwest ..................................................................................................................... 3
“The Mexican Problem” ........................................................................................................................... 4
Historiography .......................................................................................................................................... 6
CHAPTER ONE
“IF YOU WERE MEXICAN, YOU HAD YOUR PLACE”: STRUCTURES AND PRACTICES
MEXICANA/OS ENCOUNTERED IN PUBLIC AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS ................................. 38
Public and Parochial Schools Available to Mexicana/os ........................................................................ 39
The Mexican Problem and Structures and Practices in Midwestern Public and Parochial Schools ....... 42
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 61
CHAPTER TWO
“TRY YOUR BEST. STAY IN SCHOOL”: VALUING AND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PUBLIC
AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS ................................................................................................................. 69
Valuing Formal Schooling ...................................................................................................................... 71
Taking Advantage of Mandatory Formal Schooling .............................................................................. 80
Using Schools to Resist and Challenge Racialization of Mexicana/os ................................................... 95
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 101
CHAPTER THREE
TWO WEST SIDE STORIES: MEXICANA/OS’ PARTICIPATION IN NON-FORMAL
EDUCATION IN TWO MIDWESTERN SETTLEMENT HOUSES ..................................................... 109
History of Neighborhood House ........................................................................................................... 113
History of Guadalupe Center ................................................................................................................ 115
Settlement Policies, Practices, and Non-formal Educational Offerings................................................ 117
Mexicana/o Non-Participation or Limited Participation at Settlements ............................................... 130
Mexicana/o Participation and Influence in Settlement-Generated Classes, Clubs, and Programs ....... 132
Mexicana/o-Initiated Social Clubs, Non-Formal Educational Activities, and Organizations .............. 147
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 157
CHAPTER FOUR
“WE ALWAYS HAD THE CHURCH”: MEXICANA/O PARTICIPATION IN NON-FORMAL
EDUCATION THROUGH PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND
ORGANIZATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 170
Protestant and Catholic Churches and Organizations Serving Mexicana/os ........................................ 171
vii
Mexicana/o Participation in Protestant and Catholic-Sponsored Non-Formal Education .................... 178
Mexicana/o-Generated Non-Formal Education Through Catholic Churches ....................................... 187
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 203
CHAPTER FIVE
“WE IMPROVISED”: MEXICANA/O-GENERATED INFORMAL EDUCATION............................. 212
Life Skills .............................................................................................................................................. 214
Faith and Values ................................................................................................................................... 222
Literacy ................................................................................................................................................. 227
Cultural Transmission ........................................................................................................................... 229
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 245
CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 253
Mexicana/o Educational Experiences in the Midwest in the 1950s and Beyond.................................. 255
Where to from Here .............................................................................................................................. 258
NOTE ON SOURCES .............................................................................................................................. 273
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................................... 277
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1.1
Barrios in Kansas City, Kansas…………………………………………………………41
Table 1.2
Barrios in Kansas……………………………………………………………………….41
Table 1.3
Barrios in Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota……………………………………………...42
ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CDC
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
CYO
Catholic Youth Organization
EHP
El Huarache Project
GC
Guadalupe Center
HOHC
Hispanic Oral History Collection
IWA
Iowa Women’s Archive
KCPL
Kansas City Public Library
KSRL
Kenneth Spencer Research Library
MAOHP
Mexican American Oral History Project
MHS
Minnesota Historical Society
MLP
Mujeres Latinas Project
MVSC
Missouri Valley Special Collection
NHAR
Neighborhood House Association Records
NH
Neighborhood House
OLG
Our Lady of Guadalupe
ROC
Robert Oppenheimer Collection
SCUA
Special Collections and University Archives
SFRR
Santa Fe Railroad
SH
Sacred Heart
SSS
Sisters of Social Service
UIL
University of Iowa Libraries
UKL
University of Kansas Libraries
WSU
Wichita State University
x
INTRODUCTION
Soon after Mexicana/os 1 arrived in the Midwest in the early 1900s, they enrolled their sons and their
daughters in public and parochial schools. Born in 1905 in Mexico, Carlotta Arellano moved with her
family to El Paso, Texas, and then to Omaha, Nebraska, where she attended school through the 5th grade. 2
Cipriana Rodriguez was born in Garden City, Kansas, in 1914, and she and her siblings attended school
there. 3 Lucy Lopez grew up attending both segregated and integrated schools in Kansas City, Kansas, in
the 1940s and 1950s, and said of her father, “his goal for all of us was, I remember him drumming into us
all the time, ‘Graduate. Graduate,’” and all four of his children graduated from high school. 4
Beyond formal schooling, Mexicana/os of all ages sought out non-formal education in settlements
and churches. From the time he was a small child through his adulthood, Frank Rodriguez was a fixture at
the Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, participating in clubs and sports as a youngster and
serving as a coach and club leader as a young adult. As an adult, Rodriguez sat on the Neighborhood
House board and committees and promoted Mexicana/o interests in the community. 5 With his family,
Paul Rojas attended Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Kansas City, Missouri, and learned lessons in faith
and service when he participated in that parish’s Holy Name Society and Boy Scout Troop. 6 In Kansas
City, Missouri, Maria Mora, a practicing Catholic, attended classes and played sports at the Methodist
Mission, and though Ruth Lopez attended another Protestant church in Kansas City, Missouri, she went to
the Mexican Baptist church to take sewing classes.7
Mexicana/os also practiced informal education in their homes and communities. Parents shared
immigration stories, folktales, songs, and their knowledge about herbal remedies. In St. Paul, Minnesota,
Crecencia Rangel and her husband Francisco Rangel, Sr., organized and directed programs for religious
and patriotic Mexican holidays. The Rangels and their children presented plays and speeches, recited
poetry, and performed traditional Mexican dances and songs for these community events, all in an attempt
to educate Mexicana/os and the broader community about Mexican history and culture.8 These stories and
1
hundreds more come from extant collections of oral history interviews. The interviews contain rich,
contextualized material about Mexicana/os’ lives and the diverse educational pursuits of Mexicana/os
living in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, very little historical scholarship
addresses the scope, complexities, and diversity of Mexicana/os’ participation in education in the
Midwest during the first half of the twentieth century.
My dissertation works to present a history of Mexican American education that addresses
Mexicana/os’ participation in formal, non-formal, and informal education in the Midwest in the first half
of the twentieth century. I limited my study to the period from 1910 to 1955 because these years coincide
with specific historical events and movements and correspond with the timeframes covered in the existing
oral history interviews I consulted. I begin with the year 1910, which marks the beginnings of the
Mexican Revolution and of significant Mexican immigration to the Midwest. 9 I end the analysis at 1955,
in the early days of the Chicano Movement. The Chicano Movement was a highly complex movement,
with aspects of labor/migrant, political, social, and more organized and publicized educational activism, 10
all of which fall beyond the scope of this study and the oral history interviews I consulted. Of the
interviews I consulted, many were conducted in the 1970s and 1980s and several projects ran in the early
2000s. 11 A few of the interviewees were born in the late 1800s, but the majority of them were born
between 1919 and 1940. These interviews, alongside other source material, provided the means for me to
examine the various ways in which Mexicana/os participated in formal education in public and parochial
schools, non-formal educational experiences in settlements and churches, and informal educational
experiences in Mexicana/os’ homes and communities. Before moving on to the historiography of
Mexican American education, my use of oral history interviews, and an overview of chapters, I
contextualize Mexican immigration to the Midwest and discuss the national notion of a “Mexican
Problem.”
2
Mexicana/os in the Midwest
Mexicana/os had an unmistakable presence in the Midwest by the early twentieth century. From
1900 to 1930, an estimated 700,000 Mexicans left their homeland and entered the United States. 12
Zaragosa Vargas writes that from 1920 to 1929, nearly half a million Mexicans came to the U.S., which
accounted for about 15 percent of immigration at that time. 13 As early as the 1910s, significant numbers
of Mexican nationals and Mexican Americans from other regions of the U.S., notably Texas, California,
and Colorado, came to the Midwest. Early immigrants and migrants came for work in three major areas:
railroads, meatpacking, and migrant farm labor, namely planting, thinning, and harvesting sugar beets.
Railroad and agricultural recruiters enlisted Mexicanos from Mexico and the Southwest, and Mexicana/o
labor helped to build the Midwest into an agricultural and manufacturing powerhouse with the necessary
infrastructure to produce and transport products. 14 Vargas estimates that by 1927, the Mexican population
in the Midwest reached nearly 64, 000, and during the summer season with more people on the
agricultural migrant labor circuit, it increased to 80,000. 15
The very earliest Mexicana/o migrants did not settle in the Midwest; many were men who
identified themselves as solos, or sojourners, who went back to Mexico or the Southwest after completing
their contracted work. Mexicanos immigrated and migrated due to political, religious, and social volatility
in Mexico, the desire to find work, and/or to join family who had already settled. As the century
progressed, midwestern companies and farmers tried to save money by avoiding high turnover by hiring
families so that women and children worked in fields alongside men, and whole families traveled migrant
routes. 16 Again, to save money, more companies urged Mexicana/os to overwinter and settlement
increased. Many Mexicana/os moved to large urban areas with more winter job opportunities, though
some settled in smaller cities and towns or rural areas. Many Mexicana/os found homes in crowded
tenements vacated by previous immigrant groups or built homes on the fringes of cities, often near rivers
that periodically flooded or in railroad yards.
3
As they settled, Mexicana/os looked for businesses, churches, and other services, including
opportunities for education. They sent their children to school; they attended night school to learn
English; they went to settlements and churches to take English, sewing, and religion classes, and they
provided their own familial and community education. And, as their numbers increased and due to the
national phenomenon of “The Mexican Problem” that had been brewing since the mid-1850s,
Mexicana/os encountered residential racism and other experiences of racialization in schools, settlements,
churches, and communities.
“The Mexican Problem”
In the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. experienced changing needs for cheap labor in
agriculture, building and maintaining railroads, and manufacturing. The U.S. saw an influx of new
immigrants and changing immigration laws, nativist fears of “foreigners” during two world wars, and
several economic recessions and the Great Depression. Leftover animosity perpetuated by U.S.
government propaganda and reporting on the Mexican American War, correspondence and stereotypical
descriptions about Mexico and Mexicans in literature from missionaries and travelers, popular journalism,
and scholarship influenced people’s views about Mexicans and Mexican culture. These conditions helped
to influence how broader communities interacted with Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans, who
were often seen as “Mexican,” regardless of their U.S. citizenship.
During the last half of the nineteenth century and through the first half of the twentieth century,
Mexicana/os were racialized not only in the Southwest but also throughout the U.S. While the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo declared Mexicans living in what was formerly Mexico “white” and granted
them the right to citizenship, Donato and Hanson argue that Mexican Americans held positions as “legally
white, [but] socially Mexican.” 17 Mexicana/os held little control over how they were categorized
according to race. Public opinion and scholarly research racialized Mexicana/os as “inherently backward,
slow docile, indolent, and tractable people” and, thus, Mexicana/os were problematized. 18 The idea of a
“Mexican Problem” cropped up in labor disputes, political debates about immigration, nativist tracts
4
about the purity of American racial stock, Americanization campaigns, and calls for separate schools. 19
While the effects of the Mexican Problem paradigm varied based on such factors as location, local
economies, and individual actors, the paradigm both influenced and perpetuated stereotypes about
Mexicana/os in terms of race. 20
The Mexican Problem paradigm also reflected gender stereotypes about Mexicana/os, which
affected how many in the U.S. hoped to Americanize and educate Mexicana/os. Many assumed
Mexicana/os had innate character traits based on their biological sex, and these stereotypes were based on
popular journalism and scholarship of the time. The assumption was that Mexican men were slow and
lazy but also hot-blooded and irrational. Many thought Mexicanas to be silent and obedient, sometimes
morally loose, and uninterested in education because they wanted nothing more than to marry and have
lots of children. Even as many people held these, often contradictory, stereotypes about Mexicanas, some
saw women as the key to Americanizing younger generations. 21
Additionally, the Mexican Problem paradigm also hinged upon stereotypes about socioeconomic
class. Within the paradigm of the Mexican Problem, Mexicana/os belonged to a specific socioeconomic
class: peons, or peasants. As peons, Mexicana/os were, allegedly, accustomed to backbreaking work and
did not aspire to anything better. And, socioeconomic stereotypes within the Mexican Problem paradigm
purported Mexicana/os’ inability to move up in socioeconomic classes. Those in socioeconomic and
political power attributed Mexicana/os’ lack of education, illiteracy, and disinterested in education to their
status as peons, rather than looking to racialized discrimination or few opportunities for schooling in
Mexico or during immigration and migratory work to explain these phenomena. Additionally,
Mexicana/os were assumed to have no regard for clean homes or material goods. As these socioeconomic
stereotypes provided arguments for continuing to pay Mexicana/os low wages and enforcing business and
residential discrimination, these stereotypes also contributed to the notion that Mexicana/os’ social class
made their Americanization difficult. 22 The national and local socioeconomic and political contexts that
contributed to the notion of the Mexican Problem and the resulting stereotyping of Mexicana/os greatly
5
influenced how Mexicana/os experienced education: what they encountered, the education they sought
out, and how they participated.
In the next section I provide a historiography of the work of historians of Mexican American
education and the scholars who have studied Mexican Americans’ immigration, migration, and settlement
experiences in the Midwest, all of which provided important insights for focusing and framing my work
on Mexicana/o education in the Midwest in this period. Additionally, I address the scholarship on oral
history methodologies that assisted me in effectively and responsibly using oral history interviews.
Finally, I provide a my methodology for using oral histories and other primary and secondary sources to
better understand the constructions and intersections of race, gender, and class in this historical timeframe
in the Midwest and to explain how these affected Mexicana/os’ experiences and participation in formal,
non-formal, and informal education.
Historiography
Writing about the historiography of Chicano education in 1986, Guadalupe San Miguel notes the
scarcity of published books in the field, which he describes as being in an “embryonic stage of
development,” and focuses much of his study on articles and book chapters that address Chicano
education. 23 Even in the field’s beginning stage, San Miguel is able to discuss trends and general
arguments in the field and to identify major gaps for historians to address in the future. San Miguel
writes:
In order to gain a better understanding of the variety of Chicano educational experiences,
additional studies aimed at documenting their participation in public, parochial, and private
schools throughout the Southwest are needed. More specifically, these studies need to identify the
nature of the community’s commitment to education, obtain concrete empirical evidence on the
character and content of the schools Mexican Americans attended, and assess the impact they had
on public schools and the impact education in turn had both on individuals and on the
community. 24
6
San Miguel also calls for scholarship that looks at a “broader definition of education,” including the
“informal learning situations and structured learning offered by parochial institutions and private
agencies.” 25 In the years since San Miguel addressed the status of the historiography on Chicano
education, in many regards, the field has grown and addressed several of the gaps San Miguel identified,
though some of the gaps remain and several more are apparent. To set a context in which to frame this
study, in the following section, I explore how scholars have addressed the history of Mexican American
education, in and out of schools, and Mexican American education and gender.
Mexican American Education in Schools
In addressing the history of Mexican American schooling, many scholars have focused their
narratives on the following issues: “plight,” “struggle,” advocacy, and private school alternatives. In his
work as a leading historian of Mexican American education, San Miguel identifies “plight” as scholarship
that addresses the structures and practices of schools and their effects on Mexican American students. San
Miguel identifies “struggle” as scholarship that addresses the diverse ways Mexican Americans reacted to
the education they encountered at public schools and how they resisted and challenged discriminatory and
racialized structures in public schools. Many scholars, including San Miguel, use plight and struggle
together because they found evidence of discriminatory school structures and practices as well as
Mexican Americans’ roles in struggling against discriminatory systems of education, namely through
litigation. In addressing struggle, some scholars have used the critical frameworks of Critical Race Theory
(CRT) and/or one of CRT’s offshoots, Latina/o Critical Race Theory, or LatCrit. Girded with insightful
primary sources, including oral history interviews, scholars have increased the breadth and depth of the
scholarship on Mexican American schooling in the southwestern and western United States.
Scholars of Mexican American educational history who have focused on “plight” have studied
the institutions and school systems Mexican Americans encountered, addressed national and local
ideologies about race, and considered the complex sociopolitical and economic forces that influenced the
way school boards and teachers provided schooling for Mexicana/os. In his 1970 Mexican Americans in
School, Thomas Carter argues against the continuation of dominant culture blaming Mexican culture for
7
Mexican American students’ failure. Although his field is educational sociology, Carter argues that a
history of discriminatory school structures and differentiated and inferior curricula imposed upon
Mexican American students in the Southwest, or educational neglect, are to blame. 26 In Chicano
Education in the Era of Segregation, Gilbert Gonzales examines theories and practices of de jure school
segregation and discriminatory school structures, including Americanization, IQ testing, and vocational
tracking in schools in the Southwest. Gonzales argues that Anglo racism and socioeconomic needs led to
school structures that kept Mexicana/os from attaining upward mobility in the first part of the twentieth
century and beyond. 27 Martha Menchaca provides a succinct portrayal of the racialization of Mexicana/os
from Spanish colonization in 1519 to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Through examining state
and federal government actions and the politically and socioeconomically charged structures and purposes
of schools in what is now the Southwest, Menchaca argues that these systems “institutionalized the legacy
of discrimination…and later enabled federal, state and local governments to replicate the racialized status
of Mexican Americans through education.” 28 Mexicana/os, Menchaca argues, “were consigned to an
educational system of de jure and de facto segregation that entrenched the systems of power and furthered
the perception of Mexicans as ‘other’ in the context of U.S. society.” 29 Together, these scholars provide
insight into some of the discriminatory school structures and practices Mexican American students
encountered in the Southwest: de jure and de facto segregation, imposed curricula, and oppression of
Mexicana/os’ language, culture, and chances for economic advancement.
The majority of historians of Mexican American schooling have addressed Mexicana/os’ plight in
public schools as well as their struggles and agency in securing and changing school structures, policies,
and practices. They have addressed school structures but they have also investigated the experiences of
students and the roles of students, parents, and communities in seeking equity in public schools in the
Southwest. Many of these scholars focus on Mexicana/os’ activism in fighting against discrimination in
schools and for desegregation, and they have demonstrated that Mexican American activism for equity in
schooling existed well before Brown v. Board of Education and the Chicano Movement. In addressing
both the plight of Mexicana/os in public schooling and their responses and struggles, these scholars
8
address more of the historical actors, namely Mexicana/os, and provide a larger breadth and depth of
historical perspective on the history of Mexican American schooling in the Southwest.
Three scholars in particular have led the way in documenting and investigating not only the plight
of Mexican Americans in public schools around the Southwest but also Mexicana/os’ responses to
discriminatory school structures and activism: Victoria MacDonald, Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., and
Rubén Donato. In Latino Education, MacDonald provides primary documents that reveal some of the
school structures Mexican Americans encountered and that illustrate Mexican Americans’ resistance to
segregation and inferior schools. 30 In “Let All of Them Take Heed” San Miguel reveals that the plight of
Mexicana/os in Texas schools arose from not only discrimination in public schools but also from Mexican
Americans’ indifference to such education. San Miguel highlights the struggles of the League of United
Latin American Citizens (LULAC), who saw education as a means for Mexican Americans to retain
Mexican culture even as they gained upward mobility, against discrimination in schools and Mexican
Americans’ indifference toward such schooling. 31 In Brown, Not White: School Integration and the
Chicano Movement in Houston, San Miguel addresses the school structures available to Mexican-origin
students in Houston from the early 1900s through the 1970s. San Miguel argues that in the 1970s, there
was a shift in the activism for school desegregation that related to the generational differences between
the Mexican American generation and the Chicano generation: activists rejected “whiteness, gradual
social change, and conventional methods of struggle” and took on “a nonwhite racial status and a new
politics of struggle based on mass mobilization and protest.” 32 In The Other Struggle for Equal Schools,
Donato explores school structures and policies as well as Mexican Americans’ struggles with finding
effective ways to advocate for equity in the schools in the Southwest and a particular California
community. Donato argues that for decades Mexican Americans were not passive victims of segregation,
but he also argues that they failed in many of their attempts to gain equity and had to learn how to gain
political clout through legislative and judicial processes and through gaining support from educators and
Anglo residents. 33 In his recent Mexicans and Hispanos in Colorado Schools and Communities, 19201960, Donato contextualizes different communities throughout Colorado and describes how, fueled by
9
racism against both Hispanios and Mexicans, local politics influenced general discrimination and school
segregation when the communities were under Anglo control. Donato found that when Hispanios held
political and economic power in communities, they were also able to exert control in the schools and their
children not only found acceptance and success in schools but they also went on to higher education. The
text explains the similarities and differences between the school experiences of the two groups and the
complexities of “how history, identity, power, migration patterns, and education collided,” as well as the
activism of Anglos, in particular several teachers and Thomas F. Mahony. 34 Donato’s second book is also
important because, with it, he takes the historiography into Colorado, while most scholarship has focused
on Texas and California. 35 These monographs hold important places in the historiography because they
provide in depth and well-researched studies of Mexican American schooling in the Southwest.
Yet, in the published historiography, there are no books or large-scale studies that directly focus
on plight and/or struggle in Mexican American schooling in the Midwest. However, several emerging
scholars have conducted this important work and have produced masters and doctoral theses that have
added the Midwest to the historiography of Mexican American schooling. Robert Cleary’s 2002 thesis,
“The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951,” explores the structures of
schools available to Mexicana/os and argues that Anglo citizen groups lobbied for segregated schools
based on race prejudice. 36 In her 2008 “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the Children of Mexican
Railroad Workers in Fort Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930,” Teresa A. Garcia investigates the educational
experiences of Mexican children in a segregated schoolroom. 37 Angelica Rivera’s 2008 “Re-Inserting
Mexican-American Women’s Voices into 1950s Chicago Educational History” delves into the education
Mexican-American women experienced in various institutions, including settlements, churches, and
public and parochial schools. 38 In his 2012 dissertation, “The Color of Youth: Mexicans and the power of
Schooling in Chicago, 1917-1939,” Mario Rios Perez explores how race, social issues, and economics
influenced how Mexicans’ constructed racial, ethnic/national, gender, and class identities and how they
perceived school. Perez addresses the plight of Mexicana/os living in Chicago in the first half of the
10
twentieth century and addresses their struggles against demexicanization, or the loss of their and their
children’s Mexican identity to subtractive Americanization practiced in schools and other social outlets. 39
While this scholarship has significantly contributed more depth and breadth to the historiography, more
research is required to address formal school structures and Mexican Americans’ struggles for school
equity in the more areas of the Midwest and other areas of the United States.
Within plight and struggle scholarship, several scholars have used Critical Race Theory (CRT)
and Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) as a theoretical framework. 40 Leading scholars in CRT and
LatCrit and Chicana/o studies, Daniel Solórzano and Tara Yosso describe the five basic tenets of these
combined theories: the importance of transdisciplinary approaches; an emphasis on experiential
knowledge; a challenge to dominant ideologies; the centrality of race and racism and their
intersectionality with other forms of subordination; and a commitment to social justice.41 A scholar of
Ethnic Studies and historian of education, Dolores Delgado Bernal describes the relevancy of these
theories to the study of education, including history:
CRT and LatCrit…can be defined as a framework that challenges the dominant discourse on race,
gender, and class as it relates to education by examining how educational theory, policy, and
practice subordinate certain racial and ethnic groups. Critical race and LatCrit theorists
acknowledge that educational structures, processes, and discourses operate in contradictory ways
with their potential to oppress and marginalize and their potential to emancipate and empower. 42
In Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational Equality,
Richard Valencia explores the experiences of students in schools and Mexican Americans’ legal struggles
for equity in schools, focusing on cases that originated in the Southwest but affected schooling throughout
the U.S. 43 In this scholarship, Valencia uses CRT and LatCrit, as well as other critical frameworks, to
argue against what he sees as the persistent myth that Mexican Americans do not value education and to
assert that, though their struggles, Mexican Americans have “demonstrated an indefatigable commitment
in their struggle for a more equitable education.” 44 This scholarship demonstrates the complexities of
social constructions and school systems as well as highlights the experiences of individuals and
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communities who worked from within and from outside to challenge and change school systems through
litigation. Scholars using this approach use testimonials and oral history interviews to exhibit and give
credence to people’s experiences with plight and struggle and to provide the perspectives of more
historical actors from underrepresented groups. 45 Scholarship addressing Mexicana/os’ plight in public
educational systems and their struggles to gain access to equitable education continues to be important for
understanding the history of Mexican American schooling.
Beyond plight and struggle, a few scholars have also found that Mexicana/os also sought
empowerment and enrichment through schools, and that to attain empowerment and enrichment,
Mexicana/os have advocated for curricular reform and initiated private schools to meet their and their
children’s needs. In his 2004 Contested Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the
Untied States, 1960-2001, San Miguel argues that both support of and opposition to bilingual education
policies in the schools have been complex and inconsistent, tying these to sociopolitical and economic
developments on the national level. While San Miguel works to set up a foundation for examining the
history of bilingual education with the book, he also provides insight into the advocacy of Mexican
Americans, Chicana/os, and other activists who sought to reform school curricula and policies.
MacDonald’s Latino Education provides primary documents that show that from very early years, even
before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexicana/os advocated for teaching Spanish and other kinds of
curricula changes. 46 In his 2013 Chicana/o Struggles for Education: Activism in the Community, San
Miguel looks beyond the courts, arguing that Chicana/os advocated for school reforms, notably bilingual
education reform. 47
Finally, several scholars have addressed the private schools that Mexicana/os set up to address the
conditions that contributed to Mexican American children being held back and dropping out as well as the
gaps and discrimination they saw in schools. In “Let All of Them Take Heed,” San Miguel investigates
the Mexican-centered institutions that fostered education in the community, namely the League of United
Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and their Little Schools of the 400. 48 The Little Schools of the 400
began during the summer in 1957, in Ganado, Texas, with the intention of teaching preschool-age
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Mexican American children 400 vocabulary words in English so the children would have the advantage
of English instruction before entering school. While the program was inconsistently funded and soon gave
way to Head Start and other such programs, San Miguel reveals the initiative of Mexican Americans in
developing these schools. 49 While addressing the history of Latino education in the U.S. in her article
“Demanding Their Rights,” Victoria-María MacDonald argues:
Latino communities have always demonstrated the capacity to act independently and to make
their own choice in the struggle to gain access to quality schooling. Latino parents, students, and
communities have fought for education rights and schooling opportunities through the creation of
advocacy organizations, the establishment of independent private schools, by enrolling their
children in Catholic schools and colleges. 50
San Miguel found that Chicana/os initiated and used private schooling to contest discrimination they
faced in public schools, which he documents in Chicana/o Struggles for Education. 51 In his dissertation,
Perez explores the ways in which Mexican Americans initiated private schools where children and adults
could learn Mexican history and culture and learn and maintain skills in Spanish language. 52 While few
historians have focused on Mexicana/o advocacy beyond that directed toward desegregation and fewer
have addressed how Mexicana/os utilized private schools to meet their educational goals, these scholars
have opened the door for further research.
In spite of the increase in scholarship and the varied approaches that address Mexican American
schooling, gaps remain in the historiography. Until recently, the historiography of Mexican American
schooling and school structures has, thus far, greatly centered on the Southwest. And, while more
historians of Mexican American education have moved beyond what San Miguel refers to as the victimoppressor view 53 to investigating the perspectives of Mexican Americans, exploring what schooling
meant to them, and determining how Mexicana/os participated in schools, much of this is still new
territory. Additionally, as MacDonald and San Miguel have asserted, there is history to address in
schooling beyond battles for desegregation and beyond the public schools. More scholarship is needed to
address individual and group advocacy for school curricular and policy reforms as well as Mexicana/o
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attendance and participation in parochial schools of all faiths and in Mexican American-initiated private
schools.
Mexican American Education Outside of Schools
In 1960 and 1976, respectively, historians Bernard Bailyn and Lawrence Cremin critiqued the
historiography’s focus on institutional histories and formal schooling and called for historians of
education to look more broadly at organized education offered by institutions, like settlements and
churches, and actors outside of schools. 54 In 1986, San Miguel made these same assessments and called
for looking beyond schools to better understand the scope of Mexican American education in the
Southwest. While a majority of historians of education have continued to focus on the history of Mexican
American schooling, several scholars have addressed modes and systems of education Mexican
Americans encountered and participated in outside of the schools.
Institutions that offered structured education outside of schools during the first half of the
twentieth century included YMCAs, YWCAs, International Institutes, the Salvation Army, Visiting
Nurses, various women’s clubs, settlement houses, missions and churches, and organizations specifically
initiated by Mexicana/o communities. Several historians of education have studied education provided by
settlements, or the women’s or religious groups who often ran them, though few have focused on the
experiences of the programs’ participants. William Reese investigates the roles and outcomes of
grassroots organizations and individuals who influenced school reforms in Power and Promise of School
Reform. While Reese’s chapter on municipal housekeepers addresses women’s organizations during the
Progressive Era, he limits his discussion to their school-based work. In his chapter “Vacation Schools,
Playgrounds, and Educational Extension,” Reese ties these reforms to larger social reform movements of
social improvement and “control over children during this period,” yet he continues to view these reforms
in terms of schools and focuses on the founders and leaders of the programs rather than their
participants. 55Anne Meis Knupfer and Christine Woyshner and Emily Mieras focus on women’s
organizations and women’s work in settlements rather than the viewpoint of the people who participated,
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or the neighbors. 56 Historians of education have not yet conducted in-depth studies on Mexican American
education through settlements, churches, or other institutions.
Likewise, few scholars writing about the history of U.S. settlements have addressed the details of
the educational offerings at settlements or what they meant to participants, and very few have discussed
Mexicana/o participants. General histories of settlements focus on the settlement movement and its
influences, and they focus on particular settlements, directors, volunteers, sponsors, funding agencies,
services, and the evolution of settlement work to social work. 57 Neither history of education nor
settlement scholarship explores in any depth the neighbors’ participation nor how they influenced
education in settlements. These histories address education from the standpoint of the structures, goals,
and benefits of the individuals and organizations providing the education, a top-down perspective. Even
fewer scholars have studied settlements that served Mexicana/os, especially from Mexicana/os’
viewpoints. 58 In addition, little to no history of education scholarship addresses education provided by
churches. 59
While scholars of Mexican American history have indicated that Mexicana/os participated in
educational opportunities at many of these institutions during this period, especially settlements,
churches, and Mexicana/o community-initiated organizations, many do so only in passing because their
focus lies more with issues of migration and immigration, labor, settlement, and residential segregation. 60
In Mexicans in the Midwest, Garcia writes that settlement houses played a role in the social lives of
Mexicans and the processes acculturation, but Garcia’s intent is to provide a much-needed regional
history, not delve into details about the education offered or how Mexicana/os participated. 61 Similarly, in
his Mexicans in Minnesota, Valdés references the Neighborhood House settlement and includes pictures
of children attending Neighborhood House functions and classes but does not explain what these
experiences meant to the Mexicana/os who participated. 62 In Barrios Norteños, Valdés briefly examines
Neighborhood House and other settlements in providing Americanization education and what this nonformal education meant to Mexicana/os. 63 These monographs benefit the historiography of Mexican
American education because they not only set the context for history of Mexicana/os in the Midwest but
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they let scholars know that more than schooling was available for educational opportunities and that
Mexicana/os utilized these resources. Still, more in-depth examinations of education for Mexican
Americans outside of schooling would greatly enrich the scholarship.
In regard to Mexican American participation in settlement education, two scholars in particular
stand out in the historiography because they probe the settlements’ educational offerings and address, in
much more depth than other scholarship, Mexicana/os’ perceptions and participation in the settlements.
Ruth Hutchinson Crocker writes about the challenges the Protestant and Catholic settlements in Gary,
Indiana, faced in converting and/or Americanizing Mexicana/os. Crocker writes mostly about the
viewpoints of the settlement workers, saying much less about the experiences of participants. 64 Vicki
Ruíz also uses institutional records as she explores the educational offerings the Rose Gregory Houchen
Settlement House in South El Paso, Texas, provided for Mexican-American women. Ruíz explains that in
analyzing sources written from the top-down perspectives of settlement workers, she retained
consciousness of the power differential and used interviews with Mexican American participants and
other primary sources to help her investigate how these women made choices about their participation. 65
These scholars’ findings add to the historiography and reveal how scholars can critically use institutional
records to write from more than one perspective.
The most recent scholarship that adds to the historiography is the collection of essays in Pots of
Promise: Mexicans and Pottery at Hull-House, 1920-1940, part of a larger Latinos in Chicago and the
Midwest series. In four essays, Peggy Glowacki, David Badillo, Cheryl Ganz, and Rick Lopéz,
respectively, explore the Mexican colonia near Hull House, address interactions between settlement
workers and Mexicana/o neighbors, investigate Mexicana/os’ agency through art, and discuss dominant
culture’s cooptation of Mexican art and culture.66 The scholarship in Pots of Promise addresses not only
education in a settlement, especially art programs, but it also centers on Mexicana/os living in the
Midwest during the first half of the twentieth century. Pots of Promise reveals that Mexicana/os not only
participated in settlement education in the Midwest but also achieved great success through their work.
While the above histories, especially Pots of Promise, begin to explore Mexicana/os’ participation in and
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views about the role and utility of settlements, more scholarship about Mexicana/o participation and
utilization of settlements would add to the historiography.
Scholars of Mexican American history, specifically those who focus on Mexican American,
Hispanic, or Latina/o faith, and sociologists have written about the role of churches and missions
(Protestant and Catholic) in serving and educating Mexicana/os outside of formal schooling during the
last century. While some churches and missions worked to Americanize new immigrants, including
Mexicana/os, most of their work went toward promoting their faith in their non-formal educational
offerings. Probably the most insightful history of the role of the Catholic Church in Mexican Americans’
lives is Jay Dolan and Gilberto Hinojosa’s Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965,
which describes concept of immigrant, or national parishes, including Mexican parishes, and includes an
entire chapter on parishes in the Midwest. 67 Another insightful text is “The Role of Our Lady of
Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican Community in the Indiana Harbor Area, 1940-1951”
in which Sister Mary Helen Rogers writes about the Anglo priests organizing athletic and cultural clubs
and other activities to Americanize Mexicana/o parishioners. 68 These texts break new ground with their
concentration on the Midwest and provide scholars with vital information about the education these
entities offered.
Other texts focus more on Mexicana/o participation and agency in religious-sponsored and/or
oriented non-formal education, or church-sponsored education beyond formal, parochial schooling. They
look at the ties between churches and communities and the complex ways Mexicana/os developed and
practiced their faith, Catholic or Protestant. In “The Catholic Church and the Making of MexicanAmerican Parish Communities in the Midwest,” David Badillo explores the ways Mexicana/os used
parishes to meet their spiritual and educational needs. 69 In The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American
Ethno-Catholicism in Houston, Roberto Trevino defines Ethno-Catholicism as the way Mexicana/os have
interpreted and lived Catholicism and how it reached into the entire Mexican American community,
whether or not one was Catholic. Trevino’s insights provide fodder for closer examination of how
Mexicana/os have used non-formal education to develop and evolve in their spiritual and community lives
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from the early twentieth century through the 1970s and the Chicano Movement. 70 Dolan and Deck’s
edited Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S. looks at more recent developments, but many of the articles
address historical aspects of non-formal educational offerings when they discuss those offerings evident
since 1965. 71 While more has been written about Catholic parishes and organizations providing nonformal education, increasing numbers of scholars are looking at the work of Protestant churches and
missions. Paul Barton’s Hispanic Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists in Texas focuses on the
challenges faced by Hispanic Protestants and the evolution from Protestant churches serving Hispanics to
Hispanics using Protestant churches to serve their needs and their faith identities. While Barton touches
on non-formal education, this is not his focus. 72 This scholarship is important to the historiography,
providing context for understanding the complexities of faith in Mexicana/os’ lives during this period, but
more research about the scope and diversity of non-formal education through churches, especially in
regard to the Midwest, would enhance the historiography.
Beyond examining the structured education offered by schools, settlements, and churches, few
historians of education have addressed the everyday, usually unstructured learning that people
experienced in their homes and communities. Lawrence Cremin is one of few historians of education to
address a theory of informal education. In Popular Education and Its Discontents, Cremin explains that,
“the essence of a good deal of familial education is informal tuition, modeling, explaining, and
correcting” and that teaching is bidirectional with learners and teachers negotiating with and learning
from each other. 73 Recent work by Mario Rios Perez sheds more light on how people initiated and
participated in this kind of education. Perez’ work contributes greatly to the historiography of Mexican
American education by addressing the diverse ways Mexican Americans participated in informal
education in Chicago. In “The Color of Youth: Mexicans and the Power of Schooling in Chicago, 19171939,” Mario Rios Perez addresses the education of Mexican American youth and adults in Chicago in
the colonias and in their families, including Mexican-initiated social and patriotic clubs that educated
community members, local restaurants and businesses where people cultivated discussions about
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literature and other issues, as well as educative interactions between parents and children.74 By focusing
on education more broadly defined, Perez’ study greatly add to the historiography.
As with history of education scholarship, few scholars of general Mexican American history have
addressed unstructured and informal education through families, communities, and other facets of
people’s lives. In Mexicans in the Midwest, Juan Garcia gives readers a rare and limited glimpse of
informal education in Mexicano families: “In the evenings parents taught youngsters to read and write
Spanish; after that, hot chocolate, some talking, and then off to bed. Mothers led evening prayers.” 75
While historians of Mexican American education have explored education offered by public and
parochial schools, 76 and scholars of Mexican American history briefly cover education through
settlements and churches, informal or familial education remains largely unexamined. Though few in
number, these histories acknowledge and begin to explore the complex and diverse ways people educated
themselves and others outside of schools and other institutions, and they focus on what this informal
education meant for community building and cultural maintenance and development.
Mexican American Education and Gender
Since the early Republic, education in the U.S. has included both females and males. Yet, since
the early 1980s historians of education, historians of women in the U.S., and other scholars noted that the
historiography primarily reflected the history of education for boys and men in the U.S. and needed to do
more to address the experiences of girls and women as well as to look beyond gender binaries by looking
at femininities and masculinities. 77 In their 2000 essay on the state of history of education scholarship,
Rubén Donato and Marvin Lazerson note that revisionist and post-revisionist historians of education have
taken great strides in addressing the roles and experiences of women in education, from the standpoint of
female administrators, teachers, students, and reformers. 78 In writing about the state of U.S. women’s
history in 2003, Nancy Cott discusses historians’ debates about focusing on gender rather than
“women’s” history to see a broader “system of representation, a symbology, and a language of power,”
and Cott notes that historians had “worked through” many of those challenges since the 1980s. 79
Historian of education Margaret Nash writes that the growth and revisionism in history of female
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education is similar to that in women’s history, with historians moving from models that added women,
those that studied the contributions of women, to critical investigations of oppression, to looking at
women as differentiated actors. 80 Nash also notes, “the growth of gender history has led to interesting
work on understanding cultural meanings of masculinity, as well” and that many historians acknowledge
the dialectical nature of gender discourse. 81 Yet, Nash concedes that historians of education have
continued to focus on white females, and although they have brought in issues of social class and
explorations of race and ethnicity, they have concentrated on African American women’s experiences
more that those of other underrepresented groups, including Mexicanas. 82
Several historians of Mexican American education have explicitly addressed the experiences of
both males and females in their scholarship, including San Miguel, Gonzales, Donato, and MacDonald. 83
In her work on Mexican Americans’ struggle for equity in schools, historian of education Bernal found
gendered differences in vocational instruction experiences of Mexicanas and Mexicanos, with
Mexicana/os steered into vocational tracks based on their gender. 84 To various degrees, these historians
address the experiences of both Mexicanas and Mexicanos.
Other scholars have looked specifically at how Mexicana/os’ experiences related to issues of
gender and/or the intersections of gender, race, class, and even faith. Vicki Ruiz addresses
Americanization education for Chicanas in churches, settlement houses, and schools, looking critically at
rhetoric and practices to Americanize Mexican girls and women in home economics. Ruiz contends that
Mexicanas resisted institutional actors, parents, and husbands and “blended their options and created their
own paths.” 85 In her “Cruzando la Linea: Engendering the History of Border Mexican Children during
the Early Twentieth Century,” Yolanda Leyva highlights the devaluation of women’s and girls’ work by
comparing it to how border communities valued boys’ and men’s work. Leyva writes about the
experiences of Mexicana/o children living in the borderlands of the southwestern U.S., including how
their gender influenced how they navigated immigration processes and formal and informal education. 86
In his dissertation, Mario Rios Perez expertly weaves the role of gender into his investigations of Mexican
Americans’ educational experiences in Chicago, noting generational differences and complex views about
20
the purposes of schooling. 87 These scholars have addressed gender, some in more depth than others, but
there are still gaps in the historiography. Further investigations into the roles of gender in Mexican
American schooling, non-formal education, and in informal education, including in the Midwest, would
greatly add to the historiography.
This dissertation contributes to the historiography of Mexican American education, as well as the
broader history of Mexican Americans and the history of the Midwest. The approaches of plight and
struggle, specifically CRT and LatCrit theoretical frameworks, I address in the historiography helped me
to formulate research questions about how the social constructions of race, culture, language, class, and
gender intersected and worked in the Mexicana/os’ educational experiences. CRT and LatCrit scholarship
helped me to understand that these constructions are fluid, complex, and, often, nonlinear processes. 88
What were the structures of schools? How did different groups of people define the purposes of
schooling? How did Mexicana/os do school? The focus of experiential knowledge in CRT and LatCrit
scholarship also helped me to formulate questions about education outside of schools and to better mine
the oral history interviews for clues. How did Mexicana/os define education? Did they value education?
Beyond schools, what education was available and how did Mexicana/os participate? These questions
helped me to develop my methodology for analyzing and triangulating oral history interviews, which I
describe in more length below. The research questions and the methodology I developed also helped me
to avoid simplistic and static generalizations, like focusing on victimization or what was “done to”
Mexicana/os, when I constructed my arguments. This study addresses a broader spectrum of education by
looking at Mexicana/o participation in formal, non-formal, and informal education. This study seeks to
open up the study of Mexican American educational history to the Midwest, to continue to explore the
structures of formal education, including those of Catholic parochial schools, to investigate the complex
ways Mexicana/os participated in education in settlements, churches, communities, and families. Finally,
this study explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, and class throughout.
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Examining Mexicana/o Participation in Formal, Non-Formal, and Informal Education in the Midwest
By the early 1900s, all midwestern states had compulsory school attendance laws. 89 While
scholars of Mexican American history have established that significant numbers of Mexicana/os arrived
in the Midwest by the 1920s, 90 official records and published scholarship tells us little about the formal
schooling Mexicana/os living there encountered or how they participated in what was available. While
historians of education have explored Mexican American and Hispania/o91 education, these studies
remain grounded in the U.S. Southwest and West 92 and, for the most part, focused on formal schooling.
Without more examination of school structures and practices in the Midwest as well as Mexicana/os’
participation and agency in schooling, the historiography of Mexican American education leaves many
gaps in understanding schooling across the nation.
As I read through and listened to hundreds of oral history interviews, I came across references to
education, teaching, and learning over and over again. Mexicana/os recalled learning from their teachers
at school, and their recollections indicated that their teachers included settlement workers, priests, visiting
nurses, parents, siblings, and themselves. They learned not only from structured schoolroom lessons but
also from impromptu walks with their parents to gather medicinal herbs and wild edibles, during scouting
meetings at the Salvation Army, and by attending church-sponsored fiestas. Early on, as I identified these
different institutions that offered education, I knew this dissertation would take me beyond Mexicana/o
participation in schools. In his theorizing about education, Lawrence Cremin defines education with broad
strokes. Cremin classifies education as a wide-ranging function: “The deliberate, systematic, and
sustained effort to transmit, evoke, or acquire knowledge, attitudes, values, skills, or sensibilities, as well
as any outcomes of that effort.” 93 Cremin identifies four realms of education: the family, the church, the
workplace, and schools.
For this study, I base my definitions of formal, non-formal, and informal education on Cremin’s
four realms and on readings from studies in comparative education and agricultural education. Formal
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education is highly structured, with set policies, common assessments and record keeping, established
curricula, and required materials. Formal education also involves hierarchical management, with school
boards and other administrators managing public and parochial schools, employing trained teachers,
setting schedules, and maintaining designated facilities. 94 Non-formal education is also highly structured
but more student-centered and less hierarchical. Students attend voluntarily and are not graded, their
experiences are more short-term and applied, and they pursue non-formal education based on personal
interest. 95 While formal and non-formal education follows set structures, informal education is often
unstructured and unplanned, with actors modeling behaviors or values or offering lessons on skills and
social, cultural, and religious traditions and mores through everyday activities. 96Although I was aware of
the gaps in history of Mexican American education scholarship, especially in regard to the areas outside
of the Southwest, I quickly found that few historians of education have explored education outside
schoolroom doors in general, much less in regard to Mexican American participation. This dissertation
works to begin to address these gaps using the following methodologies.
Oral History Interviews and Methodology
One of my professors 97 describes a historiography as a bookshelf on which one can see the scope
of ones’ area of study, where scholars have focused, where gaps exist, and where one’s research fits on
the shelf, or where it contributes. Early on, I focused my doctoral work in the history of minority
education, specifically Mexican American education, and a particular event helped me to see a large gap
on the Mexican American history of education shelf. The 2008 Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) raid at the Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, and the resulting press about
immigrants in Iowa sparked my interest in the state’s past and present Latino populations. Cursory
research revealed that significant numbers of Mexican Americans settled in Iowa and other areas of the
Midwest as early as 1910, though very little scholarship explored this group’s educational history. The
same professor guided me toward the Iowa Women’s Archive at the University of Iowa, where I found a
slew of oral history interviews of Mexicana/os living in Iowa and wrote a paper I later presented at a
conference about using oral histories to explore Mexicana education in Iowa. This research, along with
23
the historiographical gaps I found on the Mexican American educational history shelf, cemented my focus
on the history of Mexican American education, more broadly defined, in the Midwest and prompted me to
search out other collections of extant oral history interviews of Mexicana/os living in the region in the
first half of the twentieth century and develop a methodology for using these interviews.
After finding multiple oral history collections around the Midwest, I had to make decisions about
the collections and sources I had the time and the means to pursue, which, in turn focused the scope of my
study. For this dissertation, I focused on collections and, therefore, locales in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota,
and Missouri. 98 For efficiency, I chose to use interviews from collections that contained multiple
interviews, interviews that were already transcribed, 99 and interviews that resided in archives with other
relevant collections. I also looked for interviews that followed a life history format and that covered not
only interviewees’ experiences in schools but also their families’ immigration stories, contextual
information about communities, and, in some cases, information about the experiences of their children
and grandchildren. While my selections led me to extensive collections that provided me with vital
insights into Mexicana/os educational experiences, I was unable to address Mexicana/o education in every
state in the Midwest or in every locale in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri. At the archives, I
gathered copies of primary sources: transcripts, organizational reports, photographs, club rosters,
brochures, letters, newspaper clippings from communities, institutional newspapers, and institutional
histories for settlements and churches. Additionally, I checked out audiotapes of interviews without
transcriptions, which I then transcribed at home. 100
As I had learned from my previous research, oral history interviews can be integral in developing
broader and deeper understandings of how Mexicana/os in the Midwest pursued and participated in
education because the other primary sources, which tend to present top-down perspectives, or what
others, most of them Anglos and people in positions of power, wrote about Mexicana/os. 101 Oral history
scholars Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson write that oral histories have “documented aspects of
historical experience which tend to be missing from other sources, such as domestic work and family life,
and they have resonated with the subjective and personal meanings of lived experience.” 102 Yet, existing
24
interviews are like other primary sources, a snapshot of the time in which they were produced and require
thoughtful analysis and interpretation. An important distinction that John Tosh makes is that, like other
historical documents, oral history interviews are “raw material for the writing of history,” not histories in
and of themselves, and they require triangulation and contextualization. 103 Oral historian Alistair
Thompson notes that an oral history can be treated as “a quarry from which to construct an argument
about patterns of behaviors or events in the past.” 104 Jack Dougherty writes that when historians use
extant interviews, “success depends largely on our collective ability to pose broader questions, draw
effectively upon preexisting source materials, and reflect more clearly on our modes of analysis.” 105 To
effectively and responsibly use the extant interviews I collected, I devised the following methodology and
analytical practices.
I began analysis with a coding process based on the issues I had determined to be gaps in the
historiography and my research questions. I designated categories, assigned them highlighter colors, and
highlighted the following categories in the transcripts: for geography, I looked for points of origin,
migration history, and regional contexts (green), schools attended and school structures and policies
(yellow), day-to-day experiences in schools (orange), informal education (pink), and gender (blue). For
“geography,” I highlighted interviewees’ birth dates, descriptions about their migration/immigration to
the Midwest, and their work and educational experiences before they settled in the Midwest. For “school
structures and policies,” I highlighted the names and descriptions of segregated and integrated schools,
public and parochial. I marked any changes in schooling, like moving from public to parochial, the
duration of schooling, and whether people completed the schooling available or graduated. I also noted
policies like enforcement of English-only rules or mentions of curricula. Next, I highlighted descriptions
of what happened in classrooms, on playgrounds, and during school-related activities and any stories
about “everyday events” at public or parochial schools. Next in this initial coding process, I highlighted
everything that could be interpreted as education outside of schools as “informal,” including education in
settlements, churches, homes, and communities. Then, I highlighted anything that directly or indirectly
addressed how “gender” may have influenced interviewees’ circumstances or education. After coding, I
25
constructed summary sheets for each interview using the same coding categories; on these I hand wrote
notes about each category and stapled the sheets on the front of each transcript. Finally, I typed up a
“master summary” for each oral history project, listing the summaries for each interviewee under the
coding categories. In this way, for each project, I could see at a glance all of the summaries about each
category I assigned for coding.
Transcribing, coding, summarizing, and typing enabled me to really absorb the interviews, to
begin to see trends, and to see a bigger picture. Additionally, having the master summaries in a Word
Document meant I could more easily search them as if they were databases. For example, if I needed to
look up any of the interviewees who described discrimination based on their lunches they took to school, I
typed in “lunch” and found them quickly. These processes also helped me to see beyond the individual
stories—to see patterns, to identify themes, and to see consistencies and changes in locales and in
people’s experiences. Yet, I also looked at the actions of individuals, whether Mexicana/o or Anglo,
which helped me to avoid overgeneralization or explaining people’s choices based on their gender, class,
faith, or racial identity(s) alone.
Using existing oral histories does present methodological challenges, namely authenticating
information in interviews and issues with narrator hindsight and memory. When possible, I compared
interviews from the same locality to ensure more factual veracity. Linda Shopes extols the value of
collections of interviews as a means to an “understanding of local culture, those underlying beliefs and
habits of mind, those artifacts of memory that propel individual lives, give coherence to individual stories,
and perhaps extend outward to a larger significance” as well as themes and local consciousness.106 Using
interviews from projects with multiple interviews helped me to triangulate environments and structures at
schools, settlements, churches and other religious organizations, and in communities. To assess issues
about memory and to identify nostalgia or hindsight in existing interviews, as with any historical
document, I attempted to verify events or observations through comparing with other interviews and other
sources, like newspapers or institutional documents. Norquay explores the ways narrators remember and
forget and what these actions reveal about how narrators construct their identities, arguing, “what is
26
forgotten often provides evidence (through its absence in our stories) of the ways in which our lives are
lived within and against the dominant culture.” 107 What interviewees more often remember, writes
Norquay, are the atypical events and people, rather than the “normal” or day-to-day matters of
schooling. 108 Despite the challenges of memory and hindsight in extant interviews, they contain rich
subjective details and narrative threads about how people experienced education and what it meant to
them. Throughout the dissertation, I include many excerpts and quotations from Mexicana/os’ interviews
with the intention of not only giving credence to their experiences but also demonstrating what education,
in all of its forms, meant to them, based on their own accounts. The interviews assisted me in finding
patterns and exceptions in how people participated and, in some cases, how people viewed the varied
educational systems they encountered. They also helped me to see the diversity and complexity in how
people valued and participated in these systems of education.
Over one hundred extant oral history interviews and other primary and secondary sources reveal
that Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century valued education and
pursued formal, non-formal, and informal education. In this dissertation, I argue that Mexican/os actively
participated in and utilized the education that was available; when education was not available, they
sought it out through other venues and systems; they navigated around, resisted, and challenged
racialized, classist, and gendered educational structures and practices; and they made education work for
themselves, their children, and their communities.
In Chapter One, I provide an overview of the schools available to Mexicana/os in the Midwest,
specifically those in the locales represented in the oral history interviews I consulted. In the remainder of
the chapter, I argue that, in both segregated and integrated schools, Mexicana/os encountered prejudices
and differential school structures and teaching practices based on their perceived racial/ethnic,
socioeconomic, and gender identities. Mexicana/os encountered public and parochial schools in the
Midwest that maintained racialized, gendered, and classist structures and practices, including Anglocentric curricula, English-only policies, holding back Mexicana/o students in primary grades, forced
vocational education and non-academic curricula, and, in extreme cases, separate rooms or schools for
27
Mexicana/os. Furthermore, these structures and practices could perpetuate stereotypes and generate
further systemic discrimination in public and parochial schools, whether or not that was the intent of
individual teachers, administrators, or Anglos in the community.
After setting the context of formal schooling, I continue the discussion of formal schooling in
Chapter Two by looking at how Mexicana/os viewed the idea of schooling and how they navigated the
schools they encountered. I argue that Mexicana/os’ choices reveal how they valued education, and, in
many cases, valued schooling. My second point in the chapter is that, whether or not they valued the
structures and content provided by schools, Mexicana/os took advantage of formal schooling, using
schools to make connections with Anglos, access educational and extracurricular opportunities, and
explore opportunities beyond the gendered expectations of some in the dominate culture, the Mexican
community, and family. Finally, I found evidence that Mexicana/os used schools to resist and/or
challenge how some individuals and communities racialized Mexicana/os.
Turning from formal schooling to non-formal education, in Chapter Three, I explore the nonformal education Mexicana/os of all ages pursued at two midwestern settlement houses: Neighborhood
House in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Guadalupe Center in Kansas City, Missouri. 109 After providing a brief
history of settlements in the U.S. and histories of the two settlements, I explore the complex ways
Mexicana/os made choices about participating in settlement-sponsored non-formal education, including
the decisions not to participate or to selectively participate. I argue that many Mexicana/os took advantage
of these offerings to meet their personal educational goals and they also took advantage of the
settlements’ club work focus by initiating and joining clubs based on their personal interests and nonformal educational goals. Furthermore, many Mexicana/os used the settlements as a physical space for
organizing broader community education and activism.
In Chapter Four, I remain in the realm of non-formal education but look to Mexicana/os’
participation in faith-based or church-sponsored non-formal education at both Protestant and Catholic
entities. Again, I found that Mexicana/os made decisions about participating in church-sponsored nonformal education based on the complexities of their faith identities, their families’ needs or faith
28
identities, and/or the availability of these opportunities. In some cases, Mexicana/os sought out
opportunities outside of their faith. I argue that numerous Mexicana/os utilized religious institutions,
churches, missions, or entities like the Salvation Army, to further their personal goals for non-formal
education. Many Mexicana/os living in the Midwest valued, shaped, and generated religious-sponsored
non-formal educational opportunities to meet their needs.
Finally, in Chapter Five, I address informal education. In the oral histories, education emerged as
a theme even when interviewees were not discussing formal or non-formal education. I determined that
Mexicana/os practiced informal education through lessons in the following areas: life skills, faith and
values, literacy, and cultural transmission. With informal, familial education, Mexicana/os deliberately
taught themselves, their peers, and their children informal lessons about subjects they valued and that
reflected their complex and changing ideas about gender, faith, values, and culture.
The scope of the dissertation is deliberately broad, even as it zeroes in on specific locations in the
Midwest. The point is to provide a history that illuminates the far-reaching avenues Mexicana/os traveled
in pursuit of education and the complexities of their experiences in formal, non-formal, and informal
education in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century.
29
Notes
1
Throughout the dissertation I use the term Mexicana/o to indicate that I am focusing on both males and females
and to denote people of Mexican-origin who immigrated to the United States as well as their children, many of
whom were born in the United States and were U.S. citizens. In the oral history interviews used for this study, most
informants identified themselves as Mexicanas or Mexicanos, though many self-identified as Mexican, and a few
identified themselves as Mexican Americans and Chicana/os. Most historians of Mexican American and Chicana/o
experiences use the terms Mexican, Mexicana, and/or Mexicano to identify people of Mexican-origin in the first half
of the twentieth century. In discussing the historiography or when interviewees identified themselves as such, I use
the phrases Mexican American or Chicana/o.
2
Carlotta Arellano, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
3
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
4
Lucy Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri. Lopez is quoting her father’s directions to both his
sons and daughters about completing schooling.
5
Frank Rodriguez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
6
Paul Rojas, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
7
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Ruth Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City,
Missouri.
8
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Crecencia Rangel,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
9
These sources provide insight into the Mexican Revolution and its affects on Mexican migration: Héctor Aguilar
Camin, Lorenzo Meyer, In the Shadow of the Mexican Revolution: Contemporary Mexican History, 1910-1989
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993); John S. D. Eisenhower, Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican
Revolution, 1913-1917 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995); Mark Wasserman, The Mexican Revolution:
A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012). For information concerning Mexican
immigration and migration to the Midwest, see: Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The
University of Arizona Press, 1996); Cynthia Mines, Riding the Rails to Kansas: The Mexican Immigrants
(McPherson, KS, 1980); Jim Norris, North For the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet
Industry (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009); Domingo Ricart, Just Across the Tracks: Report of a
Survey of Five Mexican Communities in the State of Kansas (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas, 1950); Dennis
Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1991); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the
Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000); Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History
of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press,
1993).
10
F. Arturo Rosales, Chicano!: The History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (Houston: Arte
Público Press, 1996); Refufio I. Rochín and Dennis N. Valdés, eds., Voices of a New Chicana/o History (East
Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 2000); James Diego Vigil, From Indians to Chicanos: The Dynamics of
Mexican-American Culture, second ed. (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1998).
11
See Note on Sources for information about the oral history projects used in this study.
12
Marisa Alicea, “The Latino Immigration Experience: The Case of Mexicanos, Puertorriqueños, and Cubanos,” in
The Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Sociology, ed. Félix Padilla (Houston: Arte Público Press,
1994): 37. Alicea explains that 700,000 is an estimate, and the estimate does not account for undocumented
immigrants or those who traveled back and forth.
30
13
Zaragosa Vargas, “The Mexican Immigrant Experience, 1917-1928,” in Major Problems in Mexican American
History, ed. Zaragosa Vargas (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999): 233.
14
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Valdes, Al Norte, 1991; Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000; Zaragosa
Vargas, “Mexican Immigrants in the Midwest,” in Major Problems in Mexican American History, ed. Zaragosa
Vargas (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 254-265; Zaragosa Vargas, Proletariats of the North: A
History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933, (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).
15
Zaragosa Vargas, “Mexican Immigrants in the Midwest,” 1999.
16
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Gilbert G. Gonzales and Raul A. Fernandez, A Century of Chicano
History (New York: Routledge, 2003); Manual G. Gonzales, Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States
(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999); Norris, North for the Harvest, 2009; Valdés, Al Norte, 1991;
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000; Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Mexicans in Minnesota (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 2005); Vargas, Proletarians of the North, 1993.
17
Rubén Donato and Jarrod S. Hanson, “Legally White, Socially ‘Mexican’: The Politics of De Jure and De Facto
School Segregation in the American Southwest,” Harvard Educational Review 82, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 202-225.
18
David G. Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity
(Oakland: University of California Press, 1995): 46. For more discussion on the Racialization of Mexicana/os in this
period, see: Sarah Deutsch, No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in the
American Southwest, 1880-1940 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,”
2011; Laura Gomez, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (New York: New York
University Press, 2008); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in
Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); Zaragosa Vargas, Crucible of
Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from the Colonial Period to the Present Era (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2010).
19
Marshall Roderick, “The ‘Box Bill’: Public Policy, Ethnicity, and Economic Exploitation in Texas” (master’s
thesis, Texas State University-San Marcos, 2011); “Congressman John Box Objects to Mexican Immigrants, 1928.”
In Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History. Ed. Jon Gjerde (New York: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1998): 285-287. In 1928, John C. Box, U.S. Representative from Texas, proposed what came to be
known as the “Box Bill” that would amend the 1924 Immigration Act and prohibit Mexican immigrant, based on his
beliefs about the racial and cultural inferiority of Mexicans and his concerns about the “racial stock” of the United
States. While Box was concerned about labor and social issues in Texas, his bill would have had national
consequences and the issues were widely discussed.
20
René Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy of the Americanization Era in the Education of Mexican Immigrant
Students,” Educational Studies 47 (2011): 323-346; Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’” 2001; Robert Martin
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (master’s thesis, University of
Missouri, Kansas City, 2002). For more about the U.S. War With Mexico, see: Ernesto Chavez, The U.S. War with
Mexico: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007).
21
Gabriela F. Arredondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2008); Deutsch, No Separate Refuge, 1989; Pearl Idelia Ellis, Americanization through Homemaking (Los
Angeles: Wetzel Publishing, 1929); Mario T. García, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981); Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’” 2001; Gutierrez, Walls and
Mirrors, 1995; Norman Daymond Humphrey, “The Changing Structure of the Detroit Mexican Family: An Index of
Acculturation” American Sociological Review 9, No. 6 (Dec., 1944): 622-626; Vicki L. Ruiz, “The Acculturation of
Young Mexican American Women,” in Major Problems in Mexican American History, Ed. Zaragosa Vargas (New
York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999): 265-270; Vicki Ruíz, “Dead Ends or Gold Mines?: Using Missionary
Records in Mexican-American Women’s History,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 12 Number 1 (1991):
35-56; Vicki Ruíz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008); George J. Sanchez, “‘Go After the Women’”: Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant
31
Woman, 1915-1929 in Mothers & Motherhood: Readings in American History, Eds. Rima D. Apple, and Janet
Golden (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997): 475-494.
22
García, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1981; Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’” 2001; Gilbert
G. Gonzales, “The System of Public Education and its Function within the Chicano Communities, 1920-1930,”
(doctoral diss., University of California, 1974); Gilbert G. Gonzales, “Culture, language, and the Americanization of
Mexican children” In Latinos and education: A critical Reader ed. Antonia Darder, Rodolpho D. Torres, Henry
Gutiérrez (New York: Routledge, 1997): 158-174; Gutierrez, Walls and Mirrors, 1995; Martha Menchaca, The
Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1995); Matt S. Meier, Mexican Americans/American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1994); Zaragosa Vargas, Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from
the Colonial Period to the Present Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).
23
Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. “Status of the Historiography of Chicano Education: A Preliminary Analysis,” History
of Education Quarterly 26, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 523-525.
24
San Miguel, “Status of the Historiography,” 1986: 536.
25
San Miguel, “Status of the Historiography,” 1986: 536.
26
Thomas P. Carter, Mexican Americans in Schools: A History of Neglect (New York: College Entrance
Examination Board, 1970).
27
Gilbert Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Denton, TX: University of North Texas Press,
2013).
28
Martha Menchaca, “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Racialization of the Mexican Population,” in Jose
F. Moreno, The Elusive Quest for Equality: 150 Years of Chicano/a Education (Cambridge: Harvard Educational
Review, 1999): 24-25.
29
Menchaca, “The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,” 1999: 25.
30
MacDonald, Latino Education, 2004.
31
San Miguel Jr., “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987.
32
Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano
Movement in Houston (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005): xii.
33
Donato, The Other Struggle, 1997: 2, 151.
34
Rubén Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos in Colorado Schools and Communities, 1920
1960 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008): 11.
35
Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2008.
36
Robert Martin Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (master’s
thesis, University of Missouri, Kansas City, 2002).
37
Teresa A. Garcia, “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the Children of Mexican Railroad Workers in Fort
Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930” (doctoral dissertation, University of Iowa, 2008).
38
Angelica Rivera, “Re-Inserting Mexican-American Women’s Voices into 1950s Chicago Educational History”
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008).
32
39
Mario Rios Perez, “The Color of Youth: Mexicans and the power of Schooling in Chicago, 1917-1939” (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012): 182.
40
Dolores Delgado Bernal, “Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical Theory, and Critical Raced-gendered
Epistemologies: Recognizing Students of Color as Holders and Creators of Knowledge,” Qualitative Inquiry 8 No. 1
(2002); Richard Valencia, “The Mexican American Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity in Mendez v.
Westminster: Helping to Pave the Way for Brown s. Board of Education,” Teachers College Record 107, No. 3
(March 2005).
41
Daniel G. Solórzano, and Tara J. Yosso, “Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical
Framework for Education Research,” Qualitative Inquiry 8, no. 1 (2002): 25-27.
42
Dolores Delgado Bernal, “Critical Race Theory, Latino Critical Theory, and Critical Raced-gendered
Epistemologies: Recognizing Students of Color as Holders and Creators of Knowledge,” Qualitative Inquiry 8 No. 1
(2002): 109.
43
Richard R. Valencia, Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational
Equality (New York: New York University Press, 2008).
44
Valencia, Chicano Students, 2008.: xv.
45
Bernal, “Critical Race Theory,” 2002.
46
MacDonald, Latino Education, 2004: 43-44.
47
San Miguel, Guadalupe Jr. Chicana/o Struggles for Education: Activism in the Community (College Station:
Texas A&M University Press, 2013).
48
San Miguel Jr., “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987.
49
San Miguel Jr., “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987.
50
Victoria-María MacDonald, “Demanding Their Rights: The Latino Struggle for Educational Access and Equity,”
American Latinos and the Making of the United States: A Theme Study. Online through the U.S. National Park
Service http://www.nps.gov/latino/latinothemestudy/education.htm (accessed Oct. 2014).
51
San Miguel, Chicana/o Struggles for Education, 2013.
52
Perez, “The Color of Youth,” 2012.
53
San Miguel, “Let all of Them Take Head,” 1987: x.
54
Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society: Needs and Opportunities for Study (Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press, 1960); Lawrence A. Cremin, Public Education (New York: Basic Books, Inc.,
Publishers, 1976).
55
William Reese, Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grassroots Movements During the Progressive Era,
second edition (New York: Teachers College Press, 2002): 149.
56
Anne Meis Knupfer and Christine Woyshner, eds., The Educational Work of Women’s Organizations, 1890-1960
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008); Emily Mieras, “Later-Day Knights: College Women, Social Settlements,
and Social Class in the Progressive-Era United States,” The Educational Work of Women’s Organizations, 18901960. Eds. Anne Meis Knupfer and Christine Woyshner, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 101-119. In The
Educational Work of Women’s Organizations, 1890-1960, Anne Meis Knupfer and Christine Woyshner’s
introduction provides an impetus for further research into the roles of voluntary women’s organizations in education,
in and out of schools. In her chapter from Knupfer and Woyshner’s edited text, Emily Mieras directly addresses
33
settlement work, specifically the work of women who volunteered in College Settlement Association (CSA)
settlements. Mieras addresses the history of the CSA, their work, and the effects of these experiences on the
volunteers. While Reese’s, Anne Meis Knupfer and Christine Woyshner’s, and Mieras’ work begins to fill a
legitimate gap in the scholarship, it does so from a particular viewpoint, that of the people in the role of the
educators and volunteers.
57
For texts written by settlement leaders and early scholars of settlements, see: Esther G. Barrows, Neighbors All: A
Settlement Notebook (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1929); Arthur C. Holden, The Settlement Idea: A Vision of
Social Justice (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922); Lorene M. Pacey, Ed., Readings in the Development of
Settlement Work (New York: Association Press, 1950). For more critical settlement scholarship, see: Mina Carson,
Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930 (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1990); Allen F. Davis, Spearheads of Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive
Movement, 1890-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); Howard Jacob Karger, The Sentinels of Order:
A Study of Social Control and the Minneapolis Settlement House Movement, 1915-1950 (Lanham, MD: University
Press of America, 1987); Kathleen D. McCarthy, Ed., Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy, and Power
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1990); Judith Ann Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change:
From the Settlement House Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1987); Judith Ann Trolander, Settlement Houses and the Great Depression (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1975).
58
Juana Maria Reyes, “Common Space, Safe Space: Lived Experiences of Former Settlement House Participants
from the West Town and Humboldt Park Neighborhoods of Chicago” (doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, 2008).
59
Jon N. Hale, “The Struggle Begins Early: Head Start and the Mississippi Freedom Movement,” History of
Education Quarterly 53, No. 4, (November 2012): 506-534. While Hale describes churches sponsoring Head Start
programs, Head Start began in the mid-1960s, and out of the range of this study.
60
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Social
Prospectus of Kansas City, Missouri (The Research Bureau of the Board of Public Welfare, August, 1913); Dennis
Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1991); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the
Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000); Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History
of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press,
1993).
61
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996.
62
Valdés, Mexicans in Minnesota, 2005.
63
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000.
64
Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian Americanization’: A Study in Cultural Conflict,” In
Forging A Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, Eds. James B. Lane, and Edward
J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987):115-136.
65
Vicki Ruíz, “Dead Ends or Gold Mines?: Using Missionary Records in Mexican-American Women’s History,”
Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies 12 Number 1 (1991): 35-56; Vicki Ruíz, From Out of the Shadows:
Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
66
Cheryl R. Ganz, and Margaret Strobel, Eds., Pots of Promise: Mexicans and Pottery at Hull-House, 1920-1940
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
67
Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, eds., Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994).
34
68
Sister Mary Helen Rogers, “The Role of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican
Community to Life in the Indiana Harbor Area, 1940-1951,” In Forging A Community: The Latino Experience in
Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, Eds. James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987):187200.
69
David A. Badillo, “The Catholic Church and the Making of Mexican-American Parish Communities in the
Midwest,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994), 237-308.
70
Roberto R. Trevino, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
71
Jay P. Dolan and Allan Figueroa Deck, S.J., Eds., Hispanic Catholic Culture: Issues and Concerns (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).
72
Paul Barton, Hispanic Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).
73
Lawrence A. Cremin, Popular Education and Its Discontents (New York: Harper and Row, 1990): 63-64.
74
Perez, “The Color of Youth,” 2012.
75
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 191.
76
For the most part, historians of Mexican American education have focused on formal schooling rather than
informal means of transmitting knowledge, skills, and values. See: Guadalupe Jr. San Miguel, “Let All of them Take
Heed”: Mexican Americans and the Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas, 1910-1981 (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1987); Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadelphia: Balch
Institute, 1990); Victoria-Maria MacDonald, Latino Education in the United States: A Narrated History from 15132000 (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004); Rubén Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos in Colorado Schools and
Communities, 1920-1960 (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2007); Rubén Donato, The Other Struggle for Equal Schools:
Mexican Americans during the Civil Rights Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997).
77
Carl E. Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (New York: Hill and
Wang, 1983); Joel Spring, The American School, 1642-2004, Sixth edition (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2005); David
Tyack, and Elisabeth Hansot, Learning Together: A History of Coeducation in American Public Schools (New York,
Russell Sage Foundation, 1992).
78
Rubén Donato, and Marvin Lazerson “New Directions in American Educational History,” Educational
Researcher 29, no. 8 (2000): 1-15.
79
Nancy Cott, Gerda Lerner, Kathryn Kish Sklar, Ellen DuBois, and Nancy Hewitt, “Considering the State of U.S.
Women’s History,” Journal of Women’s History 15, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 145-163.
80
Margaret A. Nash, “The Historiography of Education For Girls and Women in the United States,” in Rethinking
the History of American Education, eds. William J. Reese and John L. Rury (New York: Palgrave MacMillan,
2008): 145.
81
Nash, “The Historiography of Education,” 150, 145.
82
Nash, “The Historiography of Education,” 2008.
83
San Miguel, “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987; Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation, 1990;
Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; Donato, The Other Struggle for Equal Schools, 1997; MacDonald, Latino
Education in the United States, 2004.
35
84
Dolores Delgado Bernal, “Historical Struggles for Educational Equity: Setting the Context for Chicana/o
Schooling Today,” in Charting New Terrains of Chicana(o)/Latina(o) Education, eds. Carlos Tejeda, Corinne
Martinez, Zeus Leonardo (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton, 2000): 67-90.
85
Vicki Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2008): 33-50.
86
Yolanda Chávez Leyva, “Cruzando la Linea: Engendering the History of Border Mexican Children during the
Early Twentieth Century,” in Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua & Chicana Histories, eds., Vicki L. Ruiz
and John R. Chávez (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008): 71-92.
87
Perez, “The Color of Youth,” 2012.
88
Bernal, “Critical Race Theory,” 2002; Lilia Fernández, “Telling Stories About School: Using Critical Race and
Latino Critical Theories to Document Latina/Latino Education and Resistance,” Qualitative Inquiry 8, no. 1 (2002):
45-65; Solórzano, and Yosso, “Critical Race Methodology,” 2002.
89
August W. Steinhilber, and C.J. Sokolowski. State Law on Compulsory Attendance (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1966): 3.
90
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Valdes, Al Norte, 1991; Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000; Zaragosa
Vargas, “Mexican Immigrants in the Midwest,” in Major Problems in Mexican American History, ed. Zaragosa
Vargas (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 254-265; Zaragosa Vargas, Proletariats of the North: A
History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933, (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).
91
Rubén Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos in Colorado Schools and Communities, 1920-1960 (Albany, NY: SUNY
Press, 2007. In his introduction to Mexicans and Hispanos, Donato explains the distinction between these two
Latino groups. Hispanos are descendants of those people who lived in isolation in the Spanish “outpost” of what is
now New Mexico and who were under Spanish control from 1598 to 1821, Mexican control from 1821 to 1848, and
U.S. control since 1848. Because of the relatively short Mexican period, Hispanos did not identify as Mexicans; they
were Spanish and then Spanish American. While these two Latino groups often live side by side, Mexicans and
Hispanos are two distinct groups with distinct histories.
92
Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; Rubén Donato, The Other Struggle for Equal Schools: Mexican
Americans during the Civil Rights Era (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997); Victoria-Maria
MacDonald, Latino Education in the United States: A Narrated History from 1513-2000 (New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004); Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., “Let All of them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans and the
Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas, 1910-1981 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987); Richard R.
Valencia, Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational Equality (New
York: New York University Press, 2008).
93
Cremin, Public Education, 1976: 21-22. In discussing the problems of the Progressive Theory of Education,
Cremin further addresses education outside of schools: “The important fact is that family life does educate, religious
life does educate, and organized work does educate; and what is more, the education of all these three realms is as
intentional as the education of the school.”
94
P. Coombs, New Paths to Learning for Rural Children and Youth (New York: International Council for
Educational Development, 1973). According to Coombs, formal education follows hierarchical, chronological, and
graded structures and spans elementary school to higher education or other vocational training institutions. Formal
education is equitable with formal schooling (11).
95
Arlen Etling, “What is Nonformal Education?” Journal of Agricultural Education (Winter 1993): 72-76; J. Kleis,
L. Lang, J.R. Mietus, and F.T.S. Tiapula, “Toward a Contextual Definition of Nonformal Education,” Nonformal
Education Discussion Papers (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 1973).
36
96
Arlen Etling, “What is Nonformal Education?” Journal of Agricultural Education (Winter 1993): 72-76. Informal
education is equitable with familial or day-to-day education, that which is probably not always structured (73).
97
Dr. Katrina Sanders, Associate Professor, in the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the
University of Iowa.
98
My archival work was, in part, contingent on my ability to gain funding and to drive to collections.
99
As I explain in the Note on Sources, I only had to transcribe the interviews from the “Hispanic Oral History
Collection,” which the Kansas City Public Library so kindly let me borrow via interlibrary loan. In total, I
transcribed 31 interviews.
100
While I tried to pursue transcribed interviews to save myself time, the interviews from the Missouri Valley
Special Collections’ Hispanic Oral History Collection met all of my other criteria and contained rich details, and I
they were worth the extra work.
101
For more on the field of oral history and oral history methodologies, see: Jack Dougherty, “From Anecdote to
Analysis: Oral Interviews and New Scholarship in Educational History,” The Journal of American History
(September 1999), 712-723; Robert Perks, and Alistair Thomson, editors, The Oral History Reader, Second edition
(New York: Routledge, 1998); Donald A. Ritchie, Doing Oral History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003);
Linda Shopes, “Oral History and the Study of Communities: Problems, Paradoxes, and Possibilities,” in The Oral
History Reader, Second edition, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (New York: Routledge, 1998); Paul
Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Kathleen Weiler and Sue
Middleton, editors. Telling Women’s Lives: Narrative Inquiries in the History of Women’s Education (Philadelphia:
Open University Press, 1999).
102
Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson, “Introduction,” in The Oral History Reader, Second edition, eds. Robert
Perks and Alistair Thomson (New York: Routledge, 1998), ix.
103
John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History, Third
Edition, London, Pearson, 2000: 201.
104
Thompson, The Voice of the Past, 2000, p. 271.
105
Jack Dougherty, From Anecdote to Analysis: Oral Interviews and New Scholarship in Educational History, The
Journal of American History (September 1999), 720.
106
Linda Shopes, Oral History and the Study of Communities: Problems, Paradoxes, and Possibilities The Journal of
American History 89 (2) September 2002, 593-594.
107
108
Naomi Norquay, “Identity and Forgetting,” The Oral History Review 26, no 1 (Winter-Spring 1999): 6.
Ibid.
109
Though Mexicana/os utilized many institutions in their pursuit of non-formal education, I chose to focus on these
two because of Mexicana/os in the interviews representing those locales described these settlements extensively and
because, besides the many interviews, I also had access to extensive institutional records from the Minnesota
Historical Society and the Missouri Valley Special Collections archives.
37
CHAPTER ONE
“IF YOU WERE MEXICAN, YOU HAD YOUR PLACE” 1: STRUCTURES AND PRACTICES
MEXICANA/OS ENCOUNTERED IN PUBLIC AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
In 1915, at the behest of Mexicana/os in the “Mexican Village” located outside of Dodge City,
Kansas, a local priest constructed a schoolhouse with the permission of the Santa Fe Railroad. A single,
non-Spanish speaking teacher taught reading, geography, and arithmetic to about 49 children, and a
Spanish-speaking priest came in to teach religion and read to the children in Spanish. The children
learned English, probably by means of immersion. Soon, the school was inadequate for meeting the needs
of the children, and the local school board agreed to build a two-room public school in 1921, to which
they later added another room in 1926 so students could attend the fifth and sixth grades. Before this,
children could only attend to 4th grade, with no options for continuing elsewhere. 2 This public school was
known as the “Mexican School” until 1929, when students petitioned to change the name to Coronado
School. 3 In spite of the additional rooms, the school remained too small for the community’s needs and
without common amenities for the times. Children drank water from a bucket and communal dipper until
1940, when the school board approved a fountain and a toilet. Occasionally, the principal and teachers
took children to their homes, fed them, and taught them to use utensils. In 1948, the Santa Fe Railroad
sold the land on which the school was built, and the school board transferred Coronado students to the
public schools in town. 4
When Mexicana/os moved from the all-Mexican Coronado School to the formerly all-white
Roosevelt School, administrators placed them in the special education room, allegedly because they did
not know English. John Rodriguez attended Coronado until it closed in 1948 and transferred to Roosevelt
School. Rodriguez recalls: “My first tools, and again, exposure to public school systems was that I was
given a Big Chief tablet, a box of Crayola’s, and a pair of scissors, and that was the extent of my
curriculum, for my first years in the public school system.” 5 The principal, who had employed Rodriguez
for yard work, knew the Rodriguez family, and knew that Rodriguez could speak English, saw Rodriguez
38
in this room and had him moved to a conventional classroom. While Rodriguez was able to move out of
the special education room, many were not. 6 Rodriguez’ story provides a glimpse of what Mexicana/os
encountered in public schools, both separate and integrated, in the Midwest in the first half of the
twentieth century. Rodriguez’ experiences and those of hundreds more Mexicana/os reveal that
communities fashioned and maintained formal schooling structures and practices in public and parochial
schools based on racialized, gendered, and classed notions about Mexicana/os and some of these worked
to perpetuate discrimination against Mexicana/os, socially and economically.
The chapter begins with an overview of the schools available to Mexicana/os in locales where I
focus the majority of the remainder of the dissertation, including: Armourdale, Argentine, and Rosedale,
three barrios in Kansas City, Kansas; El Huarache, a barrio in Wichita, Kansas; Emporia, Kansas; Garden
City, Kansas; Cook’s Point, a barrio in Davenport, Iowa; the Westside, a barrio in Kansas City, Missouri;
and the West Side, a barrio in St. Paul, Minnesota. In the remainder of the chapter, I look at the varied
school structures, policies, and practices Mexicana/os encountered in the Midwest during this period.
While several schools in Kansas and Iowa segregated Mexicana/os into separate schools or rooms, most
Mexicana/os living in the Midwest attended school with Anglo peers. Yet, in both segregated and
integrated schools, Mexicana/os encountered differential school structures and teaching practices. 7
Neither separate nor integrated school structures were immune to national and local politics and or the
processes of racialization in regard to Mexicana/os. Public and parochial schools in the Midwest
maintained racialized structures and practices, including Anglo-centric curricula, English-only policies,
holding back Mexicana/o students in primary grades, forced vocational education and non-academic
curricula, and, in extreme cases, separate rooms or schools for Mexicana/os.
Public and Parochial Schools Available to Mexicana/os
It is difficult to determine how many Mexicana/os attended schools and where they attended
during this period. Institutional records available for scholarly use leave out information about or
inconsistently document Mexicana/os attendance at public and parochial schools in the Midwest in the
39
first half of the twentieth century. For example, Davenport’s school board records do not mention
Mexicana/o students, though Mexicana/o children attended Davenport public and parochial schools since
the 1920s. Local historians of Davenport schools never mention Mexicana/o students, while local
historians of Kansas City, Kansas, schools note when Mexicana/os began to attend school. 8 While the
U.S. Census attempted to document minor children attending school, many Mexicana/o children remained
uncounted because they were not yet back from working the migrant route when the census takers came
around or because their families avoided being counted. Additionally, census information does not
specify where Mexicana/o children attended school or whether they attended public or parochial schools.
In spite of growing populations of Mexicana/os in the Midwest, many regional histories fail to reference
Mexicana/os at all or refer to only Mexicana/os’ work for railroads, packinghouses, and agricultural
industries and not to schooling for the children. 9
One might assume that few if any Mexicana/os attended schools during this period. Yet,
Mexicana/os did attend schools across the Midwest, in rural areas, small towns, mid-sized cities, and
large urban areas. While this chapter and the following chapters reference schools serving Mexicana/os
across the region, the following tables identify the parochial and public schools available and those most
commonly attended by Mexicana/os in the specific locales addressed throughout this dissertation.
40
Table 1.1
Barrios in Kansas City, Kansas
Armourdale
Parochial Public
John J. Ingalls (1918,
basement)
Mexican annex (1922, a
separate building on
Ingalls’ school grounds)
Fiske School
Argentine
Parochial
St. Thomas
St. John the
Evangelist (most
attended)
Ward High
School
Central Junior High
Public
Emerson (1918,
basement)
Stanley School
Clara Barton
Rosedale
Parochial
Public
Melville School
(integrated)
Major Hudson
Annex (the Old
Melville School)
Major Hudson
(New),
Argentine Junior
High School
Argentine High
School
(integrated 1927)
Wyandotte High School
Table 1.2
Barrios in Kansas
El Huarache, Wichita, Kansas
Parochial
Public
Our Lady of
Waco
Perpetual Help
School
School
(most
(Mexican parish, attended
most attended)
public
school)
St. Patrick’s
Irving
School
Emporia, KS
Parochial
Sacred Heart (Anglo
parish, Mexicana/os
attended until
Mexican parish
opened)
Saint Catherine’s
(Mexican parish,
most attended)
Maynard Junior
High School
St. Joseph’s
St. Joseph’s School
Lowther Junior High
School (most
attended junior high)
Emporia Junior High
School
Emporia High
School
Horace
Mann Junior
High School
North High
School
41
Public
Riverside School
(integrated public
school, most
attended before St.
Catherine’s opened)
Garden City, Kansas
Parochial
Public
St. Mary’s
Old Garfield
of the Plain School
School
Garden City
High School
(briefly
Sequoyah High
School)
Table 1.3
Barrios in Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota
Cook’s Point, Davenport, Iowa
Westside, Kansas City, Missouri
Parochial
St. Alphonsus
School (most
attended)
St. Anthony’s
School
Parochial
Our Lady of
Guadalupe School
(most attended)
Redemptorist High
School
Public
Fillmore School
Monroe School
(most attended)
Rockingham
School
Frank L. Smart
Junior High
School
Davenport High
School (later
Central High)
Public
Adams School
Switzer School
(most attended)
Jane Hayes
Gates (girls
trade school)
Lathrop Trade
School (boys
trade school)
West Junior
High School
West Side, Saint Paul,
Minnesota
Parochial
Public
St.
Lafayette
Matthew’s
School (most
School
attended)
Roosevelt
Junior High
Mechanic Arts
High School
Humboldt
High School
Manual
Training High
School
West High
School
The Mexican Problem and Structures and Practices in Midwestern Public and Parochial Schools
In the first half of the twentieth century, public school structures in the Midwest followed patterns
similar to schools across the U.S.: a top-down organization, from school board, to principal, to teacher,
graded classrooms, and lessons in reading, writing, geography, history, and math. Rural schools also
followed top-down organization but may have had one teacher who structured graded lessons for the
whole student population in a single room. Parochial schools had structures similar to those of public
schools, with the addition of mass and religious lessons. Some smaller parochial schools also had multiple
grades per classroom, depending on the number of students, the size of the school, and affluence of the
parish. Other formal school structures, policies, and practices related to dominant culture’s thinking about
race, social class, and gender.
42
Racialization of Mexicana/os and its effects on formal schooling were a national phenomenon.
Those who made decisions about the schools Mexicana/os attended and the type of instruction provided
for Mexicana/os often made decisions about what constituted Whiteness and one’s identity as an
“American.” As numbers of Mexicana/os settling in the Midwest increased in the 1920s, newspaper
articles referred to the “Mexican Problem” and offered commentary about Mexicana/os’ low morals and
poor standards of living, as well as Anglo parents’ concerns about their children attending school with
Mexicana/o children. This was especially evident in places with large populations of Mexicana/os and
where schools already practiced segregation for Blacks, like Kansas City, Kansas. 10 And all of these
factors influenced how schools served Mexicana/o students.
Class and gender prejudices also stemmed from the Mexican Problem ideology and affected
formal schooling for Mexicana/os. As discussed in the Introduction, some people deemed Mexicana/os as
permanent peons and unteachable, and many Mexicana/os reported attending parochial and public schools
in the Midwest during this time and finding themselves held back in primary grades, steered toward
vocational courses, provided with inferior lessons and materials, and neglected and/or mistreated to the
point that they dropped out of school. While the gender stereotypes concerning Mexicana/os were often
contradictory and ignored the complexities of individuals’ family dynamics, experiences, aspirations, and
abilities, the stereotypes sometimes influenced the structures and practices Mexicana/os encountered in
public and parochial schools, whether or not they were integrated. 11
Faced with what they saw as the Mexican Problem, some school boards, teachers, and community
members in the Midwest, who were for the most part Anglos, adapted national trends in Americanization
education as they designed local school structures and held to teaching practices they thought would
address the alleged problem. Both nativists and those more sympathetic to immigrants discussed the
Mexican Problem and organized committees to address Americanization education as a solution to the
problem. 12
Scholar of bilingual education Jeffrey Bale argues that Americanization had three goals: students
learning English and helping to replace home language with English, students acquiring vocabulary and
43
rudimentary mathematics skills rather than pursuing more academic studies, and students achieving
behavioral assimilation, or replacing their traditional food, dress, manners, and hygiene with “American”
standards in these areas. 13 Writing about Americanization for Mexicans in California in 1931, Merton E.
Hill calls for agencies and schools to teach Mexicana/o children “the use of the English language, the
right American customs, and the best possible standards of American life.” 14 Yet, several scholars of
Mexican American history argue that Americanization for Mexicana/os was different from that directed at
other immigrant groups at the time. Mexicana/os were neither white nor black and many popular and
scholarly circles deemed them inassimilable. They assert that Americanization education for Mexicana/os
included not only teaching English and Anglo-centric values, as was the case for other immigrant groups;
it also included diminishing Mexican culture. 15 Stereotypes about race, class, and gender and national and
local calls for Americanization education influenced the structures and practices Mexicana/os
encountered in midwestern public and parochial schools, including Anglo-centric curricula, English-only
policies, holding back practices, forced vocational and non-academic curricula, and, in the extreme cases,
separate rooms and/or schools for Mexicana/os.
Anglo-Centric Curriculum
Some Mexicana/os describe curricula and practices that promoted behavioral assimilation and
that targeted young Mexicanas as the people who would transmit these cultural changes in their natal
families and in their families to come. Anglo-centric lessons geared toward behavioral assimilation
revolved around the foods people consumed and how food was prepared and eaten. Bale asserts that,
“replacing habits of food and dress with American versions was paramount to Americanizers.” 16 In some
ways, lessons in behavioral assimilation provided Mexicana/os with new experiences or cultural capital.
Some Mexicanas took cooking classes while attending junior high and high schools, learning how to cook
“American” foods and how to serve them. Elvira Ramirez, who attended Riverview School, in Kansas
City, Kansas, recalls, “I learned in seventh grade how to set a table and how to use utensils correctly. Up
to that point, most of our food was [eaten] with the use of tortillas rather than utensils.”17 Ramirez later
joined a religious order, earned professional college degrees, taught in higher education, and served on
44
committees and organizations. These lessons in food and etiquette probably aided Ramirez in her
professional development. However, in several cases, the behavioral assimilation aspect of
Americanization education created an environment in which teachers and administrators normalized
Anglo culture at the expense of Mexican culture.
While teachers and administrators intended lessons in American deportment and food to aid in the
Americanization process and teach skills Mexicana/os may not have learned at home, they also reinforced
racialized stereotypes and the alleged inferiority of Mexican culture and food and contributed to
unwelcoming and abusive school environments. Multiple interviewees report that Anglo peers ostracized
them when they brought Mexican foods to school for lunch. Salvador Lopez recalls taunts about his lunch
at St. Alphonsus School in Davenport: “I remember that a bunch of kids would take tacos to school, and
all the kids would make fun of us for… ‘Oh, what have you guys got?’” 18 Mary Soliz Diaz walked home
from Wichita’s Our Lady of Perpetual Health for lunch because Anglo students would “make fun of us
cause we take tacos, you know, so we use to go home to eat.” 19 These Mexicana/o students and several
others did not have a choice in what they brought to school for lunch and many continued to eat their
Mexican food at home or hiding out during lunch with other Mexicana/os. 20 School structures normalized
Anglo culture and foods, as well as middle class foods and manners for both Anglo and Mexicana/o
students, leaving open the door for such bullying or even making it acceptable.
Similarly, many curricula and texts normalized Anglo-centric history and culture at the expense
of other cultures and histories. Several Mexicana/os describe books and lessons that excluded Mexican
and Mexican American history and culture. Armida Martinez describes the differences between what she
read in schoolbooks and her lived experiences in Emporia, Kansas:
Tom, Dick, and Jane. And that’s all it was, you always saw a very neat little house with a mother
always dressed up and always the two kids or the three and the dog. You could never associate
with anything like that…. The story they always told was far from yours, far from what you were
living. You always have more than two or three kids, and your mother was never dressed up in
heels all day, and your dad was never always in the white shirt and tie…. and there was never
common names for the Mexican race because it was different.21
45
Mexicana/os did not learn about Mexicans or Mexican Americans as contributors to U.S. history or
culture. While these omissions may have had more to do with the texts used in the schools rather than
deliberate omissions on the part of teachers, Mexicana/os noted the gaps in the curriculum and how they
affected them.
Through normalizing Anglo-centric culture and history and thus othering Mexican culture and
history, behavioral assimilation lessons and Anglo-centric texts invalidated Mexicana/o culture and
created environments unwelcoming to Mexicana/os or to which they could not relate. However, the most
commonly reported school policy that degraded Mexican culture and made schools unwelcoming or even
hostile to Mexicana/os were English-only policies, which, in turn, often led to the practice of holding
back Mexicana/o students in the primary grades.
English-Only Policies
English-only policies were a relatively new movement during this period. In the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century, many U.S. schools, including in the Midwest, offered instruction in a
language other than English and/or schools taught in both English and a home language. 22 During this
period, schools across the United States also practiced some form of bilingual education. Bilingual
education practices varied from locality to locality, based on the needs of students and parents in
communities, the structures and capabilities of the local schools, and the sociopolitical context of the
time. Most scholars agree that groups who spoke German, Dutch, or French were more likely to have
access to home language instruction or bilingual education than speakers of Spanish or other indigenous
languages. 23 While mass was performed in Latin, many Catholic parish schools not only allowed students
to speak their native language but they also engaged priests and nuns specifically because they knew the
language. In the Southwest, many schools taught entirely in Spanish, many of them started by
Mexicana/os and Hispania/os in order to retain their language and culture rather than send their children
to segregated schools or schools bent on Americanization. 24 Before World War I, many German
Americans received instruction in German in both public and parochial schools and retained their
language and cultural practices in their homes. 25 Then came the influx of immigrants from eastern and
46
southern Europe and Asia and the beginning of U.S. involvement in World War I. Nativist fears of
unassimilated masses, political radicals, and race contamination led to exclusionary immigration
legislation, calls for Americanization education for those already in the country, and the push for English.
Beyond citizenship lessons, Americanization education focused on teaching the newcomers
English. Almost across the board, nativists and those sympathetic to immigrants deemed that the use of
home language at school impeded children’s ability to learn English. English-only policies and practices
became the norm in schools across the nation, including the Midwest. In 1917, Iowa governor W.L.
Harding declared that English was “the official language of the United States and the state of Iowa” and
that during the war “English should and must be the only medium of instruction in public, private,
denominational or other similar schools.” 26
By the time Mexicana/os began attending schools in significant numbers in the Midwest in the
early 1920s, most public and parochial schools, including segregated schools that served only
Mexicana/os, held to English-only practices in classrooms, enforced English usage on playgrounds, and
encouraged parents to speak only English in the home. 27 Some Mexicana/os newly arrived to the Midwest
did have English ability, but many did not. Yet, while teachers, administrators, and the broader
community expected Mexicana/os to learn English, I found little evidence of bilingual education materials
or curricula to teach Mexicana/os English in schools. 28 Incidentally, bilingual education practices, though
varied, were common across the U.S. and territories that would later become the U.S. since the mid1800s. 29 Throughout the Midwest, it was a common practice to prohibit Spanish at school and let children
learn by means of immersion. In his history “Just Across the Tracks,” Domingo Ricart describes the
notion of sink of swim for learning English for Mexicana/os living in Kansas in this timeframe. Domingo
describes teachers with few Spanish skills and states that “the Mexican child, at a very tender age and
with little specific help, [had] to solve the problems of bilingualism that bother many college students.” 30
Ignacio Avila recalls learning English at public school in Garden City, Kansas: “We didn’t have any
bilingual stuff in those years. You went, you went to learn English, and that was it.” 31 At Monroe School
47
in Davenport, Iowa, Mary Terronez learned English “just by listening, you know. There was no English
language class. Just by listening to other people talk, and I picked it up.” 32
Some Mexicana/os recall certain teachers’ willingness to use Spanish. Others recall teachers who,
even if they did not know Spanish, aided language learners rather than leaving them to flounder. Although
most attendees of St. Alphonsus in Davenport remembered the sisters speaking only English, Maria
Aguilera recalls, “There was one nun there…. She spoke Spanish and English…. We knew she spoke
Spanish, and she was a nun. That helped us out a lot.” 33 Victor Rodriguez recalls that “a couple of the
nuns…spoke Spanish” at St. Catherine’s School in Emporia, Kansas. 34 In Lake Lillian, outside of St.
Paul, Jesús Mercado experienced the support and acceptance from his teachers and fellow students, many
of them new immigrants, at school. Mercado says the teacher taught for “the betterment of the pupils,”
and that she “commended us as far as we were concerned. They made every effort to assist us, and our
language.” 35 Felisa Ruiz began school without speaking any English, but her first grade teacher, Mrs.
Web, helped her and other Mexicana/os to learn quickly: “She turned out to be a jewel. Because of her
efforts, we picked up English readily. She devoted a lot of time to us. She would take us on recess and
noon hours and point to objects.” 36 While these few teachers’ practices of using Spanish and/or having a
positive or even neutral attitude toward Spanish made learning easier for these particular Mexicana/os, the
situation for these and many other Mexicana/os was like swimming upstream because the majority of
administrators, teachers, and peers upheld English-only policies.
English-only was not the only available choice for schools if their intent was to teach English.
Schools in other areas of the U.S., including New Mexico and Texas, provided bilingual education for
teaching English to Spanish speakers. 37 According to Mexicana/os, including Aguilera and Rodriguez,
some teachers in the Midwest had Spanish speaking skills and the inclination to use them, but their hands
were tied by English-only policies. Even without Spanish speaking teachers, schools in the Midwest
could have acquired books and materials for teaching English, which were available to most institutions
that taught Americanization. 38 Several interviewees report that they or their parents attended English
classes after hours in schools, in churches, YMCAs and through other organizations that maintained
48
Americanization programs for adults. 39 As Mercado’s and Ruiz’ teachers evidenced, teachers did not have
to speak Spanish or acquire expensive materials in order to teach English or be compassionate toward
language learners. Yet, few interviewees report English instruction for children in schools during the
school day. The majority of midwestern schools did not practice bilingual education and did not acquire
or use available materials for teaching English to Mexicana/os. Many midwestern public and parochial
schools maintained English-only policies, even when other alternatives existed and when it was obviously
not the most efficient or compassionate way of teaching English.
In their interviews, many Mexicana/os report attending midwestern schools that abided by
English-only policies, whether by law or by custom, and that did not provide consistent English learning
materials or instruction. 40 With English-only policies, the onus of learning English fell entirely on these
Mexicana/o children and so did the blame if they failed to learn English. When Mexicana/os had
difficulty learning English under English-only policies, some teachers told them it was because of their
race/ethnicity, because they were stupid, and/or because they did not try or care to try and should go back
to Mexico. 41 English-only structures and practices marginalized Mexicana/os’ home language and culture,
perpetuated racialized and classist stereotypes, and, often, resulted in further racist and classist policies
and practices.
Holding Back Practices
In several cases, English-only policies led to the practice of holding back Mexicana/o students, or
not allowing them to progress to the next grade, usually in the primary grades. Teachers and
administrators practiced holding back in both parochial and public schools. Julio Serrano attended St.
Alphonsus in Davenport, Iowa, where he reported that the teachers upheld English-only policies:
The nuns…all they could talk was nothing but English. So, they talk to you in English…. Every
time I was going to pass a grade, I wasn’t smart enough to pass. I think I spent about two years in
second grade, and another two years in third grade, and it was so slow. I mean, I wasn’t a dummy.
I was more like, I couldn’t learn…. And, it was so hard for me to learn the English language. 42
49
D.C. Garcia also attended a school that held to English-only practices and describes his experience in
Garden City, Kansas:
I went through three years without understanding too much English. My folks didn’t understand,
they didn’t speak any English, and, consequently, at home, I didn’t hear much English going on.
And, the older brothers could speak some but when they’d get home, they spoke nothing but
Spanish, so consequently, I spent three years in first grade. I had to learn it, and I had to
understand it, and I had to read and write it. 43
When Mexicana/o students did not learn English, schools retained children in first grade or other grades,
sometimes for numerous years. 44 For some this retention meant another year of first grade in an Englishonly setting and no English instruction. While Tony Oropesa describes Mexicana/o children in their late
teens still attempting to learn English in primary grades, 45 many others dropped out of elementary school.
It was common for many Mexicana/os who experienced being held back numerous times, usually
in correlation with English-only experiences, to drop out of school out of shame or frustration with their
situations. D.C. Garcia “quit” school after seventh grade to help support his family after his father died,
but he had other reasons for leaving: “through my grammar years, I didn’t learn much about the English
language or about books or about reading or about arithmetic, and I lost interest. And, it was real hard for
me to continue school because I never made the grade.” 46 Mervin Gardiner, an Anglo who grew up and
attended school with Mexicana/os in Garden City recalled in an interview that Mexicana/os “spent too
many years getting up to, say an 8th grade education, [and] by that time they got to that age they didn’t
have to go to school any more. So, they’d drop out.” 47 As a consequence of excessive holding back
practices, which often stemmed from English-only policies, many Mexicana/os left school. By
maintaining holding back practices for Mexicana/os in both integrated and segregated public and
parochial schools in the Midwest, schools created and maintained school structures that resulted in many
Mexicana/os leaving school, which, in turn, perpetuated racial and class stereotypes about Mexicana/os
not valuing education. These practices and results correspond with findings of historians of Mexican
American history in the U.S. and Mexican American education in the Southwest. 48
50
Forced Vocational and Non-Academic Curricula
While schools in the Southwest placed Mexicana/os predominately in vocational tracks, 49 in the
Midwest, Mexicana/os experienced a broader spectrum of curricula. Based on the interviews and other
primary sources, this broader spectrum is more likely due to smaller populations of Mexicana/os in the
Midwest and the assistance of those individual teachers and administrators who worked for Mexicana/o
school success. On one end of the spectrum, some Mexicana/os report teachers pushing them to excel in
academics, to graduate from high school, and, in some cases, to go into some kind of education after high
school. On the other end of the spectrum, some Mexicana/os report being given “busy work” and
gendered vocational training, neither of which promoted college preparation. 50 Based on the interviews
consulted for this study, the majority of Mexicana/os fell somewhere in the middle of this spectrum in
their experiences with school structures and practices, taking both academic and vocational coursework
when they attended both public and parochial junior and senior high schools. 51 Yet, regardless of where
Mexicana/os fell within this spectrum, at some point, many report experiencing teachers, counselors, or
administrators steering them toward courses based on their race, class, and/or gender rather than their
individual goals or needs.
In some cases, Mexicana/os report taking academically challenging and college preparatory
courses. Both girls and boys participated in academic courses, though it is not clear how children’s gender
influenced who was more likely to be exposed to this end of the spectrum. While attending Central High
in Davenport, sisters Julia Navarro and Rosie Ramirez took Spanish classes.52 While she remembered
taking cooking and sewing classes, Navarro also took English, math, and geography courses. 53 In Garden
City, Cipriana Rodriguez’ teacher encouraged her in English classes.54 In Kansas City, Kansas, Aurora
Oropreza took chemistry and art classes.55 At North High in Wichita, Tony Oropesa took algebra and
Spanish. 56 Frank Chavez attended a small one-room country school near Beauford, Minnesota, and went
on to graduate from a high school in a nearby town, which suggests he had the preparatory work in the
primary grades to qualify for admission to the high school. In midwestern schools, there were
51
opportunities in some locales for Mexicana/os to delve into challenging coursework, attend junior and
senior school, and take college preparatory classes.
Several Mexicana/os report being steered or even forced away from academic courses and toward
vocational courses or based on race, class, and/or gender, rather than by ability or desire. One particular
case reveals how gender identity, or perceived identity, could be an inhibitor. A principal’s beliefs about
gender, and possibly race, trumped the support of a teacher and a girl’s desire to further pursue science.
While Aurora Oropeza was able to take chemistry at Argentine High in Kansas City, Kansas, she was
steered away from more advanced academic classes:
Mr. Shell…he was very nice, and in fact, when I took chemistry I guess he liked me, not
personally, but he liked my work, so he was trying to encourage me to take physics. But the
principal said no, in those days girls didn’t take chemistry, or were [not] interested in chemistry,
or what would I do in physics, so he talked me out of it, and its true that there were no girls in
physics, even though my chemistry teacher wanted me to take physics. Because I did so well in
chemistry, he thought I would do well in science…. So, instead of taking physics, he [the
principal] made me take cooking. 57
Oropeza went on to take several cooking and sewing classes, and after graduating, Oropeza earned a
college degree and a nursing degree. 58 The principal relieved Oropreza of her choices and assigned her to
courses that perpetuated racial, classist, and gender stereotypes about Mexicanas. Several Mexicanas
encountered gendered vocational education, like cooking or home economics, which also often included
an Americanization push. 59 Some Mexicanas chose vocational training they valued, like typing, and that
was useful for their socioeconomic advancement, but when teachers, counselors, and other school people
steered Mexicanas toward vocational training, it was usually highly gendered vocational training.
Mexicana/os also describe teaching practices and curricula based entirely on the beliefs that
Mexicana/os were unable to learn based on their race, class, and culture or did not need academic
instruction since they were, allegedly, destined for menial work. Lucy Vargas attended St. Alphonsus for
a short time and recalls the teachers’ prejudices concerning Mexicana/o children: “I think they kind of
thought, you know, we weren’t as educate-able as the Anglo kids, so some, some I think they let go, fall
52
through the cracks.” 60 Dolores Garcia recalls starting kindergarten at St. Alphonsus in Davenport late, at
age eight. Garcia explains that she already “knew everything” and so the teacher had her do sewing
projects instead of working alongside the other children:
While they were over here drawing pictures and listening to a story and all that, the sister had me
in the other room making curtains for a box.... She’d say, ‘You go over there and sew those
curtains for my bookcase.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ So, that was what I was doing; I was too big for
kindergarten. 61
Based on accounts of other Mexicana/os who attended St. Alphonsus, the nuns let many Mexicana/os
“fall through the cracks” rather than see to their academic achievement. 62 Forced vocational steering and
non-academic curricula left Mexicana/os undereducated and unprepared for work other than that deemed
acceptable for Mexicans.
Vocational education and classes did not, in and of themselves, discriminate against Mexicana/os
or force Mexicana/os to take menial jobs. Vocational education could, in fact, provide powerful
opportunities for Mexicana/os. Vocational education and non-academic curricula became discriminatory
when teachers and administrators forced them upon Mexicana/os based on race, class, and gender
stereotypes and without regard to a person’s abilities or desires, as was the case for Oropreza and several
others. The structures and practices of Anglo-centric curricula, English-only, holding back, and forced
vocational and non-academic curricula perpetuated racial, class, and gender stereotypes and denied
Mexicana/os equitable education. Yet, some Mexicana/os claim that the most deleterious school
structures and practices they encountered were separate rooms and schools.
Separate and Unequal Mexican Rooms and Schools
In the Southwest, historians have demonstrated that some communities and schools explicitly and
commonly created and maintained separate and unequal school structures for Mexican Americans based
on race, class, and gender prejudices that perpetuated these prejudices and maintained second-class status
for Mexicana/os. 63 In the Southwest, no laws allowed for or required separate schools for Mexicana/os
53
based on race. Yet, the majority of school districts segregated Mexicana/os into separate and far from
equal schools or classrooms in the first half of the twentieth century. 64 In the Southwest, school boards
and communities concerned with keeping Mexicana/os out of Anglo schools turned to other means of
separation. These included gerrymandering school boundaries to ensure majority-Mexican enrollments or
building schools in or near barrios, insisting Mexicana/os required Americanization programs separate
from Anglo students, claiming Mexicana/o children needed separate linguistic instruction that would not
hold back “American” children, keeping separate those people they deemed unhealthy, dirty, or
morally/culturally deficient, and/or using IQ testing and other “evidence” to justify separation based on
alleged intellectual deficiencies. 65 Historians of Mexicana/o education in the Southwest concur that
school boards and communities held rationales for separate schools based on racism. 66 However, in the
Midwest, relatively few communities created and maintained separate and unequal schools and rooms for
Mexicana/s for many of the same reasons and with many of the same results. 67
In the Midwest in this period, no state laws required or allowed districts to separate Mexicana/os
based on race. Separate schools were not as common in the Midwest as they were in the Southwest, but
evidence reveals that, in some locales in the Midwest, 68 both public and parochial schools required
Mexicana/os to attend school in separate rooms or buildings. When midwestern communities constructed
separate rooms and schools, their justifications for separate facilities, the inferior nature of the premises,
materials, and teaching, and the inequitable outcomes paralleled those of segregated schools for African
Americans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest. Justifications alleged that separate schools reflected
the neighborhoods they served, kept the population safe from supposed deficiencies in health, cleanliness,
and culture, and addressed supposed deficiencies in assimilation, English, and intellect. On a smaller scale
than was the case in the Southwest, when communities in the Midwest constructed separate schools, they
did so based on race and class prejudices and the desire to curtail racial mixing.
Separate and Unequal Based on Neighborhood
In several cases, schools had majority Mexican populations seemingly based on their proximity to
neighborhoods with high populations of Mexicana/os or Mexican barrios. Yet, school districts created
54
school boundaries and most barrios resulted from restrictive residential covenants or other racial steering
practices. Donato and Hanson argue that calling this kind of segregation de facto implies “the fortuitous
conjunction of where [Mexicana/os] lived and where school boundaries were drawn” rather than the
deliberate machinations of Anglos to keep people of color separate in neighborhoods and in schools. And,
throughout the Midwest, some individuals and communities used similar machinations. 69 In Kansas City,
Kansas, a newspaper article called for separate facilities for Mexicanas began in 1917. In 1918, the school
board relegated Mexican students to the basements of Emerson and John J. Ingalls Schools. When the
new Major Hudson School opened in 1923 and Mexicana/o youth tried to enroll, a group of Anglo
parents and community members participated in “near race riot” and threatened the Mexicana/o children.
Finally, the Emerson PTA, the all-Anglo Spanish Club, and other civic organization in the area joined
forces to push the school board to build a separate school. 70 It was not happenstance when the school
board capitulated and built Clara Barton, the all-Mexican school, in 1924.
The Kansas City Kansan describes the Mexican school: “The building is white stucco, built in
mission style - very appropriate for the Mexican students…. The building is in the heart of the Mexican
settlement.” 71 Yet, Clara Barton School was not simply a new neighborhood school. Joe Amayo explains
the purpose of Clara Barton School:
They made the Clara Barton school over for all the Mexican people, the boys and girls that lived
across the track, you know. But then the other Mexican people that lived on this side, they
requested to send us over to Clara Barton. Then we had to go to Clara Barton. In Clara Barton, it
was mostly the people that lived in the Santa Fe camp, which was a camp that the railroad made
as a city for the Mexican people.72
Clara Barton became a place to send Mexicana/os from other neighborhoods. They even had to add rooms
to house the additional students. 73
Parochial schools also had majority or all-Mexicana/o enrollments based on racially constructed
neighborhoods. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was common practice for Catholic
dioceses and immigrant groups to establish parish churches based on parishioners’ nationalities and,
55
shortly after, many parishes built schools, also based on their nationality or ethnic identity, sometimes
with priests and nuns who could speak the language of the parish. This practice carried through with
Mexican immigrants to the Midwest. Some Mexicana/o communities, however, had more difficulty
paying for the construction of parish churches and schools and so attended Anglo parishes, where they
were often relegated to separate services, pews in the back of the church, or the basement. 74 Parochial
schools associated with all-Mexican parishes like that of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Kansas City,
Missouri, Our Lady of Perpetual Health, in Wichita, Kansas, and St. Catherine’s of Emporia, Kansas,
served majority-Mexicana/o student populations because they were tied to Mexican parishes, which were
tied to Mexican barrios. Again, these all-Mexican schools did not come about by happenstance; while
faith was a large influence, so was race.
In Emporia, Kansas, early Mexicana/o settlers attended Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which was
originally an Anglo parish, but they attended a separate mass in the basement. When they wanted their
children to attend Catholic school, Mexicana/os sent them to Sacred Heart’s parish school. Socorro M.
Ramirez explains that structures Mexicana/os faced: “two rooms were allowed to the Mexicans, for the
Mexican children were separated from the first to the second grade inclusive. Both American and
Mexican students were together in the eighth grade.” 75 First, Anglo members helped to fund a church, St.
Catherine’s, so that Mexicans could have their own parish. Then, when the number of Mexicana/os
seeking enrollment increased at Sacred Heart, Anglo parishioners bought the old Riverside public school
to house St. Catherine’s School. 76 Victor Rodriguez describes the school’s structure: “It was an allMexican school. We had a few Anglos and a couple colored, but it was strictly a real Mexican school.” 77
Not only was St. Catherine’s segregated because it was affiliated with an all-Mexican parish and because
it was the school closest to the barrio, but it was an all-Mexican school because parishioners at Sacred
Heart did not want Mexicana/os in their church or in their school. Schools, public or parochial, did not
end up majority Mexican by happenstance; it had much to do with race.
56
Separate and Unequal Based on Alleged Issues of Health, Cleanliness, and Culture
Throughout the Midwest, Mexicana/os inhabited barrios that sat in the midst of dangerous and
noisy train yards, beside rivers that flooded, and on the outskirts of towns. Many of these barrios
remained unequipped with electricity, plumbing, or paved roads, long after such conveniences were
common in the town. 78 Or, in larger urban areas, like St. Paul, Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City,
Kansas, Mexicana/os took over buildings and neighborhoods from previous immigrant groups and
inherited expensive rents and crowded, poor living conditions. 79 Mexicana/os recall teachers and
administrators in integrated public and parochial schools subjecting them to varying levels of
discriminatory practices concerning their alleged ill health and lack of cleanliness. Some teachers targeted
Mexicana/o children for lice inspections in front of Anglo peers. 80 However, some communities went
further to create separate facilities or schools based on health and cleanliness concerns. 81
In the Argentine section of Kansas City, Kansas, the calls for separating the Mexicana/o students
from the Anglo students came before the 1918 influenza epidemic. A 1917 Argentine Republic article
entitled “The Race Problem,” begins with the author’s thoughts about the race question, and then
hurriedly tries to make the issue one of class and health:
To require little children coming out of the clean and well-kept homes of the town to enter into
close school room association with other children who are filthy and unclean, is not a fair thing to
do. But it is also true that this condition is not only found among colored races but among the
white race as well. And filth is filth whether the skin be brown, black or white. The big problem
is a problem of sanitation. 82
Yet, the problem was about more than sanitation. In spite of the author’s focus on the health of students, it
is clear the author was interested in protecting the Anglo students. While this author does not call for
separation of the clean and the unclean students, the proceeding articles go further and with less artifice
about who is unclean and why.
At the height of the influenza epidemic in 1918, The Republic runs an article with very similar
sentence structure to the one discussed above:
57
It is not fair to demand that the children of white parents, coming from clean and well-kept homes
go to school to enter a room partially filled with Mexican children that are not clean, and who
have come from the disease ridden shacks that are provided as housing facilities for these
people. 83
Next, a citizen called for separate facilities for “these children” but with the caveat that “This is not a
color question but it is a moral and a sanitary one and should be dealt with firmly.” 84 Several months
later, also in The Republic, the article “Mexicans Hold Strange Beliefs” paints a picture of Mexicans as
superstitious and cruel, based on their Spanish and Indian heritage. 85 The authors of these articles,
factions in the Argentine PTA, and other community organizations worked to stigmatize Mexicana/os as
health threats, playing on racial, cultural, and class stereotypes, and offered the solution of separate
schools, though this solution was only helpful for the clean and well-kept white children. .
Before the school board made decisions to build or appoint separate schools for Mexicana/os, the
board tried to appease calls for separation by assigning Mexicana/o students to school basements at
Emerson and John J. Ingalls Schools. The basements where Mexicana/os attended classes were damp,
dark, and near the toilets, and the annexes were also substandard, usually in condemned buildings deemed
unfit for Anglo students. 86 These school conditions must not have helped to improve the health of the
supposedly unhealthy Mexicana/o children. While concerns about health and sanitation may have been
legitimate, the community responded with structures and practices that perpetuated not only the poor
conditions but also racism and classism against Mexicana/os.
Separate and Unequal Based on Alleged Needs for Assimilation, English, and Intellect
It is not surprising that many Mexicana/os found it difficult to assimilate, learn English, or do
well in school when they lived in barrios, where living conditions were poor, and forced to attend inferior
and unhealthful schools that upheld English-only policies and other discriminatory practices. Even when
Mexicana/os did learn English, hold jobs, and support their families, in some locales, they continued to be
labeled “Mexicans” and inassimilable. Some communities and schools instituted other tactics to keep
58
Mexicana/o students separate from Anglos, including separate rooms or schools based on Mexicana/os’
alleged deficiencies in assimilation, English, and intellect.87
As was addressed earlier, Americanization education for Mexicana/os was supposed to address
alleged deficiencies in culture and assimilation, yet the inferiority of the separate facilities did not help
Mexicana/os become better Americans as much as it perpetuated their otherness and stereotypes of
inferiority. Americanization education in the separate rooms and schools in the Argentine, Armourdale,
and Rosedale sections of Kansas City, Kansas, was, in fact, a sham. Anglo citizens of these formerly
autonomous sections of the city, many with ties to the KKK, rallied and resorted to physically threatening
children to appropriate separate facilities for Mexicana/os because they did not want race mixing. 88 Under
such pressure and under the eye of state, federal, and Mexican governments, the school board claimed
that Mexicana/os required Americanization in separate schools and rooms. 89 Magdalena Rodriguez
describes the differences between the Mexican annex, or Old Hudson School, and Major Hudson School:
There was an annex to the brick building, where the Anglo children went, and we went to a
wooden schoolhouse that was down the hill…. they had an asphalt playground. We didn’t…. The
playground was the grasses and weeds that grew there, and we played there when we were
permitted to do so…. We had one teacher, and she taught all the classes…. Now up in the school,
where the Anglo children went, they had different teachers. They didn’t always stay in the same
room […] They went on field trips; they had parties. The parents could join the PTA. We could
not do any of that. 90
If the goal was to aid Mexicana/os in assimilating into American society by means of separate schools, it
failed because Mexicana/os knew that it meant second-class citizenship.
Separate schools established to correct language deficiencies in Mexicana/os were also a sham.
Based on local Mexicana/os’ alleged language deficiencies, Fort Madison placed Mexicana/os in separate
room when they started school. School board records alternate between calling Richardson School’s room
for Mexican Americans the “Americanization Room,” the “Opportunity Room,” and the “Mexican
Room.” 91 The records reveal that for the duration of the separate room, the majority of its occupants were
Mexicana/os. The majority of Mexicana/os stayed in the room at least two years, with some remaining up
59
to five years, based on the teacher’s assessments about their readiness to enter the “regular” school. The
separate room operated for over 30 years, with generations of Mexicana/os going through the “Mexican
Room,” indicating that school people placed Mexicana/os in the room regardless of their assimilation,
citizenship, their intellect, or their English language abilities. 92
Finally, separate rooms and schools for Mexicana/os based on their alleged intellectual
deficiencies was a sham. Fort Madison’s school board used their room, with its ever-changing title, to
keep Mexicana/os separate. Whatever the school records called the room, the children and the
townspeople referred to it as the “Mexican Room.” 93 In Dodge City, Kansas, when the all-Mexican
Coronado School closed, Mexicana/os moved to the formerly all-white Roosevelt School and the
administration placed them in the special education room at Roosevelt. 94 In spite of the fact that many of
the children could speak English and had been instruction in history, arithmetic, and spelling at Coronado,
they were given busy work like coloring. 95 In his piece “Just Across the Tracks,” Domingo Ricart
discusses the views of priests teaching in parochial schools in Kansas, noting that priests at integrated
schools ascribed Mexicana/o students’ difficulties learning not to their culture but rather to their learning
a second language and the discrimination they faced. Ricart argues that without the ability to gauge
Mexicana/o students beside Anglo peers, the priests teaching at all-Mexican parish schools were more
likely to generalize that Mexicana/o students had lower IQs and act accordingly. 96 In these cases, school
structures based on alleged intellectual deficiencies did not support learning; neither did they prepare
Mexicana/o students for the work or the level of citizenship they desired.
Regardless of communities’ and schools’ justifications and the stated purposes for separate rooms
and schools, the work of these entities kept Mexicana/o students separate from Anglos, in their school
years and beyond. With their inferior facilities, materials, and curricula, these structures and practices
worked to keep Mexicana/os socially and economically separate from Anglos in their adulthood by
perpetuating low wage jobs, inferior housing, and general discrimination for Mexicana/os.
60
Conclusion
Nativism, the Mexican Problem, and the often-touted solutions of Americanization, English-only
policies, and local politics all influenced communities throughout the Midwest and the structures and
practices in public and parochial schools. In understanding the broader educational experiences of
Mexicana/os in the Midwest, it is vital to first understand the formal school structures and practices they
encountered. In both integrated and separate public and parochial schools, Mexicana/os encountered
school structures based on race, class, and gender stereotypes. But, the history of Mexicana/o formal
education in the Midwest does not stop here. The next chapter explores how Mexicana/os valued and took
advantage of public and parochial schools. In the following chapters, the study investigates how these
formal school structures and practices influenced Mexicana/os in their pursuit of education outside of
schools. For some Mexicana/os, non-formal education in settlements and churches and informal education
in their families and home communities provided education when schools had failed them.
61
Notes
1
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
2
Tim Wenzl, “Education in the Village” A History of the Mexican Village of Dodge City,
http://mexicanvillage.weebly.com/history.html (accessed October 31, 2014).
3
While I found no records about the name change, the town is well-known for allegedly being the northern most
point of Coronado’s explorations in what is now North America. There is a memorial, the Coronado Cross, to
commemorate this event. For more information, see “Coronado Cross,” Ford County Historical Society.
http://www.kansashistory.us/fordco/coronado.html (accessed October 19, 2014).
4
Tim Wenzl, “Education in the Village” A History of the Mexican Village of Dodge City,
http://mexicanvillage.weebly.com/history.html (accessed October 31, 2014).
5
John A. Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
6
Ibid.
7
See the discussion about the critical theory and sociological concepts, including CRT, LatCrit, “Plight and
Struggle,” and the work of Telles and Ortiz that informed this dissertation in the Introduction. I use the terms
racializing, gendering, and classing in order to explore race, gender, and class as social processes rather than as
static ideas to better reflect the variations and complexities in experiences evident in the oral history interviews.
8
Mary A. Baker, A History of Davenport’s Schools, second edition (Davenport, IA: Davenport Community School
District Production Printing, 1979) Davenport Schools Museum, Davenport, Iowa; The Old and the New:
Elementary Schools in Use Prior to 1940 and Those After the New Ones Opened in the Fall of 1940. Compiled and
Arranged by Davenport Schools Museum. Davenport Schools Museum, Davenport, Iowa; Excerpts from “A History
of Wichita Public Schools Buildings” Compiled by Nina Davis, 1978, updated by Sara Lomax, 1996, USD259,
http://usd259.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1521178/File/School%20%20Histories%20Updated%201996.
pdf?SID (accessed October 19, 2014); Nellie McGuinn, Kansas City Kansas Public School System, 1819-1961,
Copyright USD 500, Feb 1966, http://www.kckps.org/ disthistory/publications/ mcguinn/ mcguinn_1819-1856.htm
(accessed October 19, 2014); Ethnic History of Schools, The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County,
Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/building_index.htm (accessed
October 19, 2014).
9
Gilbert G. Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’: Empire, Public Policy, and the Education of Mexican Immigrants,
1880-1930,” Aztlán 26, no. 2 (Fall 2001): 199-206; Leland L. Sage, History of Iowa (Ames, IA: The Iowa State
University Press, 1974); Edwin Dale Shutt, II, “‘Silver City,’ A History of the Argentine Community of Kansas
City, Kansas” (master’s project, Emporia Kansas State College, 1974).
10
“The Influenza Situation,” The Republic (October 18, 1918), The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte
County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-18-oct-1918.html (accessed October 19,
2014); “Mexicans Hold Strange Beliefs,” The Republic (February 12, 1919), The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-12-feb-1919.html (accessed October 19,
2014); “The Race Problem,” The Argentine Republic (November 30, 1917), The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-30-nov-1917.html (accessed October 19,
2014).
11
Gabriela Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2008); René Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,” Educational Studies 47 (2011): 323-346; Gilbert G. Gonzalez,
Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadelphia: Balch Institute, 1990); Gilbert G. Gonzales, “The
‘Mexican Problem,’: Empire, Public Policy, and the Education of Mexican Immigrants, 1880-1930,” Aztlán 26, no.
62
2 (Fall 2001): 199-206; Vicki L. Ruiz, “The Acculturation of Young Mexican American Women,” Major Problems
in Mexican American History Ed. Zaragosa Vargas (Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, 1999): 265-270; Vicki
L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008); Vicki L. Ruiz, and John R. Chavez, Eds., Memories and Migrations: Mapping Boricua & Chicana
Histories (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); George J. Sanchez, “‘Go After the Women’: Americanization
and the Mexican Immigrant Women” in Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women’s History, ed.
Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz (New York: Routledge, 1990): 250-263.
12
Robert Martin Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (Master’s
thesis, University of Missouri—Kansas City, 2002); Teresa A. Garcia, “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the
Children of Mexican Railroad Workers in Fort Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa,
2008); Judith Ann Laird, “Argentine, KS: The Evolution of a Mexican-American Community, 1905-1950” (master’s
thesis, University of Kansas, 1975).
13
Jeffrey Bale, “Americanization by Schooling” in Encyclopedia of Bilingual Education, Ed. Josué M. Gonzales
(London: Sage Publications), 8-9; Dennis Baron, The English-Only Questions: An Official Language for
Americans? (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).
14
Merton E. Hill, “The Development of an Americanization Program,” The Survey 66, no. 3 (May 1931).
15
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002; Bale, “Americanization by Schooling,” 2008; Galindo,
“The Nativistic Legacy,” 2011; Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990; Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’” 2001;
Sanchez, “‘Go After the Women,’” 1990.
16
Bale, “Americanization by schooling,” 2008: 9.
17
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
18
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
19
Mary Soliz Diaz, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
20
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Dolores Garcia, MPL, IUWA,
The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Mary Soliz Diaz, ELP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
21
Armida Martinez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
22
Bale, “Americanization by Schooling,” 2008; Baron, The English-Only Questions, 1990.
23
Heinz Kloss, The American Bilingual Tradition (Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, 1977); Carlos J. Ovando,
“Bilingual Education in the United States: Historical Development and Current Issues,” Bilingual Education in the
United States, 27, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 1-24.
24
Lynne Marie Getz, Schools of Their Own: The Education of Hispanos in New Mexico, 1850-1940 (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1997); Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990; Rubén Donato, The Other Struggle
for Equal Schools: Mexican Americans During the Civil Rights Era (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1997; Rubén Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos in Colorado Schools and Communities, 1920-1960, (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2008); Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr.,“Let All of them Take Heed”: Mexican Americans
and the Campaign for Educational Equality in Texas, 1910-1981 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press,
2000); Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr. Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement in Houston
(College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005).
25
Bale, “Americanization by Schooling,” 2008.
63
26
“The Governor of Iowa Proclaims English the State’s Official Language” In Major Problems in American
Immigration and Ethnic History. Ed. Jon Gjerde (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998): 321-322.
27
In Iowa, see, Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. In St. Paul, see,
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN. In Emporia, Kansas, see, Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection,
RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas. In Kansas City, Missouri, see, Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL,
Kansas City, Missouri; Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Armida Martinez, ROC,
Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL,
Kansas City, Missouri.
28
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002; Socorro M. Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans in
Emporia, Kansas,” (master’s thesis, Kansas State Teacher’s College of Emporia, 1942). Bilingual education
29
James Crawford, Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory, and Practice (Trenton, NJ: Crane Publishing
Company, 1989).
30
Domingo Ricart, “Just Across the Tracks: Report on a Survey of Five Mexican Communities in the State of
Kansas (Emporia, Florence, Newton, Wichita, Hutchinson)” (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1950).
31
Ignacio Avila, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
32
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
33
Maria “Mercy’ Aguilera, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
34
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
35
Jesús Mercado, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
36
Felisa Ruiz, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
37
Carlos Kevin Blanton, The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981 (College Station, TX:
Texas A&M University Press, 2007); James Crawford, Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory, and Practice
(Trenton, NJ: Crane Publishing Company, 1989); Getz, Schools of Their Own, 1997; Heinz Kloss, The American
Bilingual Tradition (Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1977).
38
Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,” 2011.
39
For the Iowa interviews, see the following: Mary Aguirre Edens, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries,
Iowa City, Iowa; Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Julie Navarro,
MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa
Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. For Emporia, Kansas, see the following interviews: Carmen Alvarado, ROC, Kansas
Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751,
KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Lorenzo Delgado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence,
Kansas; Eugene Mendoza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Simon
Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Tony Tabares, ROC, Kansas
Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas. For Kansas City, Missouri, see the following: Lydia
Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Salvador Gutierrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City,
Missouri. For St. Paul, Minnesota, see Marcelio Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
40
Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,” 2011.While Galindo writes generally about Mexican immigrants in U.S.
schools in the era of Americanization, most of the article and sources focus on the Southwest. Yet, oral histories and
other primary sources indicate racialization of Mexicana/os as a leading cause for schools maintaining English-only
policies in the Midwest.
64
41
In Iowa, see, Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. In St. Paul, see,
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN. In Emporia, Kansas, see, Elvira Ramirez, ROC Kansas Collection,
RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas. In Kansas City, Missouri, see, Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL,
Kansas City, Missouri; Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Magdalena Rodriguez,
HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
42
Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City,
Iowa; Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. Henry Vargas also attended St.
Alphonsus and recalled in his interview: “Some of them would stay in the same class two or three times, two or
three years…. So, by the time they got out of eighth grade, some them were pretty old already.”
43
D.C. Garcia, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
44
Teresa A. Garcia, “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the Children of Mexican Railroad Workers in Fort
Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 2008): 104-150. In Teresa Garcia’s “Mexican
Room” dissertation, she provides documentation about the teachers holding back students based on their alleged
English proficiency, though Garcia found not set standards or testing the teachers used to make these decisions. Not
only were the children placed in the “Mexican room” and separated from Anglo students, but they also experienced
being held back, some of them for numerous years.
45
Tony Oropesa, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
46
D.C. Garcia, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
47
Ibid.
48
Donato, The Other Struggle, 1997; Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,”
2011; Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990; Gonzales, “The Mexican Problem,” 2001; David G. Gutiérrez, Walls
and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity (Oakland: University of
California Press, 1995; San Miguel, “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987; San Miguel, Brown, Not White, 2005.
49
Donato, The Other Struggle, 1997; Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990;
Victoria-María MacDonald, “Demanding Their Rights: The Latino Struggle for Educational Access and Equity,”
American Latinos and the Making of the United States: A Theme Study. Online through the U.S. National Park
Service, 2013 http://www.nps.gov/latino/latinothemestudy/education.htm (accessed Oct. 2014); Victoria-Maria
MacDonald, Latino Education in the United States: A Narrated History from 1513-2000 (New York:
Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004); San Miguel, “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987; San Miguel, Brown, Not White, 2005.
50
The most egregious cases of forced vocational or non-academic curriculum occurred in segregated rooms or
schools, which will be covered in the next section.
51
Most Catholic schools provided school up to sixth, seventh, or eighth grades. Very few locations had Catholic
high schools, and if children were to attend junior high or senior high, many attended public schools.
52
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP,
IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
53
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
54
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
55
Aurora Oropreza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
56
Tony Oropesa, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
57
Aurora Oropreza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
65
58
Ibid.
59
Stacey Lynn Camp, “Reform to Repatriation: Gendering an Americanization Movement in Early TwentiethCentury California,” in Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Gender 363 Transformations: From Private
to Public, S.M. Spencer-Wood, Ed. (New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2013): 363-388; Gonzalez,
Chicano Education, 1990; Gonzales, “The ‘Mexican Problem,’” 2001; Ruiz, “The Acculturation of Young Mexican
American Women,” 1999: 265-270; Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows, 2008); Ruiz, and Chavez, Memories and
Migrations, 2008; Sanchez, “‘Go After the Women,’” 1997.
60
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
61
Dolores “Lola” Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
62
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. According to Vargas, the sisters at
St. Alphonsus, “kind of thought, you know, we weren’t as educate-able as the Anglo kids so some, some I think,
they let go, fall through cracks.”
63
Donato, The Other Struggle, 1997; Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990;
MacDonald, “Demanding Their Rights,” 2013; MacDonald, Latino, 2004; San Miguel, “Let All of them Take Heed,”
1987; San Miguel, Brown, Not White, 2005.
64
Donato and Hanson, “Legally White,” 2012; See also, Gonzalez, Chicano Education, 1990; Donato, The Other
Struggle, 1997; Donato, Mexicans and Hispanos, 2007; MacDonald, Latino Education, 2004; Martha Menchaca,
“The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and The Racialization of the Mexican Population,” in The Elusive Quest for
Equality: 150 Years of Chicana/Chicano Education, ed. José Moreno (Cambridge: Harvard Educational Press,
1999); San Miguel, Jr., “Let All of them Take Heed,” 1987); San Miguel, Jr., Brown, Not White, 2005.
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid.
67
Rubén Donato and Jarrod S. Hanson, “Legally White, Socially ‘Mexican’: The Politics of De Jure and De Facto
School Segregation in the American Southwest” Harvard Educational Review 82, number 2 (Summer 2012): 222.
For the most part, this study refers to separate rooms and schools, rather than segregated, because, as Donato and
Hanson point out, the distinction between de facto and de jure segregation is anachronistic when treating history
before Brown v. Board of Education. The researcher wants to clarify that separate schools Mexicana/os encountered
were neither de jure nor de facto.
68
Laird, “Argentine, KS,” 1975; Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002; Garcia, “Mexican Room,”
2008. Based on evidence from contemporary theses, dissertations, and studies, as well as the consulted oral history
interviews and secondary sources, there were segregated rooms or schools for Mexicana/os throughout Kansas, with
the most documented being those in Kansas City, and in Fort Madison, Iowa. There may well have been additional
schools throughout the Midwest, and their inclusion to the further historical treatments is vital for better
understanding how segregated schools worked outside of the Southwest.
69
Rene P. Rosenbaum, “Migration and Integration of Latinos into Rural Midwestern Communities: The Case of
‘Mexicans’ in Adrian, Michigan.” (JSRI Research Report #19, The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan
State University, 1996). In Adrian, Michigan, Mexicana/os were forced to live in two different settlements, away
from Anglos. Rene Perez Rosenbaum explains the school structures available to Mexicana/os: “In the early 1940s,
many children of the Mexican-Americans went to the Madison Township school, though a number went to Adrian
public schools…. As a result of the increased student population, which had almost doubled, many makeshift
accommodations were implemented. An apple bin was rented and converted into classrooms, while a Quonset hut
was erected next to the Drexel Park School to provide for the overcrowding.”
66
70
“State Officials Into Mexican Pupil Row” Kansas City, Kansan (October 17, 1925), The History of Our Public
Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/publications_index.htm (accessed October 19, 2014); Laird,
“Argentine, KS,” 1975.
71
“Fund Surplus Pays for Mexican School,” The Kansan (September 23, 1923), The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/publications_index.htm.
72
Joe Amayo, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
73
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002; “Clara Barton,” The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools
http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/closedbuildings/clarabarton.html (accessed October 19, 2014).
74
See Jay P. Dolan, and Allan Figueroa Deck, S.J., Eds., Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S.: Issues and
Concerns (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994); Jay P. Dolan, and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, Eds.,
Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1994); Mary
A. Grant, and Thomas C. Hunt, Catholic School Education in the United States: Development and Current
Concerns (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992); Walter B. Kolesnik, and Edward J. Power, Eds., Catholic
Education: A Book of Readings (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1965).
75
Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans in Emporia,” 1942.
76
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Victor Rodriguez,
ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas; Armida Martinez, ROC, Kansas Collection,
RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
77
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
78
“Cook’s Point Economic Survey,” 1963, Mary Terronez Papers, Iowa Women's Archives, University of Iowa
Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; “The Influenza Situation-The Mexican Situation is One of the Most Alarming in the
City,” The Republic, (October 18, 1918), The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas, Kansas
City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-18-oct-1918.html; Laird, “Argentine,
KS,” 1975; Ricart, “Just Across the Tracks,” 1950: 38; Social Prospectus of Kansas City, Missouri (The Research
Bureau of the Board of Public Welfare, August, 1913).
79
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Cynthia
Mines, Riding the Rails to Kansas: The Mexican Immigrants (McPherson, KS, 1980); Jim Norris, North For the
Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press,
2009); Ricart, “Just Across the Tracks,” 1950; Dennis Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great
Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St.
Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000);
Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest,
1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993).
80
Dolores “Lola” Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Mary Terronez, MLP,
IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Ester Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City,
Missouri; Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
81
“The Influenza Situation-The Mexican Situation is One of the Most Alarming in the City,” The Republic,
(October 18, 1918), The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public
Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-18-oct-1918.html; Domingo Ricart, “Just
67
Across the Tracks: Report on a Survey of Five Mexican Communities in the State of Kansas (Emporia, Florence,
Newton, Wichita, Hutchinson)” (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 1950); Laird, “Argentine, KS,” 1975.
82
“The Race Problem,” The Argentine Republic (November 30, 1917), The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-30-nov-1917.html (accessed October 19,
2014).
83
“The Influenza Situation,” The Republic (October 18, 1918), The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte
County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-18-oct-1918.html (accessed October 19,
2014).
84
Ibid.
85
“Mexicans Hold Strange Beliefs,” The Republic (February 12, 1919), The History of Our Public Schools,
Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-12-feb-1919.html (accessed October 19,
2014).
86
“Emerson Elementary School,” The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City,
Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/openbuildings/emerson.html (accessed October 19, 2014);
“John J. Ingalls School,” The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas,
Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/closedbuildings/jjingalls.html (accessed October 19, 2014); Laird,
“Argentine, KS,” 1975; Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002.
87
Camp, “Reform to Repatriation,” 2013; Galindo, “The Nativistic Legacy,” 2011; Gonzalez, Chicano Education,
1990; Jose F. Moreno, Ed., The Elusive Quest for Equality: 150 Years of Chicano/a Education (Cambridge: Harvard
Educational Review, 1999); Margret A. Winzer, The History of Special Education: From Isolation to Integration
(Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1993).
88
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002.
89
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002; Daniel Serda, “Finding Latin Roots: Hispanic Heritage in
Kansas City,” Kansas Preservation 33, no. 3 (2011): 8-15.
90
Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
91
Garcia, “Mexican Room,” 104-150.
92
Ibid.
93
Garcia, “Mexican Room,” 104-150.
94
John A. Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
95
Ibid.
96
Ricart, “Just Across the Tracks,” 38.
68
CHAPTER TWO
“TRY YOUR BEST. STAY IN SCHOOL” 1: VALUING AND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF PUBLIC
AND PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS
The Ramirez family lived in the West Bottoms area of Kansas City, Kansas, with twelve children and two
adults in a small five-room home. Ramon and Antonia Ramirez attended school in Mexico but only to the
fifth and third grades, respectively. Both knew how to read Spanish, and as adults in the U.S., they taught
themselves to speak and read English. As a young man, Ramirez immigrated to the U.S. for railroad
work. Born in 1937, Elvira Ramirez recalled of her father: “one of my father’s major values was that of
education…. He pushed education either because he worked so hard, and he realized that in order to make
it, you had to have those particular credentials.” 2 And, because Elvira Ramirez’ father valued education,
he deliberately enrolled his 12 children in public schools, specifically integrated public schools. 3 Elvira
explains:
We were never allowed to go to Catholic schools because of the fact that the Catholic schools
were not as good as, within our community, were not as good as the public schools. The Catholic
school had two or three grades together, the children that often graduated from Catholic school
couldn’t read or write, and the priest and nuns were usually old, retired people that really had no
patience with children…He never allowed us to go to the Catholic schools because of the bad
education we would receive, even though the Catholic priest was always after him and would say
that he wasn’t a good Catholic because he didn’t send his children to Catholic school. 4
Later, although his children wanted to attend Argentine High School, which was a public school and was
where many of their Mexicana/o friends attended, Ramirez’ father sent them to another public high school
further away and with more Anglo students, Wyandotte High School. Elvira Ramirez explains,
My father wouldn’t allow us to [go to Argentine] because he said the quality of the education was
not as good. Apparently, he continuously looked out for that, … to make sure we were in good
schools. And, he would prefer for us to be the only Mexicans in a school than not to have a good
education. And, often times, we were. And, what happened was it became very painful for us to
go to school because we were often the only [Mexican] family within that school system. 5
69
All of the Ramirez children attended high school and graduated. 6
Yet, Ramon Ramirez “had a different idea of education for the women than he did for the men” in
his family in regard to them going on to college. 7 Elvira Ramirez recalls,
He wanted us to get through school as women, but he never encouraged us to go on to college,
even though my sisters received scholarships and requests, and they were outstanding students.
My father would often say, ‘what do you need an education for to have children? The only thing
you are going to be doing is … getting married, so there is no reason you need to be educated.’
However, for my three brothers, they were all expected to go to college, and he not only
encouraged them but he paid the way for my older brother, and later, my next younger
brother…so all three of them received a college education. But the women in the family were
discouraged from continuing…. My father saw my brothers as being heads of households, having
to maintain a family and to be able to get a good job so that they would not have to work as hard
as he did…. We were trained to be the future wives of tomorrow. 8
In spite of her father’s feelings about her continuing to college, Ramirez graduated from high school in
1954 and joined the Sisters of Charity order, which required her to attend college. Ramirez earned several
college degrees, participated in civil rights activism, travelled and taught, left the religious order, earned a
PhD, directed the Spanish Speaking office of Kansas City, Kansas, and taught from 1974 to 1981 in the
School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas.9 Ramirez’ and hundreds of other oral history
interviews reveal that many Mexicana/os valued education and the idea of schooling and took advantage
of the formal education available to them through public and parochial schools in the Midwest in the first
half of the twentieth century.
This chapter explores the differences between valuing the idea of schooling and valuing the
schooling offered by local public and parochial schools. Most Mexicana/os valued the idea of formal
schooling, yet their choices and actions may not have, on the surface, reflected those values. While many
Mexicana/os attempted to make choices about school in accordance with their values, many also based
their choices on the schooling available as well as other contextual circumstances. Oral histories proved
invaluable for providing Mexicana/os’ views about education and formal schooling, their explanations
about their choices concerning formal schooling, and what they were able to do with their formal
70
schooling they encountered. 10 This analysis contributes to the history of Mexican American formal
education and focuses on the efforts of Mexicana/os in making schools work for them.
Whether or not Mexicana/os valued the formal schooling available for their children or
themselves or whether or not their children completed formal schooling, most Mexicana/os valued the
idea of formal schooling. Mexicana/os’ choices reveal how these values: enrolling in and choosing
particular schools, advocating for their children, learning and promoting English, and completing school
and going to college. Furthermore, Mexicana/os took advantage of formal schooling. They used schools
to make connections with Anglos, take advantage of access to educational and extracurricular
opportunities, and explore opportunities beyond the gendered expectations of many Anglos, the Mexican
community, and family. Finally, Mexicana/os used schools to resist and/or challenge racialization and
discrimination.
Valuing Formal Schooling
The duty of the parents is to see that their children go to school to learn.
Marcelina Urvina 11
We were encouraged to obtain more education because of our parents. Our parents emphasized the
importance of education.
Lydia Estevez 12
In the first half of the twentieth century, much of U.S. society assumed that people of Mexican
origin did not value education. 13 These assumptions are evident in nativists’ arguments against Mexican
immigration during the Mexican Revolution, during U.S. involvement in World War I, and, again, during
the Great Depression. Early scholars of anthropology and sociology proclaimed that Mexicans’ alleged
racial and cultural inferiority made them inassimilable, uneducable, and unable to value education.
Nativists and scholars during this time used as evidence racialized and classist stereotypes and the
following behaviors to argue that Mexicana/os did not value education: low numbers of Mexicana/os who
attended school in Mexico before they migrated; the limited and often sporadic schooling of immigrant
and migrant children; and, the numerous cases of children missing school or dropping out of school to
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work or to stay home to care for family. Influenced by stereotypes about Mexicana/os, some communities
and schools created and maintained discriminatory structures and practices in public and parochial
schools through the first half of the twentieth century. When Mexicana/os struggled to learn English and
other subjects or did not attend or left school, many blamed it on the inferiority of the Mexican race and
culture rather than school structures and practices. And, yet these assumptions fail to account for those
Mexicana/o parents who fought for their children to attend school, the Mexicana/os who attended school
in the face of racial, class, and gender prejudices, those who graduated, and those who went on to college.
Enrolling In and Choosing Schools
Very early in their immigration, migration, and settlement in the Midwest, Mexicana/os enrolled
their children in public and parochial schools. 14 And, when they could, Mexicana/os made choices about
the schools they and their children attended, seeking out schools to suit their or their children’s needs.
While some parents and students made decisions about school enrollment based on their faith, others
wanted to circumvent abuse and discrimination in schools and still others sought the best programs and
opportunities in academics or athletics.
When parochial schools were available and when Mexicana/os could afford the tuition, many
made the choice to send their children to Catholic schools because of their faith. Mary Edens’ father was
very religious and “wanted his kids to go to Catholic school.” 15 Sisters Julia Navarro and Rosa Ramirez
attended a nearby Catholic school where many other Mexicana/os from the Cook’s Point barrio in
Davenport attended. Their mother wanted them to have a Catholic education and enrolled them at St.
Alphonsus. 16 Henry Vargas’ parents sent him to the nearby St. Anthony’s in Davenport instead of public
schools because of their interest in a Catholic education for their children.17 John Lopez explains that he
attended St. Catherine’s School in Emporia, Kansas, because of his family’s faith: “My parents were
Catholic, and my grandparents were Catholic, and so on down the line, and it was a Catholic grade
school. That’s the reason they sent me there.” 18 While faith determined many decisions about school
enrollment, some Mexicana/os sought parochial schools for other reasons.
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Many Mexicana/os made the choice to attend or enroll their children in parochial school in order
to find a refuge from segregation and discrimination in public schools. John Rodriguez attended a
parochial school for high school in Dodge City, Kansas, to avoid “discrimination and oppression toward
Mexican American students.” 19 Salvador Gutierrez attended Our Lady of Guadalupe for elementary
school from first to eighth grade because his parents thought it was best for their children to attend where
they felt welcome. Gutierrez recalls, “As far as going to school was concerned, we met with a lot of
discrimination and prejudice from the citizens here at the time, the Americans.” 20 After experiencing
abuse in Kansas City, Missouri’s public schools, Lydia Estevez felt strongly about her children’s
education: “It was very important for me to work [as a single mother], because, since I had had such a bad
experience with the public school, I didn’t want my children to go through the same thing, and I put them
all in private, parochial schools.” 21 In spite of the costs, the Rodriguez, Gutierrez, and Estevez families
made sacrifices so that the children might experience less discrimination at school.
In other cases, Mexicana/os chose public schools seeking better facilities and more academic
focus. While she identifies her parents as “good Catholics” in her interview, Elvira Ramirez and her
siblings attended public schools. 22 Ramirez explains her father’s reasoning in choosing public schools for
his children:
The priest was always insisting that we go to the Catholic school, [yet] the kind of school that
was there was St. Bridget’s, where they had 3-4 grades in one room. And, because of my father’s
interest in education, he would not allow us to go there. He insisted that we go to a public school,
where he felt we got a better education, a better start. 23
Ramirez attended Riverview School, Central Junior High School, and Wyandotte High School, instead of
the closer Argentine High School. Ramirez’ father made the decision about where his children would
attend high school based on his perception that Wyandotte was the better school for academics. Ramirez
explains: “My father insisted in education, [and] said that we were going to have to suffer through it and
get an education because it was considered to be a better school. And, it was further away and everything,
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but he still insisted we go there.” 24 Mexicana/os not only attended schools in accordance with mandatory
school laws; they made decisions about school enrollment because they wanted better schools and better
opportunities for themselves and their children.
Advocating for Their Children and for Equitable Schooling
When faced with the discriminatory school structures and practices explored in the previous
chapter, Mexicana/o parents went into schools to advocate for their children. When her daughter missed
school due to an unwelcome environment, Marcelina Urvina talked to the girl: “My girl Vicki did not
want to go to North High because of fights, and I told her to mind her own business and go and learn to
read and write.” 25 But, Urvina also went into the school as her daughter’s advocate: “I talked to the
counselor, and I told him to guide her, and if she was absent, I wanted to know about it. I always went to
the counselor.” 26 When Henry Vargas’ teacher at St. Anthony’s in Davenport demanded to see his father,
Vargas’ father indeed showed up:
So, he didn’t know English. So, he’d just come home from work, and he was all dirty. It was
springtime, and he was sweaty and everything else. And, he almost knocked the eyeballs out of
that nun because she was so shocked because he looked all grimy and dirty and off the railroads,
and I think she mentioned, ‘I don’t know but I’d like to have him have his own dictionary
because he’s always going to the dictionary.’ And, my dad says, ‘Ask her how much it is.’ I think
it was two dollars, the dictionary was a good size…. And, he started digging in his little old
pocketbook…. He was pulling out nickels and dimes and all that stuff. And she says, ‘No, no, no,
you don’t need to. He can go ahead and use the big one.’ And he says, No, if he needs a
dictionary, I’ll give him some money.’ 27
Before her family moved to Davenport’s Cook’s Point, Estefania Rodriguez’ family lived in Holy City, a
barrio in Bettendorf, Iowa, and the children attended Lincoln School. Rodriguez explains that her mother
went into Lincoln to “straighten out the situations” when her brothers were discriminated against by
teachers and peers because of their dark skin. 28 When the nuns at St. Alphonsus mistreated sisters Julia
Navarro and Rosa Ramirez, their mother put them in public schools. 29 Ramirez explains one incident:
“My mother burned my sister’s dress and the nuns accused her that there was a spot on her dress. My
mother was very feisty. She wouldn’t take anything.” 30 After a nun at St. Alphonsus slapped Mary
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Terronez, her mother and placed Terronez in public schools. 31 These parents did not sit idly by as their
children navigated discrimination and abuse in public or parochial schools.
Additionally, Mexicana/o parents and community members navigated around and resisted
discriminatory school policies. In Dodge City, Kansas, the public schools required boys to have short
haircuts, but according to John Rodriguez, the schools enforced the policy to keep Mexicana/os out of
schools. Rodriguez describes abusive policies that singled out Mexicana/os in the Dodge City schools and
how Mexicana/os fought against this racialized policy:
In junior high school, they used to have a law that said that you couldn’t wear your hair over your
ear. Well, what was funny is that the Mexican Americans could not get haircuts downtown. The
barbers would not cut their hair…because they were Mexican…. What they would do is they
would take you to jail and fine your parents if you had long hair. So, it was a losing battle
because, first of all, they would not cut our hair. Even if we had the money, they wouldn’t cut our
hair downtown. 32
In response, Rodriguez’ uncle began amateur barbering so children could attend school and parents avoid
the fines, but he was jailed for working without a license. When the judge determined that Rodriguez’
uncle had no other choice but to cut the children’s hair, he was acquitted. While the schools’ policy
remained intact and local barbers continued to refuse Mexicanos service, Rodriguez’ uncle’s continued to
barber and his actions made public the racialization of Mexicana/os and the inequities of segregation and
discrimination in the schools.
Across the state, in Kansas City, Kansas, Mexicana/o parents fought for their children’s rights to
attend integrated schools and to continue their schooling beyond the grades the segregated schools
offered. In 1924, when Major Hudson School opened, four fifth-grade Mexicanos attempted to enroll at
the elementary school but faced a “miniature race riot” composed of Anglo parents protesting their
presence at the school. 33 Several Mexicana/o parents protested these actions by flouting mandatory school
laws and refusing to send their children to the segregated schools for several months. The next year, after
completing their schooling at the segregated Clara Barton School, four Mexicana/os attempted to attend
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Argentine High School but Anglo parents threatened violence, and the Mexicana/o parents removed their
children. Saturnino Alvarado, father of two of the students, refused to accept that his children could not
attend school beyond the eighth grade and also refused to send his children across the river to high school
on the Missouri side when that was offered as a solution. Taking his case to the Kansas Attorney General
and the Mexican Consulate, Alvarado fought for his and other Mexicana/o children’s rights to attend high
school. 34 The case ended in a federal settlement, which concluded that because of a recent treaty with
Mexico, “Mexicans must be regarded as friendly aliens and as such extended the same privileges as those
enjoyed by American school children.” 35 Alvarado’s son and daughter and another of the original four
graduated from high school in 1930. 36 While neither of these incidents led directly to desegregated
schools in Kansas City, they opened up opportunities for Mexicana/o children to continue their educations
and let the broader community know that Mexicana/os not only valued education but were willing to fight
for equitable schooling for their children.
Finally, Mexicana/o parents and community members founded and participated in organizations
that promoted schooling and raised money for scholarships. Mary Terronez experienced abuse as a child
while she learned English in school, which may have inspired her work as an interpreter for Mexicana/os
in Davenport’s Cook’s Point barrio. Beginning in the 1930s and through the 1950s, Terronez went with
parents into the schools to advocate for their children:
I assisted parents in registering their children and interpreting, including [in] such schools as
Monroe, St. Alphonsus, J.B. Young, and Davenport Central High School. Many times the parents
felt their children were unjustly reprimanded and suspended from school due to insensitivity by
school officials of the economic income level and non-English speaking parents’ background.
The parents would ask me to help them establish a communication channel of their needs and
ways to eliminate unjust school suspensions. 37
As a young man, Ladislao Lopez served in the Army during WWII. Upon his return to Kansas City,
Kansas, in 1946, Lopez found the schools still segregated. Lopez joined the G.I. Forum and the Mexican
American City Council, and through the latter, he went to superintendent Schlagle and, eventually, the
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school board to demand integration. 38 As a child, D.C. Garcia missed school for migrant work and then
left school disgusted by the discrimination he encountered. Yet, Garcia regretted his decision. Garcia’s
experiences changed his mindset about education, and he turned to advocacy as an adult.39 Garcia and his
wife attended parent organizations in Garden City, Kansas, schools, and he also worked for the Latin
American Club to fight against segregation and discrimination in local businesses and schools. 40 Through
these organizations and as free agents, Mexicana/os advocated for their children and for more equitable
schooling for Mexicana/os.
Learning and Promoting English
Mexicana/o parents advocated for their children’s school success in their homes, too. Many
Mexicana/os chose to speak English at home, if they could, and to promote English to help ensure their
children’s success at school. Marcelina Urvina went to school for a short time in Texas and recalls, “In
Texas, they did not let us speak Spanish in school…. It wasn’t until I went to school that I learned how to
speak English, and it was very hard.” 41 After she married Carlos Urvina, she taught him English, and they
continued to use only English when their children were born. About speaking English at home, Carlos
Urvina asserts, “it is better to educate them in English because this is where they make their livelihood,
not in Mexico.” 42 Tony Tabares’ parents spoke Spanish with him until he started school, and then his
parents used only English, Tabares explains, “so I wouldn’t have very many difficulties in school, cause
when I went through elementary grades, I didn’t have the programs that they do have now.” 43 Also from
Emporia, Victor Rodriguez explains that while his parents taught him some Spanish, his mother used
English at home because she “wanted us to learn English to exist in the community, to get along easier.” 44
These families learned and promoted English because being proficient in English made schooling easier
for the children and school success more likely.
Completing School, Graduating from High School, and Going to College
Not only did Mexicana/os living in the Midwest attend school and learn English; evidence reveals
that they stayed in school, with many Mexicana/os completing 8th grade and some graduating from high
school, when it was available. Of the 44 individuals investigated from the Minnesota Historical Society’s
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Mexican Americans in Minnesota collection, fifteen graduated from high school and five more people
attended some high school. Of the sixteen interviews used from the Mujeres Latinas Collection at the
Iowa Women’s Archive, three graduated from high school and nine other interviewees attended some
amount of junior high or high school. Of the nine people interviewed for the El Huarache Project, four
graduated from high school and most others attended through junior high school. In the Robert
Oppenheimer interviews from Garden City, Emporia, none of the interviewees reported graduating from
high school, though several attended some high school. Of the fourteen Oppenheimer interviewees from
Emporia, nine graduated from high school and one other had some high school before dropping out; most
others attended through middle school. From the five Kansas City, Kansas, Oppenheimer interviewees,
three graduated from high school and three others went through 8th grade. 45 Finally, of the seven
interviews from Mexicana/os the Kansas Historical Society’s Kansas Memories World War II Oral
Histories Project, three graduated from high school in cities across the state of Kansas, while another
three attended some high school before leaving school to join the service.
Continuing with schooling and graduating meant sacrifices for many families because those
children were not able to go to work full-time; yet many Mexicana/os also believed in the idea of
schooling for themselves and the next generations. “Well, that was a struggle,” recalls Gregory Gonzalez
of attending school while working the fields.46 From the time he was eight years old, Gonzales worked
the fields, and when his family returned to St. Paul after harvest, his parents put him in school. Gonzalez
recalls that in 1938, he “graduated on a Friday and on Saturday morning [he] was out hoeing green beets
in Renville, Minnesota. That’s how much the green meant at that time.” 47 While Gonzalez emphasizes the
importance of earning money, that he was able to attend school enough to graduate at eighteen indicates
that schooling was not only a struggle but was something important for him and his family. In fact,
sacrificing for schooling carried on in his family. Gonzales went on to earn a college degree and
supported his wife while she earned hers, and both of his daughters graduated from high school and went
on to earn college and nursing degrees. 48 Throughout his childhood and adult life, Gonzalez valued
schooling for himself and his family, even when it was logistically and financially difficult.
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In some cases, family circumstances inhibited Mexicana/os regularly attending or completing
school. Yet, inconsistent attendance or not completing school did not signify a lack of value of education
or of formal schooling. In fact, most Mexicana/os who dropped out said they regretted the decision, and
several Mexicana/os who left school to work, to join the service, or to assist their families returned to
school later, several earned GEDs as adults, and some attended college. In Davenport, Dolores Garcia
dropped out of school in 10th grade to go to work, but as an adult she earned her high school equivalency
as a way to encourage her children to stay in school.49 Mary Terronez graduated from Davenport’s
Monroe School after sixth grade and decided not to not continue schooling. Terronez’ reasons for not
returning included the physical abuse and discrimination she encountered at both parochial and public
schools. Yet, Terronez recalls, “I should have just kept on going to school…. I’ve always been for
education.” 50 As an adult and a single mother, Terronez earned her GED and attended college. Also from
Davenport, Estefania Rodriguez earned her GED at the age of 67. 51 In Garden City, brother and sister
Lydia Mendoza de Gonzales and Louis Mendoza both attended some high school, both dropped out at
sixteen to get married, both earned high school equivalencies, and both attended college. 52 Though he
knew he wanted to go to college, David Ramirez attended school to the eighth grade in Minneapolis when
he dropped out to work to support his family. Ramirez earned his GED, served in the Army, and then
used the G.I. Bill to attend university. 53 While formal schooling was not always an option for
Mexicana/os, many valued the idea of schooling and education and believed that schooling could lead to
other opportunities, including college and careers.
Of course, not all Mexicana/os valued the formal schooling available or even the idea of formal
schooling for their children or themselves. Yet, very few Mexicana/os explicitly report that they or their
parents did not at all value formal schooling of any kind or duration. Mary Lou Hernandez recalls,
When I came back to West Junior High, I was pretty happy in the 9th grade…. I had a good year
in the 9th grade. When I came back 10th grade year, things were getting pretty bad at home. I was
the oldest, and my mom had [12 children] children. And, it was either get to work…you have to
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help me…. My mother took no interest in school, so I said, ‘Well, hell with it.’ You know, I’ll
quit and find me a job. So, that’s why I dropped out. 54
From the time he was ten, Leonard Lopez recalls attending school from November to April because his
family worked the beets in the spring and summer months. Lopez says, “I dropped out of school. I
figured, ‘What the heck is the use? You can’t go to school really.’ In those days, there were a lot of dropouts.” 55 John Rodriguez of Dodge City, Kansas, went to school in the mid-1940s and 1950s, and he
reports the low attendance and completion rates of Mexicana/o students:
By the time you go to junior high school, which was like 7th through 9th [grades], there were even
fewer, you know, brown faces around. Most of the kids dropped out after 6th grade…. And, the
reason was purely economic and also because of the fact that they felt very discriminated against
in the public school system and were not given … a fair break in education…. When I got into the
8th grade, there were even less [Mexicana/o students]. Ninth grade, even less.56
Based on Mexicana/os’ explanations in their interviews, what becomes overwhelmingly evident is that
people’s reasons for not attending school had more to do with local sociopolitical contexts, which
included residential segregation and a segmented workforce, racialized, classist, and gendered structures
and practices in available schools, and Mexicana/os’ personal and socioeconomic circumstances, rather
than strong feelings against formal schooling. For the most part, Mexicana/os valued the idea of schooling
and they made the mandatory schooling that was available work for them.
Taking Advantage of Mandatory Formal Schooling
‘My children are not going to go through what I went through,’ and they haven’t. Thank God. School is
an awful nice education. You can’t beat that. Without an education, you aren’t going to get anywhere.
Louis Medina 57
Through enforced mandatory schooling laws, Mexicana/os gained entry into schools when some
local community members may have otherwise blocked them or when they might have gone to work.
Through the 1920s, communities opened more junior high and high schools and compulsory school
attendance laws required children to attend until age sixteen. 58 For some Mexicana/os in the Midwest,
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attending mandatory schooling meant attending with other children from the neighborhood, regardless of
race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class, but for others it meant attending separate and often inferior
schools. Whatever the circumstances of the schools, many Mexicana/os took advantage of their access to
schools by making connections with Anglos, taking academic courses, participating in extracurricular
activities, and exploring opportunities beyond the expected gendered norms of the broader community,
the Mexican community, and their families.
Making Connections With Anglos
For Mexicana/os, school was a physical place in which to make connections with Anglos and the
larger community outside of the barrios. When they settled in the Midwest, Mexicana/os lived apart from
Anglos. They lived on the outskirts of towns, beside railroad tracks and factories, and near rivers that
flooded annually. In bigger cities, Mexicana/os took over the crowded and derelict tenements of the
previous immigrant groups. In many midwestern towns, barbers, movie theaters, and public pools refused
to serve Mexicana/os. If they opened their doors to Mexicana/os, many churches relegated Mexicana/os to
the back pews, basements, or separate parishes. However, Mexicana/o parents and students gained access
to Anglos by default in the schools. Even in all-Mexican, segregated schools, like Clara Barton, districts
employed Anglo teachers and principals. Mexicana/os used this access to Anglos to make connections,
and through these connections, some Mexicana/os built alliances with Anglo teachers and students and
gained more equitable treatment and social capital.
For some Mexicana/os, schools became physical places of contact between Mexicana/os and
Anglo teachers with whom they could build alliances and make schools more welcoming for themselves
and other Mexicana/os. Even in communities and schools where Mexicana/os experienced discrimination
and racism, some teachers stood against the grain, and it was with them Mexicana/os built relationships.
While Magdalena Rodriguez experienced racism and abuse at the hands of the principal and other
teachers throughout her school career, she also experienced kindness and welcome from her teacher, a
“very kind-hearted lady.” 59 The teacher had charge of all the Mexicana/o students, from first to sixth
grade, at the Major Hudson Annex in Kansas City, Kansas. While there was high turnover for teachers at
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the Mexican annex, according to Rodriguez, her teacher remained for six years, long enough to get to
know children and families and to understand their situations:
My experience with her was very good. She was an Anglo teacher, but she knew us, and I think
she felt sorry for us, you know, that we didn’t have the other things that the other kids had. And,
she would arrange Christmas parties or Easter parties…. I really liked that teacher. You know
when someone likes you, you know, and she did. 60
While Maria Mora recalled instances of abuse and discrimination at Clara Barton School in Kansas City,
Kansas, she also describes connecting with Anglo teachers. Mora explains, “I think the teachers that were
teaching in that particular school really had the interests of the kids at heart.” 61 Lucy Lopez reports:
We were very fortunate in that the school staff, that was there at John J. Ingalls, had a lot of
Hispanic background. There were teachers that were Clara Barton and transferred to the
Armourdale district, so [they] had dealt with a lot of Hispanic people. They knew generations,
like the teacher I knew had taught my uncle, had taught my aunts, you know.... I wasn’t like a
new teacher coming into a new ethnic background. She was a really good teacher. 62
When Mexicana/os connected with their Anglo teachers, they benefitted and, often, so did the Mexicana/o
students who followed them.
In addition to connecting with schoolteachers, several Mexicana/os recall connecting with
principals and the benefits they reaped from these connections. Maria Mora describes the principal at
Clara Barton School in Kansas City, Kansas: “I can recollect our principal, specifically…. She even set
up a scholarship for the kids in that school. She would try to make your education as well-rounded as she
could. And, in my own experience, I say she played a big part in my continuing with mine.” 63 In his
research on Mexican-American education in Kansas City, Kansas, Robert Martin Cleary reports that
McConnell promised Mexicana/o students that, at Riverview School, she would not sanction
discrimination and encouraged them to go to her if they experienced any discrimination. 64 In several
cases, students’ connections with principals helped them stay in school and gain equitable treatment. In
Kansas City, Missouri, Salvador Gutierrez attended Lathrop Trade School. During his senior year,
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Gutierrez arranged with the principal to work nights as a custodian so he could help support his family
and remain in school. Gutierrez graduated in 1931. 65
By making connections with Anglo school people, Mexicana/os allied themselves with people
who helped them with opportunities after completing school. Julia Navarro’s counselor at Central High in
Davenport helped her find work at W.T. Grant’s department store, when few Mexicanas were able to get
work in such visible positions. 66 Upon his return to St. Paul from serving in the Army during WWII,
Henry Capiz worked driving a truck for a couple years but determined “there wasn’t too much of a future
there,” and he made the decision to earn his high school diploma. 67 Capiz sought help from a school
official and a program for returning veterans. Capiz explains: “I met my counselor, Mr. Eckbergh. He was
very instrumental in advising me and encouraging me to go on to college, so I did.” 68 Capiz enrolled in
and completed a veterans’ program at Marshall Senior High School, after which he continued on to earn
an advanced degree in Pharmacology. 69
Accessing Educational and Extracurricular Opportunities
Through mandatory formal schooling at public and parochial schools, Mexicana/os had access to
education and extracurricular opportunities, and many used this access to meet their learning needs,
explore areas of study unavailable elsewhere, to attain academic success, and to participate in sports and
other extracurricular activities.
Languages
Many adults and children who immigrated from Mexico lacked an education in Spanish, much
less English. Upon settling in the Midwest, many Mexicana/os lived in segregated neighborhoods,
worked with other Mexicana/os in similar situations, and found few opportunities to learn English. While
many schools did not provide structured or consistent English language instruction, 70 schools did stand as
physical spaces where Mexicana/o children encountered English and could learn it through immersion.
Several Mexicana/os used school as a means for themselves and their families to learn English. Tony
Oropesa felt that his parents and many in the Wichita barrio supported his learning English and his
bilingual status because they needed his assistance with language. About learning English, Oropesa says,
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“you were forced to learn English because you were living, you had to go live [with] the Americans....
Know their language to get along with them. You had to do something, so you had to have English.” 71
When her mother struggled to find work when they moved to Davenport, Iowa, Lupe Serrano, who had
learned English at school, decided her mother needed to learn English:
One day, I told her, ‘Okay, Mom, from now on, we’re gonna speak nothing but English to you,
and if you talk to us in Spanish, we’re not gonna answer.’ So, we started talking English all the
time to her, and she would try…. Eventually, she caught on enough where she could speak
English pretty good. 72
Many Americanization programs sought to teach Mexicana/o parents English through their children, and
they did.
As is commonly cited in Mexican immigration scholarship, first and second generation
Mexicana/o immigrants and their children learned English to acculturate and make their lives in the
Midwest. Scholars have found that in the second and third generations, Mexicana/os learned Spanish as
they explored their Mexican heritage and engaged in Mexican American and Chicano activism. 73 Several
Mexicana/os in the second and third generations report taking advantage of Spanish classes in schools in
order to become more fluent and connected to their culture through language. Even if they learned
Spanish at home, many Mexicana/os lacked instruction in Spanish grammar, reading, and writing. A
Spanish speaker until she immigrated and learned to speak English in U.S. schools, Juanita Moran of St.
Paul wanted to learn more about Spanish:
I went to Humboldt for about three weeks. Since Humboldt did not have a Spanish program, and I
wanted to study Spanish grammar and learn to read and write it, I appealed to the courts for
special permission to attend Mechanic Arts School. I graduated from high school there.74
Also interested in learning Spanish, sisters Julia Navarro and Rosie Ramirez took Spanish classes at
Davenport’s Central High. 75 Ramirez took these studies further and sought out private tutoring because
she “wanted to learn the grammar part. That’s hardest part.” 76 Ernest Rodriguez also took Spanish at
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Central High. 77 Mexicana/os took advantage of schools as places in which they could learn languages that
not only helped them acculturate into the dominant U.S. culture but also connected them to their Mexican
families and culture. Beyond language, Mexicana/os also utilized schools to access academic work to suit
their needs.
Academic Coursework
Schools served as physical places where Mexicana/os explored areas of academic study in which
they had a personal interest and utilized their access to teachers, materials, and coursework. Besides
taking Spanish, Julia Navarro also took cooking and sewing classes, English and geography courses, and
her favorite subject was math.78 In Garden City, Cipriana Rodriguez did well in her English classes and
enjoyed writing. 79 In Kansas City, Kansas, Aurora Oropreza took chemistry and art classes. 80 When they
had some autonomy over their required or elective coursework, Mexicana/o students selected courses that
interested and challenged them academically.
Academic Success
Schools provided a means for Mexicana/os to excel academically, and they took advantage of
these opportunities and took pride in earning school honors and recognition for their accomplishments. In
Dodge City, Kansas, John Rodriguez reports being the first Mexicano to be on the honor roll at the junior
high school and credits this experience as a turning point for him to continue with his formal schooling:
“At that point, I decided, well, maybe I’ll make the big time and even finish high school.” 81 Pete Quiroga
of Kansas City, Kansas, reported that he graduated in the top third of his class at Argentine High
School. 82 Elvira Ramirez reported that she graduated “100 from the top” of around 400 students, while
her older sister graduated “25th from the top” at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas. 83 Young
Mexicana/os grew up in sociopolitical contexts where many were judged inferior based on racialized
notions of Mexican culture, and, in the face of these prejudices and the myriad of discriminatory school
policies and practices they faced, these Mexicana/os felt pride and some vindication when they earned
these honors. Beyond academics, Mexicana/os utilized schools for other opportunities.
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Sports and Extracurricular Activities
Many Mexicanas and Mexicanos took advantage of and found personal satisfaction participating
in team and individual sports sponsored by public and parochial schools, often playing multiple sports.
Lydia Estevez recalls being “very active in sports” and playing on the school hockey and baseball teams
at Manual Training School in Kansas City, Missouri. 84 In Kansas City, Kansas, while attending Clara
Barton school and Argentine Junior and Senior High School, Maria Mora was “quite active in sports,”
running track and playing softball and volleyball. 85 Mora worked while she attended high school, from
four in the afternoon until midnight, and she commuted every day from Kansas City, Missouri, where her
family moved after the 1951 flood. Yet, even with work, commuting across the river, and academic
studies in which she was very successful, Mora made time to participate in sports. 86 Frank Hernandez of
Kansas City, Kansas, recalls his experiences at Argentine High School before he quit sports to help his
father on the farm: “I like to play softball…. I went out for track…I was just beginning to stand out on
track. I was running the mile, and what they call a 4/40, and a 100-yard dash.” 87 Victor Rodriguez recalls
that he and other Mexicanos valued playing on the basketball team at St. Catherine’s School in Emporia,
Kansas. 88 Ernest Rodriguez’ older brother Richard not only played sports for Davenport’s Central High
School but “excelled in sports,” playing football, baseball, wrestling, and basketball. 89 At St. Alphonsus
in Davenport, Dolores Garcia loved playing baseball: “Everybody wanted me on their side because I used
to hit homeruns. ‘I want Lola’…. We always won. That’s why they wanted me. We always won.” 90 Ralph
Delgado describes himself as “the most outstanding of the boys” at his school in wrestling and football,
lettering in both through all four years of high school in a smaller town in Minnesota. 91 Even in schools
where Mexicana/os reported discrimination and abuse, Mexicana/os utilized schools as a means for
participating in sports.
Beyond sports, several Mexicana/os took advantage of other opportunities through schools,
participating in a wide range of musical activities. While he attended Argentine High School, Ladislao
Lopez “didn’t have much time to expose myself” to extracurricular activities because he had to work after
school, but he did play in the school orchestra and held the position of second violin. 92 Pete Quiroga
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played the saxophone in the pep band and in the Argentine High orchestra, going on out of town trips. 93
Felisa Ruiz and her siblings all played instruments, and Ruiz participated in chorus, glee club, orchestra,
and band while attending high school in Turner, Kansas. 94 Sisters Julia Navarro and Rosie Ramirez’ took
singing lessons, and when their Spanish class from Davenport’s Central High traveled, the sisters
performed their Spanish songs dressed as China Poblanas. 95
Some Mexicana/os joined school clubs or participated in activities in which they discovered and
developed skills and found personal fulfillment. At the high school in Belmond, Iowa, Agustin Rocha
sought out extracurricular activities to learn important skills and to promote himself:
I took public speaking and was on the declamatory team in high school. And, I claimed state
honors as a speaker in the state of Iowa. So, I did participate in declamatory for two years. That
was what helped me in public speaking, so I did get that much out of school…. When I was in
school there, I was quite active in the class. I did a lot of writing for our class paper. I designed
our front page and things like that. Consequently, the local paper, when I graduated, asked me if I
wanted to work there. So, naturally, … that’s where I started my career in the newspaper
business. 96
Rocha ended up working as a proofreader for the Kansas City Kansan. Ernest Rodriguez attended
Davenport High School and joined the Spanish Club. Participating in the Spanish club and other clubs
facilitated Rodriguez’ acquisition of Spanish and leadership skills. 97
Furthermore, both Mexicanas and Mexicanos utilized extracurricular school activities as
opportunities to hold positions in leadership. Although he faced major discrimination and was, at one
point, placed in special education simply because of his Spanish surname, John Rodriguez was elected
vice president of the student council at Miller School in Dodge City. 98 When she attended high school,
Felisa Ruiz was elected president of the student council and served as the business manager of the school
paper, leadership roles that helped her in her later work as a community activist and leader when she
moved to Kansas City, Missouri. 99 Fred Saucedo of St. Paul acted as Master of Ceremonies for a talent
contest and participated in student council at Roosevelt Junior High School.100 These used schools to
access these extracurricular activities and opportunities.
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Exploring Opportunities Within and Beyond Gendered Norms
Gender worked in integral and varying ways to influence what school meant to Mexicana/os and
how Mexicana/os took advantage of the formal schooling available to them. In some instances, schools’
gendered expectations for Mexicana/os resulted in forced, gendered vocational courses. For some
Mexicana/os, their parents’ or community’s gendered expectations for young Mexicana/os conflicted with
schooling. In some cases, Mexicana/os expected young Mexicanos to work and support the family and
young Mexicanas to help their mothers at home and prepare for families of their own. In these cases,
children’s ascribed gender roles inhibited their opportunities to benefit from more diverse opportunities at
school or even to complete school. In other cases, school people and Mexicana/o parents held more
egalitarian views about gender and schooling. With mandatory school laws and with more junior and
senior high schools enrolling Mexicana/os, job competition during the Depression, and more women
working outside the home, 101 more Mexicanas and Mexicanos took advantage of staying in school longer.
Some resisted and/or challenged schools’ or their families’ gendered expectations to seek out broader
opportunities in schools and in their adult lives.
Gendered Expectations from Without
Industrialization and the shift from rural to urban workforces changed national ideologies about
work and gender in the U.S. With the influx of people coming to find work in urban centers and new
immigrants, businesses, nativists, social reformers, and politicians looked for ways to address competition
for work and conditions for the mass of people. Sociologist Patricia Fernández-Kelly argues that one of
the means was to focus on gendered roles. Fernández-Kelly argues that, “the state, as a bureaucratic
apparatus with social, political and economic functions, depends largely on definitions of masculinity and
femininity to control and organize populations under its aegis.” 102 According to schools’ and broader
communities’ gendered expectations for Mexicana/os, based on race, class, and gender stereotypes,
Mexicana/os required minimal schooling and that schooling should ready them for gendered and menial
labor, with few opportunities for upward mobility. Crecencia Rangel describes an incident at her daughter
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Juanita’s school in which school people and some community members made known their expectations
for Mexicans in St. Paul:
they talked about how they only gave us the beet work, that there wasn’t any choice for the
Mexicans. They did not care about the Mexicans because we were in the minority. ‘What do you
know? You are like the animals that work in the soil. What civilization do you have? What
business do you have in school?’ 103
Ignacio Guerrero recalls the attitudes of the nuns and the priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wichita,
Kansas, toward young Mexican boys: “Pass his ass and get the hell out of there. Get rid of them devils,
man.” 104 Not only were these expectations based on race and class prejudices, but many based these
expectations on gendered stereotypes about Mexicanos and Mexicanas. For some, the purpose of school
for Mexicanos was to prepare them to be Americans who worked for the railroad, in the fields, in
factories, or in service jobs. And, the purpose of school for Mexicanas was to prepare them for raising
Americans and work as homemakers or domestic workers.
Gendered Expectations from Within
Early Mexican immigrants did not always follow traditional gendered roles; changes in gender
identities occurred even before many Mexicana/os immigrated to the U.S. In the first decades of the
twentieth century, political upheaval in Mexico and calls for low-wage labor first drew single Mexicanos
and then families from Mexico and the Southwest to the railroad yards, beet fields, and packinghouses in
the Midwest. Fernández-Kelly’s work reveals that gender roles were not traditionally fixed for
Mexicana/os even before they immigrated to the U.S., especially for working class people. The economic
and political changes in both Mexico and the U.S. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
“eroded the material foundations that held together the notion of males as family providers and women as
subordinate wives and mothers.” 105 The practice of Mexicanas working outside of the home may not have
been the ideal to which people aspired, but it was reality for those who had to earn money and care for
families when men went to work in the U.S. 106 Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo points out the difference
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between ideological constructs that influence people’s behaviors and the reality of circumstances and
behavioral patterns. Hondagneu-Sotelo argues that while these ideologies and gendered divisions of labor
are evident in the scholarship, so too is the evidence that most families fell within a spectrum of non-static
behaviors, based on changing economic, political, and personal circumstances. 107 Oral histories provided
insight into Mexicana/os beliefs about gender and schooling, revealing the complexities of how people
viewed gender and how they acted based on their views in relation to formal schooling.
While some Mexicana/os held to traditional gender norms in some their decisions about
schooling, more immediate family needs determined many more of their decisions. Frank Hernandez
explains the views of some Mexicana/o parents concerning whether their daughters attended high school
at Argentine High School: “Their folks would make them stay home. … ‘What’s the idea of education?
What do you want to educate them for? ‘Cause you’re going to get married. You’re going to have a
family. What good is education?’” 108 Some Mexicana/os believed that girls did not need schooling, or
schooling beyond elementary grades, because they were going to get married and have children, like Lucy
Vargas’ father, Emilia Rangel’s maternal grandmother, and Elvira Ramirez’ father. 109 A few families kept
boys from attending school because they felt the boys did not need schooling. While D.C. Garcia’s father
questioned the need for his son’s education, saying, “Just go to work like I did” and Garcia missed
significant amounts of school due to migration and fieldwork. 110 However, if Mexicanos missed school or
dropped out, it was more likely that family needs took precedence over schooling for boys rather than
gendered ideas that boys did not need school. The same can be said of girls.
As evidenced earlier in the chapter, many Mexicana/os held egalitarian views in desiring to
educate all of their children, regardless of their gender. Many first and second generation Mexicana/os
saw school as a way for the next generation of Mexicana/os to move beyond menial labor and poverty.
Jesús Mercado explains, “We used to leave school in Kansas early to come to the farm or work in the beet
fields. At the time we arrived, school wasn’t over yet, so my folks sent us to school in Lake Lillian
[Minnesota]. We went to country school, one room, first through eighth grade.” 111 When his family
settled in the East Side of St. Paul, Mercado attended school more regularly and graduated from Mechanic
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Arts High School in 1941. Mercado’s father was instrumental in encouraging his children to complete
formal schooling: “As a child, I would always hear my father say, if nothing else, get an education so you
will never have to work like I do.” 112 Mercado and many Mexicana/os used schools as a means for
themselves or their children to move up in socioeconomic status. By taking attending school and earning
diplomas, they hoped to bypass the labor-intensive work of their parents and earn more money.
Notwithstanding gendered expectations from the broader community, Mexican communities, and
Mexican families, young Mexicana/os benefited from more enforcement of mandatory school laws and
job competition during the Depression. Furthermore, while they were in school, Mexicana/os practiced
autonomy over their schooling and future roles beyond prescribed or idealized gender roles.
Resisting and Challenging Gendered Expectations and Seeking Broader Opportunities
In early days of immigration and settlement in the U.S., young Mexicanos often began work as
children in fields, missing school as they migrated with the crops. In some locales, Mexicana/os could not
attend school beyond the elementary grades because none were open to them, and, following expectations
from the broader community and their families, boys often went to work. Several boys stopped attending
school to support their families when a parent suffered death or illness or when the money was tight.
Some young Mexicanos dropped out to join the military. Yet, as the century progressed, more Mexicanos
opted to stay longer in school rather than go to work.
After seeing their fathers relegated into harsh, menial labor for the railroads or in the fields or
after working themselves as young children, many young men decided they wanted broader opportunities
for earning a living, and they used schools to find these opportunities. Ladislao Lopez’ father worked for
a packinghouse in Kansas City, Missouri. Lopez continued with school, being the only Mexicano from
his first grade class to finish high school, and took bookkeeping and radio communications courses in
high school. Rather than applying for the higher-level railroad job he had envisioned, Lopez joined the
service and used the G.I. Bill to earn his chiropractic licensure and opened his own practice. 113 Mexicanos
utilized schools to pursue coursework and activities in which they gained skills for college and
professional careers. Agustin Rocha’s father worked for the railroad. In a small school in Belmond, Iowa,
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young Rocha took classes that prepared him for a career in journalism: “I took a commercial course in
high school…. It helped a lot because I got my typing, my bookkeeping, my shorthand, and so forth.” 114
As a child, Tony Martinez and his family worked on the migrant route. Martinez chose to stay in school,
and at Johnson High School on the East Side of St. Paul, Martinez took mechanical drafting and decided
that was something he wanted to pursue as an adult. In 1950, he joined the Army and went into the Corp
of Engineers to continue his education. 115 Without these opportunities through school, these young men
had few choices for work other than the same jobs many of their fathers worked in packinghouses, the
railroad, and migrant labor.
Because gender weighed more heavily in Mexicana/o parents’ decisions about their daughters’
schooling or at least is more commented upon in the interviews, mandatory schooling was especially
important for Mexicanas as was their ability to resist prescribed gendered expectations from the broader
community and their families. While some Mexicanas report having worked in the fields, as domestics,
and in factories when necessary, many men and women held to the ideal of women staying home,
especially those in the first generation. But, for second and third generation Mexicanas, mandatory
schooling, wartime needs, and peacetime job competition shifted societal and family ideals and
Mexicanas’ behaviors. More Mexicanas attended and graduated from high school. Maria Mora of Kansas
City, Kansas, made the decision to go against her father’s wishes and continue her formal schooling:
My dad was from the old country, and he, at least at the age of 12, I think, was when I was
informed that school was out. That was it. Girls were going to get married at 16 and have a large
family and didn’t need an education…. I was scheduled to quit, but was one of those hard-headed
kids that said, ‘No, that’s not for me.’ Now, as I look back, I think back, and I think, boy, was I
taking my life in my hands, but things were a little different then. I went to school full-time. 116
Mora graduated from high school in 1952. 117 In spite of the opportunity to follow her younger sister in
dropping out in 11th grade to work at Rock Island Arsenal, Julia Navarro decided to stay in school and
graduated from Davenport Central High School. 118 While attending Argentine High in Kansas City,
Kansas, Lucy Lopez went to work for personal reasons, explaining, “My last year in high school, I
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decided I was going to be independent.” 119 Lopez and two girlfriends took jobs at the Terrace Grill
restaurant at Hotel Muehlebach, but when Lopez’ grades dropped due to staying out late to work, Lopez
decided to quit her job: “I was still more interested in my education than I was in working.” 120 Though
they enjoyed working while they were in school because it brought them some measure of independence,
Mora, Navarro, Lopez, and many others like them, decided that school would bring them more
satisfaction and opportunities. They remained in school and graduated.
Some Mexicanas who went to high school took advantage of opportunities to explore possibilities
beyond the gendered expectations from schools and their families, including college and careers. Some
schools offered academics and vocational training that opened up new avenues for young women: going
to work, putting off marriage and children, and/or seeking education while raising children or after their
children left home. Mora considered college while she was in high school and even had a mentor to
encourage her, but paying for college seemed daunting after working while she finished high school.
After raising a family, Mora went to college and went into social service work. 121 Aurora Oropeza took
chemistry at Argentine High in Kansas City, Kansas, which exposed her to the sciences and gained the
support of her chemistry teacher. After graduating, Oropeza went on to earn a college degree and a
nursing degree. 122
Gender and sports
For both Mexicanos and Mexicanas, staying in school longer meant they had more opportunities
to play sports. While sports brought not only opportunities for personal enjoyment, learning new skills,
and finding an outlet for physical activity for Mexicanos and Mexicanas, Mexicanos had an additional
opportunity to cash in their high school sports experiences for opportunities after they finished school.
His success at playing football at Argentine High allowed Joe Amayo to negotiate for a job later:
The master mechanic [Vandenberg] there [Santa Fe Railroad] and the others, they were football
followers, they followed Argentine High School. My last year, we beat almost everybody in
greater Kansas City. So, they used to gamble. They gambled on this game and Vandenberg told
me, ‘Hey, Mexican boy, I want you to win this game!’ I said, ‘What’s in it for me if I win the
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game?’ ‘Would you like to work for the railroad?’ ‘Yeah!’ ‘I give you a job.’ ‘Okay.’ We was
playing Rosedale. We went out and won the game using some dirty tricks….Anyway, we won the
game. The following summer I was working on the dykes for the city, and I saw Vandenberg. I
said, ‘Hey, Dutchman, you owe me a job!’ ‘Oh, yeah, Joe Amayo! I remember you. Come over
and I’ll put you to work.’ 123
Vandenberg did get Amayo a job, during the height of the Depression. 124 At Wichita’s North High, Tony
Oropesa played golf and gained the skills and connections to play regionally as a professional, open a golf
course, and create a Latin American golf club for Mexicana/o youth. 125 For Frank Rodriguez who grew up
in St. Paul, sports were important, and he played them whenever and wherever he could, including at
school as well as the local settlement. Rodriguez notes, “I played football. I was a regular in football and
basketball during the years I went to school…. I spent an awful lot of time playing ball, sometimes
playing four evenings a week, and playing every weekend out of town.” 126 Through sports, Rodriguez
found a physical outlet and acceptance at school. Rodriguez asserts, “I have a degree in athletics behind
me,” and these experiences helped him gain employment and leadership roles at Neighborhood House as
an adult. 127 These Mexicanos used school to gain access to sports, and from there, they brokered their
sports experiences for further gains. While much of their success stemmed from their personal drive and
personalities, these Mexicanos also held places on boys’ teams that garnered more visibility and status
than the girls attained on girls’ teams.
While Mexicanas also valued sports, their sports experiences did not gain them the same
recognition or career benefits as sports experiences did for Mexicanos. Mexicanas enjoyed playing sports
in school, and they also utilized school sports as a way to be physically active and competitive, skills and
activities not often approved of by their families or communities. 128 In spite of discrimination at school,
Felisa Ruiz and her older sister played basketball while attending school in Morris, Kansas. 129 When
Mexicanos and Mexicanas stayed in school and completed high school, they often used schooling as a
means to resist and/or challenge the gendered expectations of schools and the broader community, the
Mexican community, and their families as well as to explore new avenues for work and play and what it
meant to be Mexicanos and Mexicanas.
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Using Schools to Resist and Challenge Racialization of Mexicana/os
The previous chapter identifies the schools available for Mexicana/os in the Midwest during this
period, as well as racialized the school structures Mexicana/os encountered. Mexicana/os attended schools
that ranged from totally segregated, abusive, and derelict, to schools where Mexicana/os fell through
cracks academically and struggled to learn English, to schools where Anglo schoolteachers and principals
supported and challenged them. In this chapter, I do not tell a story of how schools acted upon
Mexicana/os but how Mexicana/os took the advantages that schools had to offer and made schools work
for them. To conclude the chapter, I explore how some Mexicana/os utilized schools as a physical place
in which to resist and/or challenge the racialization of Mexicans.
Resisting and Challenging Americanization Policies and Practices
In midwestern schools, some Mexicana/o children used the physical space as a place to resist and
challenge discriminatory school policies and practices like Americanization and English-only instruction.
The thrust of Americanization programs directed toward Mexicana/os in public and parochial schools, as
well as in general society, required them to learn English and often punished them if they did not. At
school and in school-related events, Mexicana/os navigated others’ ideas of what it meant to be Mexican,
Mexican American, or American. As they moved through their formal schooling, Mexicana/os resisted
and challenged racialization.
Resisting and Challenging Ethnic and Racialized Labeling
In the first half of the twentieth century, schools and other social entities prescribed the label of
“Mexican” to Mexicana/os or to the institutions that served them, regardless of people’s citizenship status,
how they personally identified, or their intentions toward acculturation. Schools were officially labeled
“Mexican” or informally referred to as such. Yet, in their oral histories, Mexicana/os identify themselves
in many ways: as Mexicans, as Mexican Americans, as Hispanics, as Americans, and/or as Chicana/os,
and several explain how they came to identify themselves to school people and peers or how their
identities changed and evolved. In several oral histories, Mexicana/os describe specific incidents or
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conditions in their schooling experiences that influenced their identity development. In these cases, being
able to label themselves was a powerful experience for Mexicana/os. Cirilo Arteaga recalls responding to
people who said he was different because of his abilities to speak both Spanish and English and his desire
to hold on to his Mexican culture: “Eventually, I trained myself that when anyone asked me who I am, I
would say Mexican. Automatically say Mexican because of my heritage. But then, I would say I’m
American born of Mexican parents.” 130 Arteaga explains that his response was for Anglos who insisted on
Americanization, as well as Mexicana/os his age “who fell for this deal about be American, speak
English, and this and that.” 131 For Arteaga, both aspects of his cultural heritage were important as was his
right to identify himself. Ladislao Lopez recalled an incident when he had to defend his personal identity
to a peer and a teacher assisted him while he was attending public schools in Kansas City, Kansas:
The first time I had trouble with one of the Anglo boys. He kept telling me that I was not an
American, and I know I was an American. So, I told him, I said, ‘Well, let’s let the American
history teacher decide whether I’m an American or not.’ And, she scolded this boy…‘Don’t you
know your geography?’ ‘Cause, you know, after all, Mexico is part of North America, and so is
Canada. Lopez is an American. He may not be a citizen, that I don’t know.’ He didn’t ask me
that. He labeled me as not an American…but you learn to defend yourself under those
circumstances. 132
While school people and others in the community, including other Mexicana/os, identified Mexicana/os
as “Mexican,” regardless of their citizenship status, their or their personal ideas about identity, some
Mexicana/os actively resisted these identifications and claimed their own cultural and ethnic identities in
school settings.
Resisting and Challenging Renaming
Some Mexicana/os resisted and challenged Americanization by insisting on keeping their names.
In some of the first moments of their formal schooling experiences, Mexicana/os experienced having their
names changed by school people because a teacher could not pronounce it or a teacher decided to
Americanize their names. Upon entering school in Garden City, Kansas, Cipriana Rodriguez explains
how she became Sue: “My first teacher, Elsa Brown, ah, thought that my name was complicated to
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pronounce, so she…put Supina. I really don’t know how she got it, but then I abbreviated it later in high
school so it was Sue. But my full name is Cipriana Maria Rodriguez.” 133 As a very young child,
Rodriguez did not have control over her teacher’s decision to change her name or even the name Brown
chose, but as a high schooler, Rodriguez made the decision to change her own name to suit her personal
identity. 134 Frank Chavez describes how his grade school teacher tried to convince him and his siblings to
Americanize their last name by changing the spelling:
At the time everybody spelled my name with a ‘Z.’ I still do. But most of the kids never did. She
told us that we should spell the name with an‘ S’ because it was more Americanized. To this day,
some of my brothers still spell it with an ‘S,’ so since then, I have used a ‘Z.’ 135
Maria Mora describes how her name was changed in school records in Kansas City, Kansas: “Most of my
school records are in ‘Mary,’ instead of Maria, or ‘Joe,’ instead of Jose. You know, when you’re growing
up, you don’t pay attention to these things, but they are really robbing us of our culture, family
background.” 136 A person’s given or surname name can be an integral part of one’s personal identity and
how one connects to one’s family and culture. In some cases, children and parents did not have control
over how teachers or administrators documented their names or otherwise identified Mexicana/o children
in class or in formal records. Yet, several Mexicana/os did not accept name changes, insisting upon their
rights to their names, their culture, and their personal identities.
Resisting and Challenging English-Only Policies
At school, numerous Mexicana/o children chose to use Spanish and in doing so resisted and
challenged English-only policies and practices and retained their ethnic and cultural identities in the face
of racialization. Several Mexicana/os report having made decisions about the languages they used at
home and in school, changing back and forth. While the public schools he attended in Wichita, Kansas,
enforced an English-only policy, Cirilo Arteaga and his friends used Spanish and English
interchangeably. The ability to speak both Spanish and English made Arteaga feel “blessed”: “I guess
that’s the beauty of having two languages. Because we could talk up a storm in Spanish or talk up a storm
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in English. Or mix it up.” 137 Arteaga and his friends created new words in what he called “Spanglish” that
were unique to his group of friends. It was a way for him to acknowledge both of his cultures. 138 Mary
Lou Hernandez recalls using Spanish in Kansas City, Missouri, in spite of school policies against it,
“Everybody spoke Spanish at school over at Our Lady of Guadalupe. The sisters didn’t like for students
to speak Spanish.” 139 In these ways, Arteaga, Hernandez, and others challenged the racialization of
Mexicana/os by bucking English-only policies.
Resisting and Challenging Abuse
At school, Mexicana/os faced verbal, physical, and psychological abuse from school people and
Anglo peers. As young children, many Mexicana/os felt they had little recourse in protecting themselves
from this abuse from adults or Anglo peers at school. Yet, school also provided them a space in which
they could resist and challenge such abuse from teachers, principals, and peers. Some found ways of
resisting, including dropping out or leaving school grounds for lunch. Some reported abuse to their
families, while others stood up for themselves and took matters into their own hands, or fists. Still others
used the abuse as stark motivation to finish their schooling.
When necessary, Mexicanos and Mexicanas challenged abuse with physical responses. It was not
only adults at school who abused Mexicana/o children. Mexicana/os experienced verbal, physical, and
mental abuse from peers. At St. Anthony’s in Davenport, Henry Vargas recalls that though they were a
numerical minority, Mexicana/o students “ran the school on the playground. They were afraid of us….
We didn’t scare ‘em or beat ‘em, they just felt that [nobody] was gonna push us around…. So we
controlled the school—after the nuns.” 140 When he went to high school in Kansas City, Kansas, Joe
Amayo was one of few Mexicana/os, and he had to defend himself: “That’s when I started learning how
to box, when I went to high school. I either knew how to fight, or else too bad for Joe.” 141 At the age of
twelve or thirteen, Daniel Oropesa experienced abuse at the hands of other students on school grounds in
Wichita, out of sight of school people:
They got behind the building and beat me up. So, I reacted. I didn’t say nothing. I went home
with a bloody nose and everything. But I told my step dad, and he said, ‘well, you gotta learn how
to take care of yourself.’ So, I took care of the problem. So, I went back and I used my head so I
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went back and hit all three of them. Was it a solution? No, I don’t think it was a solution. I just
got even. 142
Sticking together as a united front and showing physical strength were means for these Mexicanos to find
relief from abuse in the school and on the playground.
Young Mexicanas also projected physical strength and force when they needed to protect
themselves and others from abuse. Dolores Garcia avoided being teased by projecting her strength. Of her
peers at St. Alphonsus in Davenport, Garcia recalled, “They didn’t tease me because I was tough. If they
told me anything, they knew they’d have to pay for it after school so they didn’t pick on me.” 143 Felisa
Ruiz of Morris, Kansas, recalls abuse on the playground:
I remember that when we had recess, I would always run to the swings because I enjoyed that
completely, and there was another little girl who liked swings also, but she was a bigger girl that I
was. She would ram the adjacent swing so that it would hit me, and I was terrified, so,
consequently, I would give up the swing and let them take over. 144
When Ruiz’ mother was unable to help her daughter, Ruiz’ sister defended her: “One occasion, my sister
Lupe went out and defended me. She saw what was happening and she took on this girl.” 145 These
Mexicana/o students found they had to counter abuse through showing solidarity and/or physical force in
response. While these decisions did not eliminate racism, the forceful response allowed the Mexicana/o
children to assert their right to attend school and be on school grounds without being abused.
Resisting and Challenging Racialization Through Activism
Many Mexicana/os report having experienced verbal, physical, and psychological abuse at the
hands of teachers, principals, and Anglo peers. They experienced racialization in their schools and
throughout their communities. Many used these experiences as fuel for their activism as adults. An
attendee at St. Anthony’s in Davenport, Henry Vargas describes mistreatment from the nuns and how it
pushed him to continue rather than drop out:
The nuns, they were in command. They’ve got their rulers and they pulled your hair…. [In] third
grade and I had this one that was always on me. And, I thought, ‘What’s the matter with her?’….
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Then I got that nun for two more grades, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I thought I’d get rid of
her…. By the time I got to seventh and eighth grade, I was galvanized against…I had learned that
I had to get an education, but I was ready for ‘em, you know. And, one thing they did teach me
was perseverance. I was gonna get an education regardless of what they did to me. 146
Vargas dropped out of school in 10th grade to work, and as an adult, Vargas worked for LULAC, the
Davenport Catholic Interracial Council, and the Davenport Human Rights Commission. 147 Ernest
Rodriguez describes being inspired to stay in school and challenge racialization of Mexicana/os by a
speech given by the Mayor of Davenport:
I think one event kind of turned me to social action, and I don’t know what grade I was in, but
our class [was] taken downtown somewhere, and I think it was near city hall, and the mayor, Art
Kroppoch 148 at that time, spoke to us. And, he said, ‘Well, any of you can aspire to be president
of the United States.’ Well, from my experience, you know, I felt he certainly wasn’t talking
about me, and I almost felt like I’d like to be swallowed up in the floor, you know, and disappear.
But, in the back of my mind, I kind of thought, well, anything I can do to make things better, you
know, where what he said would be true, that I was gonna do it. 149
Rodriguez graduated and practiced activism in his community in the following organizations: the
American G.I. Forum, LULAC, Scott County Young Democrats, Chicano Educational Productions,
Davenport Human Rights Commission, the Area Board for Migrants, and the Muscatine Migrant
Committee. 150 Speaking about the lack of instruction about Mexican American history in St. Paul schools,
Dionisa Coates recalls,
the schools never taught us what the Mexican American contributed to the society in America.
We always talked about cowboys and Indians. We all went to the cowboy and Indian movies, but
nobody said the cowboys were brought in by the Mexicans, or the rodeos, or any of these things
that are as American as apple pie. The kids never learned this. They were never aware that some
of these things were their contributions.151
Coates graduated from high school, worked for the government, and then devoted herself to aiding
Mexicana/os in the following organizations: the Mexican American Task Force on Education, The
Spanish Speaking Culture Club; The Amherst H. Wilder Foundation; and the Board of Directors of the
100
Neighborhood House. 152 Vargas, Rodriguez, and Coates, and many more Mexicana/os, used their
experiences with racialization to sustain them as they worked to make schools equitable and to fight
discrimination and segregation in their communities.
Conclusion
Most Mexicana/os valued education and the idea of formal schooling. While completing formal
schooling was not always an option for Mexicana/os and though they faced race, class, and gender
prejudices, many Mexicana/os attended parochial and public schools. Through schools, Mexicana/os
made connections with Anglos, took advantage of access to educational and extracurricular opportunities,
explored opportunities beyond the gendered expectations of schools and broader communities, the
Mexican community, and family, and resisted and/or challenged the racialization of Mexicans. For many
Mexicana/os, formal schooling had many complex meanings beyond being a compulsory obligation. The
idea of schooling meant fulfilling their desires to learn, to engage with other members of the community,
to move up in socioeconomic class, to go to college, to give back to their communities, and to show
people that Mexicana/os could learn and could succeed in U.S. society.
101
Notes
1
Robert Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri. Lopez quotes his father: “‘No matter what you do,
that education will better you. You can go and wait on tables, work on railroads, and earn your living, but never get
away from school. So, try your best. Stay in school.’”
2
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
3
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS
751, KSL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
4
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
5
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
6
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS
751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
7
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
8
Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
9
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri; Elvira Ramirez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS
751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
10
In some cases, Mexicana/os reported on experiences of parents, siblings, and their children, and though I include
these, I also treat these reported experiences with more caution, as it is not possible for one to completely understand
or accurately report the implications of such experiences when they are someone else’s.
11
Marcelina Urvina, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
12
Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
13
Richard R. Valencia and Mary S. Black, “‘Mexican Americans Don’t Value Education!’—On the Basis of the
Myth, Mythmaking, and Debunking.” Journal of Latinos and Education 1, no. 2 (2002): 81-103. As Valencia and
other scholars argue, scholarship and public opinion still reveal that this myth is alive and well, but I limit the scope
of this study to 1955.
14
For general histories about Mexican Americans in the Midwest that mention education, see: Hector Franco, “The
Mexican People in the State of Kansas” (Master’s dissertation, The University of Wichita, 1950); Juan R. Garcia,
Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Judith Fincher Laird,
“Argentine, Kansas: The Evolution of a Mexican-American Community, 1905-1940” (Ph.D dissertation, University
of Kansas, 1975); Jim Norris, North For the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry (St
Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009); Socorro Ramirez, A Survey of the Mexicans in Emporia, Kansas”
(A Master’s thesis, The Kansas State Teachers College of Emporia, 1942); Domingo Ricart, “Just Across the
Tracks: Report of a Survey of Five Mexican Communities in the State of Kansas (Emporia, Florence, Newton,
Wichita, Hutchinson)” (Lawrence, University of Kansas, 1950); Larry Rutter, “Mexican Americans in Kansas: A
Survey and Social Mobility Study, 1900-1970” (Master’s thesis, Kansas State University, 1972); Dennis Nodín
Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1991); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth
Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000); Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of
Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press,
1993). For histories on Mexican American education in the Midwest, see: Robert Martin Cleary, “The Education of
Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (Master’s thesis, University of Missouri, Kansas City,
2002); Teresa A. Garcia, “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the Children of Mexican Railroad Workers in Fort
Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 2008); Victoria-María MacDonald,
102
“Demanding Their Rights: The Latino Struggle for Educational Access and Equity,” American Latinos and the
Making of the United States: A Theme Study. Online through the U.S. National Park Service, 2013
http://www.nps.gov/latino/latinothemestudy/education.htm (accessed Oct. 2014); Victoria-Maria MacDonald,
Latino Education in the United States: A Narrated History from 1513-2000 (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2004);
Mario Rios Perez, “The Color of Youth: Mexicans and the power of Schooling in Chicago, 1917-1939” (Ph. D.
dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012).
15
Mary Edens, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
16
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, The
University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.
17
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
18
John Lopez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
19
John Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
20
Salvador Gutierrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
21
Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
22
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
23
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
24
Ibid.
25
Marcelina Urvina, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
26
Ibid.
27
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
28
Estefania Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
29
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP,
IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
30
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
31
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
32
John Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
33
“State Officials into Mexican Pupil Row,” Kansas City, Kansan (October 17, 1925), The History of Our Public
Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/disthistory/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-17-oct-1925.html (accessed October 19,
2014); Robert Martin Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (Master’s
thesis, University of Missouri, Kansas City, 2002).
34
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002.
35
“Mexican Case Up to U.S.,” The Kansan (October 30, 1925), The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte
County, Kansas. Kansas City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/dist-
103
history/ethnic_history/mexican_american/alvarado/news_publications/arg-17-oct-1925.html (accessed October 19,
2014).
36
Cleary, “The Education of Mexican-Americans,” 2002.
37
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
38
Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
39
D.C. Garcia, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRLUKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
40
Ibid.
41
Carlos Urvina and Marcelina Urvina, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
42
Ibid.
43
Art Tabares, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
44
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
45
Aurora Oropreza and Trina Torrez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas;
Aldolpho Oropreza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas. Before Saturnino
Alvarado’s two children and several others integrated Argentine High School in 1930, and most Mexicana/os did not
attend high school because none accepted Mexicana/os.
46
Gregory Gonzalez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
47
Gregory Gonzalez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
48
Ibid.
49
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
50
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
51
Estefania Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
52
Lydia Mendoza de Gonzales and Louis Mendoza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence,
Kansas.
53
David Ramirez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
54
Mary Lou Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
55
Leonard Lopez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
56
John Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
57
Louis Medina, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN. In his interview, Louis Medina explains how he came to his
philosophy about education and schooling. Louis Medina went to school through fifth grade when Medina’s father
told him, “Well, son, you have to help us.” Medina dropped out of school and went to work. Medina’s early entry
into a difficult work environment influenced Medina’s strong beliefs about his children getting formal schooling.
58
August W. Steinhilber, and C.J. Sokolowski, State Law on Compulsory Attendance (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1966).
104
59
Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
60
Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
61
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
62
Lucy Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
63
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
64
Robert Martin Cleary. “The Education of Mexican-Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, 1916-1951” (Master’s
thesis, University of Missouri—Kansas City, 2002).
65
Salvador Gutierrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
66
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
67
Henry Capiz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid.
70
See Chapter One.
71
Tony Oropesa, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
72
Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City,
Iowa.
73
Gabriela F. Arredondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-39 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2008); Matt S. Meir, and Feliciano Ribera, Mexican Americans/American Mexican: From Conquistadors to
Chicanos (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994); Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions: Mexican
Experiences of Immigration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Edward E. Telles, and Vilma Ortiz,
Generations of Exclusion: Mexican Americans, Assimilation, and Race (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
2009); Jessica M. Vasquez, Mexican Americans Across Generations: Immigrant Families, Racial Realities (New
York: New York University Press, 2011).
74
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
75
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP,
IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
76
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
77
Ernest Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
78
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
79
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
Aurora Oropreza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
81
John A. Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
80
82
Pete Quiroga, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
83
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
105
84
Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
85
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
86
Ibid.
87
Frank Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
88
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
89
Ernest Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
90
Dolores “Lola” Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
91
Ralph Delgado, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
92
Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
93
Pete Quiroga, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
94
Felisa Ruiz, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
95
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP,
IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
96
Agustin Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
97
Ernest Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Janet Weaver, “From Barrio to
‘¡Boicoteo!’: The Emergence of Mexican American Activism in Davenport, 1917-1970,” Annals of Iowa 68, no. 3
(Summer 2009):215-254.
98
John A. Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
99
Felisa Ruiz, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
100
Frederico “Fred” Saucedo, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
101
Arredondo, Mexican Chicago, 2008; Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Meir, and Ribera, Mexican
Americans/American Mexican, 1994; Hondagneu-Sotelo, Gendered Transitions, 1994; Vicki Ruiz, From Out of the
Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Telles, and
Ortiz, Generations of Exclusion, 2009; Valdés, Al Norte, 1991; Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000; Vargas,
Proletarians of the North, 1993; Vasquez, Mexican Americans Across Generations, 2011.
102
Patricia Fernández-Kelly “Reforming Gender: The Effects of Economic Change on Masculinity and Femininity
in Mexico and the U.S.,” Women’s Studies Review (Fall 2005): 86.
103
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
104
Ignacio Guerrero, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
105
Fernández-Kelly “Reforming Gender,” 86.
106
Fernández-Kelly “Reforming Gender,” 86.
107
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994): 9.
106
108
Frank Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
109
Mary Edens, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC,
Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri; Emila Rangel, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri;
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. Mary Edens of Cook’s Point in
Davenport missed school because she was the eldest daughter and was expected to care for her mother and siblings.
From Cook’s Point, Lucy Vargas left school in 10th grade: “I didn’t finish high school because my dad was a firm
believer [that] girls stayed home and, you know, helped their mothers.”
110
D.C. Garcia, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
111
Jesús Mercado, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
112
Jesús Mercado, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
113
Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
114
Agustin Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
115
Tony Martinez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
116
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
117
Ibid.
118
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
119
Lucy Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
120
Ibid.
121
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
122
Aurora Oropreza, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
123
Joe Amayo, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
124
Joe Amayo, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
125
Tony Oropesa, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
126
Frank Rodriguez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
127
Ibid.
128
Dolores “Lola” Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. In the Cook’s Point
barrio, Dolores Garcia loved to ride her bike and play baseball with other children, but her father told her those were
not things girls should do; Lucy Lopez, Hispanic Oral History collection, Missouri Valley Special Collections,
Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri. Lopez recalled that her brothers rode bikes and played, but her
grandmother and mother had her sit on the porch with them crocheting.
129
130
Felisa Ruiz, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
131
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
107
132
Ladislao Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
133
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
134
Ibid.
135
Frank Chavez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
136
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
137
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
138
Ibid.
139
Mary Lou Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
140
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
141
Joe Amayo, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
142
Daniel Oropesa, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 752, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
143
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
144
Felisa Ruiz, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
145
Ibid.
146
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
147
Ibid.
148
Arthur Kroppoch served as the mayor of Davenport from 1944-1954.
“Davenport Mayors,” Davenport Public Library. http://www.davenportlibrary.com/genealogy-and-history/localhistory-info/the-people/davenport-mayors/ (accessed October 19, 2014).
149
Ernest Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
150
Ernest Rodriguez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; Weaver, “From Barrio to
‘¡Boicoteo!,’2009.
151
Dionisa “Nicha” Cardena Coates, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
152
Dionisa “Nicha” Cardena Coates, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
108
CHAPTER THREE
TWO WEST SIDE STORIES: MEXICANA/OS’ PARTICIPATION IN NON-FORMAL EDUCATION
IN TWO MIDWESTERN SETTLEMENT HOUSES
While growing up on St. Paul’s West Side in the 1920s and 1930s, Frank Rodriguez participated in clubs,
events, and sports at Neighborhood House, the secular settlement house that served over 23 different
ethnic groups. 1 As a high schooler, Rodriguez worked as a coach and an umpire at the settlement. As a
young adult, Rodriguez taught classes, led clubs, and worked at the settlement’s Owendigo Camp. As an
adult, Rodriguez served on the state legislature and numerous local committees, including “almost every
committee” at the Neighborhood House. 2 Throughout his life, Rodriguez not only participated in nonformal education available at Neighborhood House, he also took on the roles of educator and leader at the
settlement.
As a young person growing up in Kansas City, Missouri’s, West Side neighborhood in the 1940s
and 1950s, Mary Lou Hernandez participated in clubs and non-formal educational programs at Guadalupe
Center settlement. Unlike Neighborhood House, Guadalupe Center was affiliated with a local Mexican
Catholic parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe. And, like the parish church, the settlement served Mexicana/os
almost exclusively. 3 Although her parents did not attend Guadalupe church or participate at Guadalupe
Center, Hernandez recalls being very active at the center. Hernandez took cooking and sewing classes and
belonged to a girls’ club called the Chicanas. 4 Hernandez describes her family as one of the poorest in the
neighborhood, and explains that her parents’ focus was on providing for their twelve children. Feeling
neglected and discriminated against at school and overworked as the oldest daughter at home, Hernandez
went to Guadalupe Center to meet her needs for socialization and to take advantage of non-formal
educational opportunities. 5 In their oral histories, Rodriguez, Hernandez, and many more Mexicana/os
share their perspectives about the non-formal education offered and recall their experiences with
participating at the Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center settlements.
109
Since their beginnings in 1886 and in their various evolutions, U.S. settlements have adapted their
missions and practices in order to stay relevant. Settlement scholars describe settlement ideologies as
dual-faceted and often in conflict. Mina Carson writes: “the settlement principle of ‘personal dedication’
in the spirit of social Christianity pulled the movement in one direction, while the settlement workers’
deference to the authority and objectives of social science as the engine of effective change dictated a
different structure and set of priorities.” 6 Similarly, Howard Kroger describes settlement work as having
dichotomous functions of social control and altruism, which fluctuated based on social, political, and
economic contexts, and argues that early settlements did not follow a universal theory or philosophy.
Kroger generalizes the common settlement motto as: “settlement houses do whatever works,” meaning
settlement workers adapted their services and practices to the needs of their neighbors while still adhering
to their unique agendas. 7 Yet, Carson’s and Kroger’s scholarship, while relevant, looks at settlement work
from the perspective of settlement workers and dominant culture, not the neighbors’ perspectives.
Because many resided in their facilities, settlement workers proclaimed themselves neighbors to
people in the community and sought to educate new immigrants about their roles and responsibilities in
the U.S. and to educate the rest of the citizenry about the new immigrants. Predominately Anglo and
upper to middle class settlement leaders and settlement workers assessed the needs of their neighborhoods
and participants, many of whom were minor children, based on the workers’ lived experiences and
understandings of race, class, and gender. While many settlements served neighbors regardless of creed or
nationality, others were funded and run by churches or religious orders and offered religious instruction.
Some of these settlement workers attempted to convert those who came for health services. Some
settlements served only blacks, or “colored” patrons, while others claimed to serve anyone in the
neighborhood. 8 Based on their assessments of the neighborhood and the neighbors, settlement workers
made decisions about non-formal education, including who did the teaching, what was taught, how it was
taught, and to whom it was taught.
While most settlements advocated for the needs of neighbors and for settlements to be open to
adaptation, supporters of Americanization, public opinion, and current sociological understandings of
110
race, gender, and class influenced settlement workers and funding entities. Early settlement scholar
Arthur Holden argued that most settlements did not promote “the whirlwind Americanization
propaganda,” which he identifies as the ripping away of immigrants’ language and traditions out of fear
of bolshevism. 9 Rather, settlements offered English classes and organized clubs and classes aimed to help
immigrants take roles in U.S. society. Settlement workers’ views about immigrants spanned a broad
spectrum from staunch assimilationism to cultural pluralism, and even as settlement workers touted
democratization, many of their practices revealed entrenched ideas about American, i.e. upper-middle
class, Western European, superiority.
With fluctuations in the economy, waves and stagnations in immigration, changing public
opinions about immigrants, and different groups of people moving into and out of neighborhoods,
settlement philosophies, services, and practices changed, as did the individuals who worked in
settlements. Settlements were not consistent entities. After World War I, many settlements’ roles in
neighborhoods changed and/or waned due to new immigration laws, changes in federal funding, and the
movement away from humanitarian neighborliness and group work toward more professional social work
and case work. To stay open, many settlements turned their practices toward social work, hired staff
members who lived off-site, and identified themselves as community centers.
In the interviews, I found evidence of several institutions providing non-formal education for
Mexicana/os, but interviewees from St. Paul and Kansas City, Missouri, 10 provided the most revelatory
and in-depth descriptions about their non-formal educational experiences at Neighborhood House and
Guadalupe Center, respectively. 11 From the early 1920s through the 1950s, 12 these two settlements served
significant populations of Mexicana/os in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Kansas City, Missouri. The Minnesota
Historical Society and The Kansas City Public Library hold extensive collections of Neighborhood
House’s and Guadalupe Center’s institutional records, including: institutional histories, business reports,
photographs, fliers, programs, and club leaders’ reports. Yet institutional documents often privilege
settlement leaders’ points of view about their services, practices, and success. The extant interviews of
Mexican/os who lived in the neighborhoods served by Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center,
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including those of Rodriguez and Hernandez, provide more information about how Mexicana/os’
participated at the settlements and what it meant to them. Together, these sources help to reveal the
choices Mexicana/os made regarding their participation in settlement-generated offerings and their
agency in utilizing Neighborhood House or Guadalupe Center to further meet their non-formal
educational needs and goals.
In this third chapter, I begin with brief histories of Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center.
Then, based on over 120 oral histories and extensive institutional records, I explore how the complex
social constructions of race/ethnicity, class, and gender influenced the non-formal educational
opportunities at these settlements, what the these settlements and their offerings meant to Mexicana/os,
and how Mexicana/os chose to participate at settlements. This analysis also addresses one of the many
types of institutions Mexicana/os used to seek education, besides schools, and contributes to the history of
Mexican Americans, the history of Mexican American education, and the history of non-formal
education.
While the Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Guadalupe Center in Kansas City,
Missouri, 13 differed in terms of their religious affiliations and in the racial, ethnic, and religious makeup
of the neighbors they served, both settlements promoted Americanization goals. While settlement leaders’
stated intentions were to aid Mexicana/o neighbors in acculturating and becoming productive citizens,
some of their policies, practices, and non-formal educational offerings perpetuated stereotypes about
Mexicana/os within their settlements and the broader communities. The evidence from institutional
records, oral history interviews, and other sources reveals the complexity of Mexicana/os’ decisions
concerning how they participated in the non-formal educational opportunities offered by the
Neighborhood House and the Guadalupe Center. Influenced, in part, by their own evolving ideas about
race, ethnicity, faith, and gender, a select few Mexicana/os chose not to participate at settlements, but
many more used settlement-generated offerings to meet their needs. Furthermore, Mexicana/os initiated
clubs and activities, took leadership roles, and, overall, made the settlements work for themselves and
their community.
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History of Neighborhood House
In 1893, Mrs. Sophie Wirth and the Mount Zion’s Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society’s Jewish
Relief reached out to new Jewish immigrants in St. Paul’s West Side. They began their work with sewing
classes for young girls. In 1900, with more immigrants coming to the neighborhood and seeking services,
the women and the rabbi opened Neighborhood House at 153 Robertson Street. Early Neighborhood
House work focused on Americanization education, including English classes, instruction about U.S.
customs for adults and children, and sewing classes for young girls to prepare them for work in the local
textile industries. 14
The West Side was a home for many of St. Paul’s new immigrant groups, including Jews,
African-Americans, Lebanese, Syrians, and Mexicans. Although Neighborhood House leaders were
initially Jewish and served Jewish immigrants, they soon opened their services to all neighbors, regardless
of creed, color, or culture. 15 In 1903, Leaders from Protestant and Catholic churches joined Mt. Zion
leaders “in an effort to improve the common lot of, and to ‘Americanize,’ the residents of the Lower West
Side” and reorganized the Neighborhood House into a non-sectarian association. 16 The Neighborhood
House Association elected officers who represented Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish interests. At that
point, they hired two full-time workers and acquired seven volunteers. With incorporation and new
leadership came a budget, which allowed for consistent staffing and a program of Americanization and
English night school classes taught by people from Macalester College and the St. Paul Institute of Letters
and Science. These developments, along with a visit from Jane Addams in 1908, took Neighborhood
House into the realm of settlement work and status.
From 1910 and into the 1930s, Neighborhood House moved fully into settlement work: building
playgrounds, opening a kindergarten, housing community organizations, adding boys’ and girls’ clubs,
and providing recreational and non-formal educational opportunities for children outside of school hours.
Programs at Neighborhood House changed with world events like world wars, increases in population,
and economic depressions, as well as with national movements that promoted the understanding of child
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development and the public’s needs for health care, relief from the confines of the city, and physical
activity. 17 In 1920, Neighborhood House began participating in the local Community Chest in order to
obtain more staffing and funding for more programs. Community Chest money allowed for four full-time
workers, eight part-time workers, and fifty-eight volunteers. The settlement moved to a larger building in
1923, and, five years later, it opened a gymnasium. 18 When many settlements were waning in the volatile
1920s and 1930s, Neighborhood House continued to grow, in part because of funding opportunities but
also because new immigrants continued to come into the West Side, specifically Mexicana/os.19
Across the U.S., anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiments increased during the Depression,
and, in some areas, this change culminated in Mexican repatriation drives. While some settlements and
community organizations did not participate or even protested repatriation drives, many participated. 20
Between 1931 and 1932, settlements across the United States, including Neighborhood House, worked
with county welfare agencies to assist in repatriating Mexicana/os, some of whom were citizens of the
U.S., many of whom were without prospects in Mexico, and many of whom were unwilling to leave.
Neighborhood House records document that these agencies repatriated eighty-six Mexicana/os from 16
families from St. Paul’s West Side to Mexico in 1932. 21 However, when resident director Constance
Currie and Neighborhood House officials understood the “coercive tactics of some state officials,” 22
Neighborhood House not only retracted its support but put its efforts into assisting Mexicana/os in
surviving the rigors of the Depression. During the remainder of the Depression, Neighborhood House
continued settlement work by working in conjunction with governmental and charitable agencies to
provide needed services and programs, like counseling and vocational training, as well as hobby clubs
and work projects for those without jobs.
As the nation moved through the Depression and into another world war, Neighborhood House
hired Work Projects Administration (WPA) workers to teach classes and lead clubs, organized groups and
activities for the unemployed, enrolled children of working mothers in day nurseries and nursery schools,
and offered classes for first aid and victory gardens. A constant at Neighborhood House, Miss Constance
Currie served as resident director from June 13, 1918 until her death in 1957. In an annual report in the
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1930s, Currie wrote about her role at Neighborhood House: “I am primarily a neighbor, not a social
worker, nor an economist but a neighbor, a really very friendly neighbor. Probably I know a good deal
about my neighbors’ business, perhaps more than some of them wish I did.” 23 Currie describes the work
of Neighborhood House as providing instruction and recreation for individuals and families and trying “to
discover needs, create demands, demonstrate the value and the process, and then turn the activities over to
the school, the church, the playground or the city.” 24
Neighborhood House evolved from being a site where well-to-do volunteers sought to uplift and
Americanize new immigrants to one in which trained settlement leaders and workers practiced. It shifted
from being a site that housed government workers during economic downturns and two world wars to a
group work and social service training hub for social workers and other professionals from local agencies
and educational institutions. 25 As many Jews moved to different neighborhoods, Mexicana/os became the
primary neighbors of Neighborhood House well into the 1950s. 26
History of Guadalupe Center
The history of the Guadalupe Center closely follows the history for Our Lady of Guadalupe
Parish, as Catholic Anglos helped to create both institutions to serve Mexicana/os in the West Side
neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Other groups of new Catholic immigrants in the neighborhood
had their own parishes: St. Stanislaus Parish served the Polish, Holy Rosary Parish served Italians, and St.
Monica served “Colored” Catholics. 27 Several Catholic charitable groups and prominent Catholic citizens
took interest in assisting Mexicana/o immigrants and helped them establish a separate parish. 28 By 1919,
Our Lady of Guadalupe parish stood as a separate, Mexican parish with a Mexican priest. The year
before, a group of Catholic women taught vacation schools and English classes for Mexicans in the
neighborhood. Inspired by Agnes Ward Amberg’s establishment of the Guardian Angel Center, a
Catholic settlement in Chicago, the group took the name the Amberg Club of Kansas City. 29 The club
took rooms in the basement of Our Lady of Guadalupe for its work with Mexicana/os, and, by 1926, it
bought the house next door to the church and offered year-round programs. At that point, Amberg
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member Dorothy Gallagher took the role of resident director and the club work at Guadalupe Center
became Catholic settlement work.
In its constitution, the Amberg Club cites its mission: “To gain a wider knowledge of Catholic
social problems, and to work toward their alleviation,” though it did not turn away Protestants or other
groups from the neighborhood. 30 Many of the club members worked as teachers in public or private
schools, school administrators, or businesswomen, and many came from prominent or middle class
families. A prominent Catholic and supporter of charitable services writes about their service:
Some Catholic girls (public school teachers), offered their help in teaching English on Saturdays
and in the evenings. They were a wonderful group of fine Catholic womanhood…. The night
school was crowded with men and women anxious to learn the language of their adopted
country. 31
Amberg members also ran summer schools for Mexicana/o children. Early on, Amberg Club members
practiced “Friendly Visiting”: “a friend…visits in the Mexican district. She visits those homes of those
absent from the Parochial school, and also the sick.” 32 Though sources do not reveal many details about
what happened during the visits, the “friend” likely taught Catechism to the children who attended public
school 33 and visited Mexican homes to “learn more about the diverse backgrounds of the people with
whom they were dealing…. the factors of background and environment.” 34
In the eighteen years of Gallagher’s resident directorship, the Guadalupe Center continued to
grow. It offered clubs, classes, athletics, and other educational opportunities for Mexicana/os, adults and
children. The center also grew physically in order to maintain and expand its many offerings and events.
In 1932, when the building next door to the church became too small for all of the services, a Catholic
benefactor donated a lot with five cottages. The Club had two of the buildings razed to make room for a
playground and outdoor activities, and transformed the remaining three into Las Casas Blancas, or the
White Houses. When the cottages became inadequate, Gallagher funded and drew up plans for a larger
and grander, Guadalupe Center. Built in the adobe-style, the building opened in 1936.
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When Gallagher ended her tenure in 1944, the Kansas City Catholic Diocese purchased the
Guadalupe Center and placed it under the direction of the Sisters of Social Service (SSS) in 1945. The
Diocese replaced the Amberg Club board members with an all-male board, though the Amberg Club
continued to provide funding and held some influence at Guadalupe Center. Sr. Vibiana served as the first
Sister of Social Service director. According to a report, the Sisters “actively engaged in helping the people
integrate into the total population,” interpreted Mexicana/os to the Anglo community, and offered similar
clubs, classes, and services as those offered when Gallagher was director. 35 Similar to other settlements,
Guadalupe Center eventually moved from settlement work to social work, though it retained its ties to the
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and, thus, served primarily Catholic Mexicana/os.
Both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center began with ties to religious entities and the
work of upper and middle-class women’s organizations. While Neighborhood House became secular,
Guadalupe Center retained its Catholic identity. While Neighborhood House served many different
immigrant, faith, and racial groups, including Mexicana/os and African Americans, Guadalupe Center
served Mexicana/o Catholics from the beginning and continued to primarily serve them. Both settlements
retained resident directors who stayed for decades. Unlike other settlements that closed in the first half of
the twentieth century, Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center evolved into community centers and
continued provide opportunities for non-formal education well into the 1950s, even after serious flooding
and urban renewal programs upended these two neighborhoods.
Settlement Policies, Practices, and Non-formal Educational Offerings
While the Neighborhood House and the Guadalupe Center differed in their religious affiliations
and in the racial, ethnic, and religious makeup of the neighbors they served, there are striking similarities
in their policies, practices, and educational offerings. In the institutional records for both settlements and
based on accounts from many Mexicana/o participants, the leaders and workers at both settlements
genuinely wanted to help and reach out to Mexicana/os and other neighbors through education. There is
little doubt that the directors and workers at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center wanted to help
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Mexicana/os. At the same time, some of these similarities reflect settlement workers’ attempts to address
the “Mexican Problem” and notions about Mexicana/os based on common stereotypes. 36 These attempts
and notions are evident in some of the settlements’ policies, practices, and offerings, notably, the
categorization and separation of Mexican neighbors, the Americanization lessons that idealized middle
class and Anglo-centric behaviors and lifestyles, the steering of Mexicana/os toward clubs and classes
that perpetuated race, gender, and class distinctions, and the focus on certain aspects of Mexican culture.
Settlement scholar Howard Kroger’s description of settlement work’s dichotomous functions of social
control and altruism is apt in looking at the complexities and nuances of Neighborhood Houses’ and
Guadalupe Center’s policies, practices, and non-formal educational offerings. 37
Categorization and Separation
From the very first schedules of settlement programs to schedules from the 1940s and 1950s,
Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center institutional documents record categorization and separation
practices across lines of gender, age, faith, race, and nationality. Settlement schedules refer to neighbors
as “Men,” “Women,” “Boys,” and “Girls.” Neighborhood House schedules categorize neighbors as:
“Catholics,” “Gentiles,” “Jewish,” “Colored,” “Negro,” “Foreigners,” “Irish,” “Syrian,” and “Mexican.”
Both settlements also categorized people by age: younger girls, intermediate girls, or married women.
These categories and separations probably helped to plan, organize, and run educational offerings. Yet,
they also indicate more than simple organizational techniques; they indicate that settlement leaders and
workers created and maintained these categorizations and used them to separate groups and to treat
neighbors as members particular groups rather than as individuals with individual needs and goals. In
many ways, these categorizations and separations perpetuated stereotypes about Mexicana/os.
Neighborhood House leaders claimed to follow an egalitarian philosophy: “Constant interest in
and concern for its people—men, women, and children of all nationalities, races, and creeds bound
together as neighbors.” 38 Currie held strong convictions about settlement work and was “known for her
fierce opposition to language of prejudice of every kind.” 39 As an adult, a Neighborhood House
participant recalls Currie’s work:
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She helped the Jewish peddlers, the Irishers, the Negroes, the Mexicans, the Poles; the good
and the bad became victors over their own conflicts. Not once did she flinch or temporize,
and not once did she mouth words which sound all things to all people, but in reality mean
nothing to anyone. 40
Yet, separation of and categorization based on race is evident at Neighborhood House, most notably for
Mexicans and blacks. In 1924, out of concern for the influx of Mexicana/o immigrants and what reports
termed the “Mexican Problem,” Neighborhood House President Mr. Elliot requested Community Chest
put together a committee “to study the problem of the Mexican situation, as it was too large for the
Neighborhood House to cope with singlehanded.” 41 Neighborhood House reports and documents do not
explicitly address the settlement’s proposed role in assisting this new immigrant group. Yet, one
implication of the study and Neighborhood House’s stance on non-formal education and services for
Mexicana/os becomes clear in a document entitled “Development of Work 1921-1927” and in its
schedules well into the 1940s: the practice of separation. 42
Beginning in 1924, most clubs and classes include explicit distinctions for nationality, race,
and/or faith, specifically “Jewish,” “Syrian,” “Mexican,” and “Colored” neighbors. Neighborhood House
offered “Boys Gym” and “Mexican Boys Gym,” “Sewing for Syrians” and “Sewing for Mexicans,”
“English for Men, especially Mexicans,” and “Child Study Club (Jewish Mothers)” and “Child Study
Club (Syrian, Mexican, and Italian).” 43 While Neighborhood House literature claimed to avoid repetition
of services between local agencies, they organized duplicate and even triplicate clubs and classes in order
to separate these groups of neighbors. Neighborhood House leaders organized non-formal educational
clubs and classes to avoid tensions between neighbors and to tempt more neighbors to attend in separate
groups. 44 Yet, in doing so, Neighborhood House leaders and workers perpetuated stereotypes and that
Mexicana/os should be separate.
Neighborhood House separated even the youngest of children. Youth club leader and
Kindergarten teacher Anne Brotzler divided five and six year-old boys into two groups: “merely for the
sake of finding a dividing line, I have Mexicans on Monday and Jewish and Gentiles on Wednesday.” 45 In
her report, Brotzler calls the boys “Good Indians” and describes identical activities for each group. For
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four to six year-old girls, Brotzler conducted Doll Clubs, similarly separated: one club for Mexicans and
one club for Jewish and Gentile girls. Forty-six Mexicanas enrolled in Doll Club, with about thirty-three
attending each session, while only twenty enrolled and fifteen attended the other group. The size of the
Mexican group prohibited the girls from having enough dolls or dishes to go around. Brotzler explains her
reasons for separating the girls: “There is no definite purpose in dividing the group so, but merely for
convenience.” 46 Yet, the dividing line was not very convenient for the group too large for the supplies at
hand. Brotzler divided the groups to keep Mexicana/os separate. In fact, it was common practice to
separate Mexicana/o children in other settlements in the Midwest. In her studies of Mexicana/os in
Chicago, Arrendondo found that both University of Chicago Settlement House and Hull House separated
Mexican boys “‘because it has not proved highly successful where Mexican boys have been mixed with
other boys’” and claimed separation protected Mexican boys from mistreatment from other boys. 47
Neighborhood House activity schedules and programs confirm Neighborhood House continued to
organize classes, social clubs, athletic teams, and music groups according to nationality, race, and class
well into the 1940s. But, tensions continued. A Neighborhood House report from 1936 reveals: “Due to
changes in nationalities and prejudices between the racial groups it had been difficult to carry on Friday
evening programs. Three groups planned Jewish, Mexican, and all others.” 48 Currie describes how she
and other settlement workers used Neighborhood House offerings to appeal to different groups:
When the population was largely Jewish, it was necessary to have more intellectual and cultural
programs, debating forums, music, dramatics, etc., whereas a low class of poor Americans and
poor white require a different approach, and the new-arrival Mexicans are appealed to and
responded still in a different way. 49
On the surface, Currie’s appeals seem to indicate her concern for meeting the needs of these groups, but
her reasoning reveals her difficulty in seeing individuals’ needs aside from their race, class, or ethnic
group membership.
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Guadalupe Center also practiced categorization and separation of Mexicana/os but on a different
level than Neighborhood House. As Catholic immigrants came to the U.S., they formed parishes, usually
based on nationality and language and, when they had enough money, they petitioned the Catholic
diocese for a parish church. In their early settlement in the Midwest, Mexicana/o immigrants had very
little money or the community foothold with which to request a parish. Many went to existing parishes
but attended mass in back pews, separate services, or basements, until some existing Anglo parishes
helped to fund separate parishes. While the Catholic Church began phasing out national parishes in the
1920s, the Church continued this practice for Mexicana/os in the Midwest well into the 1950s. Through
these practices, Catholics and the Catholic Diocese perpetuated the racialization of Mexicana/os. This
racialization carried over to the Guadalupe Center, with the Guadalupe Center serving mostly
Mexicana/os, especially in its early days. Mexicana/os remained separate from and competed for
resources with other Catholic groups as the Amberg Club divided their services amongst other parishes.
While Guadalupe Center did not categorize and separate offerings for Mexicana/os based on racial and
ethnic groups, it did separate neighbors according to gender, age, and marital status in their practices and
offerings. As for separation based on age and gender, settlements and other organizations commonly
practiced separate offerings to account for different developmental levels, gendered notions about
activities, and to alleviate concerns about romantic liaisons, especially for classes like gym. 50
When they sought non-formal educational opportunities at the settlements, Mexicana/os faced
policies and practices of categorization and separation. Before Mexicana/os even walked in the doors of
the settlements or came to be known as individuals, they found settlement structures and policies already
in place to address Mexicans. This is also how many of them encountered Americanization at the
settlements.
Americanization
While Americanization varied widely in settlements across the U.S., most of the leaders and
workers at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center held to ideas of cultural pluralism rather than
assimilation. Many aspects of the Americanization programs and practices at Neighborhood House and
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Guadalupe Center promoted Anglo-centric and middle-class behaviors and lifestyles. While settlement
leaders and workers promoted Mexican culture in their programs at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe
Center, they also endorsed those aspects of Mexican culture they deemed acceptable. Such
Americanization education worked in many ways to help Mexicana/os acculturate and to highlight some
aspects of Mexican culture, but it also perpetuated gender prejudices and the continued racialization of
Mexicana/os within the settlement and in the broader communities.
Middle-Class and Anglo-Centric Behaviors and Lifestyles
Settlements and other organizations that provided Americanization non-formal education
commonly promoted middle-class and Anglo-centric behaviors and lifestyles. Additionally,
Americanization literature concerning Mexicana/so recommended focusing on the habits and values of
the women in order to indoctrinate the whole family. 51 And, because many Mexican men in the
Neighborhood House neighborhood and the Guadalupe Center parish did not participate in settlement
offerings aside from attending English or Civics classes, the settlements directed much of the
Americanization education toward Mexicanas, particularly mothers, and girls and boys. While such
Americanization practices seem innocuous, these practices tended to other, or stigmatize, those who did
not fit into those categories, like Mexicana/os, who were often lived no where near the middle class, who
had their own ideas about and needs concerning culture, and who faced discrimination from many of
those who did identified with Middle-class and Anglo behaviors, lifestyles, and privileges.
Neighborhood House schedules indicate that Americanization classes designated for Mexicana/os
began in 1924, within a year of their arrival to the West Side, and carried through the 1940s. The majority
of this non-formal education targeted women, with classes focused on promoting the settlement leaders’
ideals for homemaking and parenting skills. Because many Mexicanas did not work outside the home,
they could more freely attend programs during the day at Neighborhood House, especially if their
children were in school or Neighborhood House programs. Many of the Health education classes and
clubs focused on women and girls: “Personal Hygiene,” “Health Crusaders,” “Nutrition Class,” “Health
Habits and Nutritional Cooking Club,” and “Child Study Club.” 52 Neighborhood House housed a Baby
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Welfare Association Clinic and a dental clinic. Much of the health care included education, with first aid
classes, mother craft clubs, girls’ health clubs, mothers’ health clubs, and child study clubs. At the
prenatal clinic, mothers received “general information regarding dietetic management, care of the teeth,
and regulation of such habits as eating, sleeping, clothing, and toilet, and the breaking of undesirable
habits such as thumb sucking, bed wetting, and temper tantrums.” 53 Many mothers took their children to
the baby clinics, which for many was their first contact with Neighborhood House. 54 While many of these
lessons helped the new immigrant mothers learn about services or techniques they may not have yet
encountered, they characterized the otherness and unacceptability of some of the Mexicanas’ ways of
parenting, keeping house, and cooking.
Early reports about Guadalupe Center work also reveal a focus on Americanizing women, girls,
and very young children by promoting Anglo-centric behaviors and lifestyles. A 1926 article in the
Kansas City Journal-Post describes Guadalupe Center’s work:
a sewing class where expectant mothers are taught to make a proper layette for the baby. A
mother’s club for better housekeeping and care of children, a pre-school kindergarten where
American customs, habits and language are taught and a sewing class for young girls.55
In the article, Gallagher explains, “‘A trained Spanish speaking housekeeper is needed in the district to
teach the Mexicans how to raise their standard of living.’” 56 While Guadalupe Center began its work with
summer school offerings for Mexicana/o children, early on, it focused a majority of its work on health
clinics that served Mexicanas. Guadalupe Center offered health, nutrition, and childcare classes. The
center sought to draw in the mothers, who often brought their children. Guadalupe Center’s mission was
“aiding… Spanish speaking immigrants with their problems of adjustment to a new culture and new
conditions” 57 through teaching housekeeping and parenting. While many settlement workers understood
that poverty and discrimination made housekeeping and parenting difficult, at best, framing these
difficulties as problems of the Spanish-speaking immigrants indicates views about cultural inferiority.
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Guadalupe Center also promoted Americanization through settlement-generated club work that
encouraged behaviors and values like hard work, group membership, and leadership, as if Mexicana/os
did not already have or value such qualities. 58 The 1941 Amberg Annual Report provides the rationale
for the Center’s club work:
Through the medium of club work, Guadalupe Center coordinates its entire program…. the club
has been the nucleus around which most of our program is built. Through club activities which
carry the member through all phases of our program, the Center attempts to train its youth for
society, leadership and organization, to build self-confidence, and give needed recognition—to
have them retain that which is best of their own heritage, and to endow them with that which is
best in the American way. 59
Through club work, Guadalupe Center leaders and workers hoped to promote habits and lifestyles
settlement workers felt appropriate for young Mexicanas and Mexicanos. Advocates of educational
reform, Edith Martin and her sister were critical of Gallagher because she did not notify young Mexicanos
when scholarships were available and she helped to place young Mexicanas in wealthy Anglo homes to
train as maids during the Depression, where they worked without pay and were then told the permanent
positions were only for Black women. 60 Through promoting hard work and activities like handiwork,
cooking, and sewing, settlement workers at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center provided
Mexicana/os with opportunities to learn skills. Yet, settlement workers also communicated their low
expectations for Mexicana/os’ socioeconomic and gendered prospects.
Mexican “Cultural Gifts”
While they elevated middle-class and Anglo-centric behaviors and lifestyles, Neighborhood
House and Guadalupe Center also promoted what they and dominant culture deemed “best” about
Mexican culture: music, dances, handiwork, and fiestas. These practices followed national ideas of
cultural pluralism, or Cultural Gifts, and newer ideas of assimilation. Rather than demanding that
immigrants completely put aside their culture and ethnic identity, as in the Melting Pot, proponents of the
cultural pluralism and cultural gifts ideologies wanted new immigrants to retain those attributes of their
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home culture they deemed acceptable and/or non-threatening. 61 While Neighborhood House and
Guadalupe Center both promoted Mexican culture in their programs with the intent of presenting
Mexicans and Mexican culture to the larger community in a positive light, their cultural gifts practices
had other, unintended consequences.
In 1939, Neighborhood House director Constance Currie writes about the “serious nationality
prejudice” arising from social and economic changes in the neighborhood, the region, and the nation, and
explains the role of Neighborhood House at that time:
Neighborhood House has recognized the necessity for promoting a better nationality
understanding of each group for the other and appreciate the contributions they have made to the
community, and the feeling of tolerance for the customs and traditions which each of them hold
sacred. 62
To address racial and nationalistic rivalries and prejudices against Mexicana/os, Neighborhood House
leaders focused on Mexican food, folklore, music, dancing, and handiwork or crafts, and Neighborhood
House showcased these gifts through classes, fiestas, and pageants. 63 Programs for holiday festivals from
1925 through the late 1940s show the diversity of the events, with Chanukah parties for Jewish adults and
children, Piñata parties for Anahuac society members, programs for Syrians and for “Colored Folks,” a
party for American Indian children, as well as parties for various social clubs. Currie explains the
settlement’s stance on cultural pluralism:
So, we ask ourselves the question often, ‘Why do we have Folk Festivals and Pageants for all
nations two or three times a year and emphasize folk lore and folk dancing and folk stories in our
classes? Is it only to make or to have a colorful and attractive program?’ No! It is to make the 23
nationality groups really feel a part of our program. These are really not frills to our program, but
a really vital, basic, fundamental, part of a Settlement for the neighbors’ contribution to all the
rest of us—the cultural, musical, handcraft and beauty of the foreign lands. 64
Yet, for many of these events, the different groups of people celebrated their own cultures, music, and
crafts and not those of other groups.
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At Guadalupe Center, settlement leaders and workers also practiced cultural pluralism, promoting
the cultural gifts of music, dance, handcrafts, and food of Mexican culture, with mixed results. In 1926,
Mexicana/os organized the first fiesta on September 16 to celebrate Mexican Independence from Spain
and to raise funds for the new equipment and a playground for Guadalupe Center. While Guadalupe
Center helped to sponsor the fiesta, Mexicana/os planned the event and led the participants.65 Sister
Michaela writes of the first fiesta:
It wasn’t long after that, that the whole city became conscious of the Spanish-speaking populace
when the gay senores and senoritas presented a Grand Fiesta…. ‘These fiestas were so genuinely
Mexican that they were hailed as something of interest to the entire city, and attended by
thousands from all neighborhoods.’ This gave the Kansas Citians of that day an opportunity to see
for themselves the artistry and talent evidenced in the songs and dances of the Mexican culture. 66
The first fiesta was a success for both the settlement and the Mexicana/o participants. Mexicana/os raised
the money for the playground, used the fiesta as a means of transmitting their culture to their children and
others in their Westside neighborhood, and took leadership roles in a community event. However, by
1936, fiesta leadership, sponsorship, and location changed, and the fiesta no longer focused on Mexican
Independence or local Mexican leadership.
In 1936, wealthy Anglos in Kansas City took control of the annual Mexican fiesta. The new
organizers held the fiesta at the Country Club Plaza, an elite shopping center built to resemble Spanish
architecture. In their history of the Guadalupe Center, Duncan and Alonzo claim that the shopping center
owner’s daughter Eleanor, and “her fiesta committee along with the Mexican citizens of Guadalupe
Center planned and executed the fiesta of 1936 on the Country Club Plaza.” 67 Organizers moved the fiesta
date to July 7-8, closer to the U.S. celebration of the Fourth of July than to Mexican Independence in
September. 68 The organizers arranged for a fortune telling booth, a singing Troubadour Tenor, Novelty
Tumbling and Jumbling, a magician act, and The Bugler Corp from the Power and Light Company, and
Mexicana/os from Guadalupe Center performed music and dancing acts. While one booth served “nothing
but Mexican foods, prepared by the Mexican cooks in the Guadalupe Center” and those profits went to
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the center, other booths served “ice cream, candy, coca cola, pop, hot dogs, sandwiches, and pop corn.”69
The fiesta resembled a Fourth of July celebration with some Mexican flavor. After the new organizers
took over the sponsorship and much of the leadership for the fiesta, the fiesta moved away from
celebrating and teaching lessons about Mexican Independence and focused solely on those aspects of
Mexican culture the new leadership valued.
Back at Guadalupe Center, Dorothy Gallagher and her family continued to carry on a cultural
gifts ideology when they funded a new building in the “Spanish hacienda” style, which would become the
iconic Guadalupe Center in 1936. 70 Gallagher designed the new Spanish Mission-style building, with a
look of exposed timbers, red tiles on the roof, and an adobe-like finish. The theme carried through inside,
with a large fireplace in a large common room, more exposed beams, a patterned linoleum floor, with a
Navajo-style rug, and displays of Mexican crafts and art. 71 Gallagher worked with her sister Mary
Gallagher and hired designer and architect Robert Raney to plan and decorate the new center. 72Through
the symbolic design of the building and through emphasizing Mexican handicrafts in club work,
Gallagher probably meant to help the community retain its Mexican roots.
In 1941, Gallagher wrote, “It is the Center’s hope to keep alive through music, singing, dancing
classes those songs and dances typical of Mexican folk.” 73 Through Gallagher’s political and social
connections, Mexicana/os of all ages performed at the 1938 National Folk Festival in Washington, D.C.
The Guadalupe Center scrapbooks contain hundreds of photographs of smiling Mexicana/o participants
dressed in serapes, sombreros, and rebozos, holding guitars and striking poses for traditional dances like
the Jarabe Tapatío, or Mexican Hat Dance. Gallagher also promoted Mexican culture in club work and
exhibitions of Mexican arts and material culture. Gallagher describes her rationale for the craft program
the settlement offered: “Making the most of the natural and inherent ability of the Mexican adult and
youngster to ‘make things’ the Center encourages Mexican art, painting, beadwork, woodcraft, clay
modeling, tin work, etc.” 74 While Gallagher and the other settlement workers celebrated aspects of
Mexican culture, these cultural gifts practices focused on fixed, topical aspects of Mexican culture and
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portrayed Mexicana/o neighbors as a group with particular, “natural” talents, rather than as individuals
who might have other interests.
In many ways, settlement leaders at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center held to
paternalistic cultural pluralism and promoted the aspects of Mexican culture they valued, the handicrafts,
music, dance, and costumes. And, while many Mexicana/os also valued these aspects of Mexican culture,
the neighbors’ cultural identities were much more complex than their abilities in music or craftwork and
their identities were not stagnant. While it was probably not their intent, by focusing on Mexicana/os
cultural gifts and through promoting only certain aspects of Mexican culture, settlement leaders and
workers practices at the settlements also othered Mexicana/os and perpetuated stereotypes about
Mexicana/os within their settlements and the broader community, especially when settlement people
interpreted Mexicana/os’ culture and needs to the broader community. 75
Interpretation
Based on a report from 1945, the Guadalupe Center settlement: “Interprets to the neighborhood
the ideals of the larger community, and interprets to the larger community the needs, limitations and
ambitions of the Latin-American working class neighborhood.” 76 Settlement workers saw themselves as
liaisons between neighbors and the larger community, interpreting the needs and the best parts of
immigrant culture to the broader community, or Americans, and interpreting American values and
expectations to the neighbor participants. At Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center, the resident
directors and some of the workers lived on site. They were neighbors, in a sense, and had some
understanding of their neighbors though, as upper and middle class Anglos, they retained privileges that
colored their interpretations and had unintended consequences, including perpetuating stereotypes.
Neighborhood House interpreted Mexicana/os and Mexican culture based their understandings of
race, class, and gender, as well as the aspects of Mexican culture they valued. 77 In 1934, Neighborhood
House’s Tiny Tribune newspaper published a prime example of settlement interpretation in a story about a
Mexican dinner as well as what settlement people admired about Mexican culture:
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In order to get a brief, concentrated study of Mexican life, culture, customs, handwork, and
music, the St. Paul Art Teachers Association attended a Mexican dinner at the Neighborhood
House….
The older Mexican girls, dressed in their native costumes, served a dinner of typical Mexican
foods cooked by Mr. Bravo. A trio composed of Eusebio and Benjamin Campa and Ted Zamora
played native music on their string instruments as the first number on the program. A group of
older boys from the Mexican Eagles Club sang three Spanish songs. The highlight of the program
was a talk on Mexican handicrafts given by Senor J.B. Calvin, a graduate student at the
University of Minnesota.
Following the program, the art teaching group made a tour of the House to inspect House
activities in progress that evening and also viewed the exhibit of Mexican crafts. Miss Kinman
had charge of the dinner, which was “interesting, educational, and most enlightening” according
to those who attended. 78
The Neighborhood House dinner and entertainment created a stylized version of Mexican culture with
“native” and “typical” Mexican foods, costumes, music, and art, which may or may not have represented
the experiences of the people involved, several of whom had probably never been to Mexico.
As noted in the quotation at the beginning of the section, Guadalupe Center settlement workers
also interpreted. In the Amberg Annual Report for 1941, the Club describes its work to interpret U.S.
culture to Mexicana/os and to interpret Mexican culture, or specific aspects of Mexican culture, to
Americans:
Good Citizenship: An attempt to familiarize the Mexican people with that which is best in the
American way of life. To demonstrate and to build within them the advantages and essentials of a
Democracy and to impregnate them with the democratic principles of our nation.
Erasing Lines of Race Prejudice Which Do Not Exist: By demonstrating to the American public
that the Mexican culture has something definite to offer, and to add to the enrichment of our own
cultural level.
These are Guadalupe Center leaders’ stated goals for interpreting, or translating ideas and meanings
between groups. Yet, in practice, when Gallagher and others interpreted Mexican culture to the broader
Kansas City, they often focused on character traits or cultural types that would appeal to the broader,
Anglo public. In the 1927 Kansas City Times article “Mexican Aliens Lauded for Eagerness to Learn,” a
columnist quotes Gallagher: “They are Latins…and we should try to develop their natural characteristics
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to their highest point rather than impose our Anglo-Saxon ways upon them.” 79 Diane Selig describes this
as part of the limitations of the Americanization and cultural gifts movements: “Even as liberal activists
voiced allegiance to civic nationalism, they perpetuated a racialized way of thinking that ascribed
particular qualities to certain groups.” 80 Through their Americanization practices and their less than
representative interpretations of Mexican culture to the broader community, Neighborhood House and
Guadalupe Center often perpetuated stereotypes about Mexicana/os and Mexican culture. In this way, it
seems as though settlements held the upper hand in educating Mexicana/os and the broader communities.
Yet, Mexicana/os also held power in how they chose to participate in settlement-generated non-formal
education.
Mexicana/o Non-Participation or Limited Participation at Settlements
While numbers of Mexicana/o participates grew through the first half of the twentieth century at
both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center, not all Mexicana/os in these neighborhoods
participated. Some of Mexicana/os chose not to participate or participated in a limited fashion. Some
made these choices to resist and/or challenge racialization, discrimination, Americanization, and, for
some, cultural pluralism. Several others picked and chose how they participated at the settlements,
depending on their personal interests, their needs, and other priorities. Some Mexicana/os met their needs
for non-formal education elsewhere or did not have the time or inclination to participate. While many
describe the settlements as driving forces or even centers of the communities in these midwestern cities,
this was not the case for all members of the Mexican communities.
Some Mexicana/os chose not to participate because they did not value the settlements’ offerings
or did not agree with the settlements’ practices. Influenced by their personal and evolving ideas and belief
systems about race, ethnicity, faith, and gender, a few Mexicana/os living in St. Paul’s West Side and in
Kansas City, Missouri’s Westside chose not to participate at settlements. One Mexicano family in St. Paul
did not agree with mixing of races at Neighborhood House. After attending a Neighborhood House dance
where they encountered Anglos and Blacks, Francisco and Dolores Guzman no longer allowed their
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children to attend Neighborhood House events or participate in Neighborhood House non-formal
education. The Guzmans felt that a “Mexican” dance was only for Mexicana/os.81 Lydia Estevez remarks,
“I guess we were members of Our Lady of Guadalupe” but Estevez explains, “Our family didn’t
participate too much [at the Guadalupe Center] I come from a family of ten… and my father always felt,
had a belief that there were plenty of us at home.” 82 Mary Lou Hernandez mentions that her parents were
not active in the church or Guadalupe Center. 83 In their interviews, these Mexicana/os explain that their
families preferred to provide lessons and entertainment in their homes rather than participate in settlement
offerings or functions.
Other Mexicana/os utilized Neighborhood House or Guadalupe Center in more limited ways,
picking and choosing their participation in settlement offerings. Some went for healthcare, childcare
services, athletic events, or dances and did not attend classes or clubs. Paul Rojas of Kansas City explains,
“I don’t recall that I played with any organized athletic teams…conditions and times did not permit it. I
don’t recall that I had a hobby, as such; I do recall going to what was known as Casa Blancas from time to
time, play around there, basketball.” 84 Rojas went but not regularly. For Christmas events and fiestas, the
settlements often worked in conjunction with churches and other organizations, and some Mexicana/os
attended those functions but not other settlement offerings. Esiquia Monita attended dances and went to
see Pastorelas at Neighborhood House, but she did not participate in clubs or classes. 85 Others used the
settlement house as a physical space for meetings and community gatherings that had no other association
with the settlement than ties to the same neighborhood. With discrimination against Mexicana/os
common in local businesses and with limited means, the settlements offered a space to hold events like
weddings, baptisms, and mutalista meetings. Ultimately, Mexicana/os made the decisions about using
settlements or about how much they participated. And, while mandatory school law forced Mexicana/o
youth to attend schools where they felt unwelcome or experienced discrimination, Mexicana/o children
could decide whether or not to participate in settlements and they could make decisions about the level of
their participation.
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Mexicana/o Participation and Influence in Settlement-Generated Classes, Clubs, and Programs
While some Mexicana/os made choices not to participate at the settlements or participated in a
limited fashion, many more chose to participate in settlements because they valued education in general,
because they needed a space and the means to pursue non-formal education, and because settlements
provided opportunities for their personal educational goals and activism. Settlements’ agendas and
practices did not always align with Mexicana/os’ needs or goals, but this did not stop many Mexicana/os
from participating. Numerous Mexicana/os attended and influenced the settlement-created non-formal
educational offerings at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center. Furthermore, Mexicana/os initiated
and, in time, took leadership roles in clubs and activities. Finally, Mexicana/os in St. Paul and Kansas
City, Missouri, used these settlements to maintain and to develop Mexican culture and for community
activism.
Basic Enrollment and Attendance
While settlement attendance remained voluntary, settlements worked hard to entice neighbors.
Some settlements offered health and baby clinics, which served the needs of many Mexicana/os who
could not find or afford care elsewhere. Some settlements required or strongly encouraged neighbors’
attendance at religious services after they availed themselves of health and social services. 86 In many
cases, priests and pastors discouraged their flocks from attending and participating in settlements to save
their congregants from settlement attempts at conversion or parents discouraged their children for similar
reasons. 87 In some cases, the very act of setting foot in a settlement or attending classes could mean going
against the wishes of their clergy or risking rejection from the Mexican community. 88 Settlement workers
had to draw in unenthusiastic neighbors while still holding to their agendas to Americanize and/or
proselytize. While Neighborhood House held to non-secular practices and Guadalupe Center did not
practice predatory conversion tactics, their records indicate that they did maintain Americanization
agendas. In a 1929 report, Currie describes Neighborhood House practices with reluctant neighbors:
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We have to ‘sugar-coat’ some things which we know folks should want to know and learn but
they really don’t see the necessity for it. So we use all sorts of methods to intrigue them with our
activities that require a change with the times using methods, new techniques, stimulating new
interests. 89
Yet, many Mexicana/os went into settlements and attended settlement classes and clubs, including those
at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center.
Neighborhood House records indicate Mexicana/os began enrolling and participating in
Neighborhood House offerings in 1924. 90 A 1932 audit reports that 827 people of 23 nationalities
enrolled in Neighborhood House organized activities. 91 Even after losing 16 West Side families to
repatriation, 92 Mexicans numbered 112 of Neighborhood House participants, with Jews at 250, and, in
third place, Germans, at 63. 93 Neighborhood House’s categorization practices helped in assessing
Mexicana/o enrollment, some of the audits and schedules indicate “Mexican” or include the names of
Mexican clubs but many do not. While I found no documents that focused on enrollments for other racial
or ethnic groups at Neighborhood House, I did find a report titled “Growth of the Mexican Activities at
Neighborhood House,” which provides enrollment numbers from 1933 to 1938. 94 Mexicana/o enrollment
in some classes remained steady. In others, it fluctuated back and forth. And, in still others, especially
social clubs and athletics, enrollment increased dramatically. As the audit indicates, Mexican activities
grew during this period. Mexicana/os made the decisions to enroll and attend.
Guadalupe Center differed from Neighborhood House in that Guadalupe Center began much later
and served a smaller and less diverse group of neighbors. Guadalupe Center held direct association with
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish and served mainly Mexican Catholics, which limited possible participants,
but it was much easier to assess Mexicana/o enrollments at Guadalupe Center. Before acquiring a
permanent and adequately sized space and a resident director, Amberg Club members could not offer club
work or yearlong programs. After the settlement acquired a building and a director and developed more
consistent programs, enrollment and attendance numbers rose, though more gradually than did those of
Neighborhood House. And, although she had little experience with Mexicana/os, Gallagher had more
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experience in settlement work than many of the other Amberg Club members and knew how to increase
enrollment and maintain attendance. And, in many ways, Gallagher succeeded.
Guadalupe Center annual reports reveal the growth of the center’s offerings and the increasing
number of Mexicana/os who attended and the general slowdown in the early 1950s. From 1926 to 1927,
there were 43 Mother’s Club meetings, with 663 attendees, 50 Young People’s Club Socials, with 1,141
attendees, 86 athletics events, with 2,008 attendees, 42 play activities, with 457 attendees, 79 religious
instruction classes, for adults and children, with 3,381 attendees, and 29 vacation classes, with 2,971
attendees. Attendance at summer vacation school in 1941 averaged 80 children a day for the three-month
period. They also added a Junior Play Club for 59 four to eight year-old children. In 1931, Guadalupe
Center held over 1004 organized activities and meetings, with a total attendance of 21,419.
Enrollment numbers indicate that many Mexicana/os sought out settlement-generated non-formal
education at Guadalupe Center. Mexicana/os continued to attend and attendance grew every year after the
first. The Amberg Club had to find more space to accommodate the addition of club work and yearlong
programs. By 1941, Guadalupe Center had fifteen clubs for boys and girls, with 154 registrants and 4,486
attendance marks for the year. Fifty-two boys registered for Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, and 56 girls
registered for Girl Scouts and Brownies. In 1946, 22 regularly scheduled groups had an enrollment of
458. For group work, Guadalupe Center logged 878 sessions with a total attendance of 32, 562. 95 Also in
1947, for educational, musical, athletic, events and outings, 11,186 participants attended. In 1949, 775
sessions ran with 11, 435 in attendance. The Center sponsored 9, 840 educational activities, programs,
and athletic events. Finally, in 1951, Guadalupe Center saw 679 group meetings, with 12, 843 in
attendance, and for other educational, musical, and athletic events, 1,354 people attended. 96 While
institutional records do not explain the slowdown, it may have been due to several local and regional
factors, including: the recent change in Center leadership, more Mexicana/os finding work, competition
from other organizations like the International Institute and the Salvation Army, increasing Mexican
American activism, the 1951 flood that devastated many areas in the region, and the coming of urban
renewal projects.
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Enrollment numbers for Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center reveal that Mexicana/os
participated in settlement offerings and provide some clues about Mexicana/os’ interests in non-formal
education and social activities. The next sections delve more deeply into Mexicana/o’s participation in
and influence on settlement-generated classes, clubs, and programs.
Participation and Influence in Settlement-Generated Classes and Clubs
Settlements generated classes and clubs. Settlement workers determined the needs of the
neighbors based on observations made during friendly visits to neighbors’ homes, talking with neighbors
about their needs, and, for many, residing in the neighborhood. After making these assessments,
settlement workers planned, scheduled, and facilitated classes and clubs. Many settlements documented
enrollments, attendance, observations, and evaluations, and they used these to increase, drop, and/or
revise their offerings. While institutional documents from Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center
promote the neighbor taking leadership roles and initiating clubs and special interest classes based on
their personal needs and interests, and this happened and will be discussed later, the documents also
reveal that settlement leaders organized many of the classes and clubs, especially those with
Americanization agendas. Additionally, records and interviews reveal that many Mexicana/os who
attended these classes and joined these clubs at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center actively
participated and influenced settlement practices and offerings.
While some Mexicana/os held no interest in Americanization, many wanted to learn English.
Several Mexicana/os mention the importance of learning English and going to settlements and other
organizations like the International Institute. 97 Both settlements offered English classes, and they also
taught English through other Americanization offerings like sewing, cooking, and parenting classes. From
1924 through the 1950s, Neighborhood House offered multiple English classes for Mexicanas and
Mexicanos, including sections for boys. In each year, more Mexicana/os enrolled. 98 At Neighborhood
House, Americanization classes, like hygiene, sewing, or parenting classes continued into the 1940s,
which implies that Mexicana/os continued to show up and participate, including in classes designated
“Mexican.” Neighborhood House also offered younger Mexicanas sewing and cooking classes, separate
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from the women. 99 While none of the interviewees reported taking English classes at Guadalupe Center,
yearly reports list English classes from 1925-1951, as well as English instruction through their “Health
Work” programs and sewing and cooking classes. 100
While they targeted adults for most English and Americanization classes, settlement workers
focused on club work for younger neighbors. When children enrolled at settlements, some settlements
automatically placed them into clubs based on gender and age. 101 To move beyond these basic clubs to
other classes and neighbor-generated clubs, children usually had to meet settlement requirements, usually
regular attendance and appropriate behavior.102 Writing about club work at Guadalupe Center in 1942,
Sister Celine Vasquez, S.S.S., describes the role of clubs, what she calls group work, for children in a
settlement, distinguishing it as different from formal education:
Group work services can accomplish what formal education cannot in attempting to provide
opportunities for self-determination in the form of creative expression in physical, aesthetic,
intelligent, and social activity to each individual who comes under its influence. 103
In the entry-level, settlement-generated clubs at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center, settlement
workers determined the clubs’ agendas, activities, and membership, but Mexicana/o youth made decisions
about how they participated and their participation influenced how settlement workers facilitated the
clubs.
In Neighborhood House records, Doll Club was a consistent part of the settlement’s offerings as
early as 1921. 104 Based on reports from club facilitators and observers/volunteers from a nearby college,
settlement workers set up doll clubs to teach young girls lessons in caring for children and the home.
Settlement workers provided dolls, clothes, buggies, beds, dollhouses, books, and, in some cases, kitchen
areas. During club meetings, girls dressed their dolls, fed them, put them to bed, prepared meals, and
interacted with each other as if they were adult women with children. During some meetings, settlement
leaders arranged for thematic lessons, like “baby clinic” or “dress shop” through which they taught the
children how to take babies for healthcare and taught lessons in taking public transportation to a shop,
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selecting clothing, and paying, with play money, for purchases. 105 Children also participated in games,
sang songs, and listened to stories. Sometimes the girls sewed clothes or other household items, and
settlement workers modeled the behaviors they wanted to teach and corrected girls’ errors. Similar to
clubs offered by schools and other organizations that taught Americanization, 106 Neighborhood House
Doll Club provided lessons for young immigrant girls to learn middle-class American habits for
mothering and day-to-day living through play.
Young Mexicanas attended, brought in other Mexicana friends, and asserted themselves in
Neighborhood House settlement-generated doll clubs and sewing and cooking classes. As reported by
student assistant Sylvia Moskovitz from Macalester College, “a little Mexican girl called Pas…. Seems
very popular with the girls and a leader…. She showed much initiative and leadership in the ‘tea party’
which she was conducting.” 107 Moskovitz also observed a girl named Lupe volunteer to “speak a short
piece” when the Doll Club leader invited children to share something. 108 In February, Moskovitz notes
that Pas “showed some originality” in making valentines and in asking for assistance in learning to read
the poem “Roses are Red.” 109 Another assistant and student from Macalester College, Judith Mulally
reports that several “Mexican girls” asked her to read stories with them, showing an interest in learning
and participating. 110 In report on sewing classes, a settlement worker describes a young Mexicana who
recently moved to St. Paul and who had little English ability. According the worker, the girl had excellent
sewing skills already, and when she finished her work, she helped the other Mexican girls with their
work. 111 The Macalester students’ and the sewing instructor’s observations reveal that most young
Mexicanas attempted to get along with playmates, learn from the teachers, actively participate in and
learn from activities, and even help to teach other participants.
Young Mexicanos also participated in settlement-generated playgroups, though Neighborhood
House records contain few specific enrollment numbers for Mexicana/os or specific reports from
leaders. 112 Boys enrolled in all-Mexican handicraft classes, beginning with basketry and then moving on
to woodwork and linoleum block printing. Numbers in these classes fluctuated, probably due to the boys’
interest or availability. Many more boys enrolled in gym, social clubs, and athletics than in classes. 113
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Young Mexicanos may have continued in these settlement-generated clubs and classes, but the
Neighborhood House report that details Mexicana/o enrollments stops at 1938 and most of the later audits
do not indicate nationality.
As at Neighborhood House, Guadalupe Center leaders and workers organized classes and clubs
based on gender and age. Guadalupe Center records reveal that from 1918 to 1950, settlement workers
organized adult education, for the most part, based on neighbors’ gender and age, and their settlementgenerated non-formal education focused on Americanization, English, health education, homemaking
skills, and parenting. Men generally went to English and Naturalization classes. Women also attended
English classes. 114 Guadalupe Center automatically enrolled Mexicanas in Mother’s Club when they
enrolled their children in the pre-school. 115 In the 1930s, the Center initiated a Padres and Madres group,
which was mixed, though reports do not include information about how many mothers or fathers attended
or what club work entailed. Mexicanas also met for sewing classes. A W.P.A. sewing teacher explains,
“these classes frequently [took] on the aspect of a party.” 116 Mexicana/os participated in Guadalupe
Center-generated non-formal education out of personal interest in socializing and learning.
For the most part, Mexicanas participated in non-formal education at Guadalupe Center via the
health clinic. The Amberg clinic provided extensive health services because many other medical facilities
did not accept Mexicana/o patients. 117 As part of their preventative work, the clinic facilitated a Mother’s
Club and provided classes and/or instruction in feeding babies and caring for children. Mothers received
“advice about children of pre-school age, or from birth to the age of five years.” 118 The pre-school health
center had milk stations, at which “Mexican mothers obtained not only the milk but also instruction
regarding its preservation and use” and more instruction on childcare.119 While providing much needed
health care remained their primary goal, Guadalupe Center workers also focused on gendered and classbased notions of what they thought Mexicanas needed in non-formal education. Without more
information from institutional records or interviewees, I could not determine why Mexicanas attended or
how they participated. Perhaps the best indicators of how Mexicanas participated can be seen in the
photographs that show Mexicanas at the clinic. While many of the photographs feature posed health
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examinations, others show women holding babies in waiting areas, smiling, and talking to other
Mexicanas or interacting with the clinicians and their children. 120
In regard to settlement-generated classes for Mexicana/o children, Amberg members taught
English and handiwork in vacation schools beginning in 1918. Hoffman writes in her history of the
Guadalupe Center: “the pupils seemed to take an interest in the classes offered to them, and the leaders
thus tended to believe that they were sponsoring what was wanted.” 121 The center moved to club work as
soon as 1925, but the early reports do not provide much information beyond listing “Young Peoples”
clubs. 122
Amberg Club and Guadalupe Center annual reports reveal that settlement-generated offerings for
boys began with classes that promoted working with one’s hands. When Guadalupe Center acquired the
three Casas Blancas cottages, it used one for boys’ group work, which it kept open six days a week, in the
afternoon on school days and all day on Saturdays. This cottage contained games and equipment for shop
and woodworking classes. 123 Photographs from the Guadalupe Center collection reveal groups of mostly
small boys displaying their projects. One photo shows eleven boys of similar ages seated upon the steps
of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, with two holding a sign that reads “Toy Shop.” In front of the boys sit
their carved toys, marionettes, and push carts. 124 Gallagher writes of this club work, “their work has an
extensive market, and it is the source of ‘pocket money’ for many a boy. ‘It comes in handy when you
can’t find a job.’” 125 Many boys took advantage of the opportunity.
The Guadalupe Center also sponsored Boy Scout Troop number 106. In 1931, many of the boys
in Scouts also wrote for the Knight’s Spear, the settlement’s newspaper, and documented their
participation and enjoyment in scouting. Assistant Patrol Leader for Scout Patrol No. 1 and Associate
Editor, C.D. Rocha writes about scout leaders and hikes. Also writing for the Knights’ Spear and a
member of Patrol No. 2, Inez Rios writes about a hike: “The Boy Scouts thoroughly enjoyed this outing
because they played games and held a ‘Wienie Roast.’”126 Associate Editor and member of Patrol No. 2,
David Andello describes a trip to the country, led by Scoutmaster Waters. The various articles in the
Spear, written by the scouts themselves, reveal that the hikes, while simple events, meant a lot to the
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scouts. The boys went out hiking, swimming, singing, making fires, and finding snakes, and they also
participated in scout tests, 127 presumably to earn their patches. The boys not only participated in these
settlement-generated classes and clubs; they enjoyed them.
Settlement-generated girls’ work at Guadalupe Center began with homemaking classes. When the
Center opened the cottage for girls’ in 1923, the National Register of Historical Places report explains,
“the building was equipped with a kitchen and sewing center where classes in home economics were
taught.” 128 Institutional records do not reveal when Guadalupe Center started to generate more club work,
but the 1931 Amberg Report provides a description of settlement-generated clubs for girls work:
“programs cultivating national arts, social adjustments, and such domestic arts as limited facilities will
permit.” 129 The Fifth District of the American Legion Auxiliary sponsored a Girl Scout Troop at
Guadalupe Center, and the settlement offered two other clubs for girls that “encouraged national arts and
social adjustments.” 130 In 1940s, Guadalupe Center offered the following settlement-generated clubs: Girl
Scouts, Brownies, and play clubs. 131 Like the boys’ classes and clubs, these settlement-generated
offerings for girls focused on gendered activities and roles. And, while the boys were able to
communicate their enjoyment and how they participated in some of these offerings, this information is
unavailable for young Mexicanas.
While gender remained a major classification for clubs and groups at Guadalupe Center, by the
1930s, several settlement-generated clubs transcended gendered activities and focused more on individual
talents and personal interest. Beginning around 1930, Miss Eleanor Johnson started the club Grupo
Artistico, in which she taught “national music and allied arts” to boys and girls. Mexicana/o members of
this group helped to organize and participated in patriotic fiestas and performed in Washington D.C. in
1938 at the National Folk Festival. 132 A 1941 report indicates a mixed gender cooking class for children:
“both boys and girls participate and each one brings his own cup of sugar, a lemon, three-fourths cup of
flour, or whatever the recipe calls for. Cooperation makes the cake, and it’s a tossup as to whether we will
eat it now, or take it home to ‘Mom.’” 133 Guadalupe Center offered several art programs for Mexicana/os
of all ages and genders. A 1941 report indicates that the Art Club and the Guadalupe craft program had
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mixed memberships. The craft program, described as different from the Art Club, was as “extensive as
funds permit” and took the form of special interest classes in which “nearly every person registered at
Guadalupe Center has at one time or another worked.” 134 In the same report, Gallagher declares that the
“teen-age” boys and girls enjoyed ballroom dancing classes taught by a WPA instructor. In these classes,
Mexicana/os also worked as volunteers and part-time dancing instructors, whom Gallagher describes as
“leaders developed by the Center.” 135 Clearly, Mexicana/os actively participated and influenced the
settlement-generated offerings by taking leadership roles at Guadalupe Center.
Both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center generated classes and clubs for their neighbors,
but neighbors made the final decisions about enrolling and about how they participated in those classes
and clubs. Many chose to be active participants. Furthermore, Mexicana/os’ choices influenced what the
settlements offered, how they facilitated these groups, and the activities in the classes and clubs, as well
as in other activities like gym, athletics, and structured playgrounds.
Gym, Athletics, and Playgrounds
In the first part of the twentieth century, urban spaces often lacked green spaces or parks, and
many young immigrants played in the streets. Progressive reformers, charitable groups, settlements, and
parents looked to gymnasiums and playgrounds to provide safe spaces for underprivileged children to
play, to navigate them away from delinquency, and, some historians argue, to further social control
through supervision and structured programs. 136 Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center provided
such gymnasiums and playgrounds, but as with other settlement-generated programs, it was Mexicana/os
who made the decisions to enroll and how to participate.
Neighborhood House sought to provide a means for neighborhood children to have physical
exercise, even during the winter months. Neighborhood House saw the benefits of play for children and
created gymnasium programs as form of non-formal education, with decided aims and goals for
children’s learning. In 1928, Neighborhood House opened a new gymnasium and added more programs
for adults and children, including wrestling, tumbling, basketball, boxing, volleyball, gymnastics, and
numerous “athletic games” for different boys’ and girls’ clubs. 137 Neighborhood House organized some
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gymnasium activities around social clubs, which it organized around age, gender, and nationality.
Neighborhood House practiced this especially for basketball and football for boys.
Many Mexicanos participated in gymnasium activities and athletic teams. While printed
Neighborhood House schedules and reports do not always specify Mexicana/o participants, many
Mexicanos mention participating in basketball, baseball, boxing, and football in the interviews. In 1938,
the Pirates club participated in the junior football league. The Pirates also participated in the basketball
under 16 league, along with the Gophers in the under 17, and the Aces in the Senior League. When it
came time for the basketball tournament, Neighborhood House broke with club teams and created
ethnically integrated teams, with ten Spanish surnamed boys participating. 138 These boys participated in
practices, games, and tournaments well into their late teens. Mexicanos also participated in social dancing
through the gymnasium program with great success, even when participants varied greatly in experience.
The dance instructor writes about the young Mexicanos:
The Mexican boys are coming along very nicely. This class is a combination of first-class and
inexperienced dancers, which is not [too] advantageous but has worked. Some of the boys are
overcoming their bashfulness now and are dancing all the time…. The boys have enjoyed the
class and the attendance has been very steady. 139
While none of the Mexicanos mention participating in dance classes through Neighborhood House, the
attendance records and positive reporting indicates that Mexicanos took interest and applied themselves to
folk dancing. In Neighborhood House gym and athletics, many Mexicanos enrolled and participated with
intent and enthusiasm.
Mexicanas also participated in gymnasium activities, though, as indicated in audits and
enrollment numbers, not as extensively as did young Mexicanos. The 1935 Neighborhood House report
on Girls’ Gymnasium Classes and Clubs specifically mentions Mexicana clubs participating in folk
dancing classes and a tap dancing class that included lessons in hygiene. The report describes the
participation of the “Little Mexicans”: “They are learning dance skills and a better sense of keeping time
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to music. Even the little ones who come are learning fairly complicated movements.” 140 The older
Mexicanas in the Mariposa Club created a scrapbook “on personal appearance, care of the body,” and
learned tap dancing. Club leader Miss Kinman reports: “The girls are improving rapidly in the tap
dancing skills. They seem really interested in the scrapbook and in what we have done about the care of
the fingernails so far.” 141 The report also describes free play, gym games, basketball, and volleyball for
girls, though it does not specify the nationality of the participants. 142 In another report, the dance
instructor indicates that, as she did with Mexicanos, she organized Mexicanas into separate classes for
folk and social dancing based on their nationality and gender, rather than their ability. Although the
instructor experienced behavior and effort problems with her folk dancing group for “older girls,” she
praises the Mexican folk dancers: “The Mexican girls on Tuesday are doing very good work and the
attendance has always been up where it belongs.” 143 The instructor also provides a brief account of
Mexicanas’ participation in social dancing: “The Mexican girls group started with a small number of
interested girls who really try very hard and do good work. The number is growing steadily and the work
is good.” 144 While none of the Mexicanas mention dancing associated with Neighborhood House
gymnasium activities in their interviews, based on the settlement records, they participated in folk and
social dancing and excelled.
Besides dancing, Mexicanas also participated in other forms of physical education. M. Ludwig,
the settlement worker in charge of the girls’ physical education program, emphasizes the “democratic
principles of modern education” and the development of individuals. In the report, it is not clear whether
Ludwig and the other settlement workers assigned girls to units or activities based on their nationality or
club affiliation, because Ludwig only uses the term “girls” when she refers to participants and only
directly mentions nationality or race when describing senior girls. In reporting on the sixteen and over
senior girls, Ludwig writes: “The group is a cross section of nationalities in the community, which in my
opinion cements a better understanding of each other. There are Negroes, Jewish, Irish, Mexicans, and
other nationalities all united by a common interest.” 145 Luwig’s list of activities for the junior girls is long
and activities increase in difficulty and challenge as the girls get older, which reveals the diversity of
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options open to Mexicanas: singing games, elementary through intermediate tumbling, relays, circle
games, safety education, posture, volleyball, badminton, ping pong, and soft ball. Senior girls focused on
volleyball, basketball, and softball, and they played with teams from other organizations. 146
Adults also went to Neighborhood House to participate in and/or to observe gymnasium and
playground activities and athletic events. Mexicana and Mexicano adults joined gymnasium classes and
athletic teams. Mexicanos played on baseball teams at Neighborhood House playgrounds. Neighborhood
House reports from the mid to late 1930s reveal the increased interest of adult Mexicanas, many of them
married, in joining basketball and volleyball teams, as well as folk dancing. 147 While Neighborhood
House workers planned many of the games and events, even for adults, many of the adults showed up to
play of their own accord or set up impromptu games to suit their needs.
When weather allowed, Mexicana/o children sought supervised non-formal educational activities
at the Neighborhood House playground. Playground leaders planned around morning Jewish School and
Catechism classes for Mexicana/o children by having free play during those times, which was also
supervised. While evidence reveals that Neighborhood House workers organized playground time
according to children’s ages and gender, there is no evidence of segregated playground time for children
of different nationalities or races. In fact, of all Neighborhood House offerings, playground time may
have been the most integrated. The Neighborhood House supervised the playground during the summer
months, from 9 AM to 9 PM, and organized structured games and other learning-centered activities for
children under the age of fifteen, including: volley ball, outdoor basketball, horseshoes, stories, circle
games, and table games. While Neighborhood House workers and volunteers created detailed curricula
for summer playground programs, workers also adapted games and policies to meet the preferences of the
children when possible so that they would continue to come back. 148 In other words, when Mexicana/o
children chose to attend, they did so knowing about the structure and seeking it out.
The Neighborhood House playground meant a lot to the Mexicana/o children. Neighborhood
House leaders and neighbors, including Mexicana/os, worked together to fundraise for purchasing land
and equipment. In 1918, Neighborhood House opened up Minnetonka Playground two blocks from
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Neighborhood House. Then, in 1929, Neighborhood House acquired space for another playground across
the street from the settlement. Once the site of a former lumberyard, the new site sat in disrepair, but with
the neighbors’ physical labor, Neighborhood House built a playground. 149 Settlement photographs show
neighbors, including young Mexicanos, assisting with clearing the area. Young Mexicana/o neighbors
grew up participating in the playground programs, and, as young adults, several took leading roles in
playground and athletic programs. 150
At Guadalupe Center, building space and outdoor facilities remained limited, but the center found
the means to run indoor and outdoor athletic programs by renting space at public schools and other
facilities. Many of the Center’s athletic team and sports club offerings focused on boys in efforts to deter
delinquency. A report from 1931 lists the organized physical education Guadalupe Center offered: winter
season indoor basketball teams and summer season swimming classes, outdoor baseball teams, and
special outdoor play groups. 151 To meet these needs, the Guadalupe Center rented the West Junior High
pool twice a week swimming classes for the “fellows” at the center.152 Writing for the Knights’ Spear,
Raymond Lozano reports that in the 1931 summer class, there were thirty boys, with about three of them
“trying for lifesaving” and the others just learning to swim. Lozano also writes about an upcoming swim
meet at Manual High, noting “our boys have a slim chance to have any honors.” 153 Boys also played
basketball at West Junior High in the winter, and “outdoor games for the boys were conducted Saturday
morning.” 154 A 1940 report mentions “athletic clubs for basketball, baseball, and softball.” 155 In the 1941
Annual report, Gallagher claims:
Boys constantly seek adventure even though it may be dangerous. It is not an uncertain sight to
see our boys hopping street cars and trucks; juvenile delinquency is high in the neighborhood….
Athletics make for that wholesome outlet of energy so necessary to a boy, and teaches them that
spirit of good sportsmanship, cooperation, and other character values so necessary to later adult
life.” 156
By the mid-1940s, Guadalupe Center offered three athletic teams for boys ten to twenty-five years old. 157
145
While the early institutional records focus on boys’ athletic work, reports after 1944 and
interviewees indicate that girls also participated on athletic teams, though they do not specify the sports
they played. A report from the mid-1940s indicates that thirteen girls participated on the Jr. Girls’ Team
for 13-15 year-olds and eleven girls participated on the Parochial Girls’ Athletic Team for 9-13 yearolds. 158 Ester Rocha and Dolores Rodriguez recall playing baseball at Guadalupe Center, and Rodriguez
also played volleyball. 159 While institutional records and interviews indicate girls’ participation, they do
not reveal the extent to which girls participated in sports, on athletic teams, or on playgrounds.
In its first decade of service, Guadalupe Center could not provide an official playground. With the
acquisition of Las Casas Blancas, the Guadalupe Center gained space for outdoor play and supervised
activities. It took time, however, to attain proper playground equipment and supervision. In a 1931
Knights’ Spear article, Charlie Guerra writes that along with a group of nine boys who removed rocks,
“men from the city came and helped us level the ground for the new playground.” 160 Guerra explains that
the equipment included a “16 foot shoot, six swings, two croquet sets, two horse shoe sets, a sand pile and
volley ball.” 161 Guerra concludes,
The children have been looking forward for the opening of the playground. Up until this time,
they haven’t had any place to play but in the street and as a result there have been five automobile
accidents. The mothers can feel perfectly safe in allowing their children to come to the
playgrounds of which Miss Donahue will be in charge. 162
In the same 1931 Knights’ Spear edition, C.D. Rocha also writes about the playground, adding that it
“shall be especially for the Mexican boys and girls.” 163 By the mid 1940s, Guadalupe Center records list
75 as the average attendance for the playground in season. 164
Mexicana/os enrolled in, participated in, and influenced settlement-generated non-formal
educational offerings at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center. In several cases, settlementgenerated offerings at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center continued to categorize and separate
based on race/ethnicity and gender and promote what settlement leaders and workers deemed important
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for Mexicana/os to learn. And, while these constraints deterred some Mexicana/os, many others utilized
settlement-generated offerings to pursue their own goals for non-formal education, negotiating changes as
needed. Mexicana/os took roles as active participants but they also took on roles as initiators and used the
settlements to initiate clubs and activities in pursuit of their interests and educational goals.
Mexicana/o-Initiated Social Clubs, Non-Formal Educational Activities, and Organizations
Most U.S. settlements held to the philosophies of aiding neighbors in determining and meeting
their needs and encouraging neighbors to be leaders in their settlement participation and in the
community. These philosophies are clearly stated in both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center
institutional documents. Mexicana/os who participated at Neighborhood House and at Guadalupe Center
capitalized on these philosophies and utilized the settlements as physical spaces where they found varying
levels of support for initiating clubs and activities that met their needs and personal goals for non-formal
education. Mexicana/os also used the settlements as community centers where they could hold meetings
and events, many of which allowed them to attain leadership in their communities.
Initiating Clubs and Integrating Clubs
Though the policies for club work differed across settlements, Neighborhood House and
Guadalupe Center required or strongly encouraged settlement-generated clubs for new participants,
especially children, like Doll Club for girls. Then, once neighbors managed consistent attendance and met
settlement participation and behavior expectations, they became eligible to join clubs initiated by other
neighbors or to initiate clubs. Settlement workers attended club meetings and maintained some control of
neighbor-initiated clubs by keeping records, planning activities and schedules, and facilitating when
members did not fulfill leadership responsibilities or came into conflict. In spite of these settlement
requirements and oversights, settlement records and oral history interviews reveal that Mexicana/o
neighbors at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center initiated social and special interest clubs, joined
and actively participated in other neighbor-initiated clubs, and took leadership roles in club work.
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Additionally, Mexicana/os used these clubs to participate in mixed gender interactions. Some
Mexicana/os initiated mixed gender clubs or worked to get existing clubs to participate in mixed
functions.
At Neighborhood House, neighbor-initiated social clubs, service clubs, and special interest clubs
differed from Americanization, settlement-generated clubs discussed earlier in the chapter. Young
Mexicanos at Neighborhood House initiated numerous clubs, for the most part, to make athletic teams.
While Mexicano boys participated in clubs, gym, and playgroups as soon as 1924, 165 schedules and other
records do not indicate officially Mexican-organized clubs until 1933. 166 In the following years, more
boys’ clubs appear on the audits, with age distinctions and with multiple clubs in the same age groups: the
Eagles and Hidalgo (sr.) and the Pirates and the Dragons (jr.) organized in 1934; Mexicanos added the
Aces and the Gophers and Pilots (jr.) to the rest in 1935; in 1936, they added Hidalgo (jr.); in 1937, they
dropped, or changed the name of, the Gophers and added the Hunters (jr.); in 1938, they organized the
Warriors (jr.); and in 1939, they initiated the Mexican Midgets. 167 These club names coincided with the
names of the athletic teams, but they were not exclusively athletic clubs. Club members also participated
in social activities. By 1945, the list of clubs includes The Hunters, The Pilots, The Pirates, and The
Eagles. By 1950, none of these clubs grace the club list, and beyond this point, the Neighborhood House
collection records and rosters do not explicitly show Mexicano club initiation. 168 While Mexicanos
continued with club work, they may have initiated clubs that Neighborhood House leaders did not
document as “Mexican” or the boys may have joined other, existing clubs.
Based on Neighborhood House schedules and available club reports, it appears that while young
Mexicanos initiated many athletic/social clubs composed of Mexicanos, Mexicanas initiated fewer
social/athletic clubs composed of all Mexicanas. The first record of the Mexicana-initiated Amigables
Club for Mexicana/os appears in the 1928 schedule of clubs and classes.169 In 1935, Mexicanas initiated
the Mariposas and continued with both clubs through 1936, after which only the Mariposas continued
through 1945. In 1940 or 1941, Mexicanas initiated Los Rosita, a social club, later to become the Double
“T” Club. 170
148
While none of the interviewees mentioned membership in the Double “T” club, 171 Neighborhood
House retained records for the group from early November 1940 to May in 1941. A settlement worker
named Ihfe facilitated the club, composed of 13-15 year-old girls, and wrote reports that reveal how these
young Mexicanas asserted their goals for the club, actively planned and participated in club activities, and
how they took leadership roles. In her notes about the second meeting, Ihfe explains that while many club
members had not yet returned from the summer migrant work with their families, the four attending
members decided to hold elections at the next meeting and discussed ideas about their goals for the club.
Ihfe writes that the four girls “were enthusiastic about the club. They all agree they must DO something,
not just be a social club.” 172 At the next meeting, the four girls held elections for the positions of
president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary, renamed the club the Double “T” Club, and then
decided on their first project, making braided rugs. The four decided to recruit more members and quickly
did so, just in time to form a committee to plan a get-together with a Mexican boys’ club. As the social
gathering approached, membership increased to eleven girls. The party was a success, and they soon
planned another social gathering. At one meeting, they practiced “Mexican” songs to sing for a Friday
Night Program, and for another meeting, the club attended a musical performance. Throughout their
meetings, the club worked making rugs, bookmarks for a bazaar, and kerchiefs, and they decorated a
booth for the annual carnival. 173 Based on Ihfe’s reports, the club members attained their goals of being a
social and work club, doing projects throughout the year, planning and working well with each other, and
connecting with other groups.
Mexicanas joined other integrated social and work-oriented clubs, including the Energy Elves, the
Star Dust Club, the Glee Club, and the Jolly Makers. Because the Neighborhood House collection does
not contain all club rosters or reports for every club and few Mexicanas named or described clubs in
which they participated in their interviews, I could not determine any other clubs Mexicana/os may have
joined. Yet, Neighborhood House kept some records that highlight Mexicanas’ agency in these integrated
clubs, especially the Energy Elves and the Jolly Makers. At times, whole clubs took classes, and in the
1954-55 season, the Jolly Makers took a cooking class. Mexicanas made up roughly half the club
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membership, and Delores Sanchez, led the club as the Neighborhood House worker. The club members
participated in games, socializing, and cooking lessons. Though they had difficulty at first deciding what
to cook, they decided on making cookies, cake, brownies, hamburgers, as well as making recipe books.
Sanchez writes of one of the members, “Mary Ann [Sanchez] is the oldest one in my cooking class and
has had cooking last year, therefore, she is a great help…. She is a very willing and hard worker and
always is one of the first to do anything that has to be done.” Sanchez writes about the personal growth of
another club member, Lucy Torres: “She was always so shy and kind of scared to do some of the things
we did in club. This year, she has joined in everything that club has done and isn’t as shy.” 174 Through the
integrated clubs, Mexicanas gained confidence in their abilities and took leadership roles as they followed
their interests in learning and socializing. Additionally, a Mexicana worked as a settlement leader.
Like Neighborhood House, Guadalupe Center required children to participate first in settlementgenerated clubs before the children could then initiate or join other clubs or special interest classes.
Although Guadalupe Center settlement workers or volunteers took roles as club leaders, supervising and
making some arrangements, Mexicana/o club members elected officials and made decisions about the
groups’ missions and activities. A settlement report from 1946 briefly lists new clubs Mexicana/os
organized: the Sodality Club, the Press Club, and six unnamed clubs specifically for teenagers. While the
report does not clarify whether these clubs had mixed or single-gender membership or provide other
details about members, 175 it does reveal that Mexicana/o participants initiated significant numbers of
clubs.
For boys at Guadalupe Center, the Knights of the Round Table Club held high favor. The name
first appears in the 1931 Annual Report, with the explanation that the boys initiated the club in the
previous year, 1930, as the Night Hawks. Hoffman writes that young boys began showing up at the
Center in the evenings “tired of vacations and wanting a club.” 176 Soon, the Knights of the Round Table
began the following activities:
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Pre-arranged meetings were started under the guidance of the head resident, Miss Gallagher.
Games were played, stories were read, and the Bible was studied. Tug of war was a popular
pastime. For this sport, the boys chose sides and tried to earn the banner awarded to the winners.
In a short while…the Knights were a regular group. 177
Gallagher led the club and arranged for sponsorship from Frank Houston, a wealthy, local Catholic man,
who provided sport equipment, pool tables, and games, and who “was received by the boys as one of
them.” 178 Charter member Rafael Garcia said in an interview, that it was an honor to be in the club and, “a
fellow had to be good to belong, but it kept his mind out of meanness, and the members had an awful nice
time.” 179 In a 1931 Knights’ Spear article, Jesse Alvarez writes that the Knights club members attended a
picnic at Swope Park. While Gallagher and other settlement workers facilitated the club, the boys made
decisions about their activities. The club members also participated in work around the settlement. When
Guadalupe Center acquired Las Casas Blancas in 1932, Mexicana/os in the neighborhood helped to
refurbish and paint the buildings, and “some of the Mexican boys were anxious to move to the larger
headquarters, because some of them tore down the two oldest cottages…and sold the wreckage for
baseball equipment.” 180 The boys made themselves part of the growth process for the center because they
wanted more club space.
Girls also initiated clubs at Guadalupe Center. In a 1931 Knights’ Spear article, reporter and club
member, Lola Vera writes about the beginning of a girls’ club:
We girls from Guadalupe Center wanted to have a club and so; many girls got together and
decided to start a club…. The girls also named the club the J.W. Club. We are having a meeting
every Wednesday and we plan to dance, do art and sing. Miss Conrade’s niece Frances Fiton
brought her electric stove, little dishes and small cake pans. The girls baked cakes and made
candy. All the girls had a good time and are looking forward to the next meeting. Anyone who
wishes to join our club is welcome. 181
The 28 girls also elected officials, including a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, hostess,
outside guard, and inside guard, though the author did not disclose the job descriptions for the latter two
positions. In 1940, girls initiated another club, Sigma Phi. A Center report describes it as a club, “for
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girls, a social group of industrial girls, emphasizes leadership, training, [and] has dances and picnics.” 182
Girls initiated the Working Girls Club in 1946, though the Center report does not provide specific
information about the age of the girls or their intentions with the club.183 In her interview, Mary Lou
Hernandez describes another club she and her friends initiated at Guadalupe Center:
We used to have our own clubs down at the center, and we had…we were ‘the Chicanas’ back
then, you know…. It just happened that one of our girlfriends was from Texas, and over there, the
term ‘Chicanas’ was very popular, which over here, at the time, I don’t think a lot of people knew
what that meant. But, our club was very active. 184
While she does not provide a timeframe for the Chicanas club, Hernandez was born in 1944, which places
the club’s initiation sometime in the 1950s.
Older children and teens at Guadalupe Center initiated clubs through which they could mix the
genders. In 1941, young Mexicana/os initiated ballroom dancing, and Mexicanas leaders supervised,
rather than Anglo settlement workers. Gallagher describes the Mexicana/o leaders: “mothers of the
neighborhood who volunteer their services and part-time dancing teachers—leaders developed by the
Center.” 185 Though the mothers probably went as chaperones since it was a mixed group, their work
reveals Mexicana/o agency in club initiation and leadership.
At Guadalupe Center, adults, especially women, also initiated classes and clubs. The 1940
Amberg Report lists “Tepeyse” as a woman’s club. The name is probably misspelled since that is not a
common Spanish word, but it may be some reference to Tepeyac, which is the hill on which Juan Diego
saw the vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe and upon which there is now a cathedral. The report describes
the club’s activities: “gives suppers, sings, plans special feast day programs, visits sick, and raises money
for special ‘causes.’” 186 Compared to the rather small number of adult-initiated clubs and classes at
Neighborhood House, Mexicana/o adults at Guadalupe Center initiated several classes, clubs, groups, and
activities. Overall, Mexicana/os at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center successfully used the
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settlements to initiate clubs or join clubs in which they had a personal interest, in which they could set
goals or take classes to learn new skills, and through which they could develop leadership skills.
Settlement Newspapers
At both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center, children staffed settlement newspapers,
though adults sometimes contributed and settlement workers acted as advisors. While Anglo children ran
the Tiny Tribune at Neighborhood House and Anglo adults facilitated, Mexicana/o children ran The
Knight’s Spear at Guadalupe Center through which they highlighted settlement non-formal educational
offerings and events they valued and acknowledged the accomplishments of other Mexicana/os.
Based on newspaper staff lists, Mexicana/os did not hold positions on the staff of Neighborhood
House’s short-lived Tiny Tribune. Additionally, the available editions, from November 1933 to February
1934, cover a scant number of Mexicana/o club events or Mexicana/os’ individual accomplishments. The
paper ran the following stories or mentions: the Mexican Homecoming, an event to celebrate Mexicana/os
returning from migrant labor, several dances put on by the Mexican Eagles Club, the “Little Mexican
Girls” Club Christmas party, a “Younger Mexican Boys Group sponsoring a film on animal life, the
Mexican basketball team the Pirates, and several brief mentions of Mexicana/o members of musical
groups or sports events. While each Tiny Tribune edition included a “Secrets,” later renamed “Scandal,”
section in which the society editor wrote a list of humorous references to Neighborhood House
participants, not a single reference to a Mexicana/o neighbor appears.187
In contrast, at Guadalupe Center, Mexicana/o newspaper staffers wrote very Mexicana/o-centered
pieces, which is no surprise for a settlement that served mostly Mexicana/os. While the Guadalupe
collection does not contain copies of The Knight’s Spear or provide information about how long the paper
ran, Guadalupe Center historians Duncan and Alonzo reprinted stories from the August 1931 edition of
the Spear in their book Guadalupe Center: 50 Years of Service. Many from the newspaper staff were also
members of the Knights of the Round Table Club and the Boy Scout troops, both boys’ groups, though
several girls and adults also contributed. In the “Editorials” sections, the editorial staff describes the
Spear’s mission as such: “1) To create brotherly feeling in the community, 2) clean sportsmanship, 3) to
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spread the appreciation of old Mexico.” 188 As referenced throughout the chapter, staffers, who were also
participants, wrote about Scouts and Knights events, initiating clubs, and the new playground at
Guadalupe Center. Additionally, J.E.M. Oliva contributed two pieces, the first about summer school at
Guadalupe School, and the second entitled “Philosophy.” In “Philosophy,” Oliva discusses his or her
personal philosophy, writing, “I am to your service, although I am poor but I am willing to help the one
that needs some help—to colored, white, yellow, or red race, to her or him. I don’t like to hate a soul, but
to be friendly to others.” 189 Finally, two Spear staffers contributed two articles based on interviews with
two adults from the community: Mrs. Valdez’ trip to Mexico and Father Turibius’ report about the
redecoration of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. 190 These articles reveal not only insights about the
Guadalupe Center’s work but also what it meant to participants. Those who wrote for Guadalupe Center’s
Spear documented their and others’ participation in settlement non-formal education, how they initiated
clubs and activities, their agency in influencing settlement practices and opportunities, and community
news. Unlike the Tiny Tribune, the Spear offered Mexicana/os a chance for their voices to be “heard” not
only in the settlement but, because Guadalupe Center distributed the papers more widely, also throughout
the U.S. and even Mexico.
Mexican-Centered Organizations and Activism
Many Mexicana/os used the Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center settlements as physical
spaces for Mexicana/o community events, Mexicana/o organizations, and Mexicana/o activism. As
Mexicana/os spent more time in the settlements and gained footholds in influencing and leading, they
asserted their own ideas about culture and what it meant to be Mexican, American, Mexican American,
and, later, Chicana/o.
Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center served as physical places for meetings and social
events when other venues were not open to Mexicana/os or were not big enough. According to
Neighborhood House documents, Mexicana/os held camp benefit programs in the 1930s to raise money
for children to attend camp in the summer. At Neighborhood House, the Mexican Club Council met, the
Beet Worker’s Union met, the Mexican Society held dances and Christmas parties, and Mexicans held
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various “Mexican Meetings” and “Mexican Dances.” 191 Neighborhood House sponsored or was the site
for many patriotic events, like Mexican Independence Day (from Spain) and Cinco de Mayo, and
Mexicana/os held positions as leaders in organizing these events. 192 In May 1933, Mexicans celebrated
Cinco de Mayo at Neighborhood House, and 450 people participated. 193 For these events, Mexicanas and
Mexicanos wrote plays and speeches, provided patriotic and religious artifacts, made costumes, and
coached dancers and singers, all with the intention of educating the children and community about
Mexican faith, culture, and history. 194 Mexicana/os used Neighborhood House to house these events, but
Neighborhood House settlement workers were not the leaders or organizers. Guadalupe Center neighbors
had fewer opportunities for holding social dinners, dances, meetings, and events like baptisms or
weddings at the center because of limited space in their first two locations, the house next to the parish
church and Las Casas Blancas. When Guadalupe Center moved into the new hacienda-style building in
1936, Mexicana/os had more space, and Mexicana/os used the facilities for several Mexicana/o-generated
activities, group meetings, and events. 195
Many Mexicanos used the settlements for meeting and practicing with their musical groups, and
their associations with Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center gained them opportunities for playing
at events, prospects for earning money, and chances for promoting themselves to a broader audience.
Mexicanos used Neighborhood House for orchestra practices and often played for Mexican dances.196
Mexicanos used Guadalupe Center a meeting place and a sponsor for their orchestras and musical groups.
In a Guadalupe Center photograph, labeled “Joe Vera with first orchestra, 1932,” two young men are
sitting with guitars, one sits at the piano, and five, all wearing ties and suit coats, stand behind them; Vera
is not identified. 197 The Tipica Tampico Orchestra also worked with the settlement-affiliated Grupo
Artistico club, and the two groups worked in conjunction to entertain for the “Grane” Fiesta, the National
Folk Festival in Chicago in 1937, the National Folk Festival in Washington, D.C., in 1938, and other
public and private events, many hosted by Anglos. 198 Although Tipica Tampico was not affiliated with
Guadalupe Center, Gallagher did much to promote the group to the larger citizenry of Kansas City, and
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Gallagher noted in a 1940 report that “many of the men use the orchestra as a means of supplementing
their meager incomes in providing for their families.” 199
Mexicana/os also held religious or parish-related events at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe
Center. Mexicana/os from St. Paul’s West Side did not attain a Catholic church until 1931, when they
opened Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. To raise money for a church, Mexicana/os held Jamaicas, or
fundraising parties, at Neighborhood House. Often in conjunction with the mutualista Sociedad Mutua
Benéfica Recreativa Anahuac, or Anahuac, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Mexicana/os utilized
Neighborhood House facilities to put on Pastorelas, or Christmas plays, and organized and produced
programs for the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 200
Mexicana/os also used Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center facilities to hold meetings,
dances, and other events related for their Mexicana/o-oriented organizations, mostly mutualistas or
devotional societies. As early 1924, Neighborhood House annual reports and schedules list a Mexican
Society Club, later listed as Anahuac, which also had a women’s auxiliary that met at Neighborhood
House. While this mutualista and its auxiliary were not affiliated with or sponsored by the Neighborhood
House, the clubs held their meetings and social events there. Curry remarks about the role of Mexican
groups that, though they were not affiliated with Neighborhood House, held meetings at the
Neighborhood House and worked in conjunction with the settlement: “Their Mexican Council is an
organization of sixteen clubs, members all over 18 years of age, and they decide what is good for the
Colony, and also help Neighborhood House interpret their people to the nearby community.” 201 Because
of limited space at Guadalupe Center’s first facilities, Mexicana/o groups used the nearby Our Lady of
Guadalupe Church for Mexicana/o-generated group meetings, but then they used the new building. In
1942, Mexicana/os started the Mexican-American Neighborhood Council at Guadalupe Center, a group
that also included Anglos, which sought to improve the neighborhood and assist families, and held their
meetings at Guadalupe Center. 202
As adults, several Mexicana/os who had participated at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe
Center as children report that they went back to the settlements to work as activists for the Mexican
156
communities. Henry Capiz and Frank Rodriguez both returned to Neighborhood House and sat on
committees and worked to further the interests of Mexicana/os, including advocating for formal and nonformal educational opportunities. 203 After becoming a successful chef at a Kansas City hotel, Jess Barbosa
worked to promote on-the-job training and other opportunities for young Mexicana/os through Guadalupe
Center. 204 Through their activism, these Mexicana/os and many others assisted unions, fought for
Mexicana/o rights locally and nationally, provided children and the elderly with services, promoted
formal schooling success, provided college assistance for Mexicana/os, and held together the
communities in the 1950s when floods and urban renewal projects devastated the neighborhoods. Both
settlements remained open, in part, because Mexicana/os continued to participate and took these
leadership roles.
Conclusion
From the earliest days of their settlement through the 1950s, hundreds of Mexicana/os in St.
Paul’s West Side and in Kansas City’s Westside neighborhoods sought non-formal educational
opportunities at Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center. While the settlements varied in terms of
their religious affiliations and in the racial, ethnic, and religious makeup of the neighbors they served,
they had much in common in how they offered non-formal education for Mexicana/os. Though they did
not intend it, in some cases, both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center Americanization practices
perpetuated racialized stereotypes about Mexicana/os and Mexican culture and elevated middle-class,
Anglo-centered ideals in their settlement-generated non-formal educational offerings. While some
Mexicana/os opted out of participating at the settlements, many more chose to actively participate in
settlement-generated offerings, including classes, clubs, athletics, gymnastics and playground programs.
Several Mexicana/os report having influenced settlement practices and offerings and taking leadership
roles. Finally, many Mexicana/os utilized the settlements as physical spaces for Mexican-centered and
community-centered organizational meetings, events, and activism. Mexicana/os brought vitality and
157
longevity to Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center, continuing to use them through dramatic
changes in the neighborhoods and through multiple generations and making them work for Mexicana/os.
158
Notes
1
Report on Neighborhood House history and services, n.d., Box 1, Folder: “General,” NHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN.
2
Frank Rodriguez, MAOHP, MHS, St Paul, MN.
3
“Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 6, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library. “a great
many of those who attend the center activities are from Spanish speaking homes, although activities are open to
those with other nationality backgrounds. Negroes may take part in the playground activities and are included in the
boys athletic teams.” Records do not, however, provide enrollment or attendance numbers for these children.
4
Mary Lou Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL.
5
Ibid.
6
Mina Carson, Settlement Folk: Social Thought and the American Settlement Movement, 1885-1930 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1990): 99-100.
7
Howard Jacob Karger, The Sentinels of Order: A Study of Social Control and the Minneapolis Settlement House
Movement, 1915-1950 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987): xiii.
8
Esther G. Barrows, Neighbors All: A Settlement Notebook (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1929); Carson,
Settlement Folk, 1990; Allen F. Davis, Spearheads of Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive
Movement, 1890-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); Arthur C. Holden, The Settlement Idea: A
Vision of Social Justice (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922); Karger, The Sentinels of Order, 1987;
Kathleen D. McCarthy, Ed., Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy, and Power (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1990); Lorene M. Pacey, Ed., Readings in the Development of Settlement Work (New York:
Association Press, 1950); Judith Ann Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House
Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Judith Ann
Trolander, Settlement Houses and the Great Depression (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975).
9
Holden, The Settlement Idea, 1922 :113 & 117.
10
For the this chapter, I used interviews from two collections, unless otherwise noted: the Mexican American Oral
History Project at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Minnesota and the Hispanic Oral History Collection
at the Missouri Valley Special Collections in Kansas City Public Library in Kansas City, Missouri.
11
Churches and missions also provided non-formal education for Mexicana/os, and, in the next chapter, I go in
much more depth looking at Mexicana/os’ participation in non-formal education through churches and missions.
Some settlements held affiliations or even shared facilities with churches and missions, as did Guadalupe Center in
its early days. However, settlements held to policies and practices that varied very much from those of churches.
Similarly, Mexicana/os utilized settlements and churches for different reasons. Thus, I explore Mexicana/o
participation in settlements in one chapter and in churches and missions in another.
12
In the following sections, I will provide information about when each settlement began serving Mexicana/os. Both
settlements remain open at this time, though they no longer identify as settlements.
13
From this point on, references to Kansas City indicate Kansas City, Missouri, unless otherwise noted.
14
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” MHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN.
15
Neighborhood House institutional histories do not mention religious classes or services, though the founders were
older Jewish immigrants, mostly reformed Jews from Germany, and the initial participants were Jews from Eastern
159
Europe and Russia, mostly Orthodox. Lorraine E. Pierce, “The Jewish Settlement on St. Paul’s Lower West Side,”
American Jewish Archives, November, 1976: 149.
16
Lorraine E. Pierce, “The Jewish Settlement on St. Paul’s Lower West Side,” American Jewish Archives,
November, 1976: 149.
17
Neighborhood House: 1897-1947, Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN;
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN.
18
Neighborhood House: 1897-1947, Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN;
Hoffman, Neighborhood House, MHS, St Paul, MN.
19
Ester Alvaloz, MAOHP, MHS, St Paul, MN. Some of the earliest Mexicana/os coming into St. Paul arrived in
1910, but it is not until 1923 when Neighborhood House reports first mention Mexican neighbors. In her interview,
Esther Alvaloz relates that her husband’s uncle came to St. Paul in 1918, and her husband Gabriele came to St. Paul
in 1920.
20
Stacey Lynn Camp, “Reform to Repatriation: Gendering an Americanization Movement in Early TwentiethCentury California,” in S. M. Spencer-Wood, ed. Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Gender
Transformations: From Private to Public. (New York: Springer Science and Business Media, 2013): 363-388; Juan
R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Louise Año
Nuevo Kerr, “Mexican Chicago: Chicano Assimilation Aborted, 1939-1954,” in The Ethnic Frontier: Essays in the
History of Group Survival in Chicago and the Midwest, Melvin G. Holli and Peter Jones, eds., 293-328 (Grand
Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977); Dennis Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the
Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios
Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2000); Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and
the Midwest, 1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993).
21
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 97.
22
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 97.
23
“Introduction,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, Minnesota Historical Society.
24
“Annual Report, June-1939,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” Neighborhood House Association
Records, MHS, St Paul, MN.
25
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” MHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN. By 1947, Neighborhood House received funding and/or
volunteers from the following organizations: the Mt. Zion Synagogue, the Mt. Zion Ladies Hebrew Benevolent
Society, the St. Paul Public Library, the Schubert Music Club, the Baby Welfare Society, the Community Chest, the
Council of Social Agencies, the St. Paul Dental Auxiliary, the United Charities, the Kiwanis, the Child Welfare and
Attendance (C.W.A), the National Youth Organization (N.Y.O), the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A), the
Red Cross, the Office of Civilian Defense, the Air Raid Wardens, the St. Paul Junior League, the Midway Council,
the Department of Education, members of private and public school boards, school administrators, and local
churches, including the Mexican parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, as well as many individuals. By 1947,
Neighborhood House had undergraduate and graduate workers from the University of Minnesota, Concordia
College, Hamline University, Macalester College, St. Catherine’s College, Miss Stella Wood’s Kindergarten
Training School, and St. Thomas College.
26
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” MHAR, MHS, St Paul, MN.
27
I will discuss the practice of separate parishes for different ethnic and racial groups in the Chapter Four.
160
28
David A. Badillo, “The Catholic Church and the Making of Mexican-American Parish Communities in the
Midwest,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto Hinojosa,
237-308M. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994). In several instances, Anglo parishes in the Midwest
aided Mexicana/os in establishing their own parish churches since Mexicana/os often did not have the funds or
influence on their own.
29
“The Agnes Ward Amberg Club,” December 1919, Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Dorothy
Gallagher, A Case Study of The Agnes Ward Amberg Club of Kansas City, Mo., March 18, 1929, MVSC, KCPL,
Kansas City, MO.
30
“The Agnes Ward Amberg Club,” December 1919, Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
31
John T. Duncan and Severiano Alonzo, Guadalupe Center: 50 Years of Service (Kansas City, MO: Kansas City
Public Library, 1972): 24.
32
“The Agnes Ward Amberg Club,” December 1919, Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO
33
“The Agnes Ward Amberg Club,” December 1919, Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO. As I
address in the next chapter, part of the U.S. Catholic church’s mission at this time was to provide lay teachers to
provide Catechism for Catholic children who attended public schools. In Kansas City, Missouri, the Amberg Club
took on the duties of the Catholic Instruction League in providing these services. Since the club was already an
established entity, the Diocese did not feel the need to form a separate league, as was the custom in other locales.
Several of the Amberg Club members attended a “series of lectures on social service work” put on by a Provident
Association field supervisor to become accredited visitors.
34
Dorothy Elizabeth Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups in Kansas City, Missouri, Through
Guadalupe Center” (master’s thesis, University of Missouri, 1938).
35
Sister Michaela, S.S.S., A History of Guadalupe Center, Kansas City, Missouri, class paper written for “History of
Social Welfare” class, December 18, 1959: 4, Box 5, Folder 10, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City
Public Library.
36
“Annual Report, June 1939,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose:
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; “Notes from Secretary’s Minutes,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose:
General,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Ester Rocha, Hispanic Oral
History collection, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
37
Howard Jacob Karger, The Sentinels of Order: A Study of Social Control and the Minneapolis Settlement House
Movement, 1915-1950 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987): xiii.
38
Neighborhood House, 1897-1947; William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years,
1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
39
Harry C. Boyte, and Nancy N. Kari, Building America: The Democratic Promise of Public Work (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1996): 91.
40
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
41
“Annual Report, June 1939,” Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; “Notes
from Secretary’s Minutes,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
42
43
“Development of Work 1921-1927,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and classes, general,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
“Development of Work 1921-1927,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and classes, general,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
44
“Notes from Secretary’s Minutes,” Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
161
45
Anne Brotzler, “Report From October to January,” n.d., Box 12, Folder: “Kindergarten and Summer School,
1938-1950,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
46
Ibid.
47
Gabriela Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago: Race, Identity, and Nation, 1916-1939 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2008): 99.
48
“Notes on Minutes from Secretary’s Book,” n.d., Box 1, Folder: “History and purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS,
St. Paul, MN.
49
Report on Neighborhood House history and services, n.d., Box 1, Folder: “History and purpose: General,” NHAR,
MHS, St. Paul, MN.
50
Esther G. Barrows, Neighbors All: A Settlement Notebook (Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1929); Carson,
Settlement Folk, 1990; Allen F. Davis, Spearheads of Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive
Movement, 1890-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); Arthur C. Holden, The Settlement Idea: A
Vision of Social Justice (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922); Karger, The Sentinels of Order, 1987;
Kathleen D. McCarthy, Ed., Lady Bountiful Revisited: Women, Philanthropy, and Power (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1990); Lorene M. Pacey, Ed., Readings in the Development of Settlement Work (New York:
Association Press, 1950); Judith Ann Trolander, Professionalism and Social Change: From the Settlement House
Movement to Neighborhood Centers, 1886 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Judith Ann
Trolander, Settlement Houses and the Great Depression (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1975).
51
George J. Sanchez, “‘Go After the Women”: Americanization and the Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1915-1929.”
In Mothers & Motherhood: Readings in American History, edited by Rima D. Apple, and Janet Golden, (Columbus:
Ohio University Press, 1997):475-494; Neighborhood, a settlement quarterly, v. 5 1932. Writing for the
Neighborhood publication, Director of the Hudson Guild settlement in New York, and a leader in the College
Settlement Association and the United Neighborhood Houses organizations, John Lovejoy Elliott writes about the
role of women in integrating families: “In dealing with any economic, social or political question, the usual method
is to attempt to find the key man and to achieve the desired results through his influence and efficiency. In the
integration of the family with the community, it seems to me that the key man is the mother of the family…. The
burden of homemaking as well as child-rearing is hers and her knowledge and attitude toward the neighborhood is
one, if not the chief factor, in determining the relationship between the home and the community.”
52
“Health Education,” 1922-1928. Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
53
“Medical.” n.d., Box 1, Folder: “History and purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
54
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
55
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 53.
56
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 53.
57
“Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas
City, MO.
58
“Report on Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13,
1945,” Box 5, Folder1, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO.
59
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City,
MO.
60
Ester Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, MO.
162
61
Richard Alba, and Victor Nee, Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Camp, “Reform to Repatriation, 2013; Cheryl R. Ganz, and Margaret
Strobel, Eds., Pots of Promise: Mexicans and Pottery at Hull-House, 1920-1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2004); Michael R. Olneck, “Americanization and the Education of Immigrants, 1900-1925: An Analysis of
Symbolic Action,” American Journal of Education 97, no. 4 (Aug. 1989): 398-423; Diana Selig, Americans All: The
Cultural Gifts Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).
62
“Annual Report, June 1939,” Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
63
JoAnna Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity Among Mexican-Americans in St. Paul, Minnesota in the
Post-WWII Era,” JSRI Working Paper No. 7, The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan, 1997.
64
“Audit of Neighborhood House Organized Clubs and Classes.” 1932. Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports, 19351939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
65
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 44-46.
66
Sister Michaela, S.S.S., A History of Guadalupe Center, Kansas City, Missouri, class paper written for “History of
Social Welfare” class, December 18, 1959: 4, Box 5, Folder 10, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
67
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 60-63.
68
“Mark the Mexican 4th,” Kansas City Times (Monday, September 17, 1928). The reporter compares Mexican
Independence Day with the U.S. celebration of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. While it is
unclear how this comparison came about in regard to this event in this locality, whether Mexicana/os or Anglos
made the comparison, it is likely that the comparison influenced fiesta organizers in 1936 when they scheduled the
fiesta in July.
69
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 60-63.
70
Cydney E. Millstein, and Mary Ann Warfield, “Guadalupe Center,” National Register of Historic Places
Registration Form, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Oct. 1990.
http://www.dnr.mo.gov/shpo/nps-nr/03000866.pdf. (accessed October 14, 2014).
71
Millstein, and Warfield, “Guadalupe Center,” 1990.
72
Millstein, and Warfield, “Guadalupe Center,” 1990.
73
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
74
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
75
Selig, Americans All, 2011: 13-14.
76
“Report on Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13,
1945” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
77
“Introduction,” Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Neighborhood
House, 1897-1947, Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
78
“Announcements,” Tiny Tribune 7 (Feb. 8, 1934) Box 11, Folder: “Tiny Trib, 1933-1934,” NHAR, MHS, St.
Paul, MN.
79
80
“Mexican Aliens Lauded For Eagerness to Learn,” Kansas City Times, March 26, 1927.
Selig, Americans All, 2011: 13.
163
81
Francisco and Dolores Guzman, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
82
Lydia Estevez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
83
Mary Lou Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
84
Paul Rojas, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
85
Esiquia Monita, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
86
Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian Americanization’: A Study in Cultural Conflict,” In
Forging A Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, Eds. James B. Lane, and Edward
J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987):115-136.
87
Ruíz, “Dead Ends or Gold Mines?,” 1991.
88
Ruíz, “Dead Ends or Gold Mines?,” 40.
89
“Annual Report, June-1939,” Box 1, Folder: “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
90
“Development of Work, 1921-1927,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
91
“Audit of Neighborhood House Organized Clubs and Classes,” Box 11, Folder “Clubs and Classes, General,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
92
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 97.
93
“Audit of Neighborhood House Organized Clubs and Classes,” Box 11, Folder “Clubs and Classes, General,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
94
“Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938, Box, 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes,
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
95
“Annual Report 1946,” Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
96
Ibid.
97
Salvador Gutierrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN;
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
98
“Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938, Box, 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes,
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
99
“Annual Report, June-1939,” Box 1, Folder “History and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN;
“Development of Work, 1921-1927,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN;
“Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938, Box, 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes,
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Hoffman, Neighborhood House.
100
“Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO;
“Amberg Club—Guadalupe Center,” 1940, Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Annual
Report, 1946,” Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Annual Report, 1951,” Box 5, Folder 1,
HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Headquarters of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club,” 1925, Box 5, Folder 1,
HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Report on the Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the
Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13, 1945," Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
164
101
“Report on the Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13,
1945," Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
102
“Report on the Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13,
1945,” Box 5, Folder 1, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
103
Sister Celine Vasquez, S.S.S., “A Study of the Services Offered by Guadalupe Center in Kansas City, Missouri,
to Individuals and Families in a Mexican District” (master’s Thesis. School of Social Work, St. Louis University,
1942).
104
“The Neighborhood House: Schedule of Clubs and Classes, 1921,” Box 11, Folder “Clubs and Classes, General,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
105
Elsabe Luedke. Doll Club Report from January 12, 1933, Box 11, Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of group,
1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
106
Camp, “Reform to Repatriation,” 2013; David B. Corson, Annual Report of the State Board of Education and of
the Commissioner of Education of New Jersey with Accompanying Documents. Trenton, New Jersey, 1921.
107
Sylvia Moskovitz. Doll Club Report from January 12, 1933, Box 11, Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of
group, 1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
108
Sylvia Moskovitz. Doll Club Report from February, 1933, Box 11, Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of group,
1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
109
Sylvia Moskovitz. Doll Club Report from February 16, 1933, Box 11, “Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of
group, 1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
110
Judith Mulally. Doll Club Report from April 27, 1933, Box 11, Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of group,
1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Judith Mulally. Doll Club Report from May 4, 1933 Box 11, “Folder
“Rosters and reports: by title of group, 1933-1956,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
111
Carol Kocher, “Sewing,” December 11, 1940. Box 11, Folder “Rosters and reports: by title of group, 19331956,” NHAR, MHA, St. Paul, MN.
112
See the discussion about Anne Brolitz’ separate groups for young boys on pages 9-10.
113
“Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938, Box, 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes,
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
114
“Amberg Club—Guadalupe Center,” 1940, Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
115
“Report on Guadalupe Center Given at the Annual Meeting of the Agnes Ward Amberg Club, September 13,
1945” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
116
“Amberg Club-Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
117
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 73.
118
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 68.
119
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 68.
120
Guadalupe Center Photograph Album 1, Page 15, MVSC, KCPL http://kchistory.org; Guadalupe Center
Photograph Album 1, Page 69, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library http://kchistory.org;
165
Guadalupe Center Photograph Album 1, Page 74, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library
http://kchistory.org. (accessed October 14, 2014).
121
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 55.
122
“Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
123
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 63-64, 76.
124
Guadalupe Center Photograph Album 1, Page 04, MVSC, KCPL http://kchistory.org (accessed October 14,
2014).
125
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
126
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 39-44.
127
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 44.
128
Millstein, and Warfield, “Guadalupe Center,” 15.
129
Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
130
“Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
131
“Amberg Club-Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
132
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Duncan, and
Alonzo, Guadalupe Center.
133
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
134
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
135
“Annual Report 1941—Given January 1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
136
William J. Reese, “Vacation Schools, Playgrounds, and Educational Extension,” Power and Promise of School
Reform: Grassroots Movements During the Progressive Era (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).
137
“The Neighborhood House Schedule of Clubs and Classes, 1928,” Box 1, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
138
“Football Report-1938, Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
139
“Report of Work from Oct-Dec.-1938,” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
140
“Report—October-November, 1935,” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
141
“Report—October-November, 1935,” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
142
“Report—October-November, 1935,” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
166
143
“Report of Work from Oct-Dec.-1938,” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
144
“Report of Work from Oct-Dec.-1938,” Box 12, “Folder: Sports: Reports 1935-1939,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul,
MN.
145
“Annual Report: Physical Education for Girls and Women” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
146
“Annual Report: Physical Education for Girls and Women” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
147
“Annual Report: Physical Education for Girls and Women” Box 12, Folder: “Sports: Reports 1935-1939,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Hoffman, Neighborhood House.
148
“Playground Report, 1939,” Folder: Sports: Reports 1935-1939, Box 12, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN;
“Playground Report, 1940, Folder: Sports: Reports 1935-1939, Box 12, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN. These two
reports do not list any Spanish surnamed children as playground leaders.
149
Neighborhood House: 1897-1947, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
150
Frank Rodriguez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
151
“Agnes Ward Amberg Club, Annual Report 1931,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
152
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 42.
153
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40.
154
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40.
155
“Amberg Club-Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
156
“Annual Report-1941, Given January-1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
157
“Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 6, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
158
“Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 6, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
159
Ester Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Dolores Rodriguez, HOHC MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City,
MO.
160
Duncan and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40-41.
161
Duncan and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40-41.
162
Duncan and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40-41.
163
Duncan and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 41.
“Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 6, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
164
165
“Development of Work, 1921-1927,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
This audit shows a “Mexican Boys Gym” entry for 1924, a year after Mexican immigrants gained significant
numbers in St. Paul and started going to NH.
167
166
“Neighborhood House Six Months Audit, Jan. Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, 1933,” Box 2, Folder “General
Classes,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; “Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938,
Box, 11, “Clubs and Classes, General” folder 1, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
167
“Growth of the Mexican Activities at Neighborhood House,” 1933-1938, Box, 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes,
General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
168
“1935-1945,” Box 1, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; “1945-1950,” Box 1,
Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
169
“The Neighborhood House Schedule of Clubs and Classes, 1928,” Box 1, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,”
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
170
“Double ‘T’ Mexican Girls,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN; “19351945,” Box 1, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
171
Dionisa “Nicha” Cardena Coates, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN. Coates participated in the interviews for the
Mexican in Minnesota Interviews and mentions participating at Neighborhood House, but she does not mention her
experiences in the Double “T” Club.
172
“Double ‘T’ Mexican Girls,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
173
“Double ‘T’ Mexican Girls,” Box 11, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
174
“Neighborhood House Club—Monday Cooking” 1954-1955. Folder: Miscellaneous Women’s and Girls’ Clubs,
1941-1957, Box 12, 146.K.11.4F, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
175
“Report, February 1, 1945-January 1, 1946, Group Activities,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City,
MO.
176
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 64-65.
177
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 64.
178
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 64.
179
Quoted in Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 65.
180
Hoffman, “Service Rendered to Mexican Groups,” 76.
181
Duncan and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 40.
182
“Amberg Club-Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
183
“Annual Report 1947,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
184
Mary Lou Hernandez, HOHC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
185
“Annual Report-1941, Given January-1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
“Amberg Club-Guadalupe Center,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
186
187
“Scandal,” Tiny Trib 3, Number 3 (Nov. 23, 1933), Box 11, “Tiny Trib, 1933-1934” folder, NHAR, MHS, St.
Paul, MN. The mention is as follows: “Mr. Jack Hile of the Gym class attended the Mexican Homecoming dance
with a blond girl that did not look familiar to us. He looked very handsome in the little Chinese cap that he wore.
Really, Jack, you are a credit to the Chineeserface [sic]!!!!!!!”
168
188
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 41-41.
189
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 42.
190
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 42-44.
191
“The Neighborhood House Calendar, 1929-1930,” Box 1, Folder: “Clubs and Classes General,” NHAR, MHS, St.
Paul, MN.
192
Mexicana/os held fiestas to celebrate Independence from Spain on September 15 and 16 and, later, Cinco de
Mayo, or Mexican Independence Day from France, which, in Mexico, is mostly celebrated in the state of Puebla.
193
“Neighborhood House Six Months Audit, Jan. Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, 1993,” Box 2, Folder “General
Classes,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
194
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.; Teresa Muñoz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Crecencia Rangel,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
195
“Annual Report 1947,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Annual Report 1949,” Box 5, Folder
1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; “Annual Report,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO. In 1947,
19 outside groups used the facilities. In 1949, 29 outside groups met. In 1951, 51 outside groups used the center, but
the reports provide no details about the groups.
196
“Neighborhood House, Clubs” March 15th, 1939. Folder: General Classes, Box 2, NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN;
“Neighborhood House Schedule of Time and Activities, Etc.” 1940. Folder: Clubs and Classes General, Box 1,
NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
197
Guadalupe Center Photograph Album 1, Page 73, MVSC, KCPL http://kchistory.org. (accessed October 14,
2014).
198
Duncan, and Alonzo, Guadalupe Center, 60-65.
199
“Annual Report-1941, Given January-1942,” Box 5, Folder 1, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
200
Mexicana/os celebrated both religious days. Many Mexicana/os, even non-Catholics, commemorated the feast
day for Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12, with many Mexicana/os identifying with the patron saint of
Mexico.
201
“Audit of Neighborhood House Organized Clubs and Classes.” 1932. NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
202
Sister Michaela, S.S.S., A History of Guadalupe Center, Kansas City, Missouri, class paper written for “History
of Social Welfare” class, December 18, 1959: 4, Box 5, Folder 10, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City
Public Library.
203
Henry Capiz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Frank Rodriguez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
204
Jess Barbosa, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
169
CHAPTER FOUR
“WE ALWAYS HAD THE CHURCH” 1: MEXICANA/O PARTICIPATION IN NON-FORMAL
EDUCATION THROUGH PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES AND ORGANIZATIONS
After moving around Iowa and Minnesota to pursue migrant work, Lupe Serrano’s family settled in the
Cook’s Point barrio of Davenport, Iowa, and the children attended St. Alphonsus School. Serrano recalled
the work of the parish priest for the barrio:
The priest used to come in, and, he had classes…. They would come down and they would help
the kids that needed help in their school work…The priest. From St. Alphonsus…. And then, they
would have different things for the kids to do…. color, read, because I’ve always loved reading.
And I always used to read books that he would bring, and I would just sit there and read. 2
Ramedo Saucedo grew up in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, and explains, “my
life tended to revolve around the community, around the church activities…. My parents were very
encouraging. But it always had to be someway, somehow always associated with the church.” 3 Also a
member of Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul’s West Side, Crecencia Rangel directed dancing and the
chorus for the Mexican Independence Day celebrations. Rangel recalls her and her daughter’s work to
educate the community about the meaning of the patriotic holiday:
Juanita [her eldest daughter] and I would put on the whole program for the 16th, this was for the
benefit of the church. My children, since they were small, were taught hymns. Once I worked for
three or four months putting together some Mexican hymns for the children to sing at church.
Serrano, Saucedo, Rangel, and many more Mexicana/os report participating in non-formal educational
opportunities sponsored by local Protestant and Catholic churches and organizations.
Non-formal educational opportunities varied, based on how Mexicana/os identified their faith, the
structures and goals of the religious entities Mexicana/os encountered, and the physical space and
materials available. And, while some Mexicana/os chose not to participate, many Mexicana/os sought out
170
and participated in the non-formal education offered by Protestant and Catholic churches and
organizations. Furthermore, many Mexicana/os utilized religious institutions to further their own goals for
non-formal education. Beginning when Mexicana/os first gained access to churches or built their own and
extending into the 1950s, many Mexicana/os living in the Midwest valued, shaped, and generated
religious-sponsored non-formal educational opportunities to suit their needs.
I begin the Chapter Four documenting the diverse and complex ways Mexicana/os self-identified
in terms of faith and church affiliations. Then, I assess the structures and goals of churches and religious
entities Mexicana/os encountered in the Midwest. Next, I examine Mexicana/o participation in nonformal educational activities offered by these organizations. Finally, I investigate Mexicana/os’ utilization
of these organizations to meet their non-formal educational goals and to educate Mexican communities.
This chapter contributes to the history of Mexican American education in the U.S. and the history of
Protestantism and Catholicism in the U.S. by addressing non-formal education and the role of religious
and faith-affiliated entities in educating Mexicana/os. This chapter also provides insight into the educative
nature of ethnic celebrations and further illustrates the determination of Mexicana/os in seeking out,
participating in, and influencing education in all of its forms.
Protestant and Catholic Churches and Organizations Serving Mexicana/os
While several interviewees identified as Protestant—mostly Methodist or Baptist—most
interviewees living in the Midwest from 1910 to 1955 identified as Catholic or associated themselves
with a particular Catholic parish. Some Mexicana/os did not attend church and/or identified themselves or
their parents as being “not religious.” 4 Some families had members who identified with different faiths,
and several Mexicana/os married outside of their faith and converted. While the Catholic Church feared
mass conversions of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans to Protestantism, most Mexicana/os
did not convert and most of those Mexicana/os who identified as Protestants identified and worshiped as
such before they immigrated. 5 In regard to Mexican Catholics, while many valued the Church as an
institution and the sacraments it offered, others held to a broader view of spirituality and community than
171
was shared by their local, Anglo parishes and/or clergy. 6 Regardless of their faith, in the early 1900s,
most Mexicanos migrating throughout and living in the Midwest had limited access to churches or felt
unwelcome at Anglo churches. In the 1920s and 1930s as more families began to settle in the Midwest,
especially in larger urban areas and cities, Mexicana/os began to seek out places of worship and the
services they offered.
Protestant Non-Formal Educational Goals for Mexicana/os
During this period, three major Protestant denominations served Mexicana/os in the Midwest.
Methodists, Baptists, and Pentecostals provided not only religious services but also opportunities for nonformal education. 7 Many Mexican Protestant churches began as missions. Although most Protestant
denominations already had existing churches, many opened missions or churches for Mexicana/os,
separate from Anglos. In his interview, Mervin Gardiner, an Anglo Methodist from rural Garden City,
Kansas, recalls that the Anglo Methodist church he attended had an interest in the local Mexican
community: “They’ve had the Mexican Mission…. It was down on Santa Fe Street…. And they had,
usually had, a Mexican minister.” 8 Gardiner emphasizes the separateness of the Mexican Mission from
the Methodist church, though he acknowledges that sometimes the Anglo Methodist church and the
Mexican Mission did services together and that the larger, national church financed both entities. 9
Gardiner explains that the goal of the Mexican Mission was to convert Mexicans to Methodism and not
much else, even to the extent that the Anglo Methodist church did not take part in flood relief for the
hard-hit Mexican community in 1951. 10 Gardiner’s descriptions make it clear that the Anglo Methodist
church in Garden City narrow interests when it came to serving Mexicana/os. 11 Nationally, Methodists
kept separate Anglo and Mexican conferences and had funding and administration from a national level,
while Baptists did not have separate conferences for Anglos and Mexicana/os and had more local funding.
Both Methodist and Baptist leaderships kept Anglos firmly in control of church administration. 12 While
Mexican Pentecostals had more agency than members of other Mexican Protestant congregations, without
larger, national organizational support, these entities had little power or funding to provide long-term
172
services or educational experiences for congregants or communities.13 Additionally, fewer Mexicana/os
living in the Midwest identified as Pentecostals in the first half of the twentieth century.
A pastor of the Mexican Protestant Church in Wichita and several other churches throughout
Kansas, Hector Franco provides insight into the structures and goals of midwestern Mexican Protestant
missions. 14 In Wichita, Kansas, a single Anglo, Presbyterian woman “decided to teach English” to solos,
or single Mexicanos, living on the south side of Wichita, eventually opening up a night school; thus, the
Mexican Mission had its beginnings in 1910. Miss Cora Medenhall eventually acquired “helpers” and
support from a local businessman who donated a house. Medenhall then turned to Mexican women and
children and “invited women to come and learn to cook American food,” and from there, she offered
lessons in diet, sewing, and other homemaking skills. 15 According to Franco, Mexicanas appreciated and
sought out these opportunities in large enough numbers that, in 1920, Medenhall sought help from the
women of the Wichita Council of Churches. From that point, the “Mexican work” of the “Mexican
Committee” expanded and “it became possible to introduce Sunday school lessons.” 16 The businessmen
donated another building and students from nearby Friends University and Fairmont College “helped with
the educational projects and club work among the young people of the Mission.” 17 Additionally, the
committee brought in a Cuban minister “to take charge of the Mission, as it was felt that spiritual
guidance could be accomplished better if the Mexican people could hear the Gospel preached in
Spanish.” 18
By 1925, the mission became an established church, which differed from other distinct
denominations in that it was interdenominational. Franco describes the church as supported by women
from thirty-nine Protestant churches in the Wichita area as “their interdenominational project.” 19 Franco
continues to describe the work of the Anglo Protestant women:
These churches seek to improve the physical welfare and to impart religious teachings so that the
Mexicans, whether they stay permanently in this country or go back to Mexico, may be Christians
in a larger sense of the word. The idea has never been to proselyte church members from any
faith but to provide those conditions conducive to a Christian community by reaching the
173
indifferent, the agnostic, the atheist, the confused, the materialistic and those who are antagonistic
to American social trends. 20
While the mission did not wish to convert Mexicana/os to a specific Protestant faith, their agenda was to
help Mexicana/os become Christian Americans.
Furthermore, based on his own experience, Franco writes about the role of the pastor of a
Mexican Protestant church as “not just a preacher [;] he is an interpreter, teacher, lawyer, youth director, a
member of the Selective Service Board, a banker, a technical advisor, etc.” 21 Franco argues that the
Mexican Protestant Church acted as the forerunner of other Mexican Protestant churches and missions in
Kansas: Methodist churches for Mexicana/os opened in Garden City, Lyons, Emporia, and Kansas City,
all places were Franco worked as a pastor, and Baptist churches for Mexicana/os opened in Wichita,
Topeka, Wellington, and Ottawa. Franco describes these missions and churches organizing in the 1930s
for “interdenominational Sunday School training of young Mexican people,” though they trained
Mexicana/os, Anglos, or both. 22 Franco provides insights about the roles of midwestern Protestant
churches in educating and Americanizing Mexicana/os, and, although he identifies himself as a Mexican,
he writes from a top-down viewpoint of a church.
For the most part, midwestern Protestant churches, missions, and organizations sought to serve
Mexicana/os in the community through evangelizing and Americanizing, whether they converted or not.
While some of the smaller, less funded entities did not have the means for providing consistent or longterm non-formal educational facilities and activities for Mexicana/os, several of the larger, better funded
organizations like the Salvation Army, The Mexican Protestant Church in Wichita, and the Methodist
Mission in the Argentine barrio of Kansas City, Kansas, 23 continued and even expanded their social
welfare and Americanization work with the help of federal funding during the Depression. Evidence
reveals that midwestern Protestant churches and missions and the non-formal opportunities they provided
were, for the most part, Anglo-centered and Anglo-controlled. This was not the case with several
midwestern Catholic parishes and organizations.
174
Catholic Non-Formal Educational Goals for Mexicana/os
The midwestern United States’ diversity in geography, natural resources, commerce, and
agriculture affected the settlement patterns of Mexicana/os. Much more so than for Mexican Protestant
churches, these factors affected the establishment and accessibility of Catholic churches for Mexicana/os
in the region. Whether an area was rural or urban greatly influenced the make up of parishes and the roles
priests and church-sponsored organizations played in providing non-formal education for Mexicana/os. In
rural areas or in smaller towns, physical churches may not have been available or open to Mexicana/os.
Most migrants did not have time or funds to petition for a national, or Mexican, parish. Many of the new
Catholic immigrants from Mexico and the Southwest found themselves isolated in rural areas or
alongside the railroad tracks on the outskirts of towns, without access to services, including Catholic mass
or sacraments.
As more Mexicana/o Catholics moved into larger urban areas of the U.S., they gained more,
though often not equitable, access to Catholic churches, organizations, and non-formal educational
opportunities. Badillo writes,
the strengths of the Protestant churches and weaknesses of the Catholic Church along the border
presented a religious landscape considerably different from the midwestern immigrant parish, an
urban phenomenon. … No parishes emerged in the tentative and unstable environment of the beet
fields; thus, cities became the mainstay of institutional Catholicism for Mexicans in the
Midwest. 24
Yet, in many towns and cities, Mexicana/os attended mass in parish basements or in services separate
from the Anglo parishioners, received weak or no welcome, and had little agency in church activities. In
writing about the Diocese of Leavenworth, Kansas, Rev. Felix Marsinko commented about the Sacred
Heart parish in Emporia, Kansas,
many [Anglo] Catholics …were embarrassed to associate with the Mexicans even in the
fulfillments of their Catholic obligations at church…As a result, it was deemed advisable to fix up
175
the basement of the Sacred Heart Church where mass was said on two Sundays of each month for
the Mexicans. 25
Ricart reports that Anglo parishioners in Florence barred Mexicana/os from joining organizations at the
church, like the Knights of Columbus. 26 In the 1920s, the national Church began deemphasizing national
parishes, but this was not the case for Mexican parishes in the Midwest, especially in larger urban areas
like Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as in smaller cities with sizable Mexicana/o
populations. Badillo explains, “Greater Kansas City served as the gateway to the Mexican Midwest and
the site of early parish communities in the central plains.” 27 Through the 1920s and 1930s, midwestern
dioceses continued to sanction new separate parishes for Mexicana/os. Yet, separate churches did not
always ensure Mexicana/o control. Like separate Mexican Protestant churches and missions, Mexican
parishes often retained Anglo priests and answered to Anglo-controlled dioceses.
While many Anglo parishioners did not care to celebrate mass with Mexican Catholics, many
Catholic churches and organizations provided social services and non-formal education to evangelize and
Americanize Mexicana/o immigrants. Through separate churches, missions, women’s clubs, and other
church-affiliated organizations, Anglo Catholics sought not only to convert Mexicana/os but also to
Americanize them. 28 In some locales, Catholics from Anglo-oriented parishes actively provided educative
services to Mexicana/os. Several interviewees mention a home in Davenport’s Cook’s Point barrio where
Mexicana/os took classes and reported that a priest from St. Alphonsus often taught there. Salvador Lopez
remembered, “When we were living down at the Point, they had like a little schoolhouse there. I forget
who was the one that sponsored it, the schools or the church. But they would give classes on speaking
English,” and his mother took English classes there. 29 Lupe Serrano also referred to this house and a
priest who educated the children there. 30 Though the interviewees do not provide many details or an
identity for the priest who did this work, they describe his work as a means to assist them with their
education and to help adults learn English. Part of the priest’s motivation may have been
Americanization, but his work, as interviewees described it, also reveals a concern for the wellbeing and
education of Mexicana/os in the parish.
176
Often, priests and church leaders provided non-formal education in order to keep Mexicana/os
from participating in Protestant or secular non-formal educational opportunities. Emilia Rangel of
Emporia describes a priest who caught children sneaking into the Asambleas de Dios, or Assembly of
God, Pentecostal church to color and then forbade the Catholic children from participating in those
activities. 31 Historian Domingo Ricart writes of the Mexican Catholic priests of Wichita, Kansas, both on
the north and south sides, they “resent very strongly any other activity in the colony, or by members of
the colony, that is not controlled by them. It seems as if the church, while trying to help Mexicans
spiritually, is in fear of their being contaminated.” 32 Ricart does not clearly state it, but the contamination
that the church feared was probably that of conversion of Mexicana/os to Protestantism. Ricart writes that
most Mexicana/os in Emporia identified themselves as Catholic, but significant numbers of Mexican
Protestants also lived in town. Before the “Mexican” Our Lady of Guadalupe was established in 1923,
Catholic Mexicana/os attended the existing, Anglo church. In 1950, Ricart explains that the Franciscan
priest was an American-born German who understood Spanish but did not often speak it and had an
attitude of “benevolent paternalism.” 33 According to Ricart, the priest in Emporia sought to control
Mexicana/o activities and keep them under his purview, including in church-sponsored Catholic Action,
sport teams, and mutual aid societies. 34
Other priests promoted Mexican culture in parish activities and showed a genuine, while
paternalistic, interest in Mexican culture, especially those who served “Mexican” parishes. Many
parishioners of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, recalled that parish priests worked
alongside parishioners for fundraising, spoke Spanish, and encouraged Mexican culture. Alfonso De
Leon, one of the pioneering Mexicanos in St. Paul, recalled of one of the first priests to work with
Mexicana/os: “Father Jose Guillemette was a professor at St. Thomas College; he was the first priest that
started to go from house to house to get us interested in participating and starting the Sacred Heart of
Jesus Society.” 35 Esther Alvaloz recalled, “Father Dicks also helped the Mexicans. He would show us as
being poor and showed how he helped us. Whereas, Father Ward helped us out of his own humility and
kindness.” 36 Maria Rangel Moran recalled, “The late Rev. James A. Ward, I felt was very much a
177
Mexicano at heart, though he was German. I think. He enjoyed and loved the traditions so much.” 37
Finally, Teresa Munoz described Father Ward: “[He] was not Mexican, but he was more than that. He
loved traditions and his devotion was to Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was very devoted to her. He was a
sacred man to us because he helped our community.” 38 Many of the people interviewed spoke about their
admiration for Father Ward and his work for the community, especially that of educating children,
upholding Mexican traditions, and working with those Mexicana/o parishioners who eventually took roles
as leaders in non-formal education through the church.
Mexicana/o Participation in Protestant and Catholic-Sponsored Non-Formal Education
Anglo-centric and -controlled religious entities in the Midwest rivaled each other in attempting to
shape Mexicana/os into Protestant Americans or Catholic Americans. Though their first goals were to
retain the faithful or convert new followers to their flocks, it was also the mission of most national church
entities to Americanize new immigrants, and this was the case with the newest immigrants to the
Midwest, Mexicana/os. Throughout the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century, Protestant and
Catholic missions and churches made a practice of serving new immigrants not only by providing
national parishes and/or religious services and sacraments but also by offering English classes and other
Americanization education that promoted U.S. citizenship and Anglo-centric values, like Boy Scouts, and
skills deemed important for Mexicana/os, like sewing. Both Anglo Protestant and Catholic women’s
groups ran settlement houses and community centers, which differed from secular settlements and
centers. 39 Protestant churches and missions offered summer school and children’s activities in order to
battle juvenile delinquency and to appeal to children in hopes of drawing in their parents. Yet, these
religious entities did not work in a vacuum nor did Mexicana/os simply comply with the structures and
goals of church-generated non-formal education.
Mexicana/os made diverse and personal choices about how they participated in Protestant and
Catholic-sponsored non-formal education and utilized these entities to further their own goals for nonformal education. Some first generation Mexicana/os, or new immigrants, did not participate in church-
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affiliated non-formal education opportunities because of conflicts with their work schedules or family
obligations, their ambivalence toward organized religion or Americanization efforts, or their distaste for
segregated services. Others chose to attend only church services. While some Mexicana/os reported
awareness of the efforts of religious-affiliated organizations’ attempts to convert and/or to Americanize,
many reported being drawn in by opportunities to play sports, to access books and sewing materials, and
to participate in classes and clubs. Furthermore, Mexicana/o youth sought out and participated in
activities and groups, many of them gendered, through churches and organizations outside of their or their
families’ faith. Catholic children went to Protestant-affiliated organizations for Boy Scout activities, and
Protestant children attended fiestas to celebrate Mexican Independence sponsored by Catholic churches.
Mexicana/o Participation in Protestant-Sponsored Non-Formal Education
When opportunities were available, Protestant Mexicana/os sought out non-formal educative
opportunities in Protestant churches, missions, and organizations, though not always those where they
attended services or those associated with their identified faiths or denominations. Ruth Lopez of Kansas
City, Missouri, grew up as a Protestant and attended Alta Vista Christian Church on 23rd Street. 40 Lopez
recalled going to a different Protestant church, the Baptist church, for sewing classes: “They would give
the material and the sewing thread and all the women and young girls that wanted to would go, and I used
to love to go because I liked to talk to the ladies. … I did it for a while.” 41 Lopez remembered women and
girls making pillowcases, tablecloths, and towels, and doing embroidery work. 42 Though she does not
specify that the Baptist Church was a Mexican church, this may have been the same Mexican Baptist
church attended by Sally Magaña Ramos. Ramos’ maternal grandparents had converted to Protestantism
before they immigrated from Mexico, and her mother played piano and sang in the choir at a Mexican
Baptist church in Kansas City, Missouri. As Ramos grew older more activities became available at her
church. Ramos claimed, “If I started having any fun at all, it was because of the church activities. As I
grew older, it wasn’t as boring as my younger years.” 43 Though she did not provide any details in her
interview about the types or duration of activities provided by the church, Ramos does mention the
mentorship of the ministers’ wives, especially one who encouraged her to pursue college: “Most of our
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ministers were from Texas; most of their wives were usually educated. And, there was one in particular
who was a lovely lady, who taught at Switzer [public school where many Mexicana/os attended], Carlada
Cañas.” 44 While Lopez’ experiences followed gendered and Americanization agendas, Ramos found
support for her academic needs through educated women from the church.
Protestant churches and missions in the Midwest provided Sunday school classes and other social
and educational activities to draw in Catholic Mexicana/os and to evangelize. In this work, they were
more likely to provide Spanish-speaking ministers than were Catholic parishes, but they were not
successful in converting large numbers of Mexicana/os to Protestantism. 45 While the Protestant churches
may not have been successful in their attempts to convert Mexicana/os in any large numbers, 46 they were
more successful in their attempts to Americanize or inculcate U.S. culture and values into Mexicana/os
through their participation in non-formal educative activities. For while many Catholics may not have
converted, significant numbers of Mexican Catholic adults and children accepted the social services that
were often available at the Protestant missions and then ended up attending services, classes, groups like
the Boy Scouts, and events due to curiosity or a sense of obligation.
In her history of the evolution of the Mexican-American community of Argentine, Laird provides
more details about the role of the Mexican Mission, with much of her archival work focusing on the
Women’s Home Missionary Society records. Laird cites the Mission’s Americanization program as its
“constant feature,” though she explains that few Mexicana/os did, indeed, attain citizenship in the 1920s
and 30s upon completing the program. Beyond providing basic needs and health care, the mission also
conducted educational, recreational and religious activities. It operated a day-care center and a
night school and offered courses in sewing cooking and homemaking. It also supported a band
with over 70 members, which performed at church and civic functions, and sponsored
organizations such as the Camp Fire Girls and a 4-H Garden Club. 47
Laird does not specify it, but many of the classes and groups seem to have been for women and girls.
Laird also indicates that contention between the Mission and the Catholic Church and intimates the
rivalry caused both entities to provide more non-formal educational opportunities for Mexicana/os:
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Since 1922, all public schools in Kansas City, Kansas, released children for religious instruction
each week. The mission moved quickly into the arena and spurred the Catholic Church to
establish a Week-Day Religious School in North Argentine in 1924 [which predated the Mexican
parish by 12 years]. 48
The importance of the Methodist Mission in Argentine could be explained by the initial lack of a Catholic
counterpart, but Laird’s list of clubs and activities belies the idea that Mexicana/os stopped attending
Mission opportunities once the Catholic parish appeared.
In Argentine, Mexicana/os, most of them Catholic, relied heavily on the Mexican Methodist
Mission, which began in 1921, very soon after the first Mexicana/os arrived, because there was not a
Catholic parish for them. 49 The mission attained church status in 1935, and, not coincidentally, in 1936,
Father Gabriel Perez’ founded the Mexican parish of St. John the Divine, a Catholic church. 50 While
Maria Mora attended Catholic services at St. John the Divine and played volleyball at Mt. Carmel Church
in the Armourdale district of Kansas City, Kansas, she also participated in the Mexican Methodist
Mission programs. Mora recalled that the mission:
played a big part, not only in my life but the lives of a lot of kids growing up then. They had
recreational programs during the summer and programs during after school hours, and this type of
thing. So, we were very involved with that, too… even though we attended our particular church
or the church of our faith. So, at that time, the Catholic church didn’t have as much going on. 51
Additionally, Mora’s girlfriend’s mother, a Methodist, was “very interested in seeing that the kids [not
only her own children] got scholarships or what have you, if they could.” 52 Mora’s experience reveals that
her parents, and those of other Catholic children, actively used the services of the local Methodist Mission
to assist in childcare and educating their children outside of formal schooling. Mora reveals her agency in
seeking out activities wherever she could find them: sports at another Catholic parish church and
afterschool programs at a Protestant mission. 53
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Across the region, other Catholic Mexicana/o children sought out Protestant-generated nonformal education. In Emporia, Kansas, Simon Rodriguez, a practicing Catholic, described his brief but
memorable encounter with a Methodist Mission:
Way back when I was just a boy. … There was a lady, by the name of … I forgot her first name,
but the last name was Hamlin. I think Hamlin, and she was Methodist, and they used to show us
pictures south of the roundhouse at night. And they started, they was inviting people at first for
games and this and that. Then, they started to talk about church. You know, about Bible and all of
that. And then they made it. Then we found out that they wanted to convert us, in other words, to
their religion. People didn’t go there anymore to their socials and this and that. 54
Emilia Rangel, also of Emporia, recalled participating at the Asambleas de Dios church on Arundel.
Though she was a practicing Catholic, Rangel explained,
A long time ago, like I say, we all lived together. We were all friends. Maybe they had their
religion, but we had ours. But, we knew the preachers that would live there and everything. But
back sometime we went over there, and they had like a little school for young kids. We were still
young. We used to go over there and sneak in, too, with the kids, draw and color, whatever…. We
didn’t think nothing about it. I mean, we were little kids. But they’re nice people. Our religions
are different, that’s all. I think we believe in the same thing. 55
Rodriguez’ and Rangel’s stories reveal that Mexicana/o children went looking for and participated in
educative opportunities that interested them, regardless of the faith or denomination that provided them.
Catholic Mexicana/os also sought non-formal educational activities and groups through
Protestant-affiliated organizations like the Salvation Army or the YMCA. As a young, Mexican Catholic
living on the Westside of Kansas City, Missouri, Henry Infante participated in the Boy Scout troop
sponsored by the Salvation Army, which he remembered included Anglos, Mexican Americans, and a
few Blacks. While the Salvation Army had affiliations with Methodism, the organization also served as a
community center for the racially diverse neighborhood on the corner of 13th and Broadway. Infante
described feeling welcomed into the Salvation Army troop:
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We had a scout master, I believe, that was a guiding light that had been observant of all the
boys… and wanted to help and guide each boy as he saw the boy. … I met with several
businessmen in the Kansas City area who were interested, specifically in my desires, and
interested in my story as far as helping me financially for educational purposes. … [S]couting
played a big part in my life because it had many implications. It led me into knowing different
people, meeting different people, and becoming acquainted with different facets of life as I met
each different boy. Going to camp, just becoming involved with Scout activities. … I was able to
receive my Eagle Award through the scouting program. 56
Infante sought out non-formal education through Scouts, where he also found acceptance and mentorship.
Catholic Mexicana/os did not limit themselves to non-formal educational experiences in their
own faith groups. Several went into Protestant churches and organizations seeking non-formal education.
Rangel’s forays into the Assembly of God’s coloring activities, Mora’s participation in recreational
programs at the Methodist Mission, Infante’s involvement and success through the Methodist-affiliated
Salvation Army, and many other stories reveal Mexicana/os’ agency in seeking out non-formal education
and making it work for them. Even as young boys and girls, they sought out experiences that would bring
them together with adults who were interested in mentoring them and programs that brought them joy and
fulfillment, as well as skills for their lives. While the work of Protestant missions and churches may not
have been successful in converting significant numbers of Catholic or non-religious Mexicana/os, they
did provide non-formal educational opportunities for both Protestant and Catholic Mexicana/os.
Mexicana/o Participation in Catholic-Sponsored Non-formal Education
Non-formal education from Catholic churches came later for Catholic Mexicana/o youth since
many Catholic churches and organizations did not welcome Mexicana/os and many Mexican Catholic
parishes did not organize in the Midwest before the mid to late 1920s and the 1930s. While Mexicana/os
recalled attending church and/or participating in religious celebrations at Catholic churches before the
1930s, few reported non-formal education classes or groups in the Catholic parishes, except perhaps
catechism. In 1905, Pious X ordered that each parish should erect a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine
(CCD), a religious program for children attending public schools to teach Church doctrine and
preparation for receiving the sacraments of Holy Communion, Confession, and Confirmation. 57 Many
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Catholic Mexicana/os participated in CCD, also called catechism, which was probably the most
consistently available non-formal education provided by Catholic parishes. Frank Hernandez recalled
attending Catechism classes at the Mt. Carmel parish in Armourdale, Kansas:
In grade school, in the middle of the week, there would be a nun, would come over [to the public
school] from the church, and cause we had to get approval of the principal, to go with the nun, to
take us to church to teach us catechism…We would go in the morning and stay about 2-3 hours. 58
Rosie Ramirez of Davenport recalled, “We got our religious training at St. Mary’s Church.” 59 Several
other interviewees explain that they received their religious training at their parish church.
Some Catholic Mexicana/o youth participated in adult groups, like the Holy Name society and the
Guadalupanas. In these groups, members participated in devotional rites and learned Bible lessons and
other lessons about Catholic faith and values. Paul Rojas of Kansas City, Missouri, joined the Holy Name
Society as a twelve year-old, and describes the group’s activities and some of what he learned from the
group:
Myself being 12, and the aspirations and goals of the adults were the ones that were predominant
of which I didn’t have too much say so or none at all. Once a month, men of the parish gathered
in a fraternal way, you know, ‘how are you?’.… They raised money for people who needed
assistance, especially in the wintertime, and things of that nature. They did many good works….
In spite of the hardships they themselves had, you know. They found time to help somebody and
never asked, made advertisements or nothing--just did it. 60
Irene Rivera of St. Paul initiated her daughters and granddaughters into the Guadalupanas at early ages. 61
Rivera held leadership roles in the group and the children often assisted the group with preparations and
service. The children’s membership into these groups signified special recognition of their adult-like
devotion, and the adults taught them Catholic values.
Several organizations and activities through the church fell into the category of non-formal
education exclusively for boys, including Boys Scouts and Boy Crusaders. In Emporia, St. Catherine’s
sponsored Boy Scouts. 62 Through St. Paul’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Irene Rivera’s son Manuel
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participated in the Boy Scouts and Boy Crusaders. 63 Scholar JoAnna Villone explains that the Crusaders
were similar to the Boy Scouts but exclusively for Mexican-American children. Villone quotes from a
1946 letter from J. Edgar Hoover to Father Ward that reveals the anti-delinquency and Americanization
agendas for the group:
I was gratified to learn of the organization of the Boy Crusaders…good citizenship is needed
today in our country more than ever before. Approximately 18% of all crime is committed by
young people under voting age. In addition, America is being threatened by subversive forces
cunning and vicious in nature. Appropriate action must be taken now if we are to preserve for the
future the freedom, which today is our proud heritage. 64
Apparently, Hoover identified the Boy Crusaders and groups like it as forces in keeping young Mexicanos
from turning to delinquency or worse.
While several parishes offered church-sponsored non-formal educational groups exclusively for
Catholic girls, parishes often segregated women’s devotional societies according to marital status, with
unmarried girls attending Las Hijas de María, while married women were directed to Ladies of the
Sacred Heart or the Guadalupanas. 65 Emporia’s St. Catherine’s offered Girl Scouts for Mexicanas. 66
Emilia Rangel of Emporia reported an exclusive club for girls, which she referred to as the Azteca Club,
though she provided no details about the club’s mission or activities. 67 Several girls participated in choirs,
though, from the interviews, it is not clear if the choirs were exclusively for girls: Julia Gutierrez, when
she attended Mt. Carmel in Armourdale, Kansas City, Kansas, Emilia Rangel of Emporia, and the Rangel
children in St. Paul. 68 The interviewees report preparation for participation in church-sponsored fiestas,
choirs, and religious training as the most common educative opportunities for young Mexicanas, with
some additional opportunities when priests visited the barrios.
The phenomenon of seeking church-sponsored non-formal educational opportunities outside of
one’s faith or denomination was not unique among Catholic Mexicana/os. Evidence reveals that some
Protestant Mexicana/os looked to Catholic-generated non-formal education, mostly fiestas that educated
participants about Mexican history and culture. Growing up in Kansas City’s Westside, Ruth Lopez, a
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Protestant, attended fiesta dances at Las Casas Blancas, the local sobriquet for the Catholic-affiliated
Guadalupe Center before the new building was built: “Boys paid ten cents but the girls were free. That
used to be the highlight.” 69 Although he was an Anglo, Mervin Gardiner’s experiences shed light on how
Protestants participated in local Catholic-affiliated events. Gardiner recalled attending the Mexican fiesta
in Garden City, Kansas, as a boy. Gardiner attended “several different years, and, they’ve had good
fiestas and they’ve had bad ones.” 70 Gardiner recalled dances and speeches, and a program that celebrated
Mexican Independence. It was the practice of many churches to sponsor fiestas as money raisers for
churches and schools. Most organizers opened fiestas to the public and welcomed Mexicana/os and
Anglos, regardless of their faith.
While many of Catholic-sponsored non-formal educational groups and activities held to gender
divisions for children and adults, to compete with other institutions like settlements and schools, parishes
began to offer more mixed group non-formal education and social groups. Some Mexicana/os participated
in mixed-gender church-sponsored groups for children, namely Catholic Youth Organization (CYO),
through which they socialized and learned Catholic values and other lessons. Both Mary Bustamante and
Agustin Rocha participated in CYO in Kansas City, Missouri. 71 Socorro Ramirez includes in her survey
of Emporia that “The young people of the church [St. Catherine’s] have a young people’s study club in
which not only religion, but also current events and citizenship problems, are studied.” 72 Though Ramirez
does not name this group, she indicates that it was a mixed gender group, which might point to a Catholic
Youth Organization group. 73 From the 1930s on, Catholic Youth Organizations allowed more gender
mixing opportunities for youth, with programs for sports, socializing, cultural events, and spiritual
activities, with the last being the most prominent focus. However, Ana María Díaz-Stevens also asserts
that funding and support for CYO varied from parish to parish and was often based on a parish’s racial
and ethnic makeup. 74 As interviewees reveal, when they sought educative opportunities, Protestant and
Catholic Mexicana/os did not limit themselves only to those offered in their own churches or parishes.
These revelations illuminate the complexity and fluidity of midwestern Mexicana/os’ agency in making
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decisions about and utilizing church/parish-generated opportunities to achieve their own non-formal
educational goals.
Mexicana/o-Generated Non-Formal Education Through Catholic Churches
Churches and missions provided Mexicana/os with opportunities to develop their own faith and
ethnic identities and participate in non-formal education. This was especially the case in all-Mexican
Catholic parish churches. Across the Midwest, Catholic churches generated non-formal education for
parishioners, but parishioners also utilized their parishes to create opportunities for non-formal education,
often through generating groups and through large, community events. At Mexican parishes, Mexicana/os
participated in mutual aid, or mutualistas, and devotional societies, through which they learned about
their faith, their culture, and leadership. In many locales, Mexicana/os utilized parish churches to sponsor
events like Las Posadas, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Mexican Independence from Spain,
through which they educated themselves and their children in their faith and in Mexican history and
culture. Through these celebrations and fiestas for religious and Mexican patriotic holidays, Mexicana/os
generated and sought to maintain community solidarity, or Mexicanidad.
Mutual Aid and Devotional Societies
Through their participation in mutualistas and devotional societies, often sponsored through
parish churches, Mexicana/os learned how to take leadership in the church and the community. Writing
about Hispanic community and Church movements, Edmundo Rodríguez, S. J. asserts:
For many Hispanics in the United States, who have often been cut out of the political processes,
business networks and other institutional opportunities, Church organizations, movements, and
events have provided the stable place for exercising and developing leadership skills. 75
Rodríguez describes cofradías, or mutual aid societies and devotional societies, as:
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organizations of men or women, rarely of both, which served many purposes. They had a code of
conduct, a rule of life, prescriptions for pious practices including participation in sacramental life,
with conditions for membership, and a well-defined governance structure.... They were a means
of socializing and communicating…. The cofradías were both schools of leadership and places
where ordinary parishioners could exercise ministry. 76
While some Mexicana/os recalled their parish church as a place to worship and commune with friends
and peers, others styled it as a place for worship and a means through which to promote solidarity with
other Mexicana/os and to promote Mexican culture. In the Mexican churches of larger urban communities
of St. Paul, Minnesota, Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, many Mexicana/os recalled how
lay people, men and women, took roles that emphasized their particular skills and leadership roles.
Interviewees spoke with great respect for these lay leaders, those from mutualistas or devotional societies
or individuals, and their educative work.
Mexicanos organized mutual aid societies to aid Mexicana/os, especially immigrants, in daily
living needs and learning to survive in unwelcoming environments. Those mutualistas mentioned in the
consulted interviews all retained connections through local parishes and included the following
organizations: Sociedad Mutua Benéfica Recreativa Anahuac, Comision Honorifica, Comité Patriótico
Sociedades Mutuales Benito Juárez, Sociedad Mutualista Mexicana, Club Mexicano de Kansas City
(Kansas) and Union Cultural Mexicana. While most mutualistas allowed only male members, women
joined auxiliaries or took unofficial roles in mutalista work. St. Paul’s Anahuac had a women’s auxiliary.
For women in Kansas City, there were two women’s auxiliaries: Hijas de Juárez and Sociedad Mexicana
de Señoras y Señoritas, and women also had a Club de Madres Mexicanas. 77 Mexicana/os in these
societies organized events and sold Mexican food for fundraising for the churches and parochial schools.
They collected dues and used money to pay for baptisms, funerals, trips to Mexico, and other daily needs,
as well as supporting events that aided in educating the community, specifically, large religious and
patriotic events.
In some cases, people reported men and women taking traditionally gendered roles in these
mutual aid-sponsored functions. Matthew Casillas of St. Paul said, “The elders of our church would
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always be guiding our functions, whether it was 15th September or any other function we had. The
membership did take an active part in all these functions.” 78 Casillas recalled gendered divisions of labor:
“The functions were handled by the church’s men’s club [el Comité Patriótico] and the Anahuac Club.
They did the planning for whatever functions was going to be. The women were very active in the selling
of food.” 79 It might be inferred that women took what seemed to be limited roles in these groups, based
on their gender, while the men took elevated administrative roles based on their gender.
Yet, Mexicana/os’ roles in mutualistas had much more complexity, especially in regard to their
work in non-formal education. Members of the mutualistas or auxiliaries described their roles not so
much as gendered as based on their skills and how they devoted their time to their church and to teaching
each other and their children about their faith and their interpretation of Mexican culture. In their work for
these fiestas, Mexicanas and Mexicanos bypassed some of the gendered, separate spheres, especially with
women moving away from strictly food preparation roles and men working directly with children. Julia
Gutiérrez participated in the Mt. Carmel parish fiesta in Armourdale, Kansas, and when she moved to
Sacred Heart parish in Kansas City, Missouri, she continued to work on fiesta preparations because of her
skills in teaching dances to children. 80 In St. Paul, Maria Bósquez was another woman who played a
leading role in organizing the programs for the 15th and 16th of September. Though Bósquez’s husband
was a member of both Anahuac and Comite de Patricio societies, Bósquez did not belong to the Anahuac
women’s auxiliary. Yet, the groups sought her out as an organizer because of her experience in teaching.
Bósquez did not assist with food preparation, as she explained, “I was too busy with the program.
Between Maria Rangel, another lady, I would have to lead the program, organize the dance, speakers, etc.
It kept us pretty busy so we could not take part with the food.” 81 In their educational work for mutual aid
societies, many women and men used their skills and strengths rather than basing their contributions
solely on traditional gendered roles.
Also affiliated with parish churches, devotional societies focused on faith and service as well as
work to raise money to maintain parish churches and schools and to educate themselves and their
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communities. Through their work, members taught each other and others in the parish about faith,
humility, work ethics, and Mexican culture. 82
As with mutual aid societies, devotional society membership was also often gendered, though
Mexicana/os participated did not limit themselves to traditional gender roles in their work. In her 1942
survey of Emporia, Kansas, Socorro Ramirez documented that “one fourth of the Catholic ladies belong
to Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe society. The men belong to the Sagrado Corazón de Jesús.” 83 In the
locales covered in this study, Mexicanos also held membership in The Knights of Columbus and the Holy
Name Society, and for a time in the 1920s, men and boys in Kansas City, Missouri, belonged to Los
Caballeros de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. Mexicanas belonged to La Sociedad de la Señora de
Perpetual Socorro and Sociedades de Guadalupanas, or the Guadalupanas, though in other locales and at
different times, men participated in Guadalupana groups. A member of Wichita’s Our Lady of Perpetual
Help, Cirilo Arteaga’s mother participated in the La Sociedad de la Señora de Perpetual Socorro. The
other women in the barrio leaned on his mother because she was widowed and they saw her as having
more freedom: “she didn’t have a husband that she’d have to be home cooking for all the time.” 84 And, in
this way, Arteaga’s mother spent much of her time going from home to home to raise money for the
church and delivering goods for people in the community. Arteaga explained that his mother’s work for
the church and community “taught me a lot that there is rewards in helping people.” 85 While devotional
societies membership remained very gendered, unlike mutual aid societies, women’s groups did not hold
auxiliary status and women exercised agency in how they focused their work.
More than any other group, women and, in some cases, men and children, participated in
Guadalupanas, especially in Kansas City, Missouri, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Davenport, Iowa. A priest in
San Antonio, Texas, started the first documented Sociedad in 1912, and Mexicana/os brought the tradition
with them to the Midwest.86 Each society held different agendas, and the Kansas City, Missouri, group’s
by-laws include the following:
The objective of the Society shall be to foster in its members devotion, reverence, and love for
Jesus Christ through the intercession of His mother, Our Lady of Guadalupe. This call to love as
Christian community will be lived out in service to others.87
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Guadalupanas often took leading roles in December celebrations of the Virgin and other festivals that
educated parishioners and neighbors in the barrio about Catholic teachings and Mexican culture. In their
work for the Guadalupanas, Mexicanas supported educative activities and learned to take leadership in
these activities. 88 In Kansas City, Missouri, in her role as a Guadalupana, Maria Bustamante ran
fundraisers for Our Lady of Guadalupe School, making and selling Mexican food, burritos, enchiladas,
and tortillas for fiestas. 89 In St. Paul, Irene Rivera, one of the founders of the local Guadalupe Society in
1931, recalled that the early work of the group involved women raising money for the church. 90 Teresa
Muñoz explained that though the group faded in and out due to people’s failing health, the state of the
economy, and women’s need to work, it became strong again in 1948 and filled its coffers enough to be
able to create scholarships for local children. 91 Irene Rivera’s daughters helped her with Guadalupana
work, and she arranged for their initiation into the society when they turned eleven. 92 Rosie Ramirez of
Cook’s Point in Davenport, Iowa, attended St. Joseph’s, and participated in the Guadalupana Society
there. She explained that her mother and father were founding members of the group and that she and her
sister later held administrative roles.93
Many Mexicana/os participated in the educative work of these church-affiliated mutual aid and
devotional societies, regardless of gender and without being official members. Numerous people,
including men, worked to prepare and sell food for fundraisers and events, and several women held
leading roles in organizing and directing events. Carlotta Arellano of St. Paul, who was in the
Guadalupanas group and helped to make food for the fiestas, commented, “Mrs. Rangel was always the
one to do all the work. They never received any credit for it.” 94 Arellano’s recollection, and her use of the
pronoun ‘they,’ implies that she did, in fact, recognize Mrs. Rangel’s work, as well as the work of her
husband, and probably that of her children, too. In the interviews, Mexicana/os describe those who
participated in church-affiliated mutual aid and devotional societies as leaders not only in the church but
also in the community.
However, while people recall Mexicana/o leadership through church-sponsored groups, they also
tell stories about the demise of many of the mutualistas and societies and/or events that they used to
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sponsor, like Las Posadas. Several interviewees attribute these changes to changes in people’s attitudes
toward the larger Church, local parish politics, and differences between generations of Mexicana/os. Also,
in the early 1950s, several of the parish churches and neighborhoods experienced extensive damage from
floods and upheaval through urban renewal, and new waves of Mexican immigrants and migrants also
brought changes. 95 Rodríguez attributes the demise or diminishment of cofradías and traditions to changes
in the Catholic Church, like the Second Vatican Council, the Cursillo Movement, in which lay people
assumed more agency and ministerial duties, and the changing needs of Latinos. Parishioners no longer
sought out or qualified for membership in some of the groups. With more Mexicana/os able to practice
their faith in the lay ministry, Rodriguez argues, “It was no longer so important that [Mexicana/os] join
subsidiary organizations to have a sense of belonging in the Church. The Church no longer belonged only
to the clergy. It belonged to the people.” 96 While devotional and mutual aid societies actively promoted
the Catholic faith and Mexican culture to the Mexican community from the late 1920s to the 1940s, many
lost steam and/or disbanded in the 1950s.
Religious and Patriotic Events
During their most active periods, members of the Guadalupanas and other devotional and mutual
aid societies report that they did not limit their work to their parish churches or even to serving other
Catholics. Many utilized parish churches to organize religious and patriotic events that educated their
communities about faith and Mexican history and culture. Alfonso De Leon of St. Paul explains that once
Mexicana/os established the Our Lady of Guadalupe parish church in 1939, they turned their vision
outward:
We…started to get more ambitious and patriotic, we started celebrating the fiesta for Mexican
Independence and with the help of Father Dicks and the people, we were able to celebrate…. This
was accomplished through mutual cooperation. It was celebrated in the hopes that we would not
alienate ourselves or forget Mexico. That is why it is celebrated all over the country, wherever
there are a lot of Mexicans. 97
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De Leon further explains that they intended these celebrations to educate the community about their
Mexican heritage. 98 Historian, Gabriela Arredondo describes the celebration for Mexican Independence
from Spain as way to for Mexicana/os to build Mexicanidad, or “a fragile but proud identity that wove
together elements of postrevolutionary Mexican nationalism and nostalgic conservative histories of
‘México Lindo’ [Beautiful Mexico]” in the face of the “negative racialized connotations that ‘being
Mexican’ increasingly carried in Chicago and turned them on their head by celebrating Mexicanness.”99
About non-Mexican attendees at the fiestas, Arredondo writes that Mexicana/o leaders had this “ulterior
motive: to demonstrate Mexican unity and thereby blunt criticism of the social disorganization of the
Mexican communities.” 100 While her history focuses on Mexicana/os in Chicago, Arredondo’s
assessments about Mexicana/os’ goals for Mexican Independence fiestas closely resemble the stated goals
of other Mexicana/os throughout the Midwest. For many Mexicana/os, fiestas meant something more than
a party. Through the 1950s, Midwestern Mexicana/os participated in and held leadership roles in, mostly
Catholic, church-sponsored non-formal education, through large-scale, religious and patriotic events like
Las Posadas, Dia de Guadalupe, Grito de Dolores and Aniversario de la Independencia. Through these
events, many Mexicana/os report constructing individual and group ethnic and cultural identities,
educating Mexicana/os about Mexican history, and asserting their history and culture to the larger
community, including non-practicing Catholics, Mexican Protestants, and Anglos. 101
On the surface, fiestas looked like parties with food, costumes, music, and dancing. Yet, I argue
that fiestas were, in fact, large-scale, Mexican-centered non-formal educational events. These fiestas
included sermons, many in Spanish, religious and national songs, parades, dances, plays, poetry
recitations, and speeches about Mexican history. In cases where a church was “Mexican,” with a
congregation composed of mostly or all Mexicana/os, Mexicana/os had more agency in organizing
religious or patriotic events. 102 In this study, I found that Mexicana/os retained the most agency in the
fiestas sponsored by St. Paul’s Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, but I also found that Mexicana/os
participated in and held leading roles in fiestas sponsored by several churches: Davenport’s St.
Alphonsus, Wichita’s Our Lady of Perpetual Hope, Emporia’s St. Catherine’s, Kansas City, Missouri’s
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Our Lady of Guadalupe, and two mutual aid societies in Garden City: the Honorary Mexican Commission
and the Mutual Society of Benito Juarez. In their recollections about these events, Mexicana/os describe
the agency of Mexicana/o parishioners who played roles as organizers, fundraisers, playwrights, creative
directors, singers, dancers, actors, speakers, and attendees. Children also played major roles as
participants and several continued to promote Mexicanidad through non-formal education through their
churches and other institutions as adults.
Las Posadas
Mexicana/os began practicing las Posadas centuries ago in Mexico as a way to marry Aztec and
Catholic traditions. In the sixteenth century, Aztecs held a nine-day feast to honor an Aztec sun god.
Spanish priests taught Catholic Mexicana/os to celebrate las Posadas as a novena, or nine-day devotion.
As part of the devotion, participants reenact the days before Jesus’ birth, according to the gospel of
Luke. 103 Many Mexicana/os continued these traditions when they settled in the Midwest. For las Posadas,
Mexicana/o parishioners, or pilgrims, travelled through the barrios reenacting the search for an inn for
Mary’s confinement, often through singing songs. At the appointed home, pilgrims asked for refuge and
gained acceptance, at which point, they held a tamale feast, with a piñata for the children. 104 In the
interviews, Mexicana/os explain that it was a very intimate and memorable event to have such a group
come into one’s home, more so than when the story was told at the church, as it was in later years. At Our
Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul, Juanita Rangel de Moran said that she and the other children participated
in the Posadas that her father organized for the church. 105 Rangel’s younger brother, Francisco Rangel, Jr.
recalled, “Toward Christmas, my dad and mother would teach songs to the kids and possibly we would
teach it to the other children. We would put on a Posada at Christmas time.” 106 The whole Rangel family
participated.
In Wichita’s North Side barrio, El Huarache, Cirilo Arteaga recalls that the Sanchez family
organized the Posadas, “and it was tradition that different families would sponsor the different nights.
And, on the final night, they’d brought in the baby in the manger, have a big tamale feast.”107 According
to Arteaga, “everybody just took part in it. It wasn’t where you needed somebody to tell you to do this
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and that…the comradery of the people was so great, that everybody just knew that it had to be done. It
was spontaneous, which made it real easy.” 108 Simon Rodriguez of Emporia recalls different families
from church taking turns hosting for las Posadas. 109 People recall participating in Posadas as a means of
carrying on Catholic and Mexican traditions in the United States and building them into Mexican
American traditions and communities. Though many remember Posadas fondly, many also explain that in
their churches and communities, by the time of the interviews, this was one of the traditions that the
second and third generations no longer continued.
Día de Guadalupe, or the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Our Lady of Guadalupe has, for centuries, been a religious and national symbol for Mexicans. In
Catholic and patriotic celebrations, the Virgin and the story of her apparition have been significant in
terms of marrying indigenous and Catholic faiths and establishing national identity. In 1531, atop the Hill
of Tepeyac, near Mexico City, Juan Diego, an Indian peasant, saw a vision of the Virgin whose features
resembled those of a mestizo and who asked him, in the local dialect, to build a church there in her honor.
Days later, Diego asked for proof to present to the local Spanish bishop. The Virgin directed Diego to
wrap roses in his tilma, or peasant’s coat, and to take it to the bishop. When Diego opened the tilma, all
saw the miracle, an imprint of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Thereafter, Indians and Spaniards venerated the
Virgin of Guadalupe for more than a century. In 1667, Pope Clement IX officially established the feast of
Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 12th of December. Many Mexicana/os, not only Catholics, claim the Virgin
belongs to the Mexican people as her appearance on the tilma is clearly mestizo, and, for them, she
symbolizes hope for the people of Mexico. 110 For Mexicana/os living in the Midwest, so far removed
from the border, venerating the Virgin of Guadalupe through membership in a Guadalupe Society or
celebrating the feast day by telling the story became an important way to practice one’s faith, to show
honor to Mexico, and to establish Mexican American identity and community. 111
In the Midwest, celebrations for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe varied in scope according to
the orientation (Anglo or Mexican) of the parish church, funding, and participation. In some cases, the
feast day evolved from somber masses to more elaborate plays and matachines, or Indian dances, and
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then, to a fiesta-type atmosphere. To honor the saint, many Mexicana/os celebrated masses in both Anglocontrolled and Mexican churches, and this was one of the few occasions when Mexicana/os report having
heard sermons in Spanish. Not surprisingly, Mexican churches were more likely to have larger
celebrations that included Indian dances, speeches, and fiestas, with music and food sales. Historically,
Guadalupanas took the role of organizers, but other devotional societies and groups also worked to
organize Día de Guadalupe events and proceeds often went to support parish churches and/or schools. 112
In the case of Davenport’s Cook’s Point, most Mexicana/os who attended St. Alphonsus report it
as a place where they attended school, mass, or functions such as baptisms. Few Cook’s Point
interviewees reference events or forums at St. Alphonsus that may have contributed to non-formal
education for Mexicana/os, probably because it was not a Mexican parish. However, Henry Vargas
remembers the commemoration of the Virgin of Guadalupe as “the predominate” special occasion at St.
Alphonsus. 113 Vargas recalls,
That was one of the big days. That was down at St. Alphonsus. They had a religious group that
they’d celebrate the Virgin of Guadalupe, which was in December. And, they’d have little skits of
how the Mexican community in Mexico turned religious because of her. Because down in
Mexico, the elite controlled the church and, of course, the church itself went along with the deal.
So, we had the peons, the poor people that had to do all the work, and were subjugated and that’s
where you heard about the story about the Virgin and where she appeared to a poor Indian
subjugate and she told him, ‘I want you to build a church here.’… It was controversial because of
the fact that they came to Mexico, they conquered it, and they tried to teach us religion—love one
another, the Ten Commandments. What were they doing? … Yeah, hypocrites. … That was a
turning point. … We would go down there to St. Alphonsus and celebrate it that way and put a
pageant on so the people would never forget how it happened. 114
Vargas recalls that the services at St. Alphonsus, even for December 12, were in English, “except for the
prayers and pageantry and stuff like that,” which were probably in Latin. 115
Also from Cook’s Point, Rosie Ramirez’ family did not attend St. Alphonsus because of
discriminatory experiences at the school. They attended mass at St. Mary’s across town, but Ramirez
recalls going to Our Lady of Guadalupe fiestas at another parish, St. Joseph’s, on Sixth and Marquette, in
Davenport. Ramirez recalls,
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We had fiestas—like the day of the Virgin Guadalupe…December 12. …We would have fiestas
and then we would have a Spanish-speaking priest come. Years ago, they would come and they
would have a three-day service and we would prepare meals and they had their Hispanic dances
and everything—it was a big fiesta…. My sister was the organizer. I was the president. My dad
was the one who started this. I can remember that he went around and they made dances and
everything, to get this little Virgin Mary [probably a print or other rendition of the image on the
tilma] from Mexico…I’ll never forget what a big celebration—everyone came to St. Joseph’s for
it. 116
According to Ramirez, the Guadalupanas at St. Joseph’s included both men and women. 117 Though St.
Alphonsus and St. Joseph’s sat only about four miles from each other and each had primarily Anglo
parishioners, Mexicana/os at the two parishes held large celebrations for Our Lady of Guadalupe through
which they taught their children and Anglo parishioners the significance of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
The commemoration of the Virgin of Guadalupe in St. Paul was a more somber occasion,
different from their Mexican Independence fiesta in September. In her interview, Esiquia Monita
describes the Novena of Our Lady of Guadalupe:
We used to take out the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in a procession. We would take her
around the different homes in December. She would be taken from house to house at night. A list
was made up, so that one would know ahead when or where it would be… On December 12th, no
matter how cold it would be, we would go to the church and sing the mananitas [traditional
songs] to Our Lady. 118
Irene Rivera remembers the Novena and the pilgrimage of the Virgin from house to house in the nine
days before the feast day and that many people involved themselves in organizing the procession,
including Mr. and Mrs. Rangel, elders of the church and leaders in the Mexicana/o community. 119 Alvaloz
also recalls other types of activities for the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe,
Mr. Francisco Rangel and his wife used to teach the younger people how to put on plays. They
had beautiful plays for the 12th of December…They had the dance for the Apparition of the
Virgin on the 12th of December. Mrs. Francisca Elizondo was the one that had the book and
showed the kids how to do it. She presented that beautiful play, where Mr. Leonso Morales, now
deceased, played Juan Diego and Juanita Rangel [the elder Rangel daughter] played the part of La
Virgen. 120
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Juanita Moran, formerly Rangel, explains,
We would start out by singing the mananitas to Our Lady at the church and then have a Mass. At
night, we would have a long Mass and something like a parade where everyone goes dressed like
Indians, Charros, Chinas [Poblanas], or whatever. They would walk up to Our Lady [the statue]
singing and praying and offer whatever donations they could. 121
Francisco and Crecencia Rangel belonged to Anahuac mutualista and its auxiliary, and he also held a
position as a representative of the Mexican Consul. Both Rangels held strong beliefs about teaching their
children and the Mexican community about the Catholic faith and Mexican history and culture. They and
many more parishioners from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church started the tradition of celebrating Dec. 12
in St. Paul. 122
The feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe in Emporia also included mass and mananitas, as well
as a big procession of young girls dressed in white dresses, with one girl selected to crown the statue at
the altar, and the sermon focused on the story and meaning of the Virgin. 123 The girl who crowned the
Virgin had to be pure, Simon Rodriguez remembers, “she wears a veil like a bride, white, pure white. I
mean pure.” 124 As an eighth grader, the parish chose Armida Martinez to crown the statue. Martinez
recalls,
it was customary to wear a white wedding gown. You borrowed somebody’s wedding gown and
you would wear that, and all the rest of the girls in eighth grade and seventh grade were your
escorts, and they were all dressed up in formals. And, we would take, of course, the song on the
state of the beautiful mother. And the second verse is when you go up and crown her, and usually
the church is decorated with flowers galore. 125
Martinez also recalls that a priest from out of town would say the mass. 126 In their interviews, both
Rodriguez and Martinez relate the entire story of the Virgin’s appearance and the subsequent miracle.
Through the symbolism of the masses, processions, songs, and the telling and retelling of the story,
Mexicana/os in Emporia and other locales educated parishioners about Mexican Catholic faith, values,
and Mexican history. Mexicana/os across the Midwest, in both Anglo and Mexican parishes, celebrated
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Día de Guadalupe as a way not only to venerate the patron saint of Mexico but also to retain and pass on
religious teachings, values, Mexican nationalism, and Mexicanidad.
El Grito de Dolores and Aniversario de la Independencia, or Mexican Independence from Spain
Many Mexicana/os also utilized churches to celebrate Mexican patriotic holidays, namely
Mexican Independence from Spain in 1821, sometimes referred to by the historical dates of two key
events, the 15th and 16th of September. While Guadalupanas also helped with these celebrations, many
times patriotic societies or mutualistas organized these events to raise funds for their parishes, to educate
parishioners, other Mexicana/os, and the broader community about Mexican history and culture, and to
build Mexicanidad.
Mexicans began celebrating Independence in the late nineteenth century. And, by the end of the
Mexican Revolution in the 1920s, the Mexican government used the celebration to attempt to reunite
Mexico by harkening back to the call for Mexicans to unite against Spain. Mexicanas celebrate September
15th because, upon learning of his imminent arrest for his revolutionary work in 1810, Father Miguel
Hidalgo went to his church in Dolores, Mexico, to gather supporters and rally them to fight for
independence from Spain, the redistribution of lands, and racial equality between criollos, or Mexicanborn Spaniards, mestizos, people with mixed Spanish and Indian heritage, and indios, or Indians. On
September 15, Hidalgo let out the cry for Mexican independence, or el Grito de Dolores, which
commemorates the beginning of the war for independence. 127 Traditionally, beginning on September 15,
people gather and wait for the clock to strike 11, at which point someone recites el Grito, which names
important revolutionaries:
¡ Mexicanos!
¡Vivan los heroes que nos dieron patria! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Hidalgo! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Morelos! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Allende! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Aldama y Matamoros! ¡Viva!
¡Viva nuestra independencia! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
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¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
¡Viva Mexico! ¡Viva!
Mexicans!
Long live the heroes that gave us the Fatherland!
Long live Hidalgo!
Long live Morelos!
Long live Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez!
Long live Allende!
Long live Galena and the Bravos!
Long live Aldama and Matamoros!
Long live National Independence!
Long Live Mexico!
Long Live Mexico!
Long Live Mexico! 128
While the fight for independence lasted a decade, Mexicans celebrate the 16th of September as the
beginning of Mexican Independence from Spain, though Mexico officially declared independence on
September 27 1821.
As Mexicana/os migrated and immigrated throughout the United States, many celebrated these
fiestas to promote Mexican nationalism and pride and, in some cases, the celebrations also evolved into a
means for Mexicana/os show Anglos they could relate to U.S. culture, which also celebrated
independence from colonizers. 129 Across the Midwest, many Mexicana/os celebrated Mexican
Independence with speeches, parades, dancing, music, and food. Juanita Moran sums up St. Paul’s
version of the celebration: “We would talk about the Mexican heroes, have speeches, dances, sing songs,
and finally a big dance for everyone.” 130 Most celebrations in the Midwest also included el Grito, the call
to the people, which might have included references to Our Lady of Guadalupe, a celebration of mass,
singing the Mexican National Anthem, speeches from members of the community and even political
figures like mayors, recitations of poetry, plays, songs, music, dances by performers and dances for the
public, and food stands.
In the early years of celebrating Mexico’s Independence in the Midwest, many fiestas occurred as
small gatherings, mostly in the barrio and mostly attended by parishioners or Mexicana/os from the
barrio. Some Mexicana/os held fiestas in their backyards, open fields, or in barrio streets. Many who did
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not attend churches that provided fiestas traveled miles to celebrate. In his survey about Mexican
Americans in Kansas, Rutter found that fiestas began as early as 1917 and were limited to large Mexican
communities. 131 Born in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Sebastian Hernandez, grew up in a migrant family that
travelled the crop circuits and participated in a “mobile orchestra” with other migrant families. 132
Hernandez recalls an occasion in the early 1940s: “we were hired to play in a town called Sioux City,
Iowa, for the 15th and 16th of September celebration and many, many people came from different states:
Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Iowa.” 133 A member of an Anglo-centered
Catholic Church in Belmond, Iowa, Agustin Rocha remarks: “There wasn’t enough Mexican people
there” to have a Mexican church or to celebrate Independence, but a few Mexican families would have
“little parties, with little dances. That’s about all we had.” 134 But, when Rocha moved to the Armourdale
barrio in Kansas City, Kansas, and began attending Mt. Carmel, he attended the 16th of September fiesta
at Shawnee Park, which drew in celebrants from across the region. 135
As parishes grew larger, with more financial opportunities and local talent, many of these
celebrations went from being small, backyard or parish-only celebrations to large fiestas that required
venues with more space. These fiestas were usually open to people who were not Mexicana/os or
Catholics. Garden City’s fiesta began through the work of two mutual aid societies and focused mostly on
Mexicana/os. After WWII, when organizers put the fiesta on hold, the fiesta grew so large, the organizers
took on two masters of ceremony, one who spoke Spanish and one who spoke English for Anglos who
attended as well as for those second and third generation Mexicana/os who did not speak Spanish. 136
Mervin Gardiner, an Anglo who grew up in Garden City, attended the fiestas as a boy and learned that the
fiesta celebrated Mexican Independence. 137 Dolores Rodriguez recalls that Emporia’s fiesta “used to be a
big thing because they closed all of Bellview St. and all of 23rd…. People from a lot of different places
would come for the annual fiesta.” 138
Especially in the early years of the fiestas, the role of the local parish was important in many of
these celebrations because it provided organizers with practical and socially credible sponsorship; yet,
Mexicana/os’ goals for the Independence celebration transcended the role of the church. Mexicana/o
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leaders, often members of devotional societies and mutualistas, took great amounts of time and talent to
prepare for these patriotic celebrations, as did others in the community. 139 In the interviews, many
Mexicana/os report valuing the celebration for Mexican Independence and believing that educating about
Mexican national heroes communicated positive aspects of Mexican history and culture to their children,
many of whom had never been to Mexico. Ignacio Avila of Garden City, whose father left his family
when he was a young child and whose mother worked to support several children, reports that fiestas
provided him an opportunity to learn about Mexican history and culture when he couldn’t have learned it
at home. 140 Juanita Moran explains about her father Francisco Rangel’s intentions in organizing 16th of
September events in St. Paul, “My father would say that he did this so that people would remember the
customs followed in Mexico and also so that the young people could learn and preserve important aspects
of our Mexican culture.” 141
Many Mexicana/os also wished to project these positive messages outward, to the larger
community, by creating an event that showcased Mexicana/os’ assets, that emphasized that they valued
independence from colonial forces, just like other “Americans,” and that Americans had nothing to fear
from Mexicana/o immigrants. 142 Cipriana Rodriguez from Garden City recalls a positive response from
Judge Evans, an Anglo who attended a fiesta and heard a young Mexicana recite a poem: “Juanita
Kaldadon…to this day, I have never heard anybody recite a poem or speech like she did. And he said that
young lady should be a lawyer.” 143 In his interview, Ignacio Galindo Valenzuela says of the Garden City
fiestas, “We all have a good time, and it’s a good thing, too, which proves to the world that we can be
assimilated to the life of this country.” 144 Pete Sandoval, also of Garden City, explains, “we celebrate also
the 4th of July but it’s a tradition, 16th of September, that just because we celebrate it, does not make us
any less Americans. We also celebrate the 4th of July.” 145 Esther Alvaloz and Maria Bósquez, both from
St. Paul, recall that the governor or mayor would come to speak, “especially in if it was an election year.
Humphrey was one of the speakers,” and they would tell the audience, “how happy they were that we, as
Mexicans, celebrate the anniversary of independence.” 146 Writing about St. Paul’s Mexican-American
community, Villone describes the Mexican Independence Day celebration in St. Paul as opportunity for
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Mexicana/os to “effectively deliver complex messages to the external audience, while reinforcing the
positive image of the community which the participants wish to express,” while still “working within the
narrow framework of acceptable behavior constructed by the external community.” 147 Villone argues that
with the fiestas’ focus on food, music, dancing, children, and beauty queens made the large gathering of
Mexicana/os and the focus on Mexican culture non-threatening to Anglos. 148 Through these fiestas,
several Mexicana/os report that they deliberately sought not only to retain Mexicanidad but also to project
their American-ness to the larger community. While the 16th of September celebrations remained a
primary means of raising funds for parochial schools and drawing Mexicana/os to the church, they had
much more symbolic, cultural, and community meaning for many midwestern Mexicana/os.
While the larger venues and numbers of celebrants meant Mexicana/os could educate more
people through Mexican Independence fiestas, the growth, reach, and moneymaking possibilities of the
fiestas brought in more actors and different agendas for fiestas. In some locales, large commissions and
organizations took over control of fiestas and lost sight of the historical and educational aspects of the
fiestas, as was the case in Kansas City, Missouri, illustrated in Chapter Three. Yet, from the very early
days of settlement through the early 1950s, many Mexicana/os utilized church-sponsored religious and
patriotic fiestas as a means for educating their parishes and surrounding communities.
Conclusion
Soon after Mexicana/os began to settle in the Midwest, Protestant and Catholic missions and
churches offered non-formal education for Mexicana/os, many with the hope of converting and
Americanizing them. Pastors, priests, and lay people went into barrios to teach classes for adults and
children, and consortiums of Protestant groups founded missions and offered Americanization and
English classes, as well as social services. Many of these entities began as Anglo-centered, with Anglocentered administration and goals. Often these entities decided whether Mexicana/os could attend, when
they could attend, where they sat, and what was best for them to learn to be good Protestant or Catholic
Americans. Yet, Mexicana/os gained access and agency within Protestant and Catholic churches and used
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their agency to promote their ideas about faith and spirituality, Mexican and Mexican American culture,
and community. Mexicana/os, adults and youth, made decisions about how they took part in the nonformal education churches and missions offered. Furthermore, they utilized these organizations to meet
their own goals for non-formal education, including educating themselves and the larger community
outside the barrio in their faith and spirituality and Mexican history and culture.
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Notes
1
Frederico “Fred” Saucedo, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
2
Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
3
Frederico “Fred” Saucedo, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
4
Frederico “Fred” Saucedo, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
5
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996). For more
insight into Mexican American Protestantism, see: Paul Barton, Hispanic Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists in
Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006); Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian
Americanization’: A Study in Cultural Conflict,” In Forging A Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest
Indiana, 1919-1975, Eds. James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987):115-136; Juan
Francisco Martínez, Sea la Luz: The Making of Mexican Protestantism in the American Southwest, 1829-1900
(Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2006).
6
For Mexican American Catholicism and spirituality, see: David A. Badillo, “The Catholic Church and the Making
of Mexican-American Parish Communities in the Midwest,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 19001965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994), 237-308; Jeffrey
M. Burns, “The Mexican Catholic Community in California,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church,
1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994), 129-236;
Jay P. Dolan and Allan Figueroa Deck, S.J., Eds., Hispanic Catholic Culture: Issues and Concerns, eds.. (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994); Gilberto M. Hinojosa, “Mexican-American Faith Communities in
Texas and the Southwest,” in in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and
Gilberto M. Hinojosa (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994): 11-128; Sister Mary Helen Rogers,
“The Role of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican Community to Life in the Indiana
Harbor Area, 1940-1951,” in Foraging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, ed.
James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987): 187-200; Theresa L. Torres, The Paradox of
Latina Religious Leadership in the Catholic Church: Las Guadalupanas of Kansas City (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013); Roberto R. Treviño, The Church in the Barrio: Mexican American Ethno-Catholicism in Houston
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Roberto R. Treviño, “In Their Own Way: Parish
Funding and Mexican American Ethnicity in Catholic Houston 1911-1972,” Latino Studies Journal, 5,
Number 3 (September 1994):87-107.
7
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Paul Barton, Hispanic Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists in Texas
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006); Ruth Hutchinson Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian
Americanization’: A Study in Cultural Conflict,” In Forging A Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest
Indiana, 1919-1975, Eds. James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987):115-136; Juan
Francisco Martínez, Sea la Luz: The Making of Mexican Protestantism in the American Southwest, 1829-1900
(Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2006).
8
Mervin “Mikey” Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
9
Hector Franco, “The Mexican People in the State of Kansas” (doctoral dissertation, University of Wichita, 1950).
10
Mervin “Mikey” Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
11
Mervin “Mikey” Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
12
Badillo, “The Catholic Church,” 1994.
13
Juan Francisco Martínez, Sea la Luz: The Making of Mexican Protestantism in the American Southwest, 18291900 (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas Press, 2006).
205
14
Franco, “The Mexican People, 10-11. Franco identifies himself as a Mexican who, at the time of writing his
dissertation, had lived for 25 years in the U.S. and, in that time, served as a pastor in Mexican Protestant churches in
Kansas. He worked in Garden City for five years, five years in the eastern part of Kansas City, three years in
Emporia and Lyons, and then in the south central part of Wichita. He also explains his purposes for writing his
dissertation: “It is natural that being a Mexican himself the writer wishes to present this study in a favorable but true
and unbiased manner. His sole aim is to secure a better understanding of his people [Mexicans] and through this, fair
treatment for them. At the same time, he wishes to show that any people, given equal opportunities, will advance
rapidly and match the achievements of other races. …we shall how the how the Mexican people are slowly but
surely being absorbed by outside forces, thus becoming full fledged citizens of this state, and of the nation.”
15
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 71-74.
16
Ibid.
17
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 73-74.
18
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 74.
19
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 1.
20
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 1-2.
21
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 11.
22
Franco, “The Mexican People,” 74-75.
23
Judith Fincher Laird, “Argentine, Kansas, The Evolution of a Mexican-American Community,” 1905-1940
(doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, 1975).
24
Badillo, “The Catholic Church,” 240.
25
Rev. Felix Marsinko, O.F.M., “The Diocese of Leavenworth: Historical Sketches of Parishes and Churches
Within the Diocese,” Unpublished manuscript dated 1937 at the Kansas State Historical Society Topeka, Kansas:
118, quoted in Larry G. Rutter, Mexican Americans in Kansas: A Survey and Social Mobility Study, 1900-1970
(master’s thesis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, 1972): 119-120.
26
Ricart, Just Across the Tracks, 1950.
27
Badillo, “The Catholic Church,” 247.
28
Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa, Eds., Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1994); James Hennesey, S. J. American Catholics: A History of the Roman
Catholic Community in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); Mark Massa, ed., American
Catholic History: A Documentary Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2008); Sister Mary Helen
Rogers, “The Role of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican Community to Life in the
Indiana Harbor Area, 1940-1951,” in Forging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 19191975, eds. James B. Lane and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987), pp. 187-200.
29
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
30
Lupe Serrano, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
31
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
32
Ricart, Just Across the Tracks, 42.
206
33
Ricart, Just Across the Tracks, 42.
34
Ricart, Just Across the Tracks, 42, 56-57.
35
Alfonso De Leon, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
36
Esther Alvaloz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
37
Maria Rangel Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
38
Teresa Munoz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
39
I examined settlements and women’s charitable groups in the previous chapter; although the secular and religious
settlements and groups differed in terms of evangelizing, they shared enough similar goals and practices to discuss
them in the same chapter.
40
Ruth Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO. Lopez converted to Catholicism after her marriage.
41
Ruth Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
42
Ibid.
43
Sally Magaña Ramos, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
44
Ibid.
45
Badillo, “The Catholic Church,” 1994; Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian Americanization,’” 1987; Laird,
“Argentine, Kansas,” 1975.
46
Laird, “Argentine, Kansas,” 1975. In some cases, Mexicana/os attending Protestant services and participated in
activities at the Protestant missions even as they baptized their children as Catholics46 In her 1975 doctoral
dissertation, Judith Fincher Laird reports that Mexicans remained “staunchly Catholic” in spite of their dependency
on the Mexican Methodist Mission during the Depression.
47
Laird, “Argentine, Kansas,” 199.
48
Laird, “Argentine, Kansas,” 200-205.
49
Laird, “Argentine, Kansas,” 229.
50
Laird, “Argentine, Kansas,” 124.
51
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
52
Maria Mora, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
53
In all of Oppenheimer’s Kansas City, Kansas, and Ruiz’ Kansas City, Missouri, interviews, of those Mexicana/os
who lived in Argentine, only Mora mentioned the Methodist Mission. It is unclear, from a Mexicana/o perspective,
what these omissions denote or if the small number of interviews from this particular area is the issue.
54
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
55
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
56
Henry Infante, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
207
57
Hinojosa, “The Mexican-American Church, 1930-1965,” 1994.
58
Frank Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
59
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
60
Paul Rojas, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
61
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
62
Socorro M. Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans in Emporia, Kansas” (master’s thesis, Kansas State Teachers
College, 1942).
63
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
64
Letter from J. Edgar Hoover to Father Ward, 1946. Mexican-American History Project, Manuscript Collection,
Minnesota Historical Society, Saint Paul, MN, quoted in JoAnna Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity
Among Mexican-Americans in St. Paul, Minnesota in the Post-WWII Era,” JSRI Working Paper No. 7, The Julian
Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 1997: 6.
65
Ana María Díaz-Stevens, “Latino Youth and the Church,” in Hispanic Catholic Culture: Issues and Concerns,
eds. Jay P. Dolan and Allan Figueroa, S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994): 282.
66
Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans,” 1942.
67
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
68
Julia Gutierrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751,
KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS; Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria (Rangel) Moran, MAOHP, MHS,
St. Paul, MN; Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
69
Ruth Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
70
Mervin “Mikey” Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
71
Maria Bustamante, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO; Agustin Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas
City, MO.
72
Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans,” 32.
73
Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans,” 1942.
74
Díaz-Stevens, “Latino Youth and the Church,” 1994.
75
Edmundo Rodríguez, “The Hispanic Community and Church Movements: Schools of Leadership,” in Hispanic
Catholic Culture: Issues and Concerns, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Allan Figueroa, S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1994): 207.
76
Rodríguez, “The Hispanic Community,” 209-210.
77
Theresa L. Torres, The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership in the Catholic Church:Las Guadalupanas of
Kansas City (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013): 37.
78
Matthew Casillas, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
79
Matthew Casillas, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
208
80
Julia Gutiérrez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
81
Maria Bósquez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
82
Torres, The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership, 65-67.
83
Ramirez, “A Survey of the Mexicans,” 32.
84
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, KS.
85
Ibid.
86
Teresa Palomo Acosta, and Ruthie Winegarten, Las Tejanas: 300 Years of History (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2003).
87
Torres, The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership, 65.
88
Acosta, and Winegarten, Las Tejanas, 2003; Torres, The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership, 2013.
89
Maria Bustamante, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
90
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
91
Teresa Muñoz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
92
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
93
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
94
Carlotta Arellano, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
95
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1996; Torres, The Paradox of Latina Religious Leadership, 2013; Dionicio
Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2000); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Mexicans in Minnesota (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 2005).
96
Rodríguez, “The Hispanic Community,” 214-215.
97
Alfonso De Leon, MAHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
98
Alfonso De Leon, MAHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
99
Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago, 145 &160.
100
Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago, 161.
101
Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago, 2008; Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997.
102
Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian Americanization,’” 115-134; Sister Mary Helen Rogers, “The Role of
Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican Community to Life in the Indiana Harbor Area,
1940-1951,” in Foraging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, ed. James B.
Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987), 187-200; Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños:
St. Paul and Midwestern Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). As
discussed in the previous chapter, the Guadalupe Center-sponsored fiestas began with Mexicana/o leadership in its
first years, but when the settlement and Anglo business people took control, they changed the meaning and
educative aspects of the celebration.
209
103
Rafaela G. Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2000): 208.
104
Ibid.
105
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
106
Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
107
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, KS.
108
Ibid.
109
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
110
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 260-263.
111
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 106-107.
112
Ibid.
113
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
114
Henry Vargas, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
115
Ibid.
116
Rosie Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA.
117
Ibid.
118
Esiquia Monita, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
119
Irene Rivera, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
120
Esther Avaloz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
121
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
122
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
123
Armida Martinez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS; Simon Rodriguez, ROC,
Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
124
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
125
Armida Martinez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
126
Armida Martinez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
127
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 92.
128
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 92.
129
Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago, 2008; Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 92 & 107; Villone, “The
Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997.
210
130
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
131
Rutter, “Mexican Americans in Kansas,” 1972.
132
Sebastian Hernandez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
133
Ibid.
134
Agustin Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
135
Agustin Rocha, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, MO.
136
Rutter, “Mexican Americans in Kansas,” 1972.
137
Mervin Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
138
Dolores Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
139
Arrendondo, Mexican Chicago, 2008; Juan R. García, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The
University of Arizona Press, 1996); Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000; Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,”
1997.
140
Ignacio Avila, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
141
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
142
Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997.
143
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
144
Ignacio Galindo Valenzuela, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
145
Pete Sandoval, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
146
Esther Alvaloz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Bósquez, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
147
Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997.
148
Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997.
211
CHAPTER FIVE
“WE IMPROVISED” 1: MEXICANA/O-GENERATED INFORMAL EDUCATION
From the time she was a small child in the late 1920s, Juanita Rangel Moran recited poems in Spanish,
sang Spanish hymns in choir, and danced traditional Mexican dances in programs for 5th of May and the
16th of September celebrations. Moran recollects her father’s intentions for teaching his children and
others in St. Paul’s West Side barrio: “he did this so that people would remember the customs followed in
Mexico and also so that the young people could learn and preserve important aspects of our Mexican
culture.” 2 Moran’s parents made conscious decisions to educate not only their own children but also other
Mexicana/os in the barrio. While he grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, in the 1920s, Dr. Ladislao Lopez
used to go home from his music lessons and teach his father to read music. 3 Cipriana Rodriguez’ father
immigrated to the United States in 1900 and returned to Mexico in 1909 to marry her mother and bring
her to the U.S. They eventually settled in Garden City, Kansas. Rodriguez’ father, more familiar with
culinary ingredients available in the U.S., taught his wife to make American biscuits and to make tortillas
with flour rather than corn. 4 These educative experiences occurred outside of formal and non-formal
educative structures and without formalized agendas or institutionalized outcomes. Moran, Lopez,
Rodriguez, and many more Mexicana/os describe educational experiences with family members and
neighbors, as well as autodidacticism, or self-teaching, and observing others self-teach. These and
numerous other accounts reveal Mexicana/os seeking out and participating in yet another system of
education, informal education.
Informal education directed by parents, relatives, and others in the community, as well as selfteaching offered many Mexicana/os opportunities for learning above and beyond more structured
education available in parochial and public schools, settlements, churches, and other entities. In the
Midwest during this period, residential segregation often isolated Mexicana/os. Though the Mexican
barrio of St. Paul was located within a large, urban area, it could be very insulated. Frederico Saucedo
recalls about the West Side: “Our whole life revolved around a little section of the city. Most of us didn’t
212
know anything over the Robert Street Bridge or the Wabash Street Bridge. We were mostly confined
down in this small area. This was our whole life.” 5 Additionally, as I addressed in previous chapters,
many institutions created and maintained formal and non-formal education policies and practices that
discriminated against Mexicana/os or made them feel unwelcome, several Mexicana/os dealt with
separate and/or unequal facilities and instruction, and some Mexicana/os were turned away altogether. 6
Many Mexicana/os living and learning in these circumstances used informal education to supplement and
challenge aspects of Anglo-centered formal and non-formal education and to center learning within their
own goals. Before young Mexicana/os participated in formal schooling or organized non-formal
education through settlements and/or churches, family members and others from the barrio provided them
with their first, and perhaps most formative, lessons. And, several Mexicana/o adults directed their own
learning and/or teaching.
This chapter contributes to both history of education and Mexican American history scholarship
in several ways. It adds dimension and depth to the history of Mexican American education and Mexican
American experiences by focusing on the Midwest, exploring Mexicana/os’ agency and educational
authority in families and communities, and providing more insight and significance to informal education.
As the final chapter in this dissertation, my focus on informal education highlights the full extent to which
many Mexicana/os sought out and valued education for themselves and their children. From the oral
histories I consulted, I was able to distinguish educative themes and patterns in the interviews and
determined that many Mexicana/os practiced informal education through lessons in the following areas:
life skills, faith and values, literacy, and cultural transmission. While the informal, familial education
Mexicana/os practiced may not have had set curricula or other formalized structures or practices, many
Mexicana/os deliberately taught themselves, their peers, and their children informal lessons about subjects
they valued and that reflected their complex and changing ideas about gender, faith, values, and culture.
213
Life Skills
As have many parents, regardless of ethnicity or race, Mexicana/o parents and extended family
taught their children life skills necessary for caring for themselves and their families as well as skills that
would bring enjoyment and fulfillment. Working for the railroad and in packinghouses did not pay much,
especially for families with four, eight, or twelve children. While, for the most part, men earned the
money for the family, many women also took jobs, especially those women who came to the U.S. as
children or who were born in the U.S. Like anyone living in the Midwest in this period, Mexicana/os
suffered financial hardships during economic depressions and world wars, and many of the lessons
Mexicana/os taught their children and each other involved industrious ways to provide for their needs and
to save money. Moreover, because they also lived in an era when they were refused services at stores and
other businesses, many met their own needs and those of their families with ingenuity. In this section, I
argue that many parents and other adults, either in the family or in the neighborhood, intentionally taught
life skills to themselves, to each other, and/or to their children for the express purpose of instilling in the
learners skills that would guarantee their livelihoods and chances for not only survival but also success
and personal enjoyment. These included such skills as gardening, sewing, saving and making, and music.
Many Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in this period grew fresh vegetables, raised animals and
foraged for wild edibles, and they passed on these skills and knowledge to their children. In Davenport’s
Cook’s Point barrio, Mercy Aguilera’s father taught her and her siblings to garden. Aguilera recounts:
“We grew onions, radishes…. My dad knew that already. That’s how he would teach us. If you wanted to
survive, you had to plant your own garden…. That’s how I learned to garden…I remember getting dirty. I
remember my hands always dirty from the garden.” 7 Many interviewees from Cook’s Point recall tending
garden plots, as well as raising chicken and pigs. The barrio’s placement near the river and amongst the
railroad tracks gave the residents ample space for these pursuits. Cirilo Arteaga grew up in Wichita’s El
Huarache barrio and recalls that his parents, like most of the other barrio residents, kept a garden and
214
animals to provide food for their families. 8 Also from El Huarache, John Gonzales’ father used to take
him and his brothers out and teach them to identify edible plants. Gonzales recounts:
We pushed the wheelbarrow across the street and down the alley, over the tracks […] and into the
railroad yard. And, on the way to the railway yard, he would pull this thing that I called a weed
out of the ground, and it looked like a nut. He would say, ‘Have this. It’s good.’ You know, we’d
eat it, but I don’t remember what it tasted like…. The cattail was also good to eat. You would pull
it out of the water. And, the root, chop the root off, peel back the outer skin, and the core of the
stump tasted like celery. And, we used to eat that stuff. 9
Before Mexicana/os had access to markets with fresh produce, many grew their own and foraged, and
they taught their children these skills, as well as how to preserve foods for winter. In terms of gardening,
foraging, and caring for animals, several parents of both genders taught both boys and girls these skills.
Unlike gardening or foraging, however, informal sewing and handwork lessons remained, for the
most part, gendered and something for Mexicanas. Many Mexicanas taught other women and girls lessons
in sewing and other types of handwork as a necessary and useful skill for women and girls. Yet, the
lessons also provided a means for keeping women and girls occupied in an acceptable way and for
women to socialize and connect with each other. Dolores Garcia of Cook’s Point recalls asking her
mother to teach her to sew and crochet. 10 In Kansas City, Missouri, Lucy Lopez’s paternal grandmother
lived with her family and took care of the children while her parents worked, and, while her brothers
worked and rode bicycles, Lopez’s grandmother taught Lopez how to embroider, crochet, and sew. 11
Lopez recalls sewing with her mother and grandmother: “In the winter time, when it was cold, and you
know, nothing to do, we would all be sitting, [doing] something with our hands…I can’t recall my
brothers, what they were doing, but I remember my mother crocheting or embroidering, my grandmother
the same thing, and then myself.” 12
While most sewing and handwork lessons involved girls and women, there is evidence of boys
learning to sew. Cirilo Arteaga explains that some parents in Wichita’s El Huarache sent their boys to
Mr. Alberto Vasquez for training: “he was a tailor, and they learned how to cut pants and stuff like
215
that.” 13 Arteaga’s description of learning tailoring resembles a more formal and structured apprenticeship
that would lead to a career, 14 while the women interviewees describe their lessons in sewing and
handiwork as less structured and something for the home.
Saving money and bringing home extra income were important personal finance skills many
parents taught themselves and their children. Elvira Ramirez of Emporia explains that though her mother
did not have a formal education, she did have money-saving skills that she shared with her children.
Ramirez’ mother taught her children to shop for discounted clothing so that they had nice but affordable
clothes. 15 Ramirez further explains, “We were to learn to be very independent and to maintain and learn
to save and to live within our means as much as possible.” 16 Dolores Garcia of Davenport’s Cook’s Point
relates stories about how her father loaned money to other Mexicana/os in the barrio, most of whom used
their homes or cars as collateral. When the borrowers used the money to take their families back to
Mexico, Garcia’s father took possession of their property and gained a good deal of real estate and
money, as well as status in the community. While it might seem predatory, in fact, Garcia’s father
provided a vital service to Mexicana/os, who would not have otherwise qualified for a loan. Garcia
explains that she learned business sense and responsibility from her father. 17 These Mexicana/os and
others taught their children to contribute to their families by earning money, and they taught them to
contribute in other ways, too.
In several cases, Mexicana/os recall their parents teaching them and their siblings how to take
roles as family contributors in their natal and future families. Sometimes these lessons were explicit, but
more often, parents modeled roles directly related to their gender identities. Elvira Ramirez of Emporia
explains that her father and mother acted out what they deemed appropriate contributor roles in their dayto-day living, namely that men earned and women served. About this informal, familial education about
gender roles, Ramirez explains:
There is a lot of distinction between the raising between boys and girls in a home…. As young
girls, we were trained to be the future wives of tomorrow. We were taught, this is the way you
cook, this is how you wait on your husband. Yet, the men in the family had different
216
responsibilities, their job was to work with Dad in keeping up the house, they learned men’s work
as opposed to women’s work. My brothers were never required to wash dishes, they never got
their hands wet, we waited on them, when we were younger…. As children, we were told we
should wait on them, and we always waited on my father. He never served his own plate. 18
Ramirez further explains,
the men had their jobs to do, and they worked terribly hard outside; therefore, they were to come
home and only, they were only to be taken care of when they came home, and we would often
watch. Mother would say, ‘Here comes your father. Look he’s worked hard all day long. Look
how tired he is, and when he comes home, you do this, and don’t get in his way. Move aside.’ We
were taught that you didn’t bother your father because he was terribly tired…. And he was
allowed then because he worked so hard, he was allowed to have his own kind of life, which was
very interesting…. We all had our place in the family. 19
In Ramirez’ family, as well as many other families, men held roles as the major breadwinners, especially
before WWII. However, family dynamics and gender roles were different for many of those families that
worked together in the fields, including women and children. And, during the Depression and World War
II, many women went out to work to help support the family.
Not all families taught or modeled how to take roles as family contributors based on traditional
gender roles. Cipriana Rodriguez of Garden City recalls growing up with six sisters and one brother.
Rodriguez explains that she and her sisters worked in the fields along with her father and brother, and that
her father said he was as proud of his daughters’ abilities as he was of his son’s. Because he had such a
large family to support, Rodriguez’s father taught his children that he valued their abilities to work more
than he valued traditional gender roles. In fact, Rodriguez’ father modeled behaviors that transcended
traditional gendered work in the family. Cipriana Rodriguez recalls, “And, my father knew how to mix
the dough, and he taught my mother how to make biscuits out of flour.” 20 Rodriguez’s father had lived as
a single man in the U.S. for almost a decade before he returned to Mexico to marry her mother and bring
her to the U.S., and she says he “knew Mexican-American cooking.” 21 In some families, parents modeled
a broader range of family contributor roles that transcended traditional gendered roles.
217
Of all the informal education in life skills Mexicana/os discuss in their interviews, they expand
most upon learning music skills. The opportunity to learn music skills brought several Mexicana/os
personal fulfillment, allowed them to connect with family, other Mexicana/os, and the larger community,
and, for some, provided a means of earning a living. Many who played instruments found work for
holidays, fiestas, weddings, and social dances, especially when they could organize a band or an
orchestra. Singers could perform for community celebrations and religious events and hold positions in
bands. And, in many cases, musical skills provided opportunities for both men and women, especially
women from the second and third generations. Many parents considered musical ability an asset for their
children, and in the interviews, several people describe parents who sacrificed to pay for lessons or
instruments.
When parents did not have the musical skills to teach their children, several recall that they or
their parents sought out tutors and encouraged their children’s learning. According to Cirilo Arteaga and
Mary Soliz Diaz of Wichita, people sent their sons to the Trianas, a family known for teaching music and
having a band. 22 Arteaga says that the boys “learned how to play ‘doh, ray, mi,’ they learned how to read
notes.” 23 John Gonzales of Wichita remembers that men and boys would “grab their guitars, sit around,
sing songs, and play” at his home when he was a child. 24 Dr. Ladislao Lopez of Kansas City, Missouri,
recalls that several of the children in his family played musical instruments, and he played the violin.
Lopez does not specify whether both boys and girls from his family played instruments; he had six
brothers and three sisters. Lopez refers to his music as one of his hobbies. 25 Rosie Ramirez and her sister
Julia Navarro of Davenport recall their mother encouraging their musical learning, in singing and
beyond. 26 Navarro recounts, “she also wanted us to learn how to play an instrument and let’s see, Rosie
never played nothin’ but Mother bought me a violin, and I didn’t like it, so I just went by a fence and I
broke the neck, so that was the end of my violin lessons.” 27 Navarro’s mother arranged for Navarro and
Ramirez to study with a well-known musician, Phil Garza from Davenport, and Navarro’s oldest brother,
Joe, also had lessons. Navarro explains that her brother “liked the mandolin so he kept that up. He never
played it anywhere, but you know, but at home amongst himself.” 28 Ramirez’ and Navarro’s revelations
218
in their interviews show that their mother valued her children’s musical tutelage, even when they did
not. 29 Dr. Ladislao Lopez went even further with his music lessons, teaching his father to read and write
music. After music lessons, Lopez’s father had the children review their lessons for him: “‘What do you
need all those lines for?’ So, we had to explain to him what the lines were for, so that reinforced our
lessons because we had to repeat them to him. And, he learned to read and write music.” 30
In several cases, learning music skills led to both hobbies and livelihoods for Mexicana/os. Elvira
Ramirez’ father taught himself skills he enjoyed and that brought in extra money for the family:
[H]e also attached himself to different kinds of hobbies that brought him money. He learned to do
photography, he took pictures of community activities and sold the pictures to them, after he got
out of that, he learned to play an instrument and was in a band that was a second job for him…so
it would be an extra income for our entertainment activities. 31
In her interview, Ramirez does not specify whether her father had help learning these skills or taught
himself. Because of the nature of the hobbies and the family’s economic circumstances, it is likely that he
did not pay for lessons. 32Simon Rodriguez of Emporia began learning music from Rafulio Lera from
Topeka when he came into town and organized a band. Rodriguez describes the lessons: “He was
teaching when we had the church on Pine Street. The Santa Fe gave the church a house so we could have
meetings in there. The priest lent us their house and this man was teaching music there. There were a lot
of boys learning there.” 33 Lera taught Rodriguez to play the guitar. After Lera left town, Rodriguez played
in a five-member band called La Quinteto Bueno, and he then organized his own band named after
himself. Rodriguez organized another band in the 1940s: “We were the first Mexican band that played on
the radio. … they called it Simon Rodriguez and his Spanish Cavaliers.” 34 Rodriguez explains that there
was much turnover in the band due to World War II and to people looking for work, and that many of his
band members were his nephews. 35
For the Rangel family of St. Paul, learning music skills played a major role in all facets of their
lives, including the children’s adult vocations. In this family, the parents taught their children lessons, and
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the children taught each other and other children in the church and barrio. Many of the Rangel children
deepened their skills for singing, dancing, and playing instruments and made them their livelihoods. 36
Juanita Rangel de Moran recalls of her participation in church and Neighborhood House events:
At first, I remember I didn’t want to participate because I was very shy and thought that people
would laugh at me. But my father always had first say and what he said had to be done, so I
participated. I am very glad that he did this because I learned a lot…. Since I was a member of the
choir, I would also sing. Lastly, my mother would teach us some dances, so I would dance…. My
mother knew the dances pretty well so she would teach us and would also make our dresses. 37
Moran continues, “All the hymns that we knew were taught to us by our parents, and we in turn taught
them to all the people who wanted to join the choir.” 38 As an adult, Juanita Moran continued to teach
singing and dancing to her own children and to young children at the Mi Cultura School in St. Paul.
Additionally, Juanita Moran’s husband Salvador Moran learned dancing from the Rangels and several
other tutors as a youth. Salvador Moran danced with Brigida Vasquez de Llanes at the local community
programs, and he was very much a force in teaching his and Moran’s children and supporting them in
their dancing. 39 Juanita Moran also worked in conjunction with her sister Maria Moran through the
Mexican American Cultural Resource Center, affiliated with Roosevelt School. Juanita Moran taught the
younger children, and then they would move on to Maria for further instruction.
The Morans’ younger brother Francisco Rangel Jr., or Kiko, also recalls his parents’ and his sister
Eugenia’s influence in teaching him music and dance:
The family was always musical. My mother would teach songs and dances to the girls…. At the
time, I guess, we were really the only ones able to perform song and dance. Three of the girls
played the piano, one of them played accordion, and all of them sang and danced…. When I was
young, I used to dance the Waltz, Tango, and Mexican Hat Dance, all folk dances. I can
remember my sister teaching me things to play on the piano. We had a couple pianos in the
apartment. 40
As a young adult, Francisco Rangel, Jr., began accumulating instruments and the skills to play them, and
though he took lessons outside his home, his older sister remained a major influence. 41 Rangel recounts:
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How I got started going beyond just singing and dancing, and playing the piano, was to get
started playing an instrument. My sister Eugenia was the one who started me…. One Saturday,
my sister and Augie Garcia, who was playing congas at that time, and Richard Hernandez was
playing timbales…. and this guy called ‘Lalo’ brought a sax over. I remember him walking in and
taking out the sax…. I didn’t know what it was. All of a sudden, he started playing it. I was in the
other room listening to the group practice, and I started hearing the saxophone. Right there, I
liked the sound and the way it looked. So, the following week, my sister said, ‘Have you thought
of anything that you want to start playing?’ I said, ‘I’d like to start the sax.’ She said O.K. The
following Saturday morning, we went down to a store…. In a window display, they had pictures
of saxophone players holding the saxophone way up above the stars. I looked at it and said, ‘Gee,
look at that.’ I was kind of nervous going into the store, wondering if they would have a
saxophone. Sure enough, they did have a horn in there. It was a silver horn, a tenor saxophone.
With the rental of this horn, you received six free lessons. The following week, I started taking
lessons…. My sister was a very big help to me at home because she would teach me tunes on the
piano, and she would write them out for me. She would actually teach them to me. 42
Rangel also learned to play the clarinet and flute. His sister Eugenia connected him with a combo, the
“Joe Medina Band.” Rangel ended up with his own band, and played for whatever gig they could get,
playing a lot of the traditional Mexican songs. 43 The Rangel interviews especially reveal the complex
ways children learned life skills from adults, siblings, and other children in informal lessons and through
modeling. The Rangel parents’ influence and expectations for their children’s singing, dancing, and
performing in community and church events likely influenced their working together and learning from
one another.
Several Mexicana/os modeled and taught life skills that were not livelihood or family-centered
skills but instead were skills for enhancing recreation time, such as learning to make toys and to swim.
Many of these skills were also self-taught. Victor Rodriguez of Emporia tells stories about local fathers
making toy guns for their children, since they had little money for buying toys. Rodriguez recalls, “Our
guns used to be [made] out of two-by-fours or a piece of lathe with rubber bands.” 44 Rodriguez also talks
about his cousin who taught him to make cowboy and horse figurines out of clay mud. Rodriguez
explains: “It was a skill at that time. I had a cousin, Lloyd Gomez, he was the one that taught me how.
After it rained, there was a lot of mud, clay, and out of clay you would make the little men and little
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horses and let them dry and then play with them.” 45 Salvador Lopez from Davenport recalls the older
children “helping” the younger ones learn how to swim:
We had the river and we’d go swimming in the river in the summer. And, there was a big quarry
there; we’d always go swimming there. Everybody learned how to swim. You know, we didn’t
take no lessons but we had to learn the hard way. The way I learned was some of the bigger guys
said—well, they’d take me out to like a little island. And they says, ‘We’ll leave you there now.’
And they left me there. And, I had to find my way back…. No formal lessons or anything like
that, but we were real good swimmers. 46
In the case of the children of Cook’s Point and other barrios situated near rivers and other bodies of water,
learning to swim was a skill not only for recreation but also for safety. 47
Many Mexicana/os learned life skills for caring for themselves and their families, for earning a
livelihood, and for recreation and personal fulfillment through informal life skills lessons. These lessons
came through explicit teachings and modeling from parents, tutoring from community members,
autodidacticism, and lived experiences. And, unlike much of the education Mexicana/os received from
formal and non-formal entities, Mexicana/os centered this informal learning on their own timelines,
needs, and interests.
Faith and Values
Informal learning extended beyond everyday survival and skills and personal fulfillment to
matters of faith and spirituality in many Mexicano families. Though many Mexicana/os learned about
faith and doctrine from their churches and in parochial schools, many also learned about the more
personal and familial aspects of faith at home and in their communities. While much historical and
sociological research points to mothers holding the role of leader of the faith in Mexican-American
families, 48 interviewees reveal many cases of both parents and other adults teaching about faith and moral
values. In their roles as padrinos, or godparents, many Mexicana/os modeled and taught their charges
about faith and values. In her interview, Emilia Rangel of Emporia explains the roles of padrinos for
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Catholic children: “According to our religion, they are like second parents to that baby, in case the parents
died. They are like taking over their education and religion to make sure they are brought up as
Catholics.” 49 While many Mexicana/os living in the Midwest at this time identified as Catholic, 50
interviewees reveal some diversity in faith and values. Furthermore, families were not always united in
their belief systems or how they practiced a common faith. In some cases, parents and padrinos taught
morality and values outside the bounds of faith.
In some families, Mexicana/os’ faith dominated their daily schedule, many of their day-to-day
activities, and their home environments. In these families, parents not only modeled their faith with their
actions, but they also explicitly raised their children to understand their views about faith and the
importance of attending church. Elvira Ramirez of Kansas City, Missouri, recalls of her parents’ faith:
“My parents were very, very Catholic. I think Catholic in the broad sense of, they did it, mass every
Sunday…. I don’t think I’d learned it in terms of dogma, which I realized later…. I think there was a
sincere kind of faith.” 51 Ramirez discusses her family’s deep religious devotion, and her mother’s strong
leading role in the family’s faith:
We were raised in a real religious kind of atmosphere in a sense that every night we prayed the
rosary together as a family…. During the summer they had the rosary on at two o’clock and
everyone wouldn’t play with us because we would drag in all of our friends to come in and kneel
on the kitchen floor and say the rosary…. Mother would have…little altars all over, over the
statues, candles, flowers, and all the little rituals that go with that. We always went to church on
Sundays as a group, filled up an entire pew. 52
Salvador Lopez from Davenport recounts his mother’s faith and her insistence on her children attending
mass: “She was always a real religious person; she’d take us to church every day. I remember going to St.
Alphonsus. We had to stay there to go to school. But we’d go to church before school started.” 53 Mercy
Aguilera of Davenport says her parents wanted their kids “to grow up happy and free of everything and
grow up to be good people and work. That’s what was instilled in us. To be good people and go to church
and get a job and work and take care of yourself and your family if you had a family.” 54 Mercy Aguilera
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recalls attending mass every morning before going to school, and her older sister Dolores Garcia recalls
that her father was firm in sending them to church every Sunday. 55
For Mexicana/os who identified as Catholic, naming their children and godchildren became a way
for some of them to teach children not only about their faith but also character traits to emulate. Simon
Rodriguez of Emporia explains a tradition of choosing children’s names to reflect not only their faith but
also their Mexican culture. 56 According to Rodriguez, parents, and sometimes godparents, gave children
the name of a saint who would be their patron saint, who would look after them, and from whom the child
could ask for intercession. Rodriguez further explains:
We take the names mostly of Saints like Saint John, St. Peter, St. Thomas, and so on like that.
The Virgin of Guadalupe, that is why a lot of them take the name of Guadalupe…. Like me, I am
Simon. Now, you know that there’s in the Bible that Simon of Sharon, the one that helped Jesus
with the cross when they were taking him to Calvary. So, I should imitate him. Be kind, like he
done a good deed there. So, they would tell me that I should be like Simon of Sharon. Be kind
and imitate my saint. 57
By tying their children to particular saints, these parents and padrinos sought to teach children about their
faith and their responsibilities as a member of the faith and the community.
In their interviews, many Mexicana/os report learning about their parents’ faith through religious
music and stories. The Rangels of St. Paul taught their children many hymns. 58 In his interview, Lorenzo
Delgado of Emporia recollects that his mother often spoke about the saints or repeated stories having to
do with the saints, including Santa Maria Atocho, La Virgen de Guadalupe, and El Nino de San Antonio.
Delgado also remembers hearing the story of El Diablo, or the Devil. 59 It was not just Catholic
Mexicana/os who sought to teach their children or godchildren lessons in faith through music and stories.
Carmen Alvarado of Emporia describes her Protestant faith was a strong part of her upbringing. Alvarado
remembered her mother singing hymns and songs. Alvarado especially remembers her mother singing “In
the Garden” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder, I’ll Be There.” 60
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Alongside, as well as within, lessons in faith or religion, many Mexicana/os also taught their
children lessons in morality and social values. Several Mexicana/os report having been taught lessons in
character, especially in treating others with respect. Beyond encouraging her children in their Catholic
faith, Elvira Ramirez’s mother also taught them lessons in character building. Ramirez’s mother told her
that if one took care of one’s parents, then one’s children would do likewise, and “even if you had to do
without, you would always offer it to your guest.” 61 Bob Hernandez of Kansas City, Missouri, recalls how
he was taught lessons in character in his family:
There was always a kind of programming…regardless if they [adults, parents, or his
grandparents, who lived with them] were right or wrong, we respected them because, you know,
sometime in your life, you’re going to be in that position…. That we would respect adults and try
not to question, and we almost didn’t have the right [to question] because they were our parents. 62
In her interview, Dolores Garcia tells a story of her brother taking a dime from his father’s pocket, which
resulted in all of the children receiving a whipping since none of them revealed what he had done. Garcia
explains: “That’s where you learn. Don’t take something that doesn’t belong to you. He taught us that at
very early. If you didn’t work for it, it’s not yours. If you didn’t pay for it, don’t touch it. It’s not yours. If
you break it, you have to pay for it. He taught us all that.” 63 Dolores Garcia of Davenport recalls several
ways in which her father taught her about respect for other people’s property, through modeling as well as
explicit lessons.
To teach children morals or social values, many Mexicana/os repeated proverbs or dichos.
Mexican folklore scholar Angel Vigil explains that Mexicana/os used dichos in day-to-day living,
teaching about “philosophy and proverbial folk wisdom.” 64 Vigil describes dichos as a means to “reveal
to young people the unseen qualities in another person or to give insight into a particular situation. The
proverbs also provided guidelines for moral values and social behavior.” 65 Vigil clarifies that while
dichos also played a role in transmitting Mexican culture, their main function was to teach values. 66
Simon Rodriguez of Emporia explains in his interview that there were many dichos for many occasions.
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One Rodriguez recalled was, “Candela de la calle, oscuridad de tu casa,” which he translates as “light of
the street and darkness of the home. Something like that…but what it really means is that you are doing
somebody else’s work; You are doing work for somebody else and let yours go.” 67 John Lopez of
Emporia recalls that his parents used proverbs often, especially his mother:
My mom was a good one for proverbs. She used to have quite a few but I can’t remember
them…. I remember one of them…. El que se va pa el villa pero su qudque y su silla…. That
meant whenever somebody got up off their chair, you know, there wasn’t any more chairs, you
took his chair, you gave him that saying. That means that the one that takes off loses chair and
saddle. 68
While these interviewees often did not recall the exact wording of the dichos their parents and padrinos
taught them, they remembered the general meaning of the values they learned.
Many Mexicana/os also taught their children the value of work. Dolores Garcia recalls her father
teaching lessons about doing one’s work, regardless of gender: “We had to have about five buckets full of
coal in the house. Not only because it was a man’s job, but we girls had to do it, too…he was showing us
just because it was breaking the coal with a hammer doesn’t mean only boys do it. Girls had to do it, too.
He taught us a lot.” 69 Garcia’s father had his children work in the yard, garden, do laundry, and carry
water from the pump down the road. 70 Also from Cook’s Point, Rosie Ramirez remembers learning the
value of work in the garden and the fields from her parents. Ramirez recalls, “We made gardens every
summer…. Every summer we went to top onions and that was our school money. That was the money to
buy us our new dresses for the first day of school and new shoes and everything. We were taught to work
from the time we were young. We had our playtime, but it was also our work time, too.” 71 These
interviewees describe lessons about the value of work as well as how their parents modeled how they
valued working to make a living.
While many Mexicana/os sought spiritual guidance for themselves and their families through
church and other entities like devotional societies, many also deliberately taught their children lessons in
faith and values. Through these modeled behaviors, songs, and stories and through more explicit
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instruction, many Mexicana/os not only learned about their parents’ and other adults’ expectations and
personal beliefs but they developed their own ideas about religion, personal faith, value systems, and how
they related to others.
Literacy
Many Mexicana/os report that they and their parents valued literacy because they wanted to
communicate, to learn, to better understand, to explore literature, and to gain personal fulfillment. As the
previous chapters make clear, Mexicana/os did not always have opportunities to attend school or
complete schooling, yet, many Mexicana/os taught themselves, their spouses or peers, and their children
to read and write, in Spanish and English. Some Mexicana/os also directly taught or modeled reading for
pleasure and learning.
Many Mexicana/o adults had been unable to learn reading and/or writing skills in school and
taught themselves or sought out lessons from family members or people in the community. Circumstances
were that many Mexicana/os who grew up in Mexico and were fluent in Spanish could not read or write
in Spanish. For some Mexicanos, literacy meant learning to read Spanish. Ladislao Lopez recalls that his
mother taught his father to read Spanish. 72 Several Mexicana/o also taught their children to read and write
in Spanish. Lucy Vargas of Davenport recalls, “My dad, he believed in teaching his kids, he didn’t teach
‘em English because he didn’t know English, but he taught us Spanish, reading and writing.” 73
Other Mexicana/os attained basic literacy even as they learned a new language, English.
Magdalena Rodriguez recalls that her father “learned English, by starting to read from our books, 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grade books. I didn’t know at the time. I wondered why he was even looking at them. He was just
trying to learn to read out of them.” 74 Dolores Garcia explains that her father taught himself to read
English by reading the Quad City Times newspaper. 75John Rodriguez of Kansas City, Missouri, recalls:
“The most positive motivation I ever had has been my father because the man, despite the fact that he
only had a 3rd grade education, and that was in Mexico, he taught himself how to read and write” in
English. 76 In spite of growing up hearing that her education was a waste of time and not being allowed to
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have formal schooling, Emilia Rangel’s mother taught herself to read and write in English, getting help
when she could from a local grocer. Rangel explains that her mother “wanted to learn so bad” that she
started to self-teach as an adult. 77 The grocer, Mrs. Young,
would help [Rangel’s mother] with her English, you know. And my mom would do something for
her, too. They traded something, I don’t know what it was, but she taught her some words, and
then, after work, when we started to grow up, my mother, she take a book and read, tell her what
the words were, and that is the way she learned. 78
Because they valued literacy, these Mexicana/os and many others took agency in their own learning and
modeled this for their children.
Beyond basic literacy, some Mexicana/os also taught their children and people around them to
use reading as a way to educate themselves and as a means for personal fulfillment. Several Mexicana/os
report that they or their parents encouraged children to read, modeled reading, and/or read aloud to their
children. Dolores Garcia of Davenport explains that her father taught the importance of reading and being
aware of current events:
When my father was home, we had to be home, always doing something. You couldn’t sit doing
nothing…He’d say, ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘I’m going to read.’ ‘Okay. You read your
book.’ He always wanted you to read the newspaper or read a book because the newspaper told
you what goes on in the world and if somebody asked, you tell them, ‘Yeah, I read that.’ 79
Magdalena Rodriguez, from Kansas City, Missouri, recalls of her father, “He was an eloquent speaker.
People liked to hear him talk, and he impressed me with knowledge. You know, I wanted to have some of
that knowledge…. He read a lot.” 80 Paul Rojas of Kansas City, Missouri, remembers how much his father
gained from his extensive reading:
My father, who knew so much about so many things and so many places. A man that grew up in
Mexico in such a difficult time, which I didn’t realize until later on in life. How did he acquire so
much knowledge of world events, and names, and dates, and so many places, and the political
structures of countries? He seemed to know so much about what was going on in the world. 81
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Lucy Lopez of Kansas City, Missouri, also grew up in a home that valued reading. While Lopez, her
mother, and grandmother sewed at night, her father would read aloud classics in Spanish, including The
Count of Monte Cristo and Tale of Two Cities. 82 These interviewees describe seeing that their parents
valued reading and seeing how their parents’ acquired knowledge brought them respect and fulfillment.
Several interviewees reported spending time in libraries and reading for their own fulfillment and
learning. These Mexicana/os read for pleasure and to gain and share knowledge. Magdalena Rodriguez,
also of Kansas City, Missouri, recalls loving to read as a child:
I liked to read. I read so many books, I don’t know how many miles of books I read…. I started to
read all the Anglo books, Mary Jane and Tom and Jane and all those kind of books. I was
fascinated with fairy tales. I lived in a fantasy world. I loved them. And, from there, I graduated
into the little girl classics, like the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, the others, like Heidi. I went into
White Fang. I do not like fiction. I always liked autobiographies and biographies. I like things
that are true to life. 83
Manuela Lozano of Kansas City, Missouri explained, “I’ve always had that strive to read. To learn, about,
well, at that time, I always used to call it the unknown world. You know, how other countries lived. So,
my hobby has always been reading.” 84 In his interview, Ladislao Lopez of Kansas City, Missouri, cites
reading as his personal hobby. 85 For these Mexicana/os and many more, reading was personal and
fulfilling, and through their reading, they became agents of their own learning.
When Mexicana/os could not gain literacy through schools and other avenues of formal and nonformal education, many found other means of learning and teaching their children. Through informal
education, Mexicana/os could attain literacy in English and Spanish. Some Mexicana/os also pursued
knowledge and gained personal fulfillment through reading and encouraged their children to do the same.
Cultural Transmission
The previous four chapters have explored some of the failures of schools and, in some cases,
settlements and churches in teaching Mexican history and culture. The Americanization aims of these
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institutions and the racialized beliefs about Mexicana/os harbored by some principals, teachers, settlement
workers, priests, and other educators steered lessons toward Anglo-centric history and culture or focused
on what the broader U.S. culture deemed acceptable about Mexican culture. To combat these and other
failures, to ensure the transmission and maintenance of their culture, and to determine their own
interpretations of Mexican culture and Mexican culture in the U.S., several Mexicana/os deliberately
employed informal education in their homes, in Mexican communities, and broader society.
For some Mexicana/os, teaching their children about Mexican culture was of prime importance,
while others claimed it was more important to adopt American traditions and English in order to
assimilate and advance socially and economically. Many Mexicana/os motives for cultural transmission
in their homes fell between these two extremes. In her interview, Josephine Gallo of St. Paul says her
objective in teaching her children about their culture was to get across the idea that “they are Mexican
first, before anything else.” 86 Gregory Gonzales of St. Paul says of his children’s upbringing, “They are
aware of the history and the language of Mexico, the costumes, food, and, of course, the religion. They
both speak Spanish. They learned a lot from their grandmother.” 87 When the interviewer asks Lorenzo
Delgado of Emporia, Kansas, whether he thinks it is more important to retain Mexican culture or to adopt
U.S. culture, Delgado responds,
You know, it’s your parents’ heritage, and that’s what you have. And you really don’t want to
lose that. That’s like asking which is more important, your father or your mother. They’re both
important. We need Anglo society in order to exist. And, we need Mexican culture because that’s
our descendant. We are descendant from the Mexican.88
Delgado clarifies: “That’s about an even-steven deal. They’re both important.” 89 The oral history
interviews reveal the complexities of Mexicana/os’ motives for educating their children about their family
history and culture.
Several Mexicana/os also transmitted Mexican culture within Mexican communities. Folklorist
Rafaela Castro writes, “participation in folkloric cultural forms such as religious celebrations, social
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dances, ethnic festivals, and other shared traditions maintains ethnic group boundaries and solidifies
ethnic identity.” 90 In more familial and private settings, Mexicana/os participated in informal or folkloric
education through cooking daily meals, telling family histories, singing songs, repeating cuentos
(legends) or dichos (proverbs), and speaking in Spanish. 91 According to Castro, such folkloric education
“validates a community’s culture by maintaining its rituals and institutions for those who participate in
them” and “performs an instructional function by providing a means of passing on wisdom.” 92 Yet,
Mexicana/os did not only practice informal education internally or within their homes and communities.
Several Mexicana/os also practiced informal education externally, by transmitting their ideas
about Mexican history and culture to the broader communities around them. In her research for the Julian
Samora Institute, JoAnna Villone effectively argues that the September 15th and 16th fiesta in St Paul and
similar pageants “were extremely powerful tools in the communication of ethnicity to those within the
group as well as to the larger society,” while at the same time, Villone argues that the celebration also was
a way for Mexicana/os to assimilate “into the existing political, economic, and social institutions of
America” while they retained those aspects of Mexican culture they most valued. 93 In their families, in
Mexican communities, and in the larger communities across the Midwest, Mexicana/os report practicing
selective cultural transmission through intentional lessons and unintentional modeling of the following:
using the Spanish language and practicing bilingualism, using and displaying material culture, making,
consuming, and sharing Mexican food, practicing oral traditions, and performing music and dancing.
Spanish Language and Bilingualism
Perhaps the first thing most parents teach their children is language. In their first interactions and
throughout their growing years, Mexicana/os taught their children Spanish and/or English. Interviewees
reveal the complexities of Mexicana/os’ motivations for teaching their children Spanish and/or English.
Some Mexicana/os used Spanish in the home to maintain Mexican culture, for themselves and
their children, and some continued to use Spanish to resist Americanization. To maintain their Spanish
language and to keep abreast of happenings in Mexico, several Mexicana/os obtained novels and
newspapers in Spanish. The Rangels in St. Paul sent away for books in Spanish about Mexico to show
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their children positive aspects of Mexican culture. 94 For the Rangels and many others, speaking and being
literate in Spanish was an intentional way of upholding Mexican culture and promoting pride in their
heritage.
Some chose to teach both Spanish and English and practiced bilingualism to both promote their
children’s cultural heritage and to prepare their children for success at school. Bilingualism varied from
family to family and was often situational, based largely on parents’ educational backgrounds and
immigrant status. Also, as more children attended school and brought home English, families often
became bilingual by default. Born in the 1920s, sisters Julia Navarro and Rosie Ramirez of Davenport
portray their mother as assertive about their informal education, intentionally speaking English in their
home so that her children would have English for school. Yet, the women’s mother also used Spanish and
taught her daughters Spanish songs. Born in 1945, Sally Ramos of Kansas City, Missouri, says of
language in her home: “We were bilingual…. I spoke both languages fluently…. And, my mother was no
dummy. She worked hard at trying to express herself well and using good English with us. That helped
us.” 95 Many second-generation parents did not totally eliminate teaching children Spanish, even when
they chose to speak primarily English in the home. Victor Rodriguez’s parents grew up in the U.S. and
learned English. When he was born in Emporia in 1946, Rodriguez was part of the third generation.
Rodriguez recalls that his mother “wanted us to learn English to exist in the community, to get along
easier…to speak English but not lose the Spanish because Spanish is a very beautiful language.” 96 Several
Mexicana/os valued bilingualism for themselves and their children, and they taught themselves and their
children both languages as a way to retain their culture even as they safeguarded their success in U.S.
society.
Material Culture
Wearing, making, and displaying material culture were also ways some Mexicana/os transmitted
culture privately and publically. Of growing up in St. Paul, Matthew Casillas recalls, “I think one of the
things we did to keep that in mind [uphold culture] was that, my parents, and a lot of people on the West
Side, would have Mexican skirts.” 97 As a child in Mexico, Teresa Muñoz used to make piñatas that her
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father sold in his store. As an adult living in St. Paul, Muñoz made piñatas for her compadres for
Christmas gifts, and then she made one for her children’s school, and from then on, Mexicana/os and
Anglos began to request her piñatas. Muñoz ended up teaching classes on piñata making at schools,
public and parochial, and she also taught at the International Institute and the public library in St. Paul.
What began as a business and tradition within Muñoz’s family evolved into her teaching people in the
barrio, children in schools, and, eventually, people in the broader community. 98 As markers of both faith
and culture, some Mexicana/os displayed artifacts, like pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which often
accompanied altars and candles. Though these were religious items, they were also items that reminded
people of their Mexican or Tejano background. 99 Other items included pictures of Mexican patriots and
flags. The use or display of material culture in the home or during fiestas was a way for Mexicana/os to
communicate how they valued Mexican culture to their children and others outside their community, even
without explicit lessons about the items.
Making and Consuming Mexican Food
Many Mexicana/os also practiced informal education through their foodways. 100 Gathering
symbolic ingredients, preparing foods associated with one’s culture, and consuming those foods are ways
for people to practice and transmit their culture. These cultural practices help immigrants to retain cultural
traditions and to remember from where and whom they have come; they help to connect generations,
including those who never experienced the practices in the home country. Most interviewees describe
themselves or family members preparing and consuming Mexican foods, and several explain what these
preparations and meals meant to them as Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the
twentieth century. In the making, sharing, and consuming of their foods, all aspects of informal education,
many Mexicana/os transmitted their culture to their children, their community, and broader society.
Mexicana/os’ accounts of teaching and learning about food preparation and the meanings of
particular foods reveal that they not only transmitted culture through their foodways; they also
constructed new cultural identities and shared these through their foodways. Anthropologist Teresa Mares
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writes, “reclaiming and reshaping one’s foodways plays a central role in both longing for home and
building new lives in the United States.” 101 Mares continues:
Migration is inherently a process of dislocation. In the midst of dislocation, sustaining and recreating the cultural and material practices connected to food are powerful ways to enact one’s
cultural identity and sustain connections…. [P]reparing, eating, and sharing meals that are
resonant with one’s foodways—the eating habits or food practices of a community, region or time
period—is a vital piece of maintaining a sense of self in a new environment. 102
Knut Oyangen writes, “preparing and consuming the same foods in a new context is as much an act of
innovation, assertion, and transformation as it is an act of reproducing tradition. Indeed, what passed for
the unconscious reproducing of tradition was often a conscious performance of identity.” 103 Whether
unconscious or conscious, through practicing their foodways, many Mexicana/os taught themselves and
others about who they were and who they were becoming.
Like other immigrant groups in this period, Mexicana/os cooked what was available to them,
which was not always familiar, especially for those early migrants. Not all Mexicana/os knew how to
make Mexican foods, even when the ingredients were available. With many Mexicana/os having lived
transitory lives on the crop circuits and in railroad barrios, cut off from Mexican supplies and without the
ability to have kitchens, food storage, or even running water, many did not learn how to cook.
Additionally, with all of the moving and improvising, what people called “Mexican food” was usually an
amalgamation of food ingredients and cooking techniques. To survive, Mexicana/os adapted, improvised,
and taught each other these skills, making familiar foods in new ways or learning to make new foods.
Cipriana Rodriguez of Garden City, Kansas, recalls her parents working together to cook both Mexican
and American-style food to feed 10-25 men every day after they themselves had worked in the beet fields.
Rodriguez recounts, “It was really not too hard for them to come to this country because of their food.
The only change in the food was a flour tortilla. It was corn over there, and it was flour over here.” 104
Since Rodriguez’s father had spent time in the U.S. before he married, he knew how to use the available
ingredients and taught his wife. 105
234
Interviewees reveal the complexities of making and consuming Mexican foods and the idea of
foods being Mexican. The act of consuming these foods allowed people to identify as Mexican, or for
those born elsewhere, to identify with what it meant to be Mexican. Mexican food tied people to their
roots in Mexico, and it allowed outsiders a way into Mexican culture. Dolores Garcia’s mother prepared
Mexican foods for her U.S.-born children in Iowa, and when Garcia visited Mexico, she observed how
her relatives there prepared food. In her interview, Garcia describes differences in ingredients and
preparation, noting the similarities as well as the foreignness of Mexican cooking. 106 Jeannine Torres was
born in 1930 in France and grew up in an orphanage there. After World War II, at the age of 16, she met
and married Tony Torres, and they returned to Emporia, where her husband had been born and raised. Her
husband spoke some French, but she spoke very little Spanish or English. Torres knew little of French
cooking, having grown up in an orphanage, but she learned to cook from her husband’s family:
I learned how to make tortillas, and my husband’s tia, aunt, we used to call her Tia Puebla, she
was one of my teachers…. She would show me how to make the dough for the tortillas. I almost
used to give up because they would turn up all kinds of shapes and sizes and as hard as a cracker.
But, I finally caught on, and now I can make tortillas just as good as anybody can. And I learned
how to make chili con carne and tacos. You name it, I can make it. 107
For Torres, who learned Spanish before she learned English and who experienced discrimination by the
Anglo community due to her marriage, learning to cook Mexican food was a way for her to find
acceptance in her husband’s family and in the Emporia barrio, and to transmit the culture to her
children. 108 Both Garcia’s and Torres’ educational experiences occurred informally, through observing,
working alongside other women, consuming foods, and experimenting.
In many interviews, Mexicana/os identify their mothers or other Mexicanas as the people who
cooked Mexican food and who taught their children, in many cases, daughters, to cook Mexican foods.
Sometimes they taught children to prepare Mexican foods because that was all they knew how to cook,
but in other cases, mothers taught Mexican cooking as a deliberate act of cultural transmission. When
asked by interviewers if they consumed Mexican foods growing up and in their adult lives, many
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interviewees respond positively and talk about their mothers,’ wives,’ or their own cooking. Elvira
Ramirez of Emporia recollects: “We maintained the kinds of foods my mother knew how to cook in
Mexico within the home,” as well as how they ate the food, using tortillas instead of utensils. 109 Ramirez
recalls that she did not encounter foods other than Mexican until she entered a religious community with
Anglo women. 110 Emilia Rangel of Emporia remembers that her mother made mole, tamales, and
enchiladas for special occasions. Rangel also recalls her mother making sopa, or soup, beans, and chili,
and that her mother made her own tortillas. 111 In St. Paul, Juanita Moran taught her children about their
family history and heritage through her cooking. Moran explains: “I cook what my mother taught me and
also foods which I have seen my aunts cook, whenever I have gone to visit them in Mexico.” 112 Lucy
Vargas of Davenport says her mother also intentionally taught her children how to make Mexican food so
that they would value their Mexican culture. 113
Yet, it was not always easy to prepare Mexican foods, even the simple daily fare of tortillas and
chilies, without the necessary ingredients. In his scholarship on immigrants in the Midwest and identity,
Knut Oyangen found: “Whenever or wherever immigrants went, they found environmental and social
conditions that made reproducing the cultural practices of a different place inconvenient, imprudent, or
impossible.” 114 In response to these adverse conditions, Mexicana/os learned to adapt, made these
adaptations part of their foodways, and passed on these new foodways. When possible, several
Mexicana/os planted gardens and grew chilies, which are key to making any number of Mexican dishes.
In Cook’s Point, near Davenport, Rosie Ramirez’ mother taught her how to make traditional Mexican
foods, namely tortillas, which she tried without success to teach her daughter. Ramirez recalls, “The
Mexican women at that time, they taught their daughters how to make tortillas and roll them out and
everything. We learned to make the flour tortillas, not the corn ones—that’s more of the Mexican from
Mexico. But the flour ones, we all learned to make tortillas.” 115 Many Mexicana/os used wheat flour to
make tortillas because flour was readily available, while corn or masa for making corn tortillas was not
always available, even in the Midwest. Interviewees describe tamaladas, or tamale making gatherings,
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where people not only assembled tamales to sell for fundraisers or to serve during Los Posadas but also to
teach each other techniques and variations.
Many Mexicana/os extended informal lessons about Mexican history and culture through
foodways to the broader community. For settlement house events, church fundraisers, and larger fiestas,
Mexicana/os made and sold hundreds of thousands of tortillas, tacos, enchiladas, and tamales. A
Methodist Anglo from Garden City, Mervin Gardiner recalls eating Mexican food when he attended the
annual Mexican Independence fiestas. 116 In Davenport, Rosie Ramirez recalls making Mexican food for a
fiesta to commemorate the Virgin of Guadalupe and to raise money for St. Joseph’s Church, where
Mexicans and Anglos attended:
All the ladies would get together down at St. Joseph’s Church and cook and do all that. It was
strange because here were all the American women, they had their Christian Mothers, and we had
our [unclear], and finally one of the ladies—she was smart—said, ‘Why do we have it separate?
We have our Christian Mothers and you have your Mexican food.’ It worked out well. We would
go over there and buy some of their goods and they would come over and buy ours…. The next
thing we knew, there we were in the Christian Mothers! 117
By sharing Mexican food in these ways, Mexicana/os could gain entry into the broader community and
begin to teach Anglos about Mexican history and culture beyond stereotypes. Though she was writing
about the Mexican Independence fiesta in St. Paul, JoAnna Villone argues that a fiesta “centered around
tamales, dances, music… was completely acceptable within the discourse of cultural pluralism.” 118 In
other words, Anglos felt safe learning about and experiencing Mexican culture through eating Mexican
food. The acts of making and consuming food are more than biological necessities when people use them
to transmit their history and culture. Through making and sharing food, many Mexicana/os educated their
children, each other, and members of the broader community about aspects of their history and culture.
Oral Traditions
In addition to passing along family and cultural history through their foodways, many
Mexicana/os also passed along familial and cultural history through oral traditions. The extant interviews
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contain numerous accounts of family members and other Mexicana/os in the barrios relating their
migration histories and stories about their involvement in the Mexican Revolution. The interviews also
contain examples of the folktales, or cuentos, the interviewees heard growing up and those they adapted
and told to their own children. Simon Rodriguez of Emporia, Kansas, participated in five interviews in
1980, all of which are lengthy and rich in details and stories. Rodriguez tells the story of his family’s
migration to the United States, he relates his version of the Mexican Revolution, he tells the story of the
Virgin of Guadalupe and explains her significance to the Mexican people, and he also provides rich
contextual details about the history of the Emporia barrio, including particulars about businesses,
churches, and schools. 119 These Mexicana/os told their family histories, stories about Mexico and
immigration, and cuentos to teach their children their heritage and, in some cases, as counters to negative
and stereotypical views of Mexicana/os and Mexican culture.
In many interviews, Mexicana/os provided spoken maps of their families’ migrations. At the
beginning of almost every interview, interviewees recite the birthplaces of their grandparents, their
parents, themselves, their siblings, and, later in the interview, their children. People recall their children’s
or siblings’ births according to where they lived at the time. Many interviewees list the different states,
cities, and small towns through which they moved following the crop circuits, following railroad jobs,
following packinghouse work, and after the floods that swept through barrios situated near river bottoms
and in flood plains. Places became markers for major family events and experiences. Lucy Vargas was
born in 1930 in Pemberton, Minnesota, yet, in her interview, she is able to tell her family’s history, dating
back to the 1880s, with her parents’ births in Chihuahua, Mexico, her older siblings’ births in 1907 and
1910, and their migrations through the U.S. Southwest toward eventual settlement in Iowa:
They came here during the revolution and he [her father] was like a treasurer in Pancho Villa’s
army, and, anyway, they came to the United States looking for a better life, and they crossed over
in El Paso and from there….They didn’t find anything in El Paso, Texas, so they just migrated
through. They lived in New Mexico, they lived in Nebraska…. They went to Minnesota, and my
sister was born in St. Peter, Minnesota, and then…then they moved to Nebraska, and my brother
was born in Nebraska, and then they moved back to Minnesota and I was born in Minnesota.
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And, then from there, I think they lived in Des Moines, Iowa, and different parts of Iowa, and
then they settled in Davenport, Iowa, in 1931. 120
Very few interviewees did not know from where their parents originated and how they came to the
Midwest, which indicates that their parents taught them this information. Adult interviewees like Lucy
Vargas describe the many moves they experienced as children, and with each move, they describe new
challenges and new ways of constructing their identities.
Many parents also told their children how and why they migrated to the United States. Numerous
interviewees, whether or not they migrated themselves, cite the reasons for their families’ migration, their
U.S. entry points if their family members came from Mexico, and the various stopping points where
people lived and worked. Some came to escape the Revolution, some sought more social and economic
security, and some followed family already in the United States. Simon Rodriguez of Emporia recalls that
his family migrated to Emporia in 1917 because of the Mexican Revolution. Though he was only six at
the time, Rodriguez says his father “explained to me, and I know why we came.” 121 In the interview, he
tells the story of Pancho Villa, likening him to Robin Hood, “stealing from the rich and helping the poor,”
but also states that his father had nothing and no hope to earn a living. 122 Rodriguez relates the
powerlessness his father experienced in providing for himself and his family during the turmoil.
Rodriguez’ father shared the stories of those struggles and how the family came to move to Emporia to
work for the Santa Fe Railroad. 123 Many parents and community members told stories about family and
cultural history, of Mexico and the U.S., providing Mexicana/os with a sense of knowing from where they
came and being able to place themselves in mainstream history and U.S. culture that often did not include
them.
Some parents told children stories about Mexico and Mexican culture to counter discrimination
and stereotypes in their environment. Crecencia Rangel explains that, in response to a discriminatory
incident her eldest daughter, Juanita, experienced at school, her husband sought out literature to teach his
U.S.-born children about Mexico:
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There was an incident at the school where they talked about how they only gave us the beet work,
that there wasn’t any choice for the Mexicans. They did not care about the Mexicans because we
were in the minority. ‘What do you know? You are like the animals that work in the soil. What
civilization do you have? What business do you have in school?’ And my daughter Juanita would
defend us. This is how they treated us. That is why my husband started to send away for books so
they [their children] could see that it [Mexico] was not like that at all. 124
According to his wife and several of his children, Francisco Rangel, Sr., also taught his children and
others in the barrio through plays he wrote and directed that highlighted religious and historical events
and personages in Mexican history. 125
In several interviews, Mexicana/os recall learning about Mexico and Mexican culture informally
through other oral traditions, including casos and cuentos, especially the story of La Llorona. Castro
defines casos as short narratives about a particular event that happened to the narrator or someone with
whom the narrator was familiar, while cuentos are more like folktales or legends. 126 Both Castro and Vigil
explain that some narratives may qualify as both, as in the case of La Llorona, which is a folktale but is
also a figure that narrators have claimed to encounter.127 Folklore and Chicana/o scholars have identified
complex symbolism in La Llorona, or the weeping woman, narratives. Folklore scholars have found that
the La Llorona legend has ties back to Aztec folklore, as recorded by Spaniards, as well as to traditions
that arose after the Conquest. In some stories, La Llorona is portrayed as the Indian mistress of Cortés, La
Malinche, who purportedly murdered her children by Cortés when he left her to go back to Spain. In other
versions, La Llorona is an Indian and her lover a wealthy rancher who takes a bride of the same
socioeconomic status and race, and she murders her children by him out of rage or madness. Most of the
versions portray the protagonist caught in a state of perpetual repentance, searching for her murdered
children, and put her in the role of one who punishes those who go against social norms, like marrying
outside one’s race or class. 128
According to folklore scholars Vigil and Castro, La Llorona is the most popular cuento retold by
Mexicana/os in Mexico and in the United States, as well as in other South American countries.129
Folklore scholars explain that Mexicana/os repeated the legend not only as part of a Mexican tradition, as
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the story can be traced back to the Aztecs, but also as a lesson to children to come in before dark or not to
cry because La Llorona would come for them. 130 Lorenzo Delgado of Emporia recalls hearing stories like
La Llorona or El Diablo, the Devil, in Spanish from his parents and others in the community: “A lot of
people reminiscing, old customs and old traditions.” 131 Delgado names cuentistas, or storytellers, who
were men and women from the barrio: Lucil Ramirez, Carmen Alonzo, and Palo Torres. 132 Emilia Rangel
of Emporia relates that people living at Las Casitas, the brick houses where railroad workers lived, used
to tell the story of La Llorona:
We sat around, you know we didn’t have no TV. We sat around and sang songs or sat around and
listened to stories like that. They used to say that this lady, what did she do---kill her little baby or
something. Anyways, after that, she was sorry, and every night, she would come out and cry for
her little baby. And, if you listen real hard, you could hear it. 133
Rangel recalls, “Anastacio Torres, he was a very good story-teller.” 134 Simon Rodriguez relates in his
interview that people in the community told stories about La Llorona: “They would scare the kids like
that, you know, trying to say if you don’t, I’ll leave you outside so the Llorona will take you.” 135 These
oral traditions and stories, those who told them, and how they were told left deep impressions on the
interviewees. These Mexicana/os used oral traditions to transmit Mexican culture to the next generations.
Music and Dancing
While numerous interviewees recall teaching their children or themselves music as a deeply
personal pursuit, a skill for making a living, or for personal enjoyment, many more taught music and/or
dance as a way to transmit Mexican culture within their families, barrios, and larger communities. Passing
on traditional Mexican music could be very familial and intimate, in the form of lullabies or songs parents
sang to their children at home. In her interview, Emilia Rangel of Emporia remembers that her mother
sang the lullaby “A la ruru raca” in Spanish. 136 The tune Rangel describes is a version of “A la ruru niño,”
a lullaby common in Latin America. Rangel’s version is similar to one that focuses on the Virgin of
Guadalupe and would have been a means of passing down the traditional story of the Virgin. 137 Julia
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Navarro of Davenport recalls that her mother taught her and her sister Rosie Ramirez Mexican songs in
Spanish, including “Cuatro Milpas.” 138 Not only did Navarro and Ramirez’s mother teach her daughters
traditional songs, but the young women went on to teach the songs to their classmates at school.
Eventually, Navarro and Ramirez performed the songs for wider audiences when they travelled with their
Spanish class and performed the songs. 139 While many interviewees recall their mothers singing these
songs to sooth them and teach them about Mexican culture, in some cases, Mexicana/os took these songs,
as well as other music and dances outside of the home to teach a broader audience about Mexican culture
in the barrios and beyond. In many cases, interviewees describe dancing as another way of celebrating
religious and social events and transmitting culture. Traditional Aztec and Mexican dances evolved as
people migrated to the Southwest and into the Midwest. Cirilo Arteaga of Emporia recounts the many
people from his neighborhood who organized and performed traditional Mexican dances and who taught
others, including children, about their Mexican heritage. Arteaga tells the story:
The Aztec Dancers put on [a performance] in the spring, put on by the neighbor Matachines. In
the Fiesta de Santo Isidro. A Catholic feast day… the dances, they were put on at the Torres
family house, they had a kind of big driveway on the corner… and the dancers would dance….
The thing I was always impressed with was the old men, the viejos, they would carry the bull
whips. And, if somebody got out of step, they would put them in step. 140
Arteaga recalls that the dancers came from several families and that women from the community made
the costumes, “like Indian costumes with the feathers that were made out of cut tin cans […] and then
they’d made rattles out of gourds.” 141 Arteaga’s descriptions also reveal how some Mexicana/os modeled
gendered roles not only in who taught the dances and who made the costumes but also in the roles people
played in the dancing. Only young Mexicanos learned and performed the dances.
On the West Side of St. Paul, one family in particular illustrates the role of performing Mexican
music, dances, and drama in the informal education of Mexicana/os in the Midwest at this time. The
Rangels took traditional Mexican music and dances from their home and into the rest of the barrio and the
larger St. Paul community and did so with intent. Francisco Rangel, Sr., held positions as the president of
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the Sociedad Mutua Benéfica Recreativa Anahuac, a mutualista, and as an official volunteer for the
Mexican Consul out of Chicago. Historian Dionicio Valdés describes Rangel’s consular work: “to
represent the Mexican government and promote social, cultural, and educational activities and to provide
a link between colonia residents and public and privates agencies.” 142 Numerous interviewees, including
his wife and three of his children, reveal that the elder Rangels worked to retain Mexican Catholic
traditions in their home. 143 Teresa Muñoz recalled about the Rangel family: “Don Pancho was very
Mexican, so the girls would sing real Mexican songs. He reminded me of my father.” 144 The Rangels also
carried their nationalistic activism into the Neighborhood House settlement, at Our Lady of Guadalupe
Church, and in the barrio, educating Mexicana/os about the cultural meanings of feast days and patriotic
holidays through speeches, plays, songs, and dances.
For the Rangel family of St. Paul, drama, music, and dance were the primary means of teaching
their children Mexican culture and providing them with skills and leadership opportunities that later
influenced how they taught their own children and others in the community about Mexican culture.
Juanita Moran, the eldest daughter of the Rangels, recalls her role in cultural festivities:
My father was a member of the Anahuac Society and he was very active. It was because of him
that we participated in celebrations like the 5th of May and the 16th of September…. I remember
helping my father out in putting programs together to celebrate patriotic feasts…. My father
would say that he did this so that people would remember the customs followed in Mexico and
also so that the young people could learn and preserve important aspects of our Mexican
culture…. Many families would participate, but then there were those who believed that these
traditions should be done away with since we were living in the United States. 145
Juanita’s younger sister, Maria Moran also remembers her parents’ influences in the community and how
they taught their children and other children in the community Mexican culture.
At the time of her interview in 1975, Maria Moran directed the Ballet Folkoric Guadalupano,
which she started in 1959, and she credits her work to her earlier experiences participating in festivals:
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The interest and inspiration that I have comes from way back, from my parents. They are from
Mexico…[my dad] did not forget his customs, traditions, and so forth. When he did move into
what we called the West Side at that time… he started in with the fiestas on the 15th and 16th [of
September] and Cinco de Mayo. At that time, his children… were a little bit small…. But, then,
as soon as we were able to, he put us up on stage and whether we liked it or not, we were there.
We weren’t in a position to say no. He wasn’t a dancer but my mother was; I remember how she
would try and teach the little ones for the fiesta…. So, in this respect she got her own children
started. We used to get up there and say speeches and poesias and then dance…. All kinds of little
speeches…. My sister Juanita, who is the eldest in the family; she started, herself, performing at
the fiestas. When she was old enough, she sang and danced…. And, then she sang with my sister
Fidela, that was the second one…. So, when the other one grew up, that was Eugenia… she
started in… when Juanita got married, then she went on and sang with me, and from me went on
to my sister Genoveva, and Kiko [Moran’s brother]. 146
Maria Moran and her sisters were called “Las Hermanas Rangel” and were as well known in the
community as their father.
Following her father’s and mother’s examples, Juanita Moran, formerly Rangel, explains that she
provided her children with similar informal education about their culture:
I have always taught my children to appreciate Mexican songs and dances. Ever since they were
very young, I would sing to them and teach them Mexican songs. I also did the same for
dances…. I used to, and still do, play it [the piano] for them. I would also read to them and tell
them about my life in Mexico and the customs and traditions of Mexico. I also bought them
records so that they would gain a better understanding of our music. 147
Moran also asserts that her parents and husband were very supportive of her work, and she valued “the
drive of my parents because they always said, ‘continue what you’re doing. Teach the young ones.’” 148
In his interview, Francisco “Kiko” Rangel recalls that his family did not limit their performances
of traditional Mexican songs and dances to fiestas or church events, the NH, or even the West Side. They
performed in functions all over the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and with Anglo audiences: “When people
outside the West Side wanted entertainment, they would always call the girls. We would always go out to
perform in different communities, different sections, different parts of the city.” 149 Rangel explains that he
believed that taking their music out into other communities was important:
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The way that the Mexican community or the Mexican people can go out and perform to the
American people to show them that we have talent. To show them that we are not just the
Mexican people, we are doing something, keeping our culture and performing and doing a good
job, having a good home, and trying to bring up the name of the Mexican people, wherever they
are. Just trying to make a good impression on everybody. 150
As the Rangels indicate in their interviews, the whole Rangel family, including the children, was a force
in informal education in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area. In their homes, barrios, and larger communities,
the Rangels and many other Mexicana/os transmitted Mexican history and culture through music and
dance.
Conclusion
Generations of Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century
experienced and participated in informal education outside of schools and other non-formal settings like
churches and settlement houses. The broad spectrum of informal education Mexicana/os provided their
children and taught themselves covered life skills, faith and morality, literacy and language, and cultural
transmission. Informal learning, whether it was self-taught, within families, or from members of the
community, varied widely according to generation, education, cultural identity, gender identity, and
personal skills and preferences. Many Mexicana/os learned informal lessons in the privacy of their homes,
watching their parents model reading or morals, and some Mexicana/os experienced more intentional
lessons with tutors and mentors teaching explicit skills. Many Mexicana/os taught themselves skills that
brought them personal fulfillment and livelihoods. These informal educational experiences begin to fill in
many gaps in the historiography concerning the overall education of Mexicana/os living in the United
States in this era.
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Notes
1
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
2
Juanita Moran, MAPHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
3
Ladislao Lopez, Dr., HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
4
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
5
Frederico Saucedo, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
6
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Dionicio
Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2000); Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Mexicans in Minnesota (St. Paul, MN: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 2005).
7
Mercy Aguilera, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
8
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
9
John Gonzales, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
10
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
11
Ibid.
12
Lucy Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
13
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
14
Ibid.
15
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
16
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
17
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
18
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
19
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
20
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
21
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
22
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas; Mary Soliz Diaz, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
23
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
24
John Gonzales, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
25
Ladislao Lopez, Dr., HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
246
26
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
27
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
28
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
29
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
30
Ladislao Lopez, Dr., HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
31
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
32
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, KCPL, Kansas City, Missouri.
33
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
34
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
35
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
36
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Juanita Moran,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
37
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
38
Ibid.
39
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
40
Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
41
Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN
.
42
Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
43
Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
44
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
45
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, KS.
46
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
47
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
48
Rosina M. Becerra, “The Mexican-American Family” in Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations, ed.
Charles H. Mindel, Robert W. Habenstein, and Roosevelt Wright, Jr., 4th ed (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall,
Inc., 1998), 153-171; Richard Griswald Del Castillo, La Familia: Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest, 1848 to
the Present (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984); Ana María Díaz-Stevens, “Latinas and the
Church,” in Hispanic Catholic Culture in the U.S.: Issues and Concerns, ed. Jay P. Dolan and Allan Figueroa Deck,
S.J. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 240-277; Oscar J. Martínez, Mexican-Origin People in
the United States: A Topical History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001); Joan W. Moore, Mexican
247
Americans (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970); Jeanette Rodriguez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and
Empowerment among Mexican-American Women (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).
49
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
50
Crocker, “Gary Mexicans and ‘Christian Americanization,’” in Foraging a Community: The Latino Experience in
Northwest Indiana, 1919-1975, ed. James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987); Sister
Mary Helen Rogers, “The Role of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the Adjustment of the Mexican Community to
Life in the Indiana Harbor Area, 1940-1951,” in Foraging a Community: The Latino Experience in Northwest
Indiana, 1919-1975, ed. James B. Lane, and Edward J. Escobar (Chicago: Cattails Press, 1987); Juan Francisco
Martinez, Sea la Luz: The Making of Mexican Protestantism in the American Southwest, 1829-1900 (Denton, TX:
University of North Texas Press, 2006); Gilberto M. Hinojosa, “Mexican-American Faith Communities in Texas
and the Southwest,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M.
Hinojosa (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994); Burns, “The Mexican Catholic Community,” in
Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1994); Badillo, “The Catholic Church,” in Mexican Americans and the Catholic
Church, 1900-1965, eds. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto M. Hinojosa (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1994).
51
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
52
Ibid.
53
Salvador Lopez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
54
Mercy Aguilera, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
55
Mercy Aguilera, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of
Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
56
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
57
Ibid.
58
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Juanita Moran,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
59
Lorenzo Delgado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
60
Carmen Alvarado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
61
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
62
Bob Hernandez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
63
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
64
Angel Vigil, The Corn Woman: Stories and Legends of the Hispanic Southwest (Englewood, CA: Libraries
Unlimited, Inc., 1994): xxi.
65
Ibid.
66
Vigil, The Corn Woman,1994: xxi.
67
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
248
68
John Lopez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
69
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
70
Ibid.
71
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
72
Ibid.
73
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
74
Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
75
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
76
Ibid.
77
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
78
Ibid.
79
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
80
Ibid.
81
Paul Rojas, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
82
Lucy Lopez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
83
Magdalena Rodriguez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
84
Manuela Lozano, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
85
Ladislao Lopez, Dr., HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
86
Ibid.
87
Gregory Gonzales, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
88
Lorenzo Delgado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
89
Lorenzo Delgado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
90
Rafaela G. Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000): p. xv.
91
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994.
92
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000: p. xiv.
93
JoAnna Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity Among Mexican-Americans in St. Paul, Minnesota in the
Post-WWII Era,” JSRI Working Paper No. 7, The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan, 1997: p. 13.
94
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
249
95
Sally Ramos, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
96
Victor Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
97
Matthew Casillas, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
98
Teresa Muñoz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
99
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000.
100
Sidney Mintz, Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1996): 7-8. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz describes the premises of the study of foodways: “The food eaten
have histories associated with the pasts of those who eat them; the techniques employed to find, process, prepare,
serve, and consume the foods are all culturally variable, with histories of their own. Nor is food ever simply eaten;
its consumption is always conditioned by meaning. These meanings are symbolic, and communicated symbolically;
they also have histories.” For more on foodways studies, see: Gillian Crowther, Eating Culture: An Anthropological
Guide to Food (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013); Donna R. Gabaccia, We Are What We Eat: Ethnic
Food and the Making of Americans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at
the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet (Oakland: University of California Press, 2003); Jennifer
Jensen Wallach, How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture (New York: Rowman and Littlefield
Publishers, 2012).
101
Teresa M. Mares, “Tracing Immigrant Identity Through the Plate and the Palate,” Latino Studies 10, no. 3
(2012): 334.
102
Mares, “Tracing Immigrant Identity,” 2012: 334.
103
Knut Oyangen, “The Gastrodynamics of Displacement: Place-Making and Gustatory Identity in the Immigrants’
Midwest,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XXXIX, Number 3 (Winter, 2009): 324.
104
Cipriana Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
105
Ibid.
106
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
107
Jeannine Torres, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
108
Jeannine Torres, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
109
Elvira Ramirez, HOHC, MVSC, Kansas City Public Library, Kansas City, Missouri.
110
Ibid.
111
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
112
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
113
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
114
Oyangen, “The Gastrodynamics of Displacement,” 2009: 347-348.
115
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
116
Mervin Gardiner, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 750, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
250
117
Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
118
Villone, “The Construction of Ethnic Identity,” 1997: 13.
119
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
120
Lucy Vargas, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
121
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
122
Ibid.
123
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
124
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
125
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Juanita Moran,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
126
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000: 47 & 82-83.
127
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994.
128
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994; Domino Renee Pérez,
“Caminando con La Llorona: Traditional and Contemporary Narratives,” in Chicana Traditions: Continuity and
Change, ed. Norma E. Cantu and Olga Nájera-Ramírez (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002): 100-116.
129
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994.
130
Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994.
131
Lorenzo Delgado, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
132
Ibid.
133
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
134
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
135
Simon Rodriguez, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
136
Emilia Rangel, ROC, Kansas Collection, RH MS 751, KSRL, UKL, Lawrence, Kansas.
137
Gloria G. Rodriguez, Raising Nuestros Niños: Bringing Up Latino Children in a Bicultural World (New York:
Fireside, 1999): 230; Castro, Dictionary of Chicano Folklore, 2000; Vigil, The Corn Woman, 1994.
138
Ibid.
139
Julia Navarro, MLP, IWA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Rosa “Rosie” Ramirez, MLP, IWA, University
of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
140
Cirilo Arteaga, EHP, SCUA, WSU, Wichita, Kansas.
141
Ibid.
142
Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 2000.
251
143
Crecencia Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Juanita Moran,
MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN; Francisco, Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
144
Teresa Muñoz, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
145
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, 49, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
146
Maria Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
147
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
148
Juanita Moran, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
149
Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
150
Francisco Rangel, MAOHP, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
252
CONCLUSION
Mary Terronez was born in Mexico in 1918. At the age of five, Terronez immigrated to the U.S. with her
family. They settled in Davenport, Iowa’s Cook’s Point barrio, near where her father worked for the Santa
Fe Railroad. With eleven children, family finances were often strained. Terronez’ parents enrolled her at
St. Alphonsus School, the school affiliated with the parish where many Mexican/os from the barrio
attended mass and school. Terronez recalls that she left St. Alphonsus after two years because of the
abuse she faced:
it was so bad. There was a lot of prejudice…. I didn’t know any English at all, and they didn’t
know any Spanish. The sister, the nun would grab hold of my blouse and shake me, and point to
the wall, and then I would cry because I didn’t know what she was saying, and she couldn’t
understand what I was saying. 1
In another incident, a sister slapped Terronez and broke her glasses, after which her mother decided to
move her children to Monroe School, the local public school. There, Terronez was one of few
Mexicana/os in attendance. Again, her teachers did not speak Spanish and were frustrated with her
inability to speak English, but they were not physically abusive with the second grader. Eventually,
Terronez learned English “just by listening to other people talk,” and she graduated from Monroe School
after completing the sixth grade. 2
While Terronez does not explain why she did not continue on to junior high school, she does say
she felt both relief and remorse about leaving school. Terronez experienced a period of relief when she no
longer felt “funny” about her poor and inadequate clothing at school, but she soon regretted her decision
and wanted to earn a General Educational Development (GED) certificate. As a young adult, Terronez
helped her mother around the house and married at 18. Within short succession, Terronez had six
children, and when her husband became ill, she worked to support her family, putting off earning her
GED. In the 1940s, Terronez worked as a social worker for the Muscatine Migrant Committee and
253
interpreted for Mexicana/os, going into schools with them as an advocate. 3 Later, Terronez served as a
special education aide in the Davenport Schools, worked as a bilingual education aid in the Rock IslandMilan School District, in Illinois, and raised money for scholarships through the local League of United
Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council 10, in Davenport, Iowa. Throughout this work, Terronez did
not give up on pursuing her own education. Terronez explains that after her husband died, “that’s the first
thing I did. I went back to school to get my GED.” 4 Terronez requested time off from work and sought
out tutoring, but she failed her first three attempts at the exam. Terronez passed the fourth in 1976. Soon
after, when her daughter began attending Palmer Junior College, she asked Terronez, “‘Why don’t you go
with me? You can do ceramics while I’m in class.’” Terronez responded, “And, I said, ‘Hey, if I’m going
with you, I’m coming to learn!... I will take classes.’” 5 Terronez earned her AA degree in 1980, and four
of her children graduated from college. Terronez remarked about her life, “I’ve always been for
education.” 6
Mary Terronez’ story and those of hundreds of other Mexicana/os in extant oral history
interviews reveal that Mexicana/os pursued education, supported their children’s education, and
advocated for equitable education in their communities. Like Terronez’, many Mexicana/os’ educational
paths were not linear and did not follow conventional timetables. Circumstances often made finding,
persisting in, and attaining success or fulfillment in schooling difficult. In the first half of the twentieth
century, thousands of Mexicana/os living in the Midwest continued to seek out education for themselves
and their children and attain their formal, non-formal, and informal educational goals.
Based on hundreds of extant oral history interviews and other primary and secondary sources, I
argue that Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the twentieth century valued education
and deliberately pursued formal, non-formal, and informal education. Mexicana/os faced great obstacles
when they faced discrimination in public and parochial schools in the Midwest. Many stayed in school,
and when more high schools became available in the 1930s, Mexicana/os graduated, though not in large
numbers. Beyond formal schooling, Mexicana/os’ sought non-formal education through institutions like
settlements and churches. At Neighborhood House in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Guadalupe Center in
254
Kansas City, Missouri, Mexicana/os navigated Americanization and exhibited agency by initiating and
joining clubs based on their interests and educational goals, leading, educating the broader community,
and advocating in their communities. Mexicana/os also sought out non-formal educational opportunities
in Protestant and Catholic churches and missions, utilizing these institutions to organize mutualistas and
devotional societies through which they taught themselves, other parishioners, and the broader
community about service, faith, and Mexican history and culture. Finally, through informal education,
Mexicana/os found the means to teach and learn skills, lessons in faith, values, and literacy, and they also
developed and transmitted Mexican history and culture, on their own terms. In the first half of the
twentieth century, many Mexicana/os were “for education” and found the means to pursue it.
Mexicana/o Educational Experiences in the Midwest in the 1950s and Beyond
The limited historiography and evidence from oral history interviews point to both change and
consistency in educational opportunities communities made available to Mexican Americans in
midwestern schools and in Mexicana/os’ responses to available schooling in the decades that followed the
period of this study. The Kansas City, Kansas, school district maintained segregated schools and separate
facilities for Mexicana/os through the early 1950s, with Clara Barton closing when it was destroyed in the
1951 flood. 7 In Fort Madison, Iowa, the Mexican Room at Richardson School remained open until 1956. 8
In yearbooks for Kansas City, Kansas’ Argentine High School and Davenport’s Central High School
(formerly Davenport High School), more Spanish-surnames appear every year through the 1960s.
In the interviews, several Mexicana/os explain their and their children’s responses to school
structures and offerings through the 1950s and 1960s and their own notions of what schooling meant to
them. Mexican Americans continued to make decisions about how they attended and participated in
formal schooling and how they utilized schools to meet their needs. For example, Mary Terronez’
daughter Phyllis Fillers attended St. Alphonsus School, though her daughter explains that she did not
experience abuse or discrimination as did her mother. 9 Fillers attended public schools for junior high and
high school, but her brother John wanted to attend Catholic school, which required tuition and
255
transportation. To pay for his schooling, John Terronez worked summers for the railroad, a cement
company, and a produce company, and he hitchhiked to and from school since a bus line did not extend to
the Cook’s Point barrio. Of Mary Terronez’ six children, four earned college degrees and a fifth attended
some college and until her death as a young woman. While her eldest daughter did not attend college,
Terronez says she did finish formal schooling. 10 In the interviews of Mexicana/os who parented during
the 1950s and 1960s, several report that some or even all of their children graduated from high school or
earned a GED, many doing so during or after their military service. Interviewees indicate that by the
1950s and 1960s, significant numbers of second and third generation Mexicana/os continued to drop out
of school, and few Mexicana/os went on to college and earned advanced degrees. While the interviews
provide stories about several Mexicana/os who finished high school or earned a GED and went on to
college and successful careers, many more did not. In the 1970s, only about one hundred people of
Mexican-origin had earned Ph.Ds. in the U.S. 11 Dionicio Valdés argues that, at least for Mexicana/os in
St. Paul, the post-WWII era did not mean a rise in opportunities, including in education. In many cases,
Mexicana/os left school to serve in WWII or in the Korean War, and those who stayed found it difficult to
finish schooling because their families needed them to work or they felt disheartened because their
schooling did not ensure work or higher paying and more reliable work. 12
Even more than they did during the first half of the century, Mexicana/os used schools as a means
for increasing socio-economic capital and for activism in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. Mario
Garcia writes that Mexican Americans “focused on school issues as a natural forum for their social
protest. Schools affected their children’s chances for the American dream as well as serving as a
community issue bringing together all sectors of the barrio.” 13 Many of the interviewees held positions in
midwestern chapters of LULAC and the GI Forum, organizations started in the 1940s in the Southwest.
Through these organizations, Mexicana/os worked for equity in schools and community reform. Much of
their work centered on raising money for scholarships and promoting education to youth. Mary Terronez
devoted much time and effort for her work in LULAC and raised money for many scholarships. 14 In the
Southwest and Western U.S., Mexicana/os continued to take legal action in pursuit of language rights and
256
school equity, 15 but little scholarship addresses any legal action to address school equity or desegregation
for Mexicana/os in the Midwest. The 1960s were a time of more active and publicized activism in and
through the schools. However, again, much of the scholarship that discusses student movements of the
mid- to late-1960s centers on the more publicized blowouts, or school walkouts, and demonstrations in
California and the Southwest. 16 More scholarship is needed to look into community, parental, and student
activism in and through the schools in the Midwest leading up to and during the Chicano Movement.
Beyond schools, the midwestern institutions that provided non-formal education changed with the
times in order to stay operational and relevant. Both Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center evolved
from doing settlement work to doing social work, and they both took on the title of community center. In
the early to mid-1950s, several Midwestern barrios closed due to flooding and/or urban renewal projects,
and as Mexicana/os moved out of the neighborhoods, they moved out of settlement neighborhoods and
outside of church parish boundaries. In St. Paul, Minnesota, Kansas City, Kansas, and Davenport, Iowa,
Mexicana/os lost their neighborhoods and many struggled to find homes in other areas of the cities. In
response, workers and neighbors at Neighborhood House assisted Mexicana/os and provided a place for
them to continue to meet with their former community members. Guadalupe Center and Mexicana/os in
Kansas City, Missouri, helped many Mexicana/os from Kansas City, Kansas, to build new community
connections. Neighborhood House moved locations in St. Paul and Mexicana/os continued to participate,
with many taking leadership roles in administration and on staff. 17 This was also the case for Guadalupe
Center, with many more Mexicana/os joining the ranks of center staff and leadership. 18 Yet, while many
Mexicana/os continued to participate at these settlements and in the churches, several left these
organizations due to political shifts and/or because they no longer lived nearby.
As with formal and non-formal education, informal education for Mexicana/os in the Midwest
saw continuity and change. The interviews indicate that many parents and members of the community
continued to provide informal education for their children and communities but what they taught and how
they taught changed significantly in the next decades. Several parents report that they continued to teach
life skills, faith and values, and culture, but as people’s views about skills, faith, values, and culture
257
shifted, so did their teaching. Perhaps the biggest change in informal education apparent in the interviews
is that of language and bilingualism. Through the 1950s, many families practiced bilingualism, retaining
Spanish and also promoting English for children’s school success. But, in the late 1960s and beyond,
fewer parents report teaching their children Spanish or speaking it in the home. Some report speaking
Spanish with their spouses and that their children might have understood some words, but many of the
children no longer had the ability to speak Spanish. More scholarship regarding the first half of the
century and examinations of Mexican Americans’ participation in formal, non-formal, and informal
education through the 1950s and into the 1960s in the Midwest would greatly enrich the historiography.
Where to from Here
This dissertation works to provide more depth and breadth to the history of Mexican American
education and Mexican American history by looking at formal, non-formal, and informal education and
by focusing on Mexicana/o participation in education in the midwestern U.S. The dissertation also
contributes to scholarship in immigration studies, U.S. Settlements, women’s organizations, and U.S.
Catholic education in the first half of the twentieth century. And, while the dissertation’s scope is large,
many gaps remain and avenues for further research abound. Below, I discuss several avenues for further
research in the region: more extant oral history interviews and collections, remaining gaps in my own and
others’ scholarship, more depth and breadth in regard to institutions and groups that offered non-formal
education, and research trajectories to other parts of the Midwest.
Extant Oral History Interviews
In my research, I found extant oral histories to be extremely valuable. First, they save researchers
a lot of time and money since someone else has done the legwork, including, in many cases, transcribing
interviews. Second, and most importantly, extant interviews are invaluable sources from those actors in
recent history who have aged beyond being able to participate in an interview or who are no longer living.
Most early Mexicana/o settlers in the Midwest and many of their children are now departed. The
interviewers for the three sets of Robert Oppenheimer’s oral history projects regarding Garden City,
258
Emporia, and Kansas City, Kansas, the Hispanic Oral History Project in Kansas City Missouri, and the
Mexican-American Oral History Project of the Minnesota Historical Society conducted interviews in the
1970s and 1980s, which allowed interviewers to document the stories of several Mexicana/os born in the
late 1800s and early 1900s. The interviewers for most recent interview projects from the early 2000s
managed to gather interviews and other ephemera from Mexicana/os born near the turn of the century and
into the 1920s, though many had reached advanced ages. In the case of Mary Terronez, Kären Mason of
the Iowa Women’s Archive at the University of Iowa interviewed Terronez in December of 2003, and
Terronez passed away in 2009, well before I began my research. Many of the extant collections I located
in my earlier research call for more exploration, and, since then, I have located several more archived
collections of extant oral history interviews of Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the
twentieth century. Additionally, several archives and organizations have begun to make available online
transcripts and even sound recordings of interviews.
For my research, I used only those Mexican-American Oral History Project interviews at the
Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) that related to the time period of my study, about half of those
available. Yet, the remaining interviews hold information about the changing community and
Mexicana/os’ and Chicana/os’ educational experiences and participation well into the twenty-first
century. Additionally, the MHS also houses the Lideres Latinos Oral History Project. This collection is
composed of 50 interviews of Latina/o leaders from all around Minnesota, and as the name implies,
interviewees are not only those of Mexican-origin. Many of the interviewees did not live in Minnesota
during the timeframe for my study; however, the interviews are relevant for scholars looking at
educational issues from the 1960s and 1970s and/or those scholars looking to compare Mexicana/os’
experiences with those of other Latina/os. One of the assets of this collection is that, like the other oral
history project at MHS, the digitized interviews and the transcripts are available online.
Several collections merit further investigation for better understanding the educational history of
Mexicana/os in Iowa. The Davenport Public Library Special Collections holds the Iowa Stories 2000
project, which includes oral histories of area persons from different ethnic backgrounds and/or different
259
professions and experiences (teachers, veterans, farmers). Students from local intermediate schools
conducted the interviews, including the Mexican-American portion of the project in 2007. There is not a
finding aid, and the librarian was unable to provide details about the number of interviews or the
timeframes represented in the interviews. These interviews may work to help scholars continue with
research for the first half of the twentieth century as well as the second half.
At the Iowa Historical Society, I found the Iowa Federation of Labor’s Iowa Labor History Oral
Project, which contains over a thousand interviews of men and women during three separate collection
periods: 1954-1968, 1975-1993, and 1998-2000, with earliest collection period being of most interest to
me. Many of these interviews include information about individuals’ lives beyond their union work. The
collection also includes other documents and ephemera. 19 In my initial investigations, I found six
interviews with Mexicanos from Fort Madison, Davenport, Mason City, and Cedar Rapids, though it
looks like several of the interviews may contain information from several informants. In spite of the small
number of Mexicana/o interviewees, other interviewees may also discuss Mexicana/os’ experiences and
provide important context for further research. While the project focuses on labor history, the interviews
hold promise for history of education research. For example, the online interview index page for Fidel
Alvarez, who was born in Fort Madison, Iowa, in 1938 and who held membership in the Railroad
Workers and the Maintenance of Way Employees unions, reveals that the interview contains information
about the following subjects: support for Mexican American community, a Mexican American baseball
team in Maquoketa, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), childhood games and recreation, churches
and discrimination against Mexican Americans, discrimination against Mexican Americans in Iowa
towns, Mexican American community in Fort Madison, and Mexican Independence Day celebrations.20
While the index does not mention schools, many of the indexed experiences and recollections may reveal
insights into formal, non-formal, and/or informal education.
The collection I found with the most emphasis on informal education in the Midwest is the
Nebraska State Historical Society (NSHS) Mexican American Traditions in Nebraska Project, which
includes 50 interviews. In the interviews, Mexicana/os provide rich details about informal education in
260
locations throughout the state, including people who taught dance, music, and crafts that work to transmit
Mexican history and culture. Early in my research, I visited the NSHS, and, initially, I wanted to use the
interviews. However, I decided against them because more than half the interviews deal with experiences
after 1955, most interviewees do not address formal schooling, and I would have had to transcribe the
interviews. Regardless of the work involved, Mexican American Traditions is a valuable collection for
future educational research because few of the interviews I consulted in other collections included
information about Mexicana/o participation in education of any sort in Nebraska. This collection would
also be invaluable for a more extended exploration of the non-formal and informal education Mexicana/os
pursued in the latter half of the century.
Another collection valuable to the continued study of non-formal education, specifically that of
settlements from the viewpoint of participants, is that of the Hull-House Oral History Collection housed
at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The collection holds over 100 transcribed interviews. I did not use
these interviews for my study because few interviewees listed have Spanish surnames and the finding aids
did not indicate much information about the ethnic and/or racial identities of the interviewees.
Additionally, based on the finding aid, many of the interviews address more recent Hull-House history. 21
Based on the excellent scholarship to be found in Pots of Promise, Mexicana/os not only participated in
non-formal education at Hull-House, their pottery work became nationally known and acclaimed. The
interviews might shed more light on not only Mexicana/o participation at Hull-House but also on how
other participants and settlement workers viewed Mexicana/os and their impact on the settlement.
Further east, the Indiana University Center for the Study of History and Memory at Indiana
University holds a collection entitled “Testimonios: Documenting the Lives and Faith of Latino
Immigrants, 2001-2002.” In the interviews, interviewees, mostly immigrants from Mexico, discuss their
immigration stories, their lives in the U.S., the role of their faith and church in their lives, and their roles
in the community. 22 In my initial research for the dissertation, I decided against using these interviews
because six of the 11 interviews are transcribed in Spanish and my Spanish abilities are very basic. Yet,
261
these interviews hold valuable information that would contribute to the historiography, including
investigations looking more broadly at Latina/o educational experiences.
While I found several notable collections that address Mexicana/os’ educational history in Kansas
City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, there are more to mine. The Kansas City Museum of Kansas
City, Missouri, holds the “Voices of the Past, Mexican Americans Tell Their Stories” project collections,
which include 13 interviews with members of the 1951 Flood Survivor Organization. Historian and
community activist Dr. Genovevo Chávez conducted the interviews in 1992 with the second-generation
Mexicana/os who lived in the Argentine, Armourdale, Rosedale, and West Bottoms sections of Kansas
City, Kansas, and who suffered greatly in the flood. Many relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. The
interviews include people’s experiences with the floods, but they also cover experiences with formal, nonformal, and informal education in both states. The Kansas City Museum has worked to develop resources
for researching Mexican Americans in the greater Kansas City area through their “Nuestra Herencia/Our
Heritage: A Collecting Initiative of the Kansas City Museum.” This group assembles and preserves
collections related to the Hispanic/Latino community, and scholars will be interested in this museum and
its collections.
A notable collector of oral history interviews, the University of Texas Libraries began its “U.S.
Latino and Latina WWII Oral History Project” in 1999, and when they expanded to include those who
served in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts in 2010, they renamed the project, “The VOCES Oral History
Project.” Though the project runs through a Texas university, it takes interviews from Latina/os
throughout the U.S. who served in the armed forces and/or those who lived during those eras. The project
also accepts interviews from non-Latina/os who had ties with Latina/os who served in or lived during
those conflicts. The VOCES database contains interviews from Latina/os who lived in midwestern states,
except for South Dakota. The interviews address more than wartime issues, with many interviewees
commenting on their experiences in education and growing up. Additionally, many of the people who
served discuss using the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, or G.I. Bill, to access education after their
service. These interviews would give insight into the history of Mexican American and Latina/o
262
education throughout the U.S., including higher education. They would also benefit not only research on
Mexican Americans and Latina/os during the first half of the twentieth century but also in the second half
of the century. While the oral history transcripts are not available online, the project does publish
“Stories,” or brief histories based on interviews, any materials provided, and tributes from family
members. Student journalists at UT-Austin write the stories, which are then “edited by a journalism
professor or professional journalist, fact-checked by two volunteer military historians, and, finally, factchecked by the interview subject or family members.” 23 While scholars may have to visit the archives to
access the transcripts, the online “stories” provide a helpful way to assess the over 900 interviews.
In Michigan, I found perhaps some of the best collections thus far and one that might not require
a visit to the archives. The library at Hope College of Holland, Michigan, holds several oral history
projects that contain interviews with Mexicana/os and makes all of the transcripts available online. While
I have not gone through all 85 interviews, I have looked at several. The 1980 interview with Rebecca
Arenas Rivera, born in 1937, follows a life history format, and includes information about the schools she
attended, her struggles to learn English, and her graduation from high school in 1954. 24 The Rivera
interview is rich in contextual information, as are the others I perused. The assemblage of extant
interviews at Hope College is excellent and the interviews would have greatly added to my dissertation
had I found them several years ago. All of these extant oral history collections offer scholars the
opportunity to examine the experiences of Mexicana/os, and in some cases, Latina/os, throughout the
region, many of whom can no longer provide their stories, and to access information unavailable in other
primary sources, like school records. These collections are invaluable for addressing Mexican
Americans’, Chicana/os’, and Latina/os’ participation in formal, non-formal, and informal education in
the Midwest throughout the twentieth century.
More Focus on Non-Formal Education
In my study, I focused on two settlements in the Midwest where Mexicana/os participated in nonformal education at Neighborhood House, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and at Guadalupe Center, in Kansas
City, Missouri. But these settlements were not the only institutions in the Midwest serving Mexicana/os.
263
Across the Midwest, Mexicana/os frequented other settlements and institutions, looking for non-formal
education, recreation, and social opportunities. To add to the broader scholarship of the history of
Mexicana/o education in the Midwest and Mexican American history, as well as the histories of nonformal education and U.S. settlements, scholars might investigate the offerings and Mexicana/o
participation in institutions providing non-formal education in the Midwest as well explore the similarities
and differences between institutions serving Mexicana/os in the Midwest and the Southwest.
In Chicago, Illinois, Mexicana/os participated in non-formal education at the Hull-House
Settlement, beginning in the 1920s. Historian Juan García writes that leaders at Hull-House and other
settlements in Chicago “learned quite by accident that Mexicans lived in their midst and were latecomers
in working with Mexicans.” 25 García provides some insight into how Mexicana/os used settlements in
Chicago: men used them to learn English and women went to socialize and to find assistance. 26 In his
brief section on settlements, García mentions Hull-House but does not address the spotlight that shone for
a short time on Mexicana/os there in the 1930s. Mexicana/os participated in non-formal education and
gained national acclaim, for a time, with the ceramics they created at Hull-House. Hull-House and its
long-time director Jane Addams are perhaps the most well-known and researched in U.S. settlement
scholarship, yet few published histories have looked critically at Hull-House’s non-formal educational
offerings and fewer have investigated Mexicana/os’ participation in non-formal education at Hull-House.
Pots of Promise does both, especially in regard to Hull-Houses’ offerings in Americanization,
crafts, and ceramics education. 27 Yet, scholars might explore how Hull-House settlement-generated
offerings for Mexicana/os compared to those at other settlements serving Mexicana/os in the Midwest,
including those in this dissertation, as well as those in the Southwest. Scholars might also investigate
Mexicana/os’ participation, their ability to initiate their own non-formal educational activities, and their
ability to take leadership roles at Hull-House and evaluate how those measure up to my findings on
Neighborhood House and Guadalupe Center. In her article about the Near West Side in Chicago, Lilia
Fernández writes about the opinions of Frank Paz, a community leader and member of the Mexican
Civics Committee, in regard to the second-class citizenship of Mexicana/os living on the West Side (of
264
Chicago) in the 1940s. Paz noted in a speech that, though Hull-House had served Mexicana/os for thirty
years, Mexicana/os never held leadership positions on the board and few Mexicana/os worked as staff for
Hull-House. 28 Fernández indicates that Mexicana/os at Chicago’s Hull-House did not gain the same
leadership or investment in the institution. As noted in the previous section, the Hull-House Oral History
Collection might be helpful in this pursuit. 29
In researching the Cook’s Point barrio in Davenport, Iowa, I learned about a settlement located
just blocks from the barrio. The Friendly House settlement opened in 1886 as a People’s Union Mission,
became non-denominational in 1911, and moved soon after to the corner of Third and Taylor. However,
none of the interviewees in the Mujeres Latinas Project interviews mentioned the settlement. They did,
however, mention the Visiting Nurses and other women visiting the barrio. Dolores Garcia remembers
“these two white ladies that would come there twice a week,” who were probably members of the LendA-Hand Club. 30 I found two news clippings that indicate that the Visiting Nurses and Lend-A-Hand
groups offered non-formal education to Mexicana/os from Cook’s Point. 31 Unfortunately, I learned that
Friendly House institutional records and documents remain unprocessed and unavailable for researchers,
and, in the interest of time and resources, I decided not to pursue these lines of inquiry for my
dissertation. However, I have since found other resources that may provide information about
Mexicana/os participating at Friendly House, or at least information about some of the workers there. The
Davenport Public Library holds at least two collections that mention the Friendly House settlement: the
Lilah Bell Personal Papers and the Lend-A-Hand Club of Davenport, Iowa. Bell worked for Visiting
Nurses in the Quad Cities, which includes Davenport, during the Depression. Also, the MexicanAmerican oral history collection at the Davenport Public Library might provide insight as to whether
Mexicana/os participated at Friendly House. Scholars might consider approaching Friendly House, which
is still in operation as a settlement, and recommend that they donate the records and other ephemera to a
local archive or historical society for preservation and research. In my research, I question why the
interviewees from Cook’s Point made no mention of the Friendly House. Was it a matter of forgetfulness,
was it that none of the interviewees participated, or was it that none of the Mexicana/os from Cook’s
265
Point participated? Whether or not Mexicana/os participated at Friendly House, pursuing the history of
Friendly House this is a valuable line of research because it is still part of the history of Mexican
Americans in the area and would also contribute to settlement scholarship, women’s clubs, and the history
of non-formal education.
Besides settlements, more scholarship is needed to explore other institutions where Mexicana/os
sought non-formal education, specifically the International Institutes in Gary, Indiana, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1910, social welfare and settlement worker Edith Bremer began
the International Institute Movement in New York, assisting women and girls who were new immigrants
by: offering English classes, clubs, and social welfare assistance, as well as assisting with naturalization.
By the 1920s, the movement quickly spread across the nation, with several Institutes opening in large
midwestern cities, including Detroit, Gary, Duluth, St. Louis, Cleveland, Toledo, Milwaukee, and St.
Paul. In many ways, these early programs’ work resembled that of settlements, but they limited their
services to women and girls, or at least at first. The YWCA sponsored International Institutes the first
years, but because the Institutes often assisted with entire families, rather than only women or girls, many
in the Institutes questioned their association with the YWCA. By the 1930s, most International Institutes
broke from their YWCA sponsors and created the National Institute of Immigrant Welfare in 1934, and
by 1943, they became the American Federation of International Institutes. 32
In Gary, Indiana, the International Institute opened in 1919 as a department of the YWCA and
focused on women. Like many other Institutes, it gained independence in the 1930s and ran through 2001,
when it merged with the Latin American Community Alliance for Support and Assistance (LACASA). 33
While neither the website for International Institute/LACASA nor the finding aid for the International
Institute indicate that Mexicana/os participated there, Juan García cites several sources about the
“Mexican colony” from the collection housed at the Calumet Regional Archives at Indiana University
Northwest. 34
The Milwaukee Institute began in the early 1900s and followed a course similar to that of the
Indiana Institute, becoming a separate entity in 1936. 35 I found two collections for the International
266
Institute of Milwaukee: at the International Institute and at the YWCA, both in Milwaukee. The
collections include institutional records, minutes from the Boards of directors, program files, minutes
from YWCA Boards of Directors, and casework files, which are not open to researchers. The collection at
the Institute in Milwaukee also includes annual reports, newsletters, Holiday Folk Fair records,
scrapbooks, news clippings, and files on immigrant cultures. 36
In the Minnesota Historical Society Mexican-American Oral History Project interviews, two
Mexicana/os mentioned the International Institute in St. Paul: Marcelino River went there to learn English
and Teresa Munoz taught classes there, specifically piñata making. 37 While I was not able to follow up in
depth on this institution in the dissertation, upon further research, I found several collections that contain
sources relevant to the St. Paul Institute. Three locations hold records concerning the St. Paul
International Institute, later renamed the International Institute of Minnesota: the Immigration History
Research Center at the University of Minnesota, the International Institute of Minnesota in St. Paul, and
the YWCA in St. Paul. 38 While several other Institutes operated in midwestern cities during the period of
my study, I have not yet found sufficient evidence that Mexicana/os utilized them, and this is an avenue
for further research.
Yet another organization might provide insight into Mexicana/o participation at the St. Paul
Institute. While it did not offer non-formal education directly, the Minneapolis Council of
Americanization “was formed in 1919 by representative of several organization interested in
Americanization,” and the organization had affiliations with the International Institute of Minnesota after
WWII. The Council ran from 1919 to 1970 until it lost United Way funding. 39 The Minnesota Historical
Society holds the collection from the Minneapolis Council of Americanization, which includes board
minutes, annual reports, correspondence, copies of the Bulletin, an institutional publication, naturalization
lists, and Citizenship Day records. 40 Several collections hold promise and more organizations merit
further investigation in regard to Midwestern Mexicana/os’ participation in non-formal education through
settlements and International Institutes during the first half of the twentieth century. Additionally, since
many of these institutions are still operating, scholars might carry this research well into the latter half of
267
the century. More scholarship into the scope and depth of Mexicana/o participation in non-formal
education, in the Midwest and beyond, would benefit the historiography.
The Broader Midwest
As I noted in the Introduction, scholarship on Mexican American history in the Midwest
increases every year but many areas remain unexplored. In this dissertation, I focused on Iowa, Kansas,
Minnesota, and Missouri, yet, during the first half of the twentieth century, Mexicana/os also settled in
significant numbers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and
Wisconsin. 41 Based on the collections of extant oral history collections available and the locales they
represent, scholars can with certainty address the history of Mexicana/o education in Illinois, Indiana,
Michigan, Nebraska, as well as branch out further in Iowa. The VOCES project contains interviews with
Mexicana/os who lived in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio,
and Wisconsin in the first half of the twentieth century. Likewise, with just brief examinations, I saw that
many of the interviews in the Hope College collections also include Mexicana/os’ experiences in other
midwestern states, including educational experiences, during this period.
While I found no extant oral history collections specifically concerning Mexicana/os living in
Wisconsin, several of the larger collections contain interviews of Mexicana/os who lived or worked in
Wisconsin. Additionally, I found several archives and other primary sources that would help scholars to
address Mexicana/os’ participation in education, especially non-formal education, there in the first half of
the twentieth century. The institutional records from the International Institute of Milwaukee would
provide contextual information. The Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) has made available online the
1930 document entitled “The Mexicans of the City of Milwaukee.” Agnes Fenton, the author and
researcher for the Milwaukee International Institute, which was still part of the YWCA at that time,
organizes the work in the following chapters: “Who is he?”; “Where does he come from?”; “Why does he
leave Mexico?”; “Is he coming to Milwaukee?”; and “What are we doing for him?” In the text, she not
only attempts to address these questions but she also documents other institutions Mexicana/os utilized,
268
including churches and missions, Visiting Nurses, Harmony Hall (the settlement), schools, and the many
places that offered English classes. 42
Finally, the WHS also houses a collection entitled Archival Resources on Hispanics in
Wisconsin, 1930-1979. The collection is large and contains published and unpublished articles, reports,
news clippings, institutional and group records, and personal papers, all collected by WHS archivist
Cristobal Berry-Caban. 43 Scholars might address Mexicana/o educational experiences in Wisconsin
specifically in settlements and/or International Institutes. In fact, scholars might consider a larger project
just on Mexicana/os in Wisconsin, since the published scholarship only briefly addresses the history of
Mexicana/o education in this state. To fully realize Mexicana/o education in the Midwest, scholars must
cover more area in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri, and include Illinois, Indiana, Michigan,
Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
In sum, my dissertation affirms that Mexicana/os living in the Midwest in the first half of the
century valued education. The dissertation illustrates some of the many and complex ways Mexicana/os
made decisions about and pursued education, it demonstrates Mexicana/os’ agency in participating in
formal, non-formal, and informal education, it shows some of how Mexicana/os influenced and took
leadership in their education, and it explores how Mexicana/os made education work for them. Yet, I
have merely scraped the surface of Mexicana/os’ participation in formal, non-formal, and informal
education in the Midwest during this period. The research trajectory I have outlined can further address
many of the remaining gaps in this complex and nuanced history and further reveal that Mexicana/os have
“always been for education.” 44
269
Notes
1
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
“Clara Barton,” The History of Our Public Schools, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Kansas
City, Kansas, Public Schools http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/closedbuildings/clarabarton.html (accessed October
19, 2014).
8
Teresa A. Garcia, “Mexican Room: Public Schooling and the Children of Mexican
Railroad Workers in Fort Madison, Iowa, 1923-1930” (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 2008): 104.
9
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
10
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
11
María de la Luz Reyes, and John J. Halcón, “Racism in Academia: The Old Wolf Revisited,” in Latinos and
Education: A Critical Reader, eds. Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres, and Henry Gutiérrez (New York: Routledge,
1997): 423-438.
12
Dionicio Valdés, “The Mexican American Dream and World War II: A View from the Midwest,” in Mexican
Americans & World War II, ed. Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005): 115-140.
13
Mario Garcia, “Education and the Mexican American: Eleuterio Escobar and the School Improvement League of
San Antonio,” in Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader, eds. Antonia Darder, Rodolfo D. Torres, and Henry
Gutiérrez (New York: Routledge, 1997): 398-419.
14
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
15
Richard R. Valencia, Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational
Equality (New York: New York University Press, 2008).
16
José F. Moreno, The Elusive Quest for Equality: 150 Years of Chicano/Chicana Education, third edition
(Cambridge: Harvard Educational Review, 1997); Carlos Muñoz, Jr. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano
Movement (New York: Verso, 2007; Refugio I Rochín and Dennis N. Valdés, eds., Voices of a New Chicana/o
History (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000).
17
William Hoffman, Neighborhood House: A brief history of the first 75 years, 1897-1972, Box 1, Folder “History
and Purpose: General,” NHAR, MHS, St. Paul, MN.
18
John T. Duncan and Severiano Alonzo, Guadalupe Center: 50 Years of Service (Kansas City, MO: Kansas City
Public Library, 1972).
19
“Iowa Labor Collection Register of the Iowa Labor History Oral Collection,” Records, 1954-1968, 1975-1993,
1998-200. State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
270
20
“Alvarez, Fidel C.” Interview index for the Iowa Labor History Oral Collection, Fort Madison. State Historical
Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
21
Hull-House Oral History Collection Finding Aid, Richard J. Daley Library Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
22
“Testimonios: Documenting the Lives and Faith of Latino Immigrants, 2001-2002,” Archives Online at Indiana
University, Indiana University.
23
“Project Components,” VOCES Oral History Project, University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at
Austin, http://www.lib.utexas.edu/voces/about-project-comp.html (accessed October 14, 2014).
24
“Rebecca Rivera, An Oral History Interview,” 1980, Local Women Collection, Hope College, Michigan.
25
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996): 207.
26
Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 207-211.
27
Cheryl R. Ganz, and Margaret Strobel, Eds., Pots of Promise: Mexicans and Pottery at Hull-House, 1920-1940
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Shannon Patricia Jackson, Lines of Activity: Performance,
Historiography, Hull-House Domesticity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001). I discussed Pots of
Promise and Mexicana/o participation in settlements with more depth in the historiography sections of the
Introduction and in Chapter Three.
28
Lilia Fernández, “From the Near West Side to 18th Street: Mexican Community Formation and Activism in MidTwentieth Century Chicago,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 98, No. 3 (Autumn 2005): 168.
29
Hull-House Oral History Collection Finding Aid, Richard J. Daley Library Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
30
Dolores Garcia, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
31
“Children and Mothers at Cook’s Point Await the Arrival of the Visiting Nurses,” The Davenport Democrat and
Leader (September 19, 1926): 16; “Mexican Women Taught Sewing and Dressmaking at Lend-A-Hand Rooms,”
The Davenport Democrat and Leader (May 2, 1924): 15.
32
“International Institutes Across USA,” International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit,
http://www.iimd.org/?q=node/1917 (accessed October 14, 2014); Raymond A. Mohl, “The International Institute
Movement and Ethnic Pluralism,” Social Science 56, No. 1 (Winter 1981): 14-21; Nicholas V. Montalto, The
International Institute Movement: A Guide to Records of Immigrant Service Agencies in the United States (St. Paul,
MN: Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, 1978).
33
“Our History,” About Us, International Institute/LACASA http://www.iilcnwi.org/about-us.html (accessed
October 14, 2014).
34
“International Institute of Northwest Indiana Records,” Calumet Regional Archives, Indiana University
Northwest, Gary, Indiana http://www.iun.edu/~cra/cra_records/cra102.shtml#SubjectTracings (accessed October 14,
2014); Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 274.
35
“About Us,” International Institute of Wisconsin http://www.iiwisconsin.org/about-us.html (accessed October 14,
2014).
36
Montalto, The International Institute Movement, 1978.
37
Marcelino Rivera, Mexican American Oral History Project, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN; Teresa
Munoz, Mexican American Oral History Project, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, MN.
271
38
Montalto, The International Institute Movement, 1978.
39
Montalto, The International Institute Movement, 1978.
40
“Council Records, 1920-1979,” Council of Americanization (Minneapolis, MN), Minnesota Historical Society, St.
Paul, Minnesota; Montalto, The International Institute Movement, 1978.
41
Juan R. Garcia, Mexicans in the Midwest, 1900-1932 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996); Dennis
Nodín Valdés, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1991); Ralph F. Grajeda, “Mexicans in Nebraska,” Nebraska History. Nebraska State Historical Society.
http://www.nebraskahistory.org/lib-arch/whadoin/mexampub/mexicans.htm (accessed October 14, 2014); Dionicio
Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2000); Zaragosa Vargas, Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial
Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933 (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993).
42
“Mexican-Americans in Milwaukee, 1930,” Turning Points in Wisconsin History, Wisconsin Historical Society,
Madison, Wisconsin. http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=1702 (accessed October 14,
2014).
43
“Archival Resources on Hispanics in Wisconsin, 1930-1979,” Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.
http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi/f/findaid/findaididx?c=wiarchives;cc=wiarchives;view=text;rgn=main;didno=uw-whs-micr0856 (accessed October 14, 2014).
44
Mary Terronez, MLP, IWA, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City.
272
NOTE ON SOURCES
The Mujeres Latinas Project (MLP), housed in the Iowa Women’s Archives (IWA), includes over 90 oral
history interviews, conducted and transcribed by IWA archivists Kären Mason and Janet Weaver and
University of Iowa students from 2003 through 2006. Many of the interviews are transcribed, but several
await transcription. The archive makes available the recorded interviews for scholars on the premises. The
collection also includes considerable amounts of ephemera: photographs, letters, brochures, and other
items. These interviews follow a life history format, with the interviewer beginning with the interviewees’
nativity stories and those of their parents and even grandparents, and moving on to the family
immigration stories, their family lives, their education, their experiences in the community, and their adult
families, work, and achievements.
Wichita State University Libraries Special Collections holds the El Huarache Project (EHP),
which is comprised of twelve interviews conducted in 2005. Upon receiving a grant from the Kansas
Humanities Council, Carolyn Rosales Benitez conducted interviews and other materials for the El
Huarache Project, which she also exhibited at the La Familia Senior/Community Center in Wichita.
Benitez donated the interviews, audio and video recordings and transcriptions, to Wichita State
University, where they are available for scholarly use, as well as photographs, newspaper clippings in a
scrapbook collection, city directories, maps, and census data. While Benitez does not provide
documentation about her personal history with the barrio, it is evident in the interviews that the
interviewees know her and her family in their references and her responses. While Benitez’ connection to
the community may have given her insider access and set her interviewees at ease, it also may have
increased the informality of several of the interviews, especially the ones with multiple participants.
These particular interviews are difficult to follow and to identify participants, even in the transcripts. The
interviews focus mainly on the interviewer’s questions about the physical barrio: the people who lived
there and businesses. In several, the interviewer asked participants to identify people in photographs, and,
interviewees often take the interviews in directions of their choosing and based on their reminiscing.
273
The University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library (KSRL) holds collections of three
oral history projects led by Robert Oppenheimer, a professor of Latin American history at the University
of Kansas at Lawrence, who gifted the data to the KSRL. Oppenheimer and his students and/or members
of the communities conducted interviews in both Spanish and English. Though most of the interviews are
transcribed, the interviews in Spanish were not translated as they were transcribed. Only the Garden City
collection includes the interview tapes; the other collections contain only the transcripts, all of which are
available to scholars on the premises. The “Oral history project regarding the Hispanic community of
Garden City, Kansas” collection is comprised of 22 interviews conducted between 1977-1981, 18 of
which are transcribed and ten of which are in English. Oppenheimer conducted the majority of the
interviews, though there were other interviewers, including family members of interviewees. The “Oral
history project regarding the Hispanic community of Emporia, Kansas” ran in 1980, and Sandra Granado
conducted the majority of the interviews, though other interviewers included Linda Hernandez, Linda
Ramirez, Laurie Bretz, Yolanda Coria, and Susie Torres. The “Oral history project regarding the Hispanic
community in Kansas City, Kansas” collection contains interviews conducted in 1980, mostly by Laurie
Bretz, though Oppenheimer conducted several of these interviews. Of these ten interviews, two were
conducted completely in Spanish. All of these interviews follow a life history format, though in several
cases, the interviewers did not acquire interviewees’ birth date/year. In most interviews, interviewers also
included questions about Mexican culture and how these elements were transmitted in families and in the
community. They asked about the use of Spanish in the home, the use of dichos and stories, specifically
stories about El Diablo and La Llorona, religious rites and celebrations, weddings, baptisms, funerals,
quinceañeras, Christmas and other Catholic feast days. They also asked about people’s roles in the family:
who took leadership in the family’s faith, in discipline, and did women work outside of the home.
The Missouri Valley Special Collections (MVSC) at the Kansas City Public Library (KCPL)
holds the “Hispanic Oral History Collection,” composed of 59 interviews conducted between 1977 and
1982. The interviewer wrote helpful summaries of the interviews, but they are not transcribed.
274
Researchers may check out the recordings and make copies of the summaries. The sole interviewer, Irene
Ruíz, a librarian and Chicana/o activist in Kansas City, Missouri, collected bilingual and Spanish
language materials for the city’s West Branch location. Ruiz also conducted and archived interviews from
residents of Kansas City, Missouri’s Westside neighborhood as well as those who moved into the area
after the devastating flooding on the Kansas side in 1951. Interviews follow a life history format,
beginning with the interviewees’ birth, the family immigration stories, education, participation in
neighborhood institutions, like the settlement, churches, or mutual aid societies, adult work and families,
and general information about the neighborhood, notably the influence of the 1951 flood. Ruiz’
connections with the neighborhood and the residents reveal themselves in the interviews, as does her
activism and desire to document major events, buildings, community, incidences of discrimination and
racialization, and Mexicana/os’ experiences and leadership. At points in some interviews, Ruiz digs for
information or stories, and she often interrupts in her efforts to gain material. While this can be frustrating
for those trying to transcribe the interviews, Ruiz and her work are also part of the story of Mexicana/o
and Chicana/o activism and history in the region.
The Minnesota Historical Society (MHS) conducted the extensive “Mexican-American History
Project” from 1975 to 1977, which included 74 oral histories housed in the “Mexican-American Oral
History Project” collection. While most interviews were conducted in English, several were conducted in
Spanish. All but eight interviews were transcribed, and of those transcribed, seven were transcribed in
Spanish. As project director and employee at the MHS, Ramedo J. Saucedo conducted several of the
interviews, along with John Sanchez, Grant Moosbrugger, Victor Barela, Nicha Coates, Rochelle Lopez,
and Richard Juarez (Saucedo and Coates also sat for interviews). The interviews follow a life history
format, beginning with the interviewees’ nativity and family immigration stories, family and community
life, education, church affiliation, adult family, work, and community participation.
Finally, the Kansas Historical Society and Kansas Historical Foundation project entitled Kansas
Memory Oral History includes a segment on Kansas Veterans of World War II, which holds 8 interviews
275
from Mexican Americans who served. In 2005, Kansas passed a bill funding the WWII Veterans Oral
History grants, and nine institutions, mainly county historical societies, participated. While the focus of
the collection is WWII, the interviews include information about the interviewees’ lives, including where
they were born and raised and schools they attended and some of their experiences with other educational
systems. The Kansas Memory website provides brief summaries of the interviews, which include the date
of each interview and the interviewers’ names, information about where to access the video interviews,
and full transcripts. It is likely the interviewers held affiliations with the grant receiving institutions,
which include the Doniphan County Historical Society, Emporia State University, the Watkins
Community Museum of History, and the Kansas Historical Society.
276
REFERENCES
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277
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278
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