Perhaps no other industrial technology changed the course of Mexican history in the United States--and Mexico--than did the coming of the railroads. Tens of thousands of Mexicans worked for the railroads in the United States, especially in the Southwest and Midwest. Construction crews soon became railroad workers proper, along with maintenance crews later. Extensive Mexican American settlements appeared throughout the lower and upper Midwest as the result of the railroad. The substantial Mexican American populations in these regions today are largely attributable to 19th- and 20th-century railroad work. Only agricultural work surpassed railroad work in terms of employment of Mexicans. The full history of Mexican American railroad labor and settlement in the United States had not been told, however, until Jeffrey Marcos Garcílazo's groundbreaking research in Traqueros. Garcílazo mined numerous archives and other sources to provide the first and only comprehensive history of Mexican railroad workers across the United States, with particular attention to the Midwest. He first explores the origins and process of Mexican labor recruitment and immigration and then describes the areas of work performed. He reconstructs the workers' daily lives and explores not only what the workers did on the job but also what they did at home and how they accommodated and/or resisted Americanization. Boxcar communities, strike organizations, and "traquero culture" finally receive historical acknowledgment. Integral to his study is the importance of family settlement in shaping working class communities and consciousness throughout the Midwest.

In 1912 a thin line of Russian soldiers, confronted by a large crowd of gold miners on strike for several weeks, reacted with fear and anger. At their officers’ orders, they opened fire, shooting five hundred unarmed protestors. The event reverberated across Russia. The Lena goldfields massacre can be viewed from several distinct viewpoints, each presenting a contrasting story. Author Michael Melancon avoids prematurely picking a “right” way of looking at the massacre. Instead, he explores all aspects of the incident, from the despair of the miners at the poor conditions they faced, to the calculations and priorities of the mining entrepreneurs and state officials, and even the rationale of the soldiers who pulled the triggers. The Lena Goldfields Massacre and the Crisis of the Late Tsarist State will appeal to anyone interested in labor relations, in revolutionary movements, and in transitions associated with modernization. Its comparative framework will be helpful for generalists and Europeanists. It will also provide food for thought for those who seek a carefully researched examination of Russian society during the early twentieth century.

Becoming Mexican in early-twentieth-century Chicago

As immigrants came to the United States from Mexico, the term "Greater Mexico" was coined to specify the area of their greatest concentration. America's southwest border was soon heavily populated with Mexico's people, culture, and language. In Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999, however, Jorge Iber shows this Greater Mexico was even greater than presumed as he explores the Hispanic population in one of the "whitest" states in the Union--Utah. By 1997, Hispanics were a notable part of Utah's population as they could be found in all of the state's major cities working in tourist, industrial, and service occupations. Although these characteristics reflect the population trends in other states, Iber centers on those aspects that set Utah's Hispanic comunidad apart from the rest. Iber focuses on the significance of why many in the Utah Hispanic comunidad are leaving Catholicism for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). He examines how conversion affects the Spanish-speaking population and how these Hispanic believers are affecting the Mormon Church. Iber also concentrates on the geographic separation of Hispanics in Utah from their Mexican, Latin American, New Mexican, and Coloradoan roots. He examines patterns of Hispanic assimilation and acculturation in a setting which is vastly different from other Western and Southwestern states. Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999 is an important source for scholars in ethnic studies, American studies, religion, and Western history. Drawing on both oral and written histories collected by the University of Utah and many notable organizations including the American G.I. Forum, SOCIO, Centro de la Familia, the Salt Lake Catholic Diocese, and the LDS Church, Iber has compiled an interesting and informative study of the experience of Hispanics in Utah, which represents "another fragment in the expanding mosaic that is the history of the Spanish-speaking people of the United States."

At a time when the U.S.-Mexican border was still not clearly defined and when the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and land hunger impelled the Anglo presence ever deeper and more intrusively into South Texas, Juan Nepomucino Cortina cut a violent swath across the region in a conflict that came to be known as The Cortina War. Did this border caudillo fight to defend the rights, honor, and legal claims of the Mexicans of South Texas, as he claimed? Or was his a quest for personal vengeance against the newcomers who had married into his family, threatened his mother’s land holdings, and insulted his honor? Historian Jerry Thompson mines the archival record and considers it in light of recent revisionist history of the region. As a result, he produces not only a carefully nuanced work on Cortina—the most comprehensive to date for this pivotal borderlands figure—but also a balanced interpretation of the violence that racked South Texas from the 1840s through the 1860s. Cortina’s influence in the region made him a force to be reckoned with during the American Civil War. He influenced Mexican politics from the 1840s to the 1870s and fought in the Mexican Army for more than forty-five years. His daring cross-border cattle raids, carried out for more than two decades, made his exploits the stuff of sensational journalism in the newspapers of New York, Boston, and other American cities. By the time of his imprisonment in 1877, Cortina and his followers had so roiled South Texas that Anglo reprisals were being taken against Mexicans and Tejanos throughout the region, ironically worsening the racism that had infuriated Cortina in the beginning. The effects of this troubled period continue to resonate in Anglo-Mexican and Anglo-Tejano relations, down to this very day. Students of regional and borderlands history will find this premier biography to be a rich source of new perspectives. Its transnational focus and balanced approach will reward scholarly and general readers alike.

Tells the life story of the Italian race car driver who won the Indy 500, the Daytona 500 and the Formula One World Championship.

This illustrated series presents the uniforms and equipment of the United States Army from the nineteenth century to the present day. Each volume combines detailed and informative captions with over 100 rare and unusual images. These books are a must for anyone interested in American military uniforms and the history of the United States Army.On the morning of March 8th, 1965, the men of the United States Marine Corps prepared to land on Red Beach II in the Republic of Vietnam. The resulting conflict became the most protracted war of the Corps' history. The Marines evolved through early, nervous attempts to fend off the North Vietnamese enemy, to 'hearts and minds' programmes with the local population, and the larger operations Hastings and Dewey Canyon, where fighting resembled some of the worst in the Pacific arena of World War II. This illustrated guide brings together more than 100 rare and unusual photographs to demonstrate the uniforms, insignia and equipment of the U.S.M.C., including the M14 rifle (later replaced by the M16); grenades, mines and flamethrowers; body armor flak jackets, helmets, camouflage and jungle boots; and transports such as the LVTP-5, Sea Knight and Chinook.

A history of the United States' systematic expulsion of "undesirables" and immigrants, told through the lives of the passengers who travelled from around the world, only to be locked up and forced out aboard America's first deportation trains. The United States, celebrated as a nation of immigrants and the land of the free, has developed the most extensive system of imprisonment and deportation that the world has ever known. The Deportation Express is the first history of American deportation trains: a network of prison railroad cars repurposed by the Immigration Bureau to link jails, hospitals, asylums, and workhouses across the country and allow forced removal with terrifying efficiency. With this book, historian Ethan Blue uncovers the origins of the deportation train and finds the roots of the current moment, as immigrant restriction and mass deportation once again play critical and troubling roles in contemporary politics and legislation. A century ago, deportation trains made constant circuits around the nation, gathering so-called "undesirable aliens"—migrants disdained for their poverty, political radicalism, criminal conviction, or mental illness—and conveyed them to ports for exile overseas. Previous deportation procedures had been violent, expensive, and relatively ad hoc, but the railroad industrialized the expulsion of the undesirable. Trains provided a powerful technology to divide "citizens" from "aliens" and displace people in unprecedented numbers. Drawing on the lives of migrants and the agents who expelled them, The Deportation Express is history told from aboard a deportation train. By following the lives of selected individuals caught within the deportation regime, this book dramatically reveals how the forces of state exclusion accompanied epic immigration in early twentieth-century America. These are the stories of people who traveled from around the globe, only to be locked up and cast out, deported through systems that bound the United States together, and in turn, pulled the world apart. Their journey would be followed by millions more in the years to come.

"A sexy, emotional, and pitch-perfect romance." —NPR on Lush Money Opposites attract in this rivals-to-lovers romance from Lush Money author Angelina M. Lopez Guapo pobrecito her grandmother calls him. The “poor handsome man.” Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex” Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too. Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the best interest of her family, their community, or the bar’s legacy in mind. To protect all three, he’ll stand up to the tough and tattooed bartender with whom he now shares a bedroom wall—and resist the insta-lust they both feel. But when an old enemy threatens Loretta’s and the surrounding neighborhood, Alex and Jeremiah must combine forces. It will take her might and his mind to save the home they both desperately need. "Sparks fly and tempers flare in this passionate, un-put-downable rivals-to-lovers romance that launches a sizzling new series...Lopez seamlessly blends high-heat romance with discussions of Alex’s heritage and the fascinating history of 19th-century Mexican immigrants to the Kansas plains. This is a treasure." —Publishers Weekly, starred review