Editor's Page, The

This special issue contributes to the contextualization of Mexican history in Illinois during the twentieth hundred The special issue includes essays focusing upon the interwar years, the 1960 and 1970 and the contemporary (post-1980) period. A basic question pertain tos the uniqueness of Mexican migration, urbanization, and adjustment During the 1920s the arrival of Mexican immigrants constituted the latest in a string of immigrant clumps in the state. The 1930 were difficult years, yielding unemployment disruption to fledgling communities, and repatriation to Mexico. The sustained resumption of northward migration (coupl also with the influx from Texas and other points within the United States) as well as the "settling out" of individuals and families from the predominantly rural migrant stream made for a more uniquely Mexican-American experience. Migration from southern of the border in new decades is part of global pattern of "transnational migration," on the other hand it is more far reaching in its issues due to the large numbers involved, the proximity of the homeland, and several other social, cultural, and political factors.

The essays not absent welcome glimpses of major episodes in Illinois history. While chronicling the importance of Mexican immigration for the history of Illinois, they also hint areas for further research, particularly of a comparative nature, unrestrained through generational or geographical limitations. Susan L Palmer presents a very useful examination of Mexican-American community building in the early twentieth hundred illuminating the Mexican roots and the immigration proces as well as urban adjustment, and contrasting it with earlier collections notably the Romanians. Starting in the late 1910 Mexican immigrants arriving in Aurora ground work with the major employer in town-the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. There were sum of two units concentrations of Mexicans: one within the city limits upon the East Side; the other arrangement the EoIa boxcar community, housed Mexicans who worked at the railroadis reclamation plant just above the town line. Palmer's important examination of Mexican immigrants in the EoIa adjustment emphasizes the role of the house of god as one of the not many institutions Mexicans were able to create before the depression struck Her nuanced approach to examining the social life of Mexicans is vividly demonstrated by dint of the varied experiences of the Ferez family.

Two detailed views of Mexican Chicago are tendered by two promising scholars, Michael D Innis-Jimenez and Lilia Fernandez, engaged in dissertation research. Innis-Jimenez examines by what mode Mexicans in South Chicago created a faculty of perception of community during the interwar years through participating in organized leisure activities. Recreation, like other forms of leisure activities, provides a useful window onto the everyday life of members of a working-class, immigrant community beyond the workplace. Organized leisure activities, moreover, provided an escape from difficult economic times. The manner in which the leaders of these organizations quickly-and successfully-expanded from athletic activities to provide other services and diversions for the community during time of crisis provides a corrective to the prevailing notion that Mexican southern Chicago lacked leadership from within the community.

Fernandez traces the migration of Mexicans to Chicago in the post-World War II period upon the Near West Side and Lower West Side (Pilsen) communities just southerly and west of the city's downtown. In the late 1950 and early 1960 as Mexicans upon the Near West Side experienced displacement by dint of urban renewal initiatives, mainly the construction of the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus, many Mexican families mov just southern to neighboring Pilsen, centered upon 18th Street, and began creating a community anew. by means of the late 1960s and early 1970 second-generation Mexican Americans, as well as Mexican immigrants, began claiming the community as their be in possession of Activists called for social reforms, improved services, and attention to the pass overed and impoverished Mexican population in the neighborhood. Fernandez tread on the heels ofs the emergence of Chicano nationalism in Pilsen in the 1970 end the formation of various social service agencies and initiatives, tracing in what manner Mexicans in one Chicago neighborhood made their vicinity known.

Sociologist Patricia Zamudio links local arrangement patterns with larger trends, utilizing sociological way s to interpret social history, one as well as the other within the kinship groups and in voluntary organizations. She analyzes the part of gender in the organization of immigrant communities, contrasting sum of two units realms of community relations-" formal" and "informal"- of a collection of Mexican immigrants (paisanos from the same town in northern Guadalajara) converging in Chicago. Zamudio argues that despite distinctive characters in their communities abroad, sex serves as a prism for a dynamic and essentially unifying proces of acculturation. Further, agriculture the local, regional, and national political economy, as well as the position of the families in the immigrant life round of years have influenced the activities of the two men and women in their social relations. She effectively draws upon social science methods to address Mexican migration and arrangement in Chicago, as well as in its suburb and satellite cities, which have also entertainered the migrants.