The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 624

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

reinforced by data gleaned from supplementary documents, Cortes
commented on regional and international events. Whenever his com-
mentary strayed from central stage, the lieutenant stumbled on the
facts, as when he lamented the lack of industry along the Rio Grande
basin: "Finally, there are mines operating in Coahuila, as well as in
Texas and New Mexico, but the nascent population of these latter two
provinces is far too sparse for the many objectives of industry and
other opportunities that arise" (p. 23).
The core of Lieutenant Cortes's report, found in the second section,
concentrates on the ethnohistory of the Apache tribes. Here his prose
shines brilliantly with abundant information on the life-style and cus-
toms of these native Americans whom he admired as hunters, gatherers,
and warriors. In the concluding section Cortes examined the nations
whose members inhabited lands east of the Rio Grande.
As editors, Charles W. Polzer and Thomas H. Naylor, of the Docu-
mentary Relations of the Southwest project, with assistance from a
cadre of researchers and translators, have earned the appreciation and
admiration of the borderlands community of scholars and aficionados
with Pedro de Rivera and the Miltary Regulations for Northern New Spain, a
publication that complements their earlier joint effort, The Preszdio and
Mzlitia on the Northern Frontier of New Spain. Likewise, Elizabeth Ann
Harper John as editor and John Wheat as translator have garnered the
esteem of the same audience with Views from the Apache Frontier. Both
titles deserve to be in libraries throughout the Southwest and in the
trans-Mississippi East.
University of Texas at San Antonio FELIx D. ALMARAZ, JR.
United We Win: The Rise and Fall of La Raza Unida Party. By Ignacio Gar-
cia. (Tucson: Mexican American Studies and Research Center at
the University of Arizona, 1989. Pp. xvi+284. Foreword, preface,
prelude, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $18.50, paper.)
One of the most important elements of the Chicano movement of the
late 196os and 197os was the Raza Unida Party. Students of ethnic poli-
tics, and more particularly Chicano politics, must understand the his-
tory of La Raza Unida Party if they wish to have a firm grasp of the
most recent era of dramatic and unconventional Chicano politics in the
United States. The Raza Unida Party was in many ways the most com-
plete manifestation of the frustrations, needs, and desires for equality
and empowerment of the Chicano people. Even though there was no
more important political institution in the movement, there has been a
disproportionate paucity of recent writing on the party. Garcia's ac-
count is a major contribution to further illumination of this subject.

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