The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 106, July 2002 - April, 2003 Page: 314

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

processes identifiable with Mexican American history owe their impetus to the
immigration that began in the early i 900s in response to the economic transfor-
mation occurring in the U.S. Southwest about that time. This school does not re-
ject the relevance of pre-1900 Mexican American history; but it notes that
factors such as massive migration, Midwest settlement, industrialization, and ur-
banization, among others, do not apply to the 1848-1900 period.
Martinez also opts for a topical approach instead of the more traditional
chronological one. Yet he capably provides proper historical background for
each, manages to discuss each topic as adequately as have other recent surveys,
and incorporates most of the recent literature. In the chapter on immigration,
an issue of much importance to Martinez, we are reminded of the scale of move-
ment north, the travail experienced by the transplanted, and the places (includ-
ing the urban areas of the Midwest) where the immigrants established colonzas
that subsequent arrivals nourished. Racial oppression accompanied the immi-
grants and their American-born children at least until recent decades, and
Martinez provides an insightful analysis of racial attitudes held by academicians,
the media establishment, and society generally, which rationalized lynching, dis-
crimination, and segregation of Mexican-origin people. He details the kinds of
back-breaking labor to which Mexican-descent people were relegated, but so is
attention given to worker efforts to organize and unionize.
Indeed, Martinez's survey is not all a recapitulation of things suffered, but also
of accomplishments. One of the strongest features of the book is the evaluation
of the current status of Mexicanos in the U.S. Compared to life before World
War II, Martinez observes, Mexican Americans have made measurable strides in
integrating themselves into the political mainstream, attaining new educational
standing, acquiring respectable economic status, and making themselves present
in a society that once considered them invisible. His conclusions, however, end
with the anticipated qualification: the achievements listed are not adequately ap-
portioned for much of the Mexican American population still engages in a day-
to-day struggle for survival.
Oscar Martinez has presented us with a readable synthesis of a people that will
soon become the country's second-largest minority. The work is eloquent testi-
mony to the scholarship of a person thoroughly familiar with his subject matter
and the literature that comprises it. More to the point, Mexzcan-Origin People in
the United States is a book displaying the author's keen ability to connect the
struggles and triumphs of the twentieth century with contemporary times.
Angelo State University Arnoldo De Le6n
The Apache Dianes: A Father-Son Journey. By Grenville Goodwin and Neil Goodwin.
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2ooo. Pp. xv+284. Illustrations, ac-
knowledgments, overture, prologue, epilogue, appendices, notes, index. ISBN
0-8032-2175-4. $29.95, cloth.)
Grenville Goodwin died in 1940, at age thirty-three, just months after the
birth of a son, Neil. When the twenty-two-year-old son found his father's hand-

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