Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870-1930 (Volume 6)

Al Filo: Mexican American Studies Series

by Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo, Vicki L. Ruiz (Foreword)

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2012

Reviews

[S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an excellent survey into the experiences of traqueros in the early 20th century--both negative and positive. I feel like I understand better (at least on paper, certainly not firsthand) what my great-grandfather dealt with when he first immigrated to Texas.

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most important US labor history of the past century!

NO FUQQIN" HYPE!

Mexicans built the RRs (after that symbolic GOLDEN SPIKE, that was just one line) and they did it without tools. The until now completely overlooked AGE OF MEXICAN IMMIGRATION followed the tracks north from Mexico starting in 1881 and by 1930 almost every community in WEST AND SOUTH WEST US&A AND ALL THE WAY TO PENNSYLVANIA AND THE CAROLINAS had a BOXCAR BARRIO.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like this wasn't completely edited - some sentences are structured funny, some words are missing, some sentences repeat phrases, some sections seems like they should be in different places, commas are out of place or missing, sometimes paragraphs' topic sentence is followed by nothing to do with the topic sentence, ... However, I've never seen this topic covered in-depth in a book before, so that gets points.

[Aaron Geiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be succinct, "Traqueros" deserves to be placed among the canon of Gilded Age railroad history in the United States and Mexico. There are piles of texts concerning the Chinese and Irish, but few replicate many primary sources that paint the life of the Mexican and central American railroad worker in such factual and personal detail. Garcilazo is a solid researcher and organizer. This also should be a seminar text for Latino studies, as it brings to life a hidden community of the backbone of United States labor. So many traqueros suffered and perished it is our duty to consider their history.