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Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community
Company town. Blighted community. Beloved home. Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande, at the heart of a railroad, mining, and smelting empire, Smeltertown-- La Esmelda , as its residents called it--was home to generations of ethnic Mexicans who labored at the American Smelting and Refining Company in El Paso, Texas.
Using newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews with former residents, including her own relatives, Monica Perales unearths the history of this forgotten community. Spanning almost a century, Smeltertown traces the birth, growth, and ultimate demise of a working class community in the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border and places ethnic Mexicans at the center of transnational capitalism and the making of the urban West. Perales shows that Smeltertown was composed of multiple real and imagined social worlds created by the company, the church, the schools, and the residents themselves. Within these dynamic social worlds, residents forged permanence and meaning in the shadow of the smelter's giant smokestacks. Smeltertown provides insight into how people and places invent and reinvent themselves and illuminates a vibrant community grappling with its own sense of itself and its place in history and collective memory.
Using newspapers, personal archives, photographs, employee records, parish newsletters, and interviews with former residents, including her own relatives, Monica Perales unearths the history of this forgotten community. Spanning almost a century, Smeltertown traces the birth, growth, and ultimate demise of a working class community in the largest U.S. city on the Mexican border and places ethnic Mexicans at the center of transnational capitalism and the making of the urban West. Perales shows that Smeltertown was composed of multiple real and imagined social worlds created by the company, the church, the schools, and the residents themselves. Within these dynamic social worlds, residents forged permanence and meaning in the shadow of the smelter's giant smokestacks. Smeltertown provides insight into how people and places invent and reinvent themselves and illuminates a vibrant community grappling with its own sense of itself and its place in history and collective memory.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 13, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 19, 2025
This was such an interesting book!
November 4, 2024
“The splintering of reunion activities is a reminder of the fragile nature of memory and how memories embody conflict as much as consensus.”
You certainly don’t need to tell that to a southerner, or really anyone. How timidly do cities and other organizations approach the idea of memorials to the pandemic? How many memorials even exist in public spaces?
But memory is only half of it. The Mexican-American population that lived in the literal shadow of the smokestacks for almost a century now has only memories. It’s a classic 20th century story of industrial paternalism. Those were the days? Unions, pensions, but of course segregation and discrimination as well. Is that the “Great” in great again? No, I can’t imagine labor rights are part of that vision.
My own ancestors were employed by a textile mill in Graniteville, South Carolina, for almost a century. My great-grandfather worked there for at least fifty years. I have the gold pocket watch he was given by the company on that occasion. The gargantuan building still exists but the company is long gone.
But of course, it was a mill where only whites could work – except in janitorial capacities. So, how much worth is there in memory? If we insist on stratification then our memories will be stratified, too. The trope of the pleasantness of antebellum plantations undergirded by memories of chattel slavery and degradation.
Of course, the book is about a mill in El Paso. The border plays a major role in the lives of the smelter employees and the overall culture of the city. The US southern border, established as it was by a racist war of conquest, seems to poison everything.
You certainly don’t need to tell that to a southerner, or really anyone. How timidly do cities and other organizations approach the idea of memorials to the pandemic? How many memorials even exist in public spaces?
But memory is only half of it. The Mexican-American population that lived in the literal shadow of the smokestacks for almost a century now has only memories. It’s a classic 20th century story of industrial paternalism. Those were the days? Unions, pensions, but of course segregation and discrimination as well. Is that the “Great” in great again? No, I can’t imagine labor rights are part of that vision.
My own ancestors were employed by a textile mill in Graniteville, South Carolina, for almost a century. My great-grandfather worked there for at least fifty years. I have the gold pocket watch he was given by the company on that occasion. The gargantuan building still exists but the company is long gone.
But of course, it was a mill where only whites could work – except in janitorial capacities. So, how much worth is there in memory? If we insist on stratification then our memories will be stratified, too. The trope of the pleasantness of antebellum plantations undergirded by memories of chattel slavery and degradation.
Of course, the book is about a mill in El Paso. The border plays a major role in the lives of the smelter employees and the overall culture of the city. The US southern border, established as it was by a racist war of conquest, seems to poison everything.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews