Status Updates From Smeltertown: Making and Rem...

contested definitions of mexicanidad. the relationship between religion and nationalism. mexicanidad as an identity shaped by experience over origin, especially in the context of negotiating the borderlands experience...

Consistent disparity between Mexican and Anglo workers' wages, further reinforced by cultural norms that boxed out Mexican workers from achieving foreman positions and entering certain skilled jobs (despite having the education). AND YET - pride and cultural heritage in being "smeltermen". contrast esp. with more transient workforce of the border city. consider: how was masculine identity intertwined with work?

Part I: Perales challenges us to see Smeltertown as an entity existing well beyond the boundaries of company property and company-sanctioned enterprise. Through local enterprise, community schools preserving Mexican culture, and participation in the Catholic church, Esmeltianos created centers of identity and spheres of agency within the confines of rather bleak living conditions consider: limitations of oral history