Making the Mexirican City: Migration, Placemaking, and Activism in Grand Rapids, Michigan Fernndez-Jones Delia
Making the Mexirican City: Migration, Placemaking, and Activism in Grand Rapids, Michigan Fernndez-Jones Delia Large numbers of Latino migrants began to arrive in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the…
Specifikacia Making the Mexirican City: Migration, Placemaking, and Activism in Grand Rapids, Michigan Fernndez-Jones Delia
Making the Mexirican City: Migration, Placemaking, and Activism in Grand Rapids, Michigan Fernndez-Jones Delia
Large numbers of Latino migrants began to arrive in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the 1950s. Delia Fernndez-Jones merges storytelling with historical analysis to recapture the placemaking practices that these Mexicans, Tejanos, and Puerto Ricans used to create a new home for themselves. They joined a small but established Spanish-speaking community of people from Texas, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.
Their pan-Latino solidarity crossed ethnic and racial boundaries and shaped activist efforts that emphasized working within the system to advocate for social change. Faced with entrenched white racism and hostility, Latinos of different backgrounds formed powerful relationships to better secure material needs like houses and jobs and to recreate community cultural practices. In time, this interethnic Latino alliance exploited cracks in both overt and structural racism and attracted white and Black