Mexican Americans with Moxie: A Transgenerational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County, California, 1945-1975 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781496207630)

In Mexican Americans with Moxie Frank P. Barajas argues that Chicanas and Chicanos of the 1960s and 1970s expressed politics distinct from the Mexican American generation that came of age in the decades prior. Barajas focuses on the citrus communities of Fillmore and Santa Paula and the more economically diversified and populated rurban municipalities of Oxnard, Simi Valley, and Ventura, illustrating Ventura County's relationship to Los Angeles and El Movimiento's ties to suburbanization, freeway construction, and the rise of a high-tech and defense-industry corridor. Mexican Americans with Moxie devotes particular attention to cross-cultural dynamics that transcended space and generation. The residents of Ventura County became involved with national issues such as the Vietnam War, school desegregation, labor, and electoral politics. The actions of Black students at the community colleges of Moorpark and Ventura and other area universities inspired Mexican American youth of Ventura County to assess their own activism.

Mexican Americans with Moxie situates the Chicana-Chicano movement within the nation's struggle to achieve social justice. From this history, readers will gain a new appreciation for how leadership development spans generations and contributes to the identity formation of communities.

Author: Frank P. Barajas
ISBN-10: 1496207637
ISBN-13: 9781496207630
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 08/01/2021
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.31lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.81d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2022