Between the end of World War I and the Great Depression, over 58,000 Mexicans journeyed to the Midwest in search of employment. Many found work in agriculture, but thousands more joined the growing ranks of the industrial proletariat. Throughout the northern Midwest, and especially in Detroit, Mexican workers entered steel mills, packing houses, and auto plants, becoming part of the modern American working class.

Zaragosa Vargas's work focuses on this little-known feature in the history of Chicanos and American labor. In relating the experiences of Mexicans in workplace and neighborhood, and in showing the roles of Mexican women, the Catholic Church, and labor unions, Vargas enriches our knowledge of immigrant urban life. His is an important work that will be welcomed by historians of Chicano Studies and American labor.

Zaragosa Vargas is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is the editor of Major Problems in Mexican American History (1999).

"An important contribution to a small but rapidly expanding historical literature that documents the variety and complexity of the Mexican experience in the United States. . . . [Vargas] offers compelling evidence that bringing Mexican workers into full view requires scholars to look through the prism of class as well as the prism of ethnicity."—Clete Daniel, Industrial and Labor Relations

"Vargas emerges as a powerful voice in the ongoing effort to forge an intellectual and political space for the Latino perspective. Vargas offers a rich social history of the lived experience of Mexican migrants to the Midwest between World war I and the Great Depression. The book's power lies in Vargas's ability to craft a historical account of Mexican migrants which develops the themes and methods of new social history. . . . Vargas's book is clearly intended to refashion not only academic but also culturally entrenched accounts of American history to reflect its multiculturalism more adequately. As long as culturally rooted resistance to multiculturalism persists, the importance of Vargas's study cannot be overstated.”—Contemporary Sociology

"MEXICAN IMMIGRANT LABORERS IN MIDWESTERN INDUSTRY HAVE BEEN LARGELY OVERLOOKED BY BOTH LABOR AND ETHNIC HISTORIANS. . . . VARGAS sUCCESSFULLY FILLS THIS VOID. . . . A solid and valuable addition to the literature on Mexican immigrants in the United States prior to World War II.”—American Historical Review

"A substantial, engaging, and much-needed study of the labor history of Mexicans in the Midwest."--Juan R. Garcia, Western Historical Quarterly

"Vargas challenges stereotypes with a detailed study of Mexican workers in the urban and industrial Midwest in the period between World War I and the Great Depression. What emerges is a finely crafted analysis of Mexicans at the heart of American industry. . . . Indeed, the author's portrait not only challenges American labor history to take account of these industrial workers but also insists that Chicano historians pay more attention to the fate of those outside the Southwest. . . . Vargas's ability to take us into the world of the factory . . . only makes us appreciate more the agency of Mexicans who chose their battles and jobs carefully. . . . His book demonstrates how important an understanding of the struggles of these workers to survive and prosper is to a full portrait of the development of American industrial labor."--George J. Sanchez, Journal of American History

"With Proletarians of the North, historian Zaragosa Vargas emerges as a powerful voice in the ongoing effort to forge an intellectual and political space for the Latino perspective. Vargas offers a rich social history of the lived experience of Mexican migrants to the Midwest between World War I and the Great Depression. The book's power lies in Vargas's ability to craft a historical account of Mexican migrants which develops the themes and methods of new social history."--Ana-Maria Wahl, Contemporary Sociology

"A well-documented and persuasive description of the experiences and aspirations of the thousands of Mexicans who migrated to the Midwest in search of employment between the First World War and the Great Depression of the 1930s."—David Montgomery, Yale University

"An important contribution to a small but rapidly expanding historical literature that documents the variety and complexity of the Mexican experience in the United States. . . . Vargas not only illuminates an aspect of that experience that has been little appreciated and understood by students of Chicano history, but also offers compelling evidence that bringing Mexican workers into full view requires scholars to look through the prism of class as well as the prism of ethnicity. . . . A fine book that is certain to inform and challenge ethnic and labor historians alike."--Clete Daniel, Industrial and Labor Relations