Raza Sí, Migra No

In Raza Sí, Migra No, Jimmy Patiño capably chronicles the conflicting and shifting attitudes toward immigrants among Chicano activists from the late 1960s through the 1980s. Driven by the distinctive border experience in San Diego and southern California, key leaders increasingly adopted a unified identity for “our people” (Raza, Sí) while opposing the Border Patrol as representative of systemic oppression (Migra, No), in the process pushing more well-known (and more studied) leaders to adopt a transnational identity for their advocacy. The narrative unfolds in three chronological sections. After Patiño surveys the secondary literature on early examples of transnational awareness, the heart of the book examines the (re)emergence of transnationalism during the height of the Chicano movement through the lens of organizations connected to the San Diego activist Herman Baca. In some cases, a transnational approach sparked internal conflict, as when activists providing social services recognized the need to advocate for workers and the poor regardless of citizenship, while others viewed immigrants as strikebreakers who made change more difficult. In other cases, transnationalism could bridge conflicting priorities, as when the distinctive San Diego border experience created a “third way” between rival camps within the national La Raza Unida party. The narrative provides a clear, compelling picture of competing conceptions of identity and coalitions, with a trajectory toward increased transnational identity and activism among key Chicano leaders through the mid-1970s

Aesthetics · Citizenship · Identity (music · Immigration · Narrative · Oppression · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Sociology · Transnationalism · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law