Since my first publication while in graduate school, "A Chicana in Northern Aztlan: An Oral History of Dora Sanchez Trevino.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume XIX, Number 2, 1998, 16-52," I have been fortunate to have worked at a various institutions of higher education who supported my research. The books listed in this section are the result of that support.
 

I have also been fortunate in taking an interdisciplinary approach to my work. Although not a book publication my article examining cockfighting allowed me to examine Mexican culture through a variety of lenses above and beyond history that included elements of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, masculinity, sports, and of course history. My latest publication on the Japanese in Mexico also provided a multidisciplinary approach, and allowed me to examine the Japanese and Chinese on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border.

Much of work would not have been possible without the help of many many colleagues and mentors: Dionicio Valdes, Theresa Melendez, Pero Dagbovie, Leslie Moch, Benjamin Smith, Sharon Bird (ISU), Andrejs Plakans (ISU), Sidner Larson (ISU), John Kicza (WSU), Noriko Kawamura (WSU), and Paul Hirt (ASU). Many firends provided support - Bernhard Riger, Thomas Carrasco (CSS), and Elias Serna (CSS), Linda Heidenreich (WSU).

A collection of essays on the impact and growth of the Mexican origin population in the United States.

Memory, Community and Activism is the first book-length study to critically examine the Mexican experience in the Pacific Northwest. Eleven essays by leading scholars on the Mexican experience in the Northwest shed new light on Mexican immigration/migration, the Bracero program, the Catholic Church, race and race relations, Mexican culture, unionization, and Chicana feminism.

I am especially grateful to Chon Noriega and Wendy Belcher for including my essay in I AM AZTLAN because it has a special meaning to me. Chon and Wendy chose an image I sent with my article that depicts my father at the age of sixteen with his first car and it became the cover image for the publication. The article, I believe, is also important because it delves into the role cockfighting plays in shaping a form of masculinity for working-class Mexican cockfighters.

This book is a general overview of the Mexican/Chicano presence in North Central Washington. This book is targeted towards the general population with an interest in local and regional history. This book contains 187 images with captions. Each section begins with a brief essay. I attempted to capture the history and culture of the Mexican origin people in this region of Washington State.

My recent publication, Looking Like the Enemy: Japanese Mexicans, the Mexican State, and U.S. Hegemony, 1897-1945 is the first English-language book to study the Japanese experience in Mexico. Mexicans from a variety of perspectives agreed that while foreigners were needed to modernize Mexico, they should never come to Mexico in such numbers that they would change the Mexican “national character” or challenge la Mexicanidad. Thus, the central question throughout the book explores why Japanese Mexicans were treated differently than other Asian groups in Mexico such as the Chinese or their counterparts in the United States. It is an important examination of the tumultuous half-century in Mexico and the U.S. before and during World War II. My book offers illuminating insights into the wartime experiences of the Japanese on both sides of the US-Mexico border. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of the immigrant experience in the Western Hemisphere and to the burgeoning field of borderlands studies.

Although grounded in Mexican and Japanese history, the research for Looking Like the Enemy goes well beyond these histories. Indeed, throughout the book I demonstrate the importance and impact of U.S. hegemony in Mexico and Latin America at the social, economic, cultural, and political level that eventually had repercussions on the Japanese diaspora. Chapter 4 (The Long Reach of the American Empire - Japanese Mexicans, U.S. Hegemony, and Mexican Propaganda, 1941-45) best illustrates the interdisciplinary nature of my research. This chapter explores how the U.S. exploited Mexico during a time of deep crisis and did so using a wide-array of propaganda, economic and political leverage, and subtlety. Most important, I argue that the U.S. ideology and concepts of race were exported throughout the Western Hemisphere to reconfigure the Japanese as the “other” and, hence, their racialization and demonization commenced throughout the region. Finally, I argue that U.S. policy forced Mexico to round up and incarcerate Japanese Mexicans, but with a Mexican flare.