Agent of Change : : Adela Sloss-Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist and Texas Feminist / / Cynthia E. Orozco.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Orozco, Cynthia E.,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (266 p.) :; 75 b&w photos

The essayist Adela Sloss-Vento (1901–1998) was a powerhouse of activism in South Texas’s Lower Rio Grande Valley throughout the Mexican American civil rights movement beginning in 1920 and the subsequent Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s. At last presenting the full story of Sloss-Vento’s achievements, Agent of Change revives a forgotten history of a major female Latina leader. Bringing to light the economic and political transformations that swept through South Texas in the 1920s as ranching declined and agribusiness proliferated, Cynthia E. Orozco situates Sloss-Vento’s early years within the context of the Jim Crow/Juan Crow era. Recounting Sloss-Vento’s rise to prominence as a public intellectual, Orozco highlights a partnership with Alonso S. Perales, the principal founder of the League of United Latin American Citizens. Agent of Change explores such contradictions as Sloss-Vento’s tolerance of LULAC’s gender-segregated chapters, even though the activist was an outspoken critic of male privilege in the home and a decidedly progressive wife and mother. Inspiring and illuminating, this is a complete portrait of a savvy, brazen critic who demanded reform on both sides of the US-Mexico border.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I. Across Time -- Chapter 1. Civil Rights Leader, Public Intellectual, and Feminist -- Chapter 2. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1920–1950 -- Chapter 3. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1950–1963 -- Chapter 4. The Chicano Movement of 1963–1978 and Beyond -- Part II. Personas -- Chapter 5. Feminist in the Gendered Mexican American Civil Rights Movement -- Chapter 6. Public Intellectual -- Chapter 7. Democrat in the United States and Democrat for Mexico -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index