Includes bibliographical and index

Introduction: history, placemaking, and cultural contributions (Omar Valerio, Santiago Vaquera and Claire F. Fox). Part 1. The browning of the Midwest: Conversations across ´Our America´: Latinoization and the new geography of Latinas/os (Louis Mendoza); Al norte toward home: Texas, the Midwest, and Mexican American critical regionalism (José E. Limón); Reshaping the rural heartland: immigration and migration cultural practice in samll -town America (Aidé Acosta). Part 2. Essential laborers and neighbors: Mexican workers and life in South Chicago (Michael Innis Jiménez); Latina/o immigration before 1965- Mexicans and PUerto Ric ans in postwar Chicago (Lilia Fernández); Not just laborers: Latina/o claims of belonging in the U.S. heartland (Marta María Maldonado). Part 3. La educación adelanta: Spanish languaje and education in the Midwest (Kim Potowski); Contesting the myth of uncaring: Latina/o parents advocating for their children ((Carolyn Colvin Jay Arduser, Elizabeth Willmore); Latina/o studies and ethnic studies in the Midwest (Amelia María de la Luz Montes). Part 4. Performeando the Midwest: The black angel: Ana Mendieta in Iowa city (Jane Blocker); History in drag: Latina-o queer affective circuits in Chicago (Ramón H. Rivera-Servera); El museo del norte: passionate praxis on the streets of Detroit (María Eugenia Cotera); Part 5. Movimientos: Religious migrants: the latina/o mennonite quest for community and civil rights (Felipe Hinojosa); The young lords organization in Chicago: a short history (Darrel Wanzer Serrano): ¡viva la causa! in Iowa (Janet Weaver); Work, coalition, and advocacy: Latinas leading in the Midwest (Theresa Delgadillo and Janet Weaver); Reconfiguren documentation: immigration, activism, and practices of visibility (Rebecca M. Schreiber); Afterword: intimate (trans)nationals (Frances R. Aparicio).

From 2000 to 2010, the Latino population increased by more than 73 percent across eight midwestern states. These interdisciplinary essays explore issues of history, education, literature, art, and politics defining today’s Latina/o Midwest. Some contributors delve into the Latina/o revitalization of rural areas, where communities have launched bold experiments in dual-language immersion education while seeing integrated neighborhoods, churches, and sports teams become the norm. Others reveal metro areas as laboratories for emerging Latino subjectivities, places where for some, the term Latina/o itself corresponds to a new type of lived identity as different Latina/o groups interact in shared neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. Eye-opening and provocative, The Latina/o Midwest Reader rewrites the conventional wisdom on today´s Latina/o community and how it faces challenges—and thrives—in the heartland.