Negotiating race relations through activism: women activists and women's organizations in San Antonio, Texas during the 1920s
Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Abstract: After World War I, United States residents became concerned \nover racial and cultural differences, especially once the “foreign \nelement” increased significantly within its borders. Anti-immigrant \nsentiments grew as race relations intensified, and the United \nStates became wary of its neighbors to the south. Under these \ncircumstances, how did Black, White and Mexican women \nnegotiate their racial identity in places like San Antonio, Texas, \nwhere immigration was central and race permeated the political \ndiscourse. Did women accommodate, resist, or accept the racial \nstandards of the day and what imprint did they leave in the \n“Alamo” city of the early 1900s? \nEmploying gender, culture, and race as categories of \nhistorical analysis, this dissertation argues that race and gender \nwere central issues in community organization as well as in society \nin general. The study analyzes the work of women activists within \na highly racialized setting. The focus is on activists associated \nwith prominent community organizations. These included the \nCruz Azul, Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), the Pan \nAmerican Round Table of San Antonio, the San Antonio Mission \nHome and Training School, the Mexican Christian Institute, the \nHouse of Neighborly Service, the Wesley Community Center, and \nthe Catholic Community Center. \nDrawing on sources in the United States, including Spanish language \nnewspapers, oral histories, and various activists’ \narchives, this project seeks to understand the role that race played \nin the local politics of San Antonio in the 1920s. This project \nplaces women activists as central figures in the scholarship on \nrace relations in the Southwest. Moreover, it explores how \nrelations between Mexican and Mexican American women and \ntheir interaction with Anglo and Black women shaped the \ntrajectory of their own social and political activism. \n Despite the fact that San Antonio was considered an oasis of \nimproved race relations for Blacks and Mexicans, the city \ncontinued to adhere to the conventional form of racial politics in \nthe era. Even though San Antonio had a racially and culturally \ndiverse society, race relations and their resultant conflicts were not \nunique in the Southwest. Women and men in San Antonio were \njust as racially conscious and biased as people in other parts of the \ncountry and they adhered to similar racial patterns and tensions.
Author: Adriana Ayala
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1732805318