Gaps and Conclusion
Gaps and Conclusion
While Cuéllar’s Stories from the Barrio and Rich’s Outpost, Cowtown, Boomtown provided detailed early histories of Mexican immigrants in Fort Worth, both sources’ histories of Fort Worth for the Mexican community after 1945 is lacking in detail about the demographic changes in Mexican Fort Worth after World War II.
Raza Rising by Richard Gonzales, a Mexican American journalist in Dallas-Fort Worth, offered a glimpse into the state of Mexican American issues in Fort Worth in the 21st century, but the historical context he provided wasn’t satisfying. He stressed the importance of education, family, bilingualism, culture, and political participation have in lifting the status and living standards of US born and immigrant Mexicans living in the US. The relevance of citizenship was surprisingly downplayed by Cuéllar, Pate, Gonzales, and Rich when it is relevant to the experience Mexicans have in Fort Worth. According to the US Census Bureau, Fort Worth’s Mexican population was at 232,479 or 30% of the total population in 2013 (Gonzales 42). 103,000 of the Mexican population in Tarrant County, Fort Worth’s county, was estimated by the Migration Policy Institute to be undocumented in 2015 (Gonzales 193).
There’s much to be examined in Mexican Fort Worth history after World War II. In reading for this project, it was fascinating to see some similarities between my experience growing up with Mexican immigrant parents and those from a hundred years ago. Like my parents, some immigrants from Guanajuato in the past moved to Fort Worth because they had family there. And one quote that Pate included from a Mexican father to his son in North of the River really reminded me of what my father told me over and over again as I got through high school and college: Son, I worked like a dog for years and years and haven’t accomplished anything. I hope you accomplish something (Pate 142). I hope I can someday.
Gonzales, Richard J. Raza Rising Chicanos in North Texas. Denton, Texas: UNT Press, 2016.
Pate, J'Nell L. North of the River: A Brief History of North Fort Worth. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 1994.