La Gente: Hispano History and Life in Colorado

Moving from exploration to biographical sketches, this book profiles the enigmatic Teresita Sandoval, cofounder of Pueblo; provides the turn-of-the-century memoir of vaquero Elfido Lopez; and offers a bilingual version of the autobiography of Pablo Cabeza de Baca, who recalls the values of his youth and his days at Denver’s Sacred Heart College, the precursor of Regis University. Four essays study particular expressions of the employment conflict, including the infamous Ludlow coal strike of 1913-1914; Colorado’s sugar beet industry, where Mexican immigrants faced constant discrimination; the growth of the state’s sugar industry, the collapse of which devastated Mexicans (the preferred labour force in the field); and a New Deal-era experiment in which laid-off miners were trained to weave Rio Grande-style blankets, in the process revitalising a dying folk art. Finally, four essays encompass the recent political and cultural rebirth of Hispanos, including a study of the origins of the Crusade for Justice, Denver’s leading Chicano rights organisation of the 1960s.