Sandoval-Strausz, A. K.

OUR SYNOPSIS: A. K. Sandoval-Strausz works forward in time from the 1950s to demonstrate that despite substantial adversity, Latino immigrants played a fundamental role in the late-twentieth century resurgence of U.S. cities. He takes the “urban crisis” narrative seriously, describing it as “having five main elements: population loss, economic decline, fiscal crisis, rising crime, and the racialization of all of the above.” (8) He emphasizes that urban U.S. Latino populations went up just as these challenges led to panic and unrest about urban futures. The 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration Act led to increased Latino arrivals “just when the nation’s cities needed them most.” (133) Indeed, “Hispanic newcomers to U.S. cities were more numerous than the returning yuppies who got so much attention in popular accounts of comeback cities. Moreover, the big-city lives of urban professionals would have been impossible without the kinds of work performed by Latinos and Latinas in key sectors of the urban economy.” (11) Relying extensively on oral history interviews to tell personal stories, he foregrounds these Latino workforces and the urban communities they built. He specifically utilizes the case studies of Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood and Dallas’s Oak Cliff community to shed light on national developments.