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Elizabeth R. Escobedo , From Coveralls to Zoot Suits (Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press , 2013, $24.95). Pp. 256. isbn 978 1 4696 2209 5 .
Reviews
Elizabeth Escobedo dedicates this fascinating book to her Auntie Ernie and Auntie Ida and to all the other women who lived the World War II experience. The multiple meanings of the war for Mexican-origin women, as well as their wartime identities and how they were viewed, are concerns at the heart of Escobedo's analysis. The author has masterfully crafted an argument based on the nuances and complexities of these women's overlapping identities. They served as war workers, volunteers, and dance hostesses, but many of them also wore the zoot suit as a cultural emblem and as a political statement. Whether behaving as respectable young ladies or expressing their experiences as rebellious daughters, the collective behavior of these women of Mexican descent reveals the many tensions wrought by years of both opportunity and limitation.
The 1940s represented a period of opportunities for Mexican American women as many joined the ranks of wartime workers, enjoying more lucrative pay than they had earned as domestics,...