When I Wear My Alligator Boots - Shaylih Muehlmann

 Sub-title: Narco-Culture in the U.S. - Mexico Borderlands

I was given this book as a gift.  The young woman who wrote it was working on her doctorate and stayed in the communities of Mexico that live with the drug culture that has invaded parts of the country.  It was eye-opening.  She suggests that the "war on drugs" has feed the growth of the cartels as it provides a market for illegal drugs. Everyone becomes involved either directly or indirectly.  A difficult read.

Quotes:

"The phenomenon whereby people simultaneously become defensive during an interview and inflate their own role is what Elizabeth Dunn (2007) has called the 'pufferfish syndrome'."

Published: 2014  Read: October 2023  Genre: Non-fiction Sociology

The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction - Linda Gordon

A story tied to the orphan trains of the early 1900s, this book revealed to me a slice of Arizona history I'd never known.  A group of Irish orphans from New York were taken by Catholic nuns to pre-chosen adoptive parents in Morenci and Clifton.  The towns were Arizona copper mine centers.  The children were to be adopted by Mexican families arranged by the local Catholic French priest.  When they arrived, the white locals kidnapped them, objecting to their placement with Mexican families. The resulting dispute between the kidnappers and the Catholic guardians went to the US Supreme Court.

This is a dense volume of historical accuracy with many details of the people, copper mining industry, Arizona territory settlement and the prejudices of the 1900s.  For those who have lived in Arizona, there are many familiar names that will resonate.  

Quotes/Notes:

p. 16 after 1880 the Catholic church had a faction with assimilationist tendency that promoted Catholic expansion westward

"Nortenos" were Northern Mexicans and they were anti-clerical 

p. 99 - "Race is a pigment of the imagination" - sociologist Ruben Rumbaut

p. 207-list of names of families and the children they adopted [saved image]

p. 257 - Vigilantism 

p. 284 - William Henry Brophy, mgr of the Phelps Dodge company store in Bisbee -founded Brophy Prep

[note: I gave book to speaker at WVGS conference in 2024]

Published: 1999  Read: 2023  Genre: History