Phoenix's Mexican American community dates back to the founding of the city in 1868. From these earliest days, Phoenicians of Mexican descent actively participated in the city's economic and cultural development, while also fiercely preserving their culture and heritage in the thriving barrios, by establishing their own businesses and churches. In 1886, Henry Garfias became the first member of the Mexican community to be elected a city official. The 20th century saw the creation of organizations, such as La Liga Protectora and Sociedad Zaragoza, that gave a stronger political voice to the underrepresented Mexican population. In 1953, another member of the Mexican community, Adam Diaz, was elected to city council. As the century progressed, the Mexican American population grew and expanded into several areas of Phoenix, and today the substantial community is flourishing.

Phoenix is the largest city in the Southwest and one of the largest urban centers in the country, yet less has been published about its minority populations than those of other major metropolitan areas. Bradford Luckingham has now written a straightforward narrative history of Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, and African Americans in Phoenix from the 1860s to the present, tracing their struggles against segregation and discrimination and emphasizing the active roles they have played in shaping their own destinies. Settled in the mid-nineteenth century by Anglo and Mexican pioneers, Phoenix emerged as an Anglo-dominated society that presented formidable obstacles to minorities seeking access to jobs, education, housing, and public services. It was not until World War II and the subsequent economic boom and civil rights era that opportunities began to open up. Drawing on a variety of sources, from newspaper files to statistical data to oral accounts, Luckingham profiles the general history of each community, revealing the problems it has faced and the progress it has made. His overview of the public life of these three ethnic groups shows not only how they survived, but how they contributed to the evolution of one of America's fastest-growing cities.

An anniversary edition of the first full study of Mexican American women in the twentieth century, with new preface

Focusing on the economic foundations of inequality as they have affected Chicanos in the Southwest from the Mexican-American War to the present, Mario Barrera develops his theory as a synthesis of class and colonial analyses.