In Defense of My People by Alonso S. Perales (review)

Reviewed by: In Defense of My People by Alonso S. Perales Jonathan Cortez In Defense of My People. By Alonso S. Perales. Edited and English translated by Emilio Zamora. (Houston: Arte Público Press, University of Houston, 2021. Pp. 350.) Alonso S. Perales was one of the foremost thinkers and forces of Mexican American civil rights in the United States in the twentieth century. His two-volume collection of documents entitled En Defensa de Mi Raza, published in 1936 and 1937, respectively, features his Spanish writings as he struggled to make clear to his community of ethnic Mexicans in Texas and government officials that U.S. citizens of Mexican descent deserved humanity, dignity, and respect. Perales penned his first entry on May 15, 1923, when he wrote to the editor of the Washington Post urging the removal of a review about a western satirical comedy entitled The Bad Man arguing that "such exhibitions tend to create the wrong impression that all Mexicans are bandits" (17). Perales proceeded to highlight the number of Black and Brown people lynched in the United States at the hands of White law enforcement and vigilantes as a rhetorical device, and he asked, "Suppose that Mexicans . . . would represent you in their theaters as the typical 'Daring American Bank Robber' or 'The American Lyncher.' Would this not make your blood boil" (18)? Employing the same vigor with which Ida B. Wells authored "Lynching, Our National Crime" in 1909, Perales held up a mirror to American history. Now, one hundred years later, the mirror has resurfaced in the form of the English translation of Perales's work by Dr. Emilio Zamora. As part of the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project, In Defense of My people was published by Arte Público Press in 2021 and offers new opportunities and possibilities for Perales's work. The articles, letters, and speeches that make up the two volumes in Spanish have been condensed into one book and updated with a new introduction by Zamora. Alonso S. Perales wrote predominantly in Spanish. However, English held dominance in the United States over Spanish in the early twentieth century. A 1918 "English-Only" statute in Texas, for instance, made it a misdemeanor for any teacher or administrator to use a language other than English in school or to prescribe textbooks not printed in the English language. The law remained active until 1968. Zamora's translation itself maintains the message, rhythm, and passion of Perales's words. Especially when it comes to Perales's South Texas colloquialisms, Zamora's own upbringing allows for a deep understanding of nuance. Zamora's English translation revitalizes Perales's work and expands the possibilities for its inclusion in K–12 and university classrooms. Envision an assignment where each student uses one issue that Perales wrote about as an entry point into a research project about Mexican American civil rights; or perhaps a teacher could bring together the original Spanish publication and the English translation to create a dynamic Spanish lesson touching [End Page 236] on both language acquisition and content simultaneously. Courses such as Mexican American Studies classes, Spanish language classes, ethnic studies classes, and U.S. history classes would benefit greatly from using this book. Zamora's contributions shine brightest in the notes and bibliography section. Since most of Perales's writings consist of memos, speeches, correspondence, and other documents not geared towards an academic audience, they are devoid of context, definitions, identifications, and other markers important and necessary to contextualize his writings within the 1930s Mexican American civil rights movement. In the notes section, Zamora settles contradictions, provides citations for Perales's writings, and gives the background necessary to understand Perales's reasoning for his arguments on Mexican American civil rights in the first half of the twentieth century. Zamora does the work of a historian while doing the work of a translator. This strategic move provides another argument for the importance of this book: not only does this translation of In Defense of My People revive Perales's writings for a twenty-first-century audience, but this publication also brings together one public intellectual from the past (Perales) with one public intellectual from...