An interesting and exhaustively researched account of the beginnings of the Mexican American civil rights movement in south Texas. Orozco argues that this movement had its beginnings in the 1910s and 1920s (it is generally credited as arising in the 1930s, apparently) and she seems to make a good argument for this. As far as I can tell, anyway - this isn't an area I have any knowledge in, so I came to the book as a blank slate. Nevertheless I was convinced, as she very carefully sources and traces both the individuals and organisations involved. It does at times get a little bit repetitive, and in places there was acronym overload, but on the whole it was a readable account.

Most interesting was the ongoing conflict between various identities - what Orozco referred to as "hybridity" - and how this affected the composition and goals of the movement. Tensions (and loyalties) existed between Mexicans, Mexican Americans, European Americans, Latin Americans and more, and what this meant for definitions of belonging - of citizenship, of nationality - can make for compelling reading. It's very easy to see the difficulties people must have had navigating through this network of multiple (often competing) cultures, and the strategies they developed to cope with this comprised the bulk of the book.

I do think, however, that the title is a bit of a misnomer. I came to read this book because it was on a list of feminist writing that I'm working my way through, and though there is one chapter dedicated to the role of women, and a minor throughline on that subject in the rest of the book, I'm not sure it merits title status.