Customer Reviews

Felix Longoria's Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism (Center for Mexican American Studies)

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I read this book for a Mexican-American history class. The book is about what happened to the remains of PFC Felix Longoria, an American citizen, who earned four medals for his service before dying during WWII. When he died, his body was shipped back to his hometown in Texas, but the only funeral parlor there refused to hold services for him because "the whites would not like it." This book introduces Dr. Héctor García as a character who should be studied in high school as an American civil rights leader, discusses LBJ's earlier career as a civil rights leader, and describes the lengths to which the Longoria family had to go in order to have Felix Longoria properly buried - at Arlington National Cemetery. By the time of his burial the Longoria debate had gone nation-wide and had lasting consequences.

This book is engaging, well-written, and opens up a whole new world of civil rights history. I highly recommend it as an excellent starting place for Mexican-American or Chicano/a history.

This is one of those books where academics engage in theoretical discussions, rather than actually telling the story of what happened with Felix Longoria. This is a real shame, because the story is very interesting. The author uses lots of jargon, but makes little sense. If like authors who talk about "the accommodative, culturally pluralistic model of integrative ideology that emerged out of the hybrid structuralist and antistructuralist process" then this is a book for you.

I purchased this book for a Texas History class, but the last part of the book is missing. It went from page 172 back to page 144 and completely skipped the last chapter. It was probably just an error in my copy though.