User Image

Rubina Pantoja

Preschool (0 to 4 years old), Primary (5 to 8 years old), Elementary (9 to 12 years old), Middle School (13 to 15 years old), High School (16 to 18 years old)
Teacher/Educator, Curriculum Coordinator, Parent, Student/Learner, Topic Enthusiast
Social Studies

Rubina Pantoja's collections

 

Traqueros, part 2: Chain Migration and Boxcar Communities

<p>A profound result of the vast employment of <em>traqueros</em> in the transportation industry was the railroads' corporate strategy to establish means for "chain migration." Chain migration refers to the process of immigrants from a particular region or town following the path of prior immigrants (from their same region or town) to the same destination. </p> <p>As the agricultural, petroleum, and cattle ranching industries of the Southwest expanded to a vast scale in the early 20th century, the demand for <em>traquero</em> labor grew as well. To meet this demand, companies like the Santa Fe Railroad incentivized <em>traqueros</em> to bring along their families, including wives and children, to live on sites by the rail yards rent-free. </p> <p>A key tactic in this strategy was the practice of housing <em>traqueros</em> in converted boxcars. These converted boxcars would be grouped together into settlements, which tended to be of two types: one was a species of "mobile villages" that moved along the train tracks, whereas the other type was comprised by taking boxcar quarters off the rails and grouping them together on the outskirts of rail yards in areas usually saved for section gangs. Historian Al Camarillo, in his book <em>Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848-1930</em> (1979) has termed the process of establishing boxcar settlements as "barrioization," because these family-centered communities demonstrated the sustainability of Mexican American communities, as well as familiarized Mexican immigrants with different parts of the U.S. that would become significant Mexican immigrant destinations.</p> <p>Mexican boxcar communities existed all over the country and in major cities including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and San Diego. </p> <p>On April 18th, 2016, Dr. Antonio Delgado, a former Smithsonian Institution Visiting Scholar (1998), presented his research on Mexican boxcar communities in Chicago at the McHenry County Historical Society Museum. Illinois Humanities sponsored the event, publishing the <em>Daily Herald</em>'s notice of the program on the Illinois Humanities' <a href="https://www.ilhumanities.org/news/2016/04/explore-history-of-the-mexican-railroad-boxcar-communities-in-chicago/">news blog</a>. The online story includes a trailer for local station WTVP's documentary, <em>Boxcar People</em>, for which the now adult children of <em>traqueros</em> were interviewed. </p> <p>#EthnicStudies #MexicanAmericans #Traqueros #Railroads #BoxcarCommunities #ChainMigration #Latinos #Chicanos</p>
Rubina Pantoja
6
 

The Chicano Movement

<p>#ethnicstudies</p>
Rubina Pantoja
8
 

The Bracero Program: Constructing a Narrative

<p>This assignment asks students to look at evidence and develop a narrative. Developed by UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project. </p>
Rubina Pantoja
9
 

Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project

<p>The Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project was launched at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) spring 2012. It is an extension of an earlier initiative launched in 2007 to combat the invisibility of the Mexican American contribution to Los Angeles and California history predating the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s within textbooks, trade, and academic books and articles. With the generous support of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, the CSRC was able to digitize close to 3,000 images from the Edward R. Roybal Papers and the Yolanda Retter Vargas Collection of Orphan Photographs. The first collection documents Edward Roybal’s public service career from the 1940s to the 1990s as a Los Angeles city councilman and a U.S. congressman. The second was collected by the previous librarian, Yolanda Retter-Vargas, who found the photographs at various flea markets. This collection consists of “orphan” photographs—images with no provenance information. They appear to belong to six families. Both collections have been completed and are available on the UCLA Digital Library. <br /><br />After completing this project we quickly realized that Los Angeles Latino history is incomplete without the stories of its citizens. The Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project was developed as a way to fully capture the complexity of this city’s history as well as address the issue of preservation through the digitization of vulnerable image-based collections. The photographs found in this particular collection were digitized and preserved during a Friends of the Library workshop held at the Chicano Studies Research Center spring 2012. They highlight the day-to-day lives of Latinos and Latinas living in Los Angeles over time. They document their families' histories and cultures capturing their movements between the United States and Latin America. One of the project’s goals is to provide the opportunity for community members to contribute additional photographs and information for the archival record.</p> <p>#LatinoHAC #ethnicstudies<br /></p>
Rubina Pantoja
39
 

Domingo Ulloa's

<p>This teaching collection helps students to look closely and think critically by examining <em></em>Domigo Ulloa's painting, <em>Braceros, </em>and historical documentation related to the bracero program, a series of short-term labor contracts from 1942-1964 in which an estimated two million Mexican men came to the US to work on farms and roads. The collection prompts students to consider the program from a variety of perspectives, including individual, collective, social, economic, and political.  </p> <p>Included here are the painting, a bilingual video with Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) curator E. Carmen Ramos, four suggested Thinking Routines - "See, Think, Wonder," "Step In, Step Out, Step Back," "The 3 Y's," and "Think, Feel, Care" - from Harvard's Project Zero Artful Thinking and Global Thinking materials, supporting digital content from the National Museum of American History, and a blogpost from SAAM of two DC student's written responses to the prompt, "What Domingo Ulloa's <em>Braceros </em>Means to Me." </p> <p>For use in Social Studies, Spanish, English, and American History classes</p> <p>#LatinoHAC #EthnicStudies</p> <p>This collection supports Unit 1: Intersectionality of Economics, Politics, and Policy, of the Austin ISD Ethnic Studies Part B course.</p> <p><em>This Smithsonian Learning Lab collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. </em></p> <p><br /></p>
Rubina Pantoja
10
 

Chicano movement

<p>The theme of my collection is Chicano farm workers fighting for their rights. </p>
Rubina Pantoja
5