Ruiz’s essay makes use of thirteen oral histories in order to trace the impacts of the “agents of Americanization” that Mexican American women engaged with in the 1920s and 1930s. Although the author considers education and employment to be the most significant influencers of these women, I found that the media aspect was given the most attention. In some women’s experience, speaking their native Spanish resulted in corporal punishment by teachers and a decrease in their enthusiasm for learning. Conversely, some women were inspired by notions of the American dream that placed a high value on schooling for the purpose of bettering oneself and one’s family. Economic necessity apparently drove Mexican women into the labor force, and this made me curious about whether or not there was intense class-based stratification within the Mexican American community during this time, what these differences consisted of, and whether or not some women chose not to go to work and why. I do not doubt that there may have been a high incidence of poor Mexican women, only that it would have been interesting to see another side of the situation. But the feasibility of this kind of analysis with only 13 oral histories is likely to be slim because there can only be so much class difference in a sample size of that number.

I think Ruiz’s heavy focus on the media’s influence on young Mexican American women makes them seem to have been obsessed with and brainwashed by the vapidity of American “consumer culture.” I would have liked to read more about the contrast between U.S. culture and Mexican culture at this time (including where specifically in Mexico these women were from), in addition to the differences in the political climates of the two countries—information that is probably outside of the scope of this article but that would make for a more balanced or contextualized framework around the information presented here.

On page 268, Ruiz mentions the social role of the Catholic Church and Mexican women’s need to blend new behavior with “traditional ideals” but does not make any mention of what these ideals were. Also, I would have liked to see the author answer the (very important) question she poses at the end of the writing: “Can one equate the desire for material goods with the abandonment of Mexican values?” It may have even been better to answer this question at the beginning of the piece, because it leaves much to be desired. What are “Mexican values” anyway, and were they typically the same across communities and regions? This is a short article, and obviously part of a larger body of work, but it lacks some crucial elements that could help it stand on its own.

-Nina Taylor