Por Daniel J. Yakes, Ph.D. y Connie Navarro
Este libro comenzó como un proyecto de historia oral realizado en 2007 y 2008 cuyo objetivo era documentar las reubicaciones de los mexicanos y mexicano-estadounidenses que vivieron en o cerca del Proyecto de Vivienda Ryerson Heights durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y los años inmediatamente posteriores. La conocían como La Colonia, su pequeña colonia, ubicada en un lugar nuevo y extraño llamado Muskegon, Michigan. Las entrevistas revelaron la intensidad de personas reales que intentaban alcanzar el sueño americano en una ciudad industrial de vanguardia. Durante los años transcurridos desde que se realizaron esas entrevistas, el alcance y el diseño del proyecto se han ampliado enormemente. Ahora intentamos contar la historia de los mexicanos y mexicano-estadounidenses en el área de Muskegon desde principios del siglo XX hasta el presente.
Una donación de $30 y las ganancias se destinarán a beneficiar a los latinos que trabajan para el futuro.
In the spring of 2010 a few of the original group of interviewees gathered together in one of the parlors at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in Muskegon to talk about old times. They were all compadres, having known one another since they lived together at La Colonia nearly seventy years earlier. The group that gathered together that morning had seen a great deal of change over the previous sixty years. They remembered back to the days when their families had made their livings as migrant workers, eking out an existence hoeing onions and picking cherries and blueberries in the fields and orchards of Western Michigan.
Their families came to Muskegon from Texas at the onset of World War II, when Muskegon was one of many Arsenals of Democracy, and the local factories and foundries were gearing up for World War II. They were children at the time, but their fathers and older siblings worked in the foundries and factories and made good lives for their families. They appreciated the better wages and working conditions in the factories and foundries during the War years and the years that followed, and were glad that their parents had had the foresight to come to Michigan in the first place. But they also remembered that their fathers and older brothers had worked long hours at some of the hardest, dirtiest jobs available.
Now they were all retired and living comfortable lives, but they looked forward to a bright future for their children and grandchildren who were making lives for themselves in their New Home in Michigan.
