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Book Review
| Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra y Vida. By Devon G. Peña. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005. xxxiv + 212 pages. Illustrations, notes, tables, bibliography, glossary, and index. Paper, $16.95.
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| Sometimes a book with a narrowly targeted audience may be so well written that it deserves a wider audience than it is likely to receive. Devon Peña's Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra y Vida is published as part of a series of books on "The Mexican American Experience" and is intended for use in first- or second-year undergraduate courses in Chicano and ethnic studies or environmental studies. The book sets out to introduce the science of ecology and environmental issues to Mexican American students or others with special interests in Mexican American culture. Peña, an anthropologist at the University of Washington, covers so much ground so succinctly and masterfully that a much wider audience would benefit from reading this book. It would be an excellent supplementary text in courses on environmental ethics, American environmental issues, environmental justice, or social movements. Many environmental historians taking an interest in environmental justice and/or the experience of Mexican Americans regarding the environment could find this an excellent entry point and guide for wider reading. |
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Peña begins with an inviting, if somewhat romanticized, view of Mexican American culture's emphasis on the dependence of human society on nature, citing the folk saying " La tierra es la vida" (the land is life). He also maintains that the Spanish word "verguenza" "is a complex norm that hints at an indigenous critique of the spiritual and moral maladies of modern life under capitalism, the philosophy of systemic greed" (p. xix). Fortunately, the book as a whole goes far beyond such claims that necessarily represent a selective choice of ideas in a culture that contains the contradictions of all human society. |
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After a quick introduction (for further elaboration later in the book) to various prominent Mexican American people, movements, and organizations that represent environmental concern in action, the author moves on to a brief but highly sophisticated treatment of the principles of ecology. Peña's treatment concisely summarizes the historical development of key concepts in ecology while incorporating discussions of scientific controversies, drawing on the literature within science itself and critiques from social sciences and history. For example, he makes able use of Donald Worster's critical account of the origins and content of ecological thought. He also elucidates the relationship between the development of the science of ecology and key ethical concepts in environmental thought such as Aldo Leopold's "land ethic." Rachel Carson's work is highlighted both for its importance in the history of environmental thought and for the particular relevance of pesticide problems to Mexican American farm workers. The skill and insight brought to these topics makes his first two chapters stand alone as valuable contributions worth study and discussion outside the specific Mexican American context of this book. |
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Peña moves on to a brief environmental history of Mexico and then, treated separately, of "El Norte," mostly the American Southwest. Again, the account relies on a capable summary of an extraordinarily broad literature covering the major themes. The extensive citations tend to belie his contention that most of the books on the topic "are written as if human action can unfold in a world where the environment is no more significant than a stage prop" (p. xxix). His summary clearly shows why so many historians and historical geographers have been drawn to the compelling complexity of the environmental history of Mexico and what used to be called "the borderlands" and why they have so often seen the environment as more than a prop. |
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