Felix Longoria's Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American Activism

by Patrick J. Carroll, José E. Limón

Overview

Winner, Tullis Prize, Texas State Historical Association, 2004

Private First Class Felix Longoria earned a Bronze Service Star, a Purple Heart, a Good Conduct Medal, and a Combat Infantryman's badge for service in the Philippines during World War II. Yet the only funeral parlor in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas, refused to hold a wake for the slain soldier because "the whites would not like it." Almost overnight, this act of discrimination became a defining moment in the rise of Mexican American activism. It launched Dr. Héctor P. García and his newly formed American G.I. Forum into the vanguard of the Mexican civil rights movement, while simultaneously endangering and advancing the career of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, who arranged for Longoria's burial with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery.

In this book, Patrick Carroll provides the first fully researched account of the Longoria controversy and its far-reaching consequences. Drawing on extensive documentary evidence and interviews with many key figures, including Dr. García and Mrs. Longoria, Carroll convincingly explains why the Longoria incident, though less severe than other acts of discrimination against Mexican Americans, ignited the activism of a whole range of interest groups from Argentina to Minneapolis. By putting Longoria's wake in a national and international context, he also clarifies why it became such a flash point for conflicting understandings of bereavement, nationalism, reason, and emotion between two powerful cultures—Mexicanidad and Americanism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292712492
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	04/01/2003
Series:	CMAS History, Culture, and Society Series
Edition description:	1ST
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Patrick J. Carroll is Professor of History at Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Only in South Texas: Working and Educational Conditions in the Nueces Strip
• 2. The Incident
• 3. The Principal Actors in the Drama
• 4. Mobilization of Nueces Basin Mexican and Anglo Towns
• 5. State, National, and International Politics
• 6. The Burial
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Julie Leininger Pycior

Carroll provides abundant evidence of the importance of the Longoria incident for Mexican Americans, for a rising Lyndon Johnson, for Texas politics, and, indirectly, for U.S. society. His insights . . . have the potential of appealing to both historians and general readers, particularly those interested in Mexican American and/or Texas history.
— Julie Leininger Pycior, author of Lyndon Johnson and Mexican Americans: The Paradox of Power