Southwestern Historical Quarterly

In 2013, eleven-year-old Sebastien de la Cruz, dressed as a charro and introduced as El Charro de Oro, sang the national anthem in game three of the NBA Finals in San Antonio, Texas. The performance became a trending topic on Twitter as some tweets linked him to "illegals" and sparked racist comments. Introducing her study with the continuing fight of charros like De la Cruz to claim space in the United States, Laura Barraclough analyzes the intersections of space, race, and politics in Charros. [End Page 361] The historian focuses on the ways in which "ethnic Mexicans in the United States have mobilized the charro in service of civil rights, cultural citizenship, and place-making since the 1930s" (2). Barraclough successfully analyzes charros through geographic, thematic, and chronological lenses.

Five chapters explain how the charro, a term associated with middle-and upper-class Mexican and Mexican American cowboys or "gentleman horsemen" (1), has influenced American society in the twentieth century. Chapter 1, "Claiming State Power in Mid-Twentieth-Century Los Angeles," delineates the way charros used their identity to demonstrate their "capacity for citizenship" (39) from the 1920s to the mid-1960s by participating in law enforcement agencies and the film industry. More important to Texas history is chapter 2, "Building San Antonio's Post-War Tourist Economy." Here the author uncovers the relationship between charros and Anglo Americans through co-sponsorship of events that highlight them as effective economic leaders, thereby challenging the structure of economic and political marginalization by their White counterparts. Similarly, chapter 3, "Creating Multi-Cultural Public Institutions in Denver and Pueblo" addresses charro organizations that created public education opportunities for ethnic Mexicans in Colorado. Chapter 4, "Claiming Suburban Public Space and Transforming L.A.'s Racial Geographies" circles back to California to discuss charrería, performances and cultural practices that claim space as "Mexican" and echoes the Texas themes of upward economic mobility in the post-World War II era. Lastly, chapter 5, "Shaping Animal Welfare Laws and Becoming Formal Political Subjects," details how charros developed political platforms to counter animal welfare activism arising from treatment of animals in the charreada, or rodeo.

Barraclough's historical contribution to southwestern and Mexican American history traces the discourse of charros as agents of change who use their economic stability for upward mobility and identity formation. She uses a balance of primary and secondary sources, such as the census, letters, and newspapers, along with popular media like film and Facebook photographs to support her argument. She also includes aids such as photographs of a lienzo charro—the keyhole-shaped arena--or cola—the grabbing of an animal's tail--for readers to visualize key elements of a charreada.

Shortcomings in her analysis appear in her last chapter, where Barraclough's writing briefly distracts from her core message: as a result of animal activists' fighting against "horse tripping," charros mobilized political action to assert the rights of their practice. She portrays the conflict between animal rights activists and charros as a racial issue, but does not fully commit to this argument, thus confusing her point and leaving the chapter less effective.

Barraclough closely examines the discourse and social advancement of charros in the United States. Her book provides a fresh perspective that steers away from traditional historiographic approaches and joins the nascent [End Page 362] literature on Mexican American and southwestern history by looking at charros, through gender, sports, and class, as historical figures who have made their way in to the traditional spaces of White men.