Montejano David.

Quixotes’ Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement,

1966-1981.(Austin TX: University of Texas Press, 2010).

Introduction

In every piece of writing the author should be able to introduce to the reader the
principal purpose of the material. If that misses, the reader loses interest in the book
since they do not understand why they should continue reading. This paper seeks to
analyze Montejano’s book to establish whether he succeeded in meeting this
requirement.

Summary of the book.

Montejano writes about the groups that were residing in San Antonio in the sixties and
how they associated with each other both socially and politically. The author states
that the three major groups in the city were the Anglos, Mexican American, and the
Blacks. Initially, the Anglos had the highest population occupying the area then
followed the Mexican. The least were the blacks, and thus they had less influence.
Amongst these three communities, there were lots of racism and segregation 1. Later
on, came the Chicano movement which changed the entire San Antonio and the whole
country. The Chicano movement started for the same reasons that the to the black civil
rights movement began2. The Mexican American also had a right of being in authority
for a fair and just system. The move aimed at preaching brotherhood which they
termed as “carnalismo” and united people which they called “Raza Unida” in other
words3.

1
Montejano, David. Quixote's soldiers: A local history of the Chicano movement, 1966–1981.
University of Texas Press, 2010 (15- 22).

2
Montejano, David. Quixote's soldiers: A local history of the Chicano movement, 1966–1981.
(2).
First, the author of the book does not state a clear thesis of the book and neither does
he introduce the purpose of writing his book. However, the first paragraph of the
introduction shows that he intends to talk about a particular minority group of people
residing in San Antonio. Also, the reader has to read a couple of pages before getting
his central idea that is the Chicano movement. Otherwise, the book draws everything
about the Chicano movement; how it started and even how it ended. Besides, the book
is fascinating, and it gives the reader the motivation to keep on reading.

In conclusion, this study establishes that Montejano succeeded in giving the history of
the Chicano movement in a captivating way. The only issue is that he does not
provide a clear thesis of what he intends to achieve.

Bibliography

Montejano, David. Quixote's soldiers: A local history of the Chicano movement, 1966–1981.
University of Texas Press, 2010.

3
Montejano, David. Quixote's soldiers: A local history of the Chicano movement, 1966–1981.
(58)