“Ego Documents: Letters (Modern)”

DO NOT CIRCULATE OR PRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION Bloomsbury History: Theory and Method Engaging with Sources “Ego Documents: Letters (Modern)” Introduction Personal letters provide a wealth of insight in narrating the social and emotional world of ordinary people, for they contain the unspoken thoughts and feelings that remain hidden and locked away from the public to hear and see. As private and intimate forms of communication, notes are most often exchanged among family members, friends, and lovers, and used in maintaining relations, marriage, and courtships, among other consensual relationships. People are frequently moved to write when they find themselves across a divide or distance from individuals with whom they wish to exchange information and have no other means to do so because of technological, geographic, and economic difficulties. In producing the correspondence, letter writers often use the opportunity to reflect on their lived experiences and account for their hopes and dreams as well as their failures. The utility of correspondence makes it a versatile form of communication and, in the process, open to multiple interpretations and applications. While letters are most readily utilized to nurture and sustain relationships, they are employed, too, to destroy or end those same unions, especially when those relations have become strained over the course of weeks, months, or years without contact or because of waning interest or some other circumstance. At times, authors stop writing altogether, providing little explanation for failing to respond, effectively ending the epistolary relationship. More than intimate, emotional, and individual expressions of love and desire, personal letters provide a window onto the social, economic, cultural, and political developments of the day. Unlike professional correspondence, which focuses primarily on official or businessrelated information connected with public and private entities, personal correspondence lends accounts of the latest news on individual and collective lives as well as broader currents. References to political debates, financial affairs, cultural events, or technological advances have the power to reveal how macro-level trends intersect with people’s lives on a micro scale. Equally important to what is said is how is it said, for language is a powerful mode of communicating the social and cultural milieu of a particular moment and place in time. To understand the significance of personal letters, researchers must analyse them within the historical context in which they are produced. Failing to do so renders the letters anecdotal, irrelevant, and cut off from the ebbs and flows of the particular corner of the globe. Personal letters share many distinctive features. The vast majority contain a salutation, which can be lengthy and formal at times, yet it is, nevertheless, an intimate and emotional expression, setting the context for the reader. Notes also contain closing refrains, with the author sending greetings, love, or remembrances to the reader and any related family or friends. Final words, too, bring closure to the communication. Depending on the individual’s economic and social circumstances, the correspondence is usually written on paper, usually on full or sometimes half-sheets to save resources, though, occasionally, authors—in their haste to communicate—scribble off notes on scraps of paper and send those as their communication. Letters written prior to the invention of the typewriter in the 1870s were normally handwritten. Yet, even after the appearance of movable type, authors preferred to handwrite their communication. The pen nib, ink, and paper, however, were not always available, forcing them to find alternative means to communicate. Even those without literacy or limited education had the ability to craft missives. They did so by hiring a scribe or finding an intermediary who was willing to write the letters for them. Scribes, particularly family members, however, could not always be trusted to write verbatim or interpret the accurate meaning of a message, leaving the author vulnerable to the whims of unruly writer. Like all sources, letters have biases, for they are inconsistent, manipulative, and formulaic. Sometimes, too, they go missing, are undated, illegible, incomplete, mundane, or are penned sporadically. Despite their shortcomings, as is common to all source materials, they provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a glimpse into the intimate, emotional, and social lives of ordinary men and women. In addition to confronting the challenges of interpreting, producing, and procuring the supplies to produce letters, letter writers need to know or learn how to navigate the mail system. To do so, authors must figure out addresses and postage as well as the frequency of mail pick-up and delivery, especially for national and international letters, which took much longer than regional routes. While the upper classes likely had employees or servants take care of the details of such labor, they nevertheless had some working knowledge of the nature of the postal service. Understanding the mail system likely insured some level of privacy in corresponding but did not always guarantee against prying eyes or hands from intercepting letters meant for another. The personal letters of people from diverse social classes, genders, and racial and ethnic backgrounds in the Americas and Europe have been used by scholars, novelists, and artists to reconstruct the popular and less well-known or hidden histories of the modern period, from the 1800s to the present. Scholars such as historians and literary critics have turned to letters seeking to understand the personal and social circumstances of ordinary as well as extraordinary individuals. Immigration historians have employed them to recreate the lives of migrants—men and women—who risked their lives and left everything they knew behind in immigrating across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as U.S.-Mexico borderlands to establish new lives and find means of survival (Gerber 2006; Cancian 2010, 2013, Chávez-García 2008; Thomas 1996), while literature specialists have relied on them to understand the personal and professional challenges of famed activists, poets, playwrights, and columnists such as Langston Hughes (Roessel 2000; Hughes et al. 2001; Hughes 2016, 2013). Writers (Mailer 1979) have also studied them to create fictional accounts grounded in history, while biographers (Griffith 1982) have trusted them to recreate the life of wellknown or even lesser known people who made an impact on society. As writers, novelists, and scholars have learned, personal letters provide unparalleled tools for recreating narratives with all the immediacy and vibrancy as it was being lived, allowing for richly textured, vivid and detailed, intimate accounts of the past. Encounters Historians encounter letters in almost any field of research in modern history in the Americas and Europe. Most commonly, correspondence is found among settled and literate communities, among upper- and middle-class families, though poor, working class, and unlettered people sent, received, and kept them as well. Anthropologist Manuel Gamio’s interviews (2002) with Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Southwest in 1926 and 1927 indicate that expatriates regularly wrote home to family members and friends with news about their travel in el norte (literally, the north). That form of exchange, as well as word of mouth, was central to motivating scores of Mexicans in the early twentieth century to try their luck in the United States. Letter writing was also not a purview solely of men. Women, as those in Gamio’s study, were just as likely as men to produce and exchange cartas (letters). Ultimately, preservation of the correspondence, that is, how and where the notes were stored, the quality of the paper and ink, and the willingness of people to turn over closely guarded letters to preservationists, archivists, or researchers matters most in making the letters accessible to the public. As scholars have found, ordinary people are unwilling to part with cherished mementos or allow others to view the intimate details of their missives, even years after they sent and received them. As such, personal correspondence is not easily accessible but, when available, it provides an unparalleled world of insight into the hearts and minds of people in the past. Fortunately, many collections of personal letters have been preserved and published in English and other languages, making them available to scholars and students interested in experiencing history as told through the eyes and pens of ordinary men and women of diverse social, ethnic, and racial backgrounds living across the Americas and Europe. These are most commonly found among the collections of individuals living in the twentieth century with advances in the postal service at mid-century and prior to the emergence of online communication, which has diminished the use of pen and paper to communicate. In the 1910s and 1920s and especially in the 1940s and 1950s and beyond, during World War I and World War II, the Korean and Viet Nam wars, respectively, scores of males and females in the armed services sent letters across Europe and North America. According to McCulloch, World War II witnessed the most letters “written, poste, lost and recovered than at any other time before or since (2004: 113).” “Letter writing,” he continues, “was often the only form of community possible in war conditions, whether over short or long distances.” In vivid detail, notes penned by military personnel of all ranks describe the atrocities of combat and recount their personal fears, emotional pain, and melancholy while in battle. While some wrote about their observations and opinions about military operations and tactics, others questioned the necessity of war. Fortunately, many of these notes have been collected in archives and published in books, articles, and online sources. Letters from soldiers stationed in Europe during World War I and World War II and in Asia in the Korean War and Viet Nam War as well as in the Middle East in the Persian War are only some of those that have been preserved (Adler 2003; Carroll 2001; Peckham and Snyder 2016). Nearly equally bountiful are immigrant letters, particularly within a European context. As Gerber finds, “Immigrant letters are probably the largest single body of the writings of ordinary people to which historians have access (2006: 5).” Decades earlier, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British and Irish immigrants in early North America wrote letters from the colonies to their families and friends in England, Ireland, and across Europe, describing harrowing voyages across the Atlantic as well the drudgery and hardships of colonial life. Those have been preserved in edited collections (Fitzpatrick 1994; Miller, et al. 2003; Schrier 1997). Immigrant letters have the potential to reveal the authors’ personal and emotional wherewithal—their audacity as historical agents—in taking charge of their immediate and future lives. Migrants, as their notes attest, were not simply concerned with personal identities and private relationships. They were vested in their personal and emotional relationships but also larger matters of the day, including work routines, employeremployee dynamics, as well as concerns over gender and patriarchal power and notions of femininity and masculinity. While some scholars have found that letters writers often stray from conflict in correspondence, other scholars have encountered notes that reveal tensions and confrontations as well as cryptic, speculative, and contradictory messages. Love and confessional letters are especially difficult to locate, given that authors kept them safely hidden or destroyed them when those relations went sour. Yet, immigrants produced those as well, leaving it to the scholar or researcher to recover them. Less common, though no less significant, Mexican and Central American immigrants penned and sent letters to their loved ones in el norte. While few of these notes have been collected, several works provide insights on the personal and emotional pain of leaving loved ones behind (Gúzman 2016). Using personal letters exchanged among Mexican migrants and their family members across the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, Chávez-García (2018) and Orozco (2017) reveal that letter writers crafted narratives not only of desire and longing but also of worldly engagement with politics of the day. Written in the 1950s and 1960s, the correspondence of Mexican immigrants reveals deep ruminations on the Cold War, the Korean War, atomic bomb, conflict between Truman and MacArthur, and John F. Kennedy’s assassination, among other current events. In contrast to Chávez-García’s and Orozco’s approach, Siems (1995) provides a series of immigrant letters, reproduced in the original Spanish with English translations, among Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan migrants and their families left behind. Those missives demonstrate the power of hope, uncertainty, and fear among migrants as they adjust to life in the United States. Correspondence from family who chose to stay behind shows that they, too, shared in the optimism and offered the love and support needed to sustain relations across hundreds and often thousands of miles. Working with the Source Immigrant letters are ideal sources for understanding the utility of personal correspondence in historical research. Indeed, the availability and ability of immigrant missives to disclose personal and emotional pain as well as social developments of the day make them practical and ideal records to research. As literary texts, immigrant letters provide insights on the ways in which letter writers’ view of themselves shifts across time, space, and place. Read closely, they reveal the writer’s identity construction and self-formation in a new land and among people with different cultural, ethnic, and racial identities. Migration, Gerber argues, “is a profound challenge to the self-defining narrative of identity (2006: 67).” Relocating, whether by choice or not, involves enormous complications, including alienation from the self, both in the past and present. Immigrant letters demonstrate that migrants struggled to figure out who they were in a different place, with new friends and workers, away from what the world they knew. They demonstrate, too, the inner struggles with fulfilling the gender and social roles they had imagined for themselves and with meeting the expectations of those left behind had of them. Love letters, which are less frequently preserved because of their intimate and private nature, reveal the way in which notes serve as tools of courtship, social surveillance, and emotionally restorative confessions of the heart, with all their sincerity and vulnerability. In many ways, missives nurture and constitute relationships. Without letters, relationships wither away. As Gerber reminds us, letters are often incomplete, as many have been lost or thrown away, making it impossible to know the full range of their contents or dimensions (2005: 316). As such, letters lack narratives with a beginning, middle, and end. Most often they end abruptly with no conclusion, leaving the researcher making educated guesses about the sender or receiver of the communication. Though letters often lack neat conclusions, sometimes details emerge about the demise of an epistolary relationship. Exchanges end, at times, precisely because the letter writers reunited. While reunification might have been possible in the twentieth century with efficient systems of transportation, for letter writers in the nineteenth century, especially those separated thousands of miles, across dangerous oceans, permanent separation was the likely outcome. Nevertheless, letters must be viewed as individual snapshots and as part of a longer narrative that must be tethered to or filled in with historical context. The presence of letters does not, of course, mean that they are complete interpretations of a particular moment that can be pieced together like a puzzle. Many writers purposely withheld or filtered information, resisting full disclosure as well as a complete understanding of the evolution of the relationship. Doing so was not always accidental, for it allowed letter writers the ability to escape censure and reprimand from their intended audience, particularly when they made decisions that contradicted family advice. It afforded them the opportunity to avoid sympathy and pity, when their migratory plans went awry. Not writing, remaining silent, and failing to reveal the intensity of the pain and loneliness they experienced as a consequence of their migration and isolation in a new and foreign land also enabled them to protect loved ones who stayed at home. To whom and when and why they chose to and chose not to disclose information is equally significant and says a lot about how they structured their personal, familial, and social lives. While some attempted to keep their intimate, personal relations separate from their household and peer relations back home, the tight-knit family and social networks and free exchange of chisme (gossip) often made that prospect nearly impossible (Gerber 2005: 315-30; Gerber 2006: 99-101). With these limitations in mind, it is useful for the researcher to begin by determining the number of letters sent and received and establish a chronology of the exchange. Does the timeline and content of the correspondence indicate missing notes? If so, how many are gone? And, is it possible to fill in the gaps or suggest the reasons for the interrupted epistolary relationship? Equally important are the locations from which letters are sent and received. Do they change over time and what does this say about the mobility or stability of the migrant and relationship? Do they write, send, and receive letters on the move? Letter writers also often leave clues as to where and when they wrote their letters. Dedicated authors frequently developed routines to insure they carried out their obligations. In replying, they also employed previously received letters, photographs, and song lyrics to guide and inspire their writing. Indeed, it was common for authors to answer correspondence using the recently received note as reference. This practice is particularly useful when only one set of letters survive. In such cases, the use of “double voice” in which authors repeat the statements made in the senders’ last message (“In your last letter, you say that . . .”), sheds light on what was said but no longer available (Gerber 2006: 317-21). Through that practice, which many letter writers carried out, it is possible to reconstruct the larger arc of the narrative running through the missives. For immigrants, letter writing was a self-reflexive practice in which they had the opportunity to craft the self and construct an identity as they wished to be perceived and understood by their readers, usually by those left behind. To analyse the author’s identity construction and self-formation, researchers must spend time studying and questioning the notes’ literary style. What does the letter and writing look like? Is the penmanship or type legible or difficult to read? Does the author handwrite, print, or use technology of some kind? Does the style of writing vary across time or with intended reader? Are they meticulous, for instance, in crafting letters to people they seek to impress and careless in writing to friends and family? What does the language suggest? Does it evince home, formal, or some other kind of schooling? Does it include regionalisms or slang? The language and literary style of an author, that is, how they choose to represent themselves through the physicality of the letter reveals significant insights on the ways in which they sought to render the self, even if it challenged their social reality. To explore how immigrants craft their identities through epistolary practices, the letters of José Chávez Esparza, a Mexican immigrant man living in California’s Imperial Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1960s, to María Concepción “Conchita” Alvarado, a young Mexican woman living in Calvillo, Aguascalientes, in central Mexico, are closely examined. Using some forty-five beautifully crafted letters, which José wrote over a threeyear period, the discussion focuses on José’s objective, which was to convince Conchita, nearly thirteen years his junior, to accept not only his letters of courtship but also his marriage proposal. To do so, he mounted a letter writing campaign in which he crafted an idealized identity as a hard-working migrant, loving and sensitive husband, and sophisticated, urbane gentleman living in the borderlands. Initially uninterested in his advances, Conchita’s thirty-five letters to him demonstrate she eventually warmed to his proposal, especially as she saw few economic opportunities on her horizon. Writing on December 27, 1963, a week after returning to the Imperial Valley, following a brief visit home to México, José, a farmworker, sent a formal letter to Conchita, who he had met during his trip to Calvillo, their mutual hometown. Thirty years old and longing for a female companion, José quickly initiated a bold letter writing campaign to win her heart and hand in marriage. He forced himself to wait a few days before crafting the message, but, as he confessed, he could not delay any longer, as he had “returned enchanted with her personality and all her ways[.]” More than likely, though, he feared she might forget him and his intentions if he waited too long. José reminded Conchita that they had agreed to correspond not only to build a friendship but to establish a relationship in which “she was committed to him [me corresponda,]” and he, in turn, “was committed to her[,]” a theme he raised repeatedly. “I can assure you[,]” he wrote confidently, “that I will grow to love you the way no other has loved you (Chávez to Alvarado 12/27/63).” The formal and eloquent communication seemed to have little effect on Conchita, for she failed to respond. Dismayed, José dashed off a second letter, challenging one-for-one reciprocal conventions in epistolary practices. According to Gerber, one-for-one exchanges provide stability in relationships and future plans, including migration, and when it lapses, it weakens relations (2006: 64-65). “Conchita please forgive me for boring or bothering you but 3 weeks ago I wrote you a letter and I am not certain if you received it or not for I have not received any kind of response nor has the letter been returned. . . . I beg you . . . to please respond . . . [even] if it is true that you do not want to have at least a friendship (Chávez to Alvarado 1/20/64)[.]” Two weeks later, José’s hopes were revived when he received Conchita’s muchanticipated, though lukewarm, letter. “I am going to be sincere with you the way I think you were with me, look I don’t feel I love you in a way that would take us beyond being friends[,]” she wrote bluntly. The reason for her feelings was because, she said, “we barely met, nevertheless I do feel immense affection and profound gratitude” for the attention. “Look keep writing to me I like you for a good friend and as you say God will decide [Dios dirá] (Alvarado to Chávez, 1/28/64).” Although José sensed her reservations, he was overjoyed. “Conchita I wish I could find the most beautiful words to express the joy I feel as I imagined you would not respond[.]” “[T]rue that we barely got to know each other physically” when he visited in December “but we can know each more intimately [by] writing and speaking the truth then you can say what your heart dictates (Chávez to Alvarado 2/4/64).” Nearly five weeks after José began writing letters at the end of 1963, he seemed no closer to convincing Conchita of the proposal. After waiting twelve days for her to respond to his latest letter—the third—José hurriedly sent an “extra” letter. He had written it, he explained, not because he had become disillusioned or impatient with her silence but rather to reveal his true feelings. Although he remained confident, José was not completely blind to Conchita’s indifference: “[I]t is true” that we barely got to know each other in December. He had not spoken to her, he explained, because he lacked the experience and nerve to speak to her, especially because she was “muy bonita” (very beautiful). “I am not one of those types [of men] who have the facility of speaking easily to the girls” because “I think . . . I am . . . not attractive [soy feo] (Chávez to Alvarado 2/16/64),” he explained, using self-denigrating language to position himself strategically as vulnerable. To convince her of the fateful nature of the relationship, José explained a coincidental yet reassuring (curioso) event about their courtship on the day he received her first and only letter. That day he had nearly given up hope she would write. He had become so disappointed that he had erased her name—”Shelly,” which he had translated literally into English from Spanish from “Conchita”—from where he had written it on the inside of the tractor where he worked. He likely used her name, which he recited every day aloud, to keep alive his hope for marriage. Moreover, by Americanizing her name, he went a step further in demonstrating his expectation that she would not only join him as his wife but also adapt culturally—as he had—to the new environment in the United States. Earlier in the day, when her letter finally arrived, he continued, “[I] said today I must receive a letter from ‘Shelly’ (that’s how it was written I translated it to English [he explained]) . . . and if I don’t receive it I will not write to her until [she] writes to me and that day I received your letter (Chávez to Alvarado 2/16/64).” While José believed it was more than coincidence that her correspondence arrived on the day he had given up hope, Conchita believed otherwise. Nearly two weeks later, Conchita sent a second letter, brief and less enthusiastic. “[A]lthough you might not believe it[,]” she explained, “I don’t have a lot of free time as I am studying and the additional housework that I have to do that time escapes me (Alvarado to Chávez 2/28/64).” As one of the two eldest daughters living at home, she and her older sister were responsible for much of the daily domestic chores, including washing, ironing, and cleaning for a family of thirteen. The family’s increasing impoverishment, a result of her stepfather’s poor financial planning related to the family estate left behind by Conchita’s biological father, who was killed by an unknown assailant when she was a child, also meant that her labor was crucial to the household. Moreover, when she did not tend to domestic chores, she focused on her studies, as she neared the completion of la secundaria (middle school), an unusual feat for girls from rural areas in México. Yet Conchita was not completely closed off to the idea of the courtship and, likely, the attention that came with it. She said encouragingly, “But if you have more time [to write letters] . . . you do it and I as soon as I can will respond to them (Alvarado to Chávez 2/28/64).” Aware of Conchita’s growing disinterest, despite his aggressive epistolary campaign, José made an unplanned trip to Calvillo to save the fledgling relationship. The visit, though brief and unannounced, was significant for it meant risking his employment. However, during his entire weeklong stay, he neglected to tell her the depth of his longing and loneliness, likely because he lacked the practice—not the vocabulary—to do so. Rather than express his emotions in person, José saved his most intimate communication for when he returned to the Imperial Valley, a distance safe from potential personal, face-to-face rejection. “Shelly[,]” he wrote, after waiting ten days for her letter, “you know this time I went I only did so to see and talk to you I didn’t tell you when I was over there because I wanted to leave it for when I wrote to you.” “[I] am writing to you to tell you that I have not forgotten you and . . . I wish that you too would think of me.” He continued pointedly, “[I]f you only knew how much I wish that you would grow to love me that is what I long for [hanhelo] most (Chávez to Alvarado, 3/22/64)[.]” José’s confessions seemed to have some effect, for several days later Conchita responded to his pleas yet did so with brutal honesty: “[L]ook I love you [quiero] with an affection [cariño] very different from love [amor], well (let’s see if you understand) I wish I could reciprocate your feelings, but as you know you cannot obligate the heart[.]” Assuming he would become upset at her response, she told him, “The letter you can tear it up or read it if you want but don’t return it to me (Alvarado to Chávez, 3/24/64).” Conchita’s forthright response did not lead José to despair further. Instead, the letter’s detailed nature—in his view, evidence of the developing relationship—and the ones that followed in the months to come, made him optimistic, allowing him the opportunity to communicate his innermost feelings. His proclamations of loneliness and despair, whether honest or embellished, however, had little effect in stirring Conchita’s heart in the way he expected. After a month of writing regularly, a second unannounced visit to Mexico, and pleasant dreams about her, José had yet to hear words of commitment. To bridge the geographic and emotional divide, José drew upon a repertoire of cultural tools to build a deeper connection. Paramount among those was meticulously crafted, highly stylized writing. Conscious of their differences in schooling—José had completed the sixth grade (la primaria), while Conchita finished the ninth grade (la secundaria)—he doubtless worked hard to pen nearly perfect letters in longhand, sometimes on unlined sheets of paper, hoping to convince her of his refinement. In comparing letters he wrote to his younger brother and to Conchita, the attention and thought he took into writing the letter and choosing the words he sent to his intended sweetheart is apparent in the neat and sophisticated quality of the note. From the start, José’s deliberate letter-writing tactic appeared to work, for Conchita was so dazzled with his skill, she confessed, that she attempted to emulate it with little success. “It might seem strange to you that I write to you on paper without lines but you know I was becoming envious seeing that you do it and you keep your handwriting quite straight,” she said. “[B]ut I have proposed to not let you beat me even in this instance (Alvarado to Chávez 4/13/64).” Apparently, her words encouraged his approach, for he continued to write nearly flawlessly over their three-year courtship, while her writing remained less clear and, at times, illegible. Idealized gendered construction of the self, as José’s letters illustrate, was not limited to letter writers. Readers, those in receipt of letters, also took on the liberty of imagining idealized masculine and feminine identities. The correspondence of Jose Guadalupe Francisco “Paco” Chávez, José’s younger brother who followed him to the Imperial Valley in the 1960s, demonstrates the ways in which those left behind, his male friends in particular, imagined him as a hypermasculine male. A close analysis of some eighty letters sent from Paco’s cuates, or male friends, demonstrate that, with the lore of the abundance of el norte and success of migrants at work and play, his “buddies” fantasized regularly about the opportunities for young, restless, heterosexual males like themselves. In 1962, Antonio “el Pinole” Lozano, a long time cuate from Calvillo, wrote to Paco within days of his migration to Brawley where he had joined José, asking for details of his successful adventure. “I expect you to write to me to tell how suave (cool) it is in el norte (Lozano to Chávez 12/25/1962),” he stated. Like el Pinole, Alfonso Martínez, an expatriate from Calvillo who resided in Mexicali, Baja California, at the U.S.-Mexico border, and with whom Paco had lived while waiting for his U.S. permanent residency, consulted with Paco on migrating successfully across the border. Alfonso, however, requested more than insight about el norte. What he needed most was money to complete his application for residency. He repeatedly asked Paco for support, presumably believing that Paco’s migration had resulted in his earning a significant of amount of cash. Alfonso was correct, but only partially. Paco had landed work in Brawley, but poorly paid in agriculture and, later, when he relocated to San José in northern California’s, Silicon Valley’s emerging service industry. Jobs in the restaurant, car wash, and personal services industry paid only slightly better than those in Imperial Valley. Despite Paco’s struggles with employment, which his cuates knew little about, his friends imagined him living in el norte in a land of abundance. While it is unclear if Paco relayed exaggerated details of wealth and opportunity en el otro lado (on the other side), as too few of his letters have survived to make a definitive analysis, it is likely that they heard such stories from family and friends who had travelled or lived in the United States. Those narratives of streets “paved with gold” and the power of those tales to pull people north were not a new phenomenon. Indeed, since the early twentieth century, when Mexican migration to the United States increased significantly, those who had travelled to or lived in el otro lado communicated about the riches and opportunities with those that stayed at home. Gamio’s interviews with Mexican migrants indicate that those cross-border narratives circulated regularly through letters sent back and forth across the border. Later, in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, those narratives were reinforced through the visual images circulating in wildly popular Hollywood movies that made their way throughout Mexico, including Calvillo. For years, even throughout Mexico’s “golden age” of cinema of the late 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, U.S. English-language films were the most popular source of entertainment in movie houses (de la Mora 2016; De Usabel 1982). The movies, along with the exchange of correspondence and oral stories, stirred the imagination and emigration of thousands of Mexicans to the United States (Gamio 2002: 98, 112, 160; Chávez Interview, 12/12/16). Whether Alfonso managed to cross the border with or without inspection is unknown, but what is known is that Paco’s friends, continued to imagine him a successful migrant with pockets full of dollars. Indeed, Pedro “Perico” Sánchez, a long-time friend from Calvillo who stayed at home, sent Paco a missive soon after he had left Calvillo with praise about the prosperity he reportedly relished. “I’ve heard that you’ve enjoyed success, you don’t know how happy I am,” Perico wrote, “p.s. tell me where you work and if it’s true that you’ve had a good experience (Sánchez to Chávez, 12/30/62).” A year later, el Pinole went so far as to fancy his friend a wealthy man when he wrote, “hoping that as you receive this [letter] you enjoy good health and your pockets full of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Lozano to Chávez, 11/15/1963).” Two years after that note, Paco received praise from José Luis López Velasco, another cuate from Calvillo. Believing Paco had the will and resources to lend money— dolares they would likely be unable return any time soon—José Luis asked him for some 100 to 150 pesos, or $8 to $12, for his girlfriend, as she was “ill,” a euphemism for pregnant (López to Chávez, 10/17/66). Paco’s friends not only pictured him with pockets full of dollars but also with access to women, as they believed migrating to el norte was the path to accessing young women and affirming one’s manhood and masculinity, despite the economically marginalized status of most recent Mexican migrants in the United States. In December 1962, three months after Paco’s departure to el norte, José Luis wrote sending him greetings to all “the girls” presumably in Paco’s company. Not satisfied with only imagining Paco’s encounters with women, José Luis urged him to relate the details of his many sexual conquests. “Tell me (platicame) how many girlfriends you have over there, if you have already made your first communion or not yet (López to Chávez, 2/17/64).” In other words, he wanted to know if Paco had engaged in sexual relations with women in el norte. Whether he meant norteamericanas or mexicanas, U.S.- or Mexico-born women, respectively, is unclear. Nevertheless, in his friend’s view, Paco had likely gained such experience and, as a consequence, he believed he was a much more sophisticated and worldly man than he had been in Calvillo. Still, some of his friends tested what they saw as Paco’s new and enhanced sense of masculinity. Among the friends who wanted to hear the most about his sexual encounters with women was el Pinole, who was also the most explicit and denigrating in his language in his conceptions of women, femininity, and female sexuality. “I expect that when you come over here you will surprise us with the news that you are no longer afraid of the jiotosas (slang for rash-like females) and that you come ready and willing for everything . . . but don’t worry don’t confess that you are tarugo (dumb) with the cucarachas (slang for females and, literally, cockroaches) (Lozano to Chávez, 6/5/63).” Rather than admit his limited knowledge of sex with women, el Pinole later advised Paco to portray himself as a sexually experienced man and take advantage of the modern sexual norms, including the women who subscribed to those ideals. El Pinole seemed most interested in the “Go-Go” girls, as he referred to them, the scantily clad dancers popular in night clubs in San Francisco, California, and, later, in locales as far as Japan and Viet Nam. “Tell me if you have any news, a girlfriend or at least a garbanza (female chickpea), because I know the piojosas (flea-infested females) of the nueva ola (new wave) are in abundance over there, those that they call the a Go-Go and that they don’t hold back, therefore you should have at least one to ruletear (spin like a roulette) (Lozano to Chávez, 12/3/66).” Ildefonso Hernández, Paco’s friend living in Mexicali, was equally explicit as el Pinole in fantasizing about Paco’s sexual rendezvous with women, including the ladies of the night. “Hey Paco ‘do you know the bad women (mujeres malas) of San José,’” he asked, “or maybe you don’t know the secrets like in San Luis Sonora do you recall when you went[?] [T]hat’s what I’m referring to,” he implored. “[S]end me word (Hernández to Chávez 6/4/64).” The imagination of Paco’s enhanced masculine sexual identity was not limited to his relationship with women. Paco’s friends also envisioned him riding around in his fashionable convertible car, which he had purchased shortly following his emigration. He lovingly called it “el poderoso (the powerful one),” as he told them soon after buying the used automobile. Paco knew that the car was not only useful for transporting him quickly to and from the agricultural fields where he labored but also an important symbol of physical and economic mobility as well as masculinity. To his friends, the four-wheel mode of transportation made it possible to travel to el norte to find work and earn a decent paycheck and journey south to Mexico on a whim or as needed to visit ill relatives or attend a family gathering, giving them greater flexibility and control in carving out their immediate future. The car also symbolized access to places of leisure frequented by young, heterosexual male Mexican migrants of his day, enabling him and his friends to attend local dances, indoor and drive-in movies, music concerts, or eateries and meet eligible, heterosexual, Mexican females. Equally important to the affirmation of Paco’s cuates’ masculine identity was the material wealth and economic mobility that the car symbolized. For a relatively poor migrant or would-be migrant male like Paco, owning a car meant an incremental rise from the poor, working class to the lower middle class, proving a man’s ability to support a family. El Pinole understood the significance of Paco’s new car and his masculinity when, in his latest communication, he begged Paco to show him a photograph of el poderoso next to his well- formed, firm, and masculine body. “I want to meet it and in addition to see you to see how muscular (ponchado) you are with the exercise (Lozano to Chávez 12/7/63).” Paco was not alone among his friends in fuelling the dream of el norte. Like thousands of Mexican migrant men who came before and after him, Rafael Martínez, Paco’s childhood friend, communicated similar ideas to his friends in the United States and Mexico. But Rafael was more deliberate than Paco in portraying the enchanted life of the migrant. In his correspondence with Paco, Rafael related his successes in various fields, including adapting to the English language. Though his command of English was imperfect and Rafael knew it, doubtless his capacity impressed Paco and his peers, who had yet to master the language in the United States. “Mr. Pac. Dear Friend: I am ansering the your’s there I (Excuse me, that’s no right.) I received your letter, and I am answering it wishing for you and Rogelio the best of helth, me ‘a-t-m’ (a toda madre, doing great) thanks to God our Lord (Mártinez to Chávez, 8/26/64).” In addition to demonstrating his strong command of English, Rafael bragged about his sexual exploits with women in Mexico and the United States. In October 1964, he wrote to Paco, telling him he had plans to travel with a friend to Tijuana to “spend 100,000,000.00 of his abundant fortune on la mujeres de la street (Mártinez to Chávez, 10/3/64),” prostitutes. Rafael also related stories about his intimate relationships with local young women who seemed enthralled by his masculine sexuality. “Look in Lindsay [California] I secured 2 girlfriends and with the 2 of them I kissed a lot; one of them has 18 lovely springs and the other is going to turn 15 and the 15 year old is the master in the art of the kiss, she would give me only French kisses. I have a ton of moves (movidas) that I have to tell you about; but right now I cannot recall more. Es todo por (that’s all for) now (Mártinez to Chávez, 11/11/64),” he signed off. While letters proved invaluable in rendering idealized migrant identities as successful, hyper-sexual, and masculine, immigrant correspondence is also invaluable in providing insights on currents of the day and how they intersected with and shaped the lives of letters writers. To do so, researchers must pay close attention to the contents of the correspondence, that is, to repeated themes, subjects, and references for clues to the material reality as well as the visual, audio, and physical texture of the worlds they inhabit. An analysis of Paco’s correspondence with Rogelio Martínez, a cuate originally from Calvillo and living in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, reveals the influence of a regional youth culture at the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1950s and 1960s. As a young man in his late teens, Rogelio moved from Calvillo to the border town of Ciudad Juárez in the 1950s, where his uncle had previously migrated, in search of a stable form of employment. His goal was to earn enough money to make it across the border to el norte and there find more lucrative opportunities. In his time in Ciudad Juárez, Rogelio proved adaptable and resilient, for he picked up and practiced caló, a vernacular slang and mix of English and Spanish popular among Mexican and Mexican American youths— pachucos—in the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso, Texas, border region. Caló was also a highly gendered language, as Ramírez argues (2006, 2009). Caló, Ramírez explains, was used by young Mexican American males to communicate among each other using a secretive argot, working-class language that borrowed from a variety of cultural and ethnic influences, English as well as Spanish. Caló was seen as “dude talk” and spoken by “vatos firmes,” Ramírez explains. Not everyone welcomed the youth culture, however, particularly the middle class and elite sectors of Mexican society. “[T]he pachuco symbolized transculturation, modernity, urbanization, [and] the breakdown of traditional values,” according to Mraz (2001). Seen as “social no-accounts and mutilators of the mother tongue,” pachucos were scorned in official and public discourse as was their language. Rogelio and Paco, however, as well as the other cuates from Calvillo, revelled in it. Rogelio’s letters to Paco reflect his interest in caló and the playfulness of the language, for he employed it in the euphemisms and double-entendres he crafted in nearly every missive he fired off to Paco. Rogelio recalled years later that he picked up the language by listening, practicing, and perfecting the words and phrases uttered by his new companions, who he befriended at the local mercado (market) where he worked as a young man luring customers to the stalls (Serna Interview, 2017). While many youths, such as Rogelio, picked up caló from talking with one another in the streets, they also learned it from the films of well-known Mexican actor, comic, and radio personality Germán “Tin Tan” Valdés, who played the role of the “Pachuco de Oro” with his Topillo Tapas wildly popular character in the 1940s and 1950s. In writing about his experiences at the border, Rogelio told Paco, if “you only saw how suave I pass the time, oh and look I might marry mano (friend) I have here a very cool hard working chavala (girl) and amiable and above all decent (decentita) (Serna to Chávez, 3/28/63),” meaning sexually virtuous. Studying the gendered dynamics of language, as Catherine Ramírez suggests, is useful, too, in analysing correspondence and recreating the cultural and social currents (2006). Indeed, comparing the notes of male- and female-identified letter writers yields insights on the ways in which gender norms operated on a daily basis in a particular time and locale. In the missives between José and Conchita, she often disparaged her intellect and likely did so to go along with the gender conventions of the day, which held that women’s intellectual capacity was inferior to that of men’s. Her sister, Asunción “Chifis” Alvarado, as well as other female letter writers with whom they corresponded, belittled their writing, comments, and actions, as well, when they wrote to their boyfriends. While some of Paco’s male friends who corresponded with him occasionally resorted to such language, the women, Chifis included, overwhelmingly participated in the practice. Early on in Conchita’s epistolary relationship with José, she criticized her correspondence by saying: “Who knows what you think of my letters I don’t know how to express myself my penmanship is atrocious,” as she compared her writing to his own perfectly crafted, handwritten notes. “I’d better not say anything more because I think I’ll fill the paper and I won’t finish mentioning all the defects (Alvarado to Chávez, 2/28/64).” A few months later, she continued to belittle her correspondence and did so more often than she disparaged her looks, which she often did as well. A close analysis reveals that Conchita disparaged her intellect and letter writing in thirteen of the thirty-five letters she wrote, while José did the same in only three of the fortyfive he sent. “Tell me how many letters of mine you have kept unless you have burned them because they are so dumb that is all they deserve Alvarado to Chávez, 10/1/64).” José countered: “There are twelve of them along with the invitation to your graduation.” “I save them all along with a detail that is going to seem ‘simple’ the trimmings of the envelope . . . I save them in the same envelope. You think they deserve to be burned?” he asked. “I even save the edgings (Chávez to Alvarado, 10/20/64).” Some fifty years later, those same trimmings remain tucked in the envelopes. After nearly two years of denigrating her letter writing, José finally asked her to end the practice, as it pained him to read her words. “Well I wanted to tell you in a special way that I feel bad (feo) that you end your letters with Forgive my scratch-marks (garabatos). I don’t want you to repeat that,” he instructed her. “My writing is undecipherable and I hardly ever say that to you therefore no more alright? (Chávez to Alvarado, 12/14/65).” José’s comments appeared to work, but only temporarily. After a few months of halting the custom, she reverted to the old habit, leading José to ask her to stop on at least three separate occasions. Immigrant letters, like those exchanged between José and Conchita, not only provide a window onto gender conventions but also the way in which they functioned as tools of surveillance. As the correspondence between Paco and Chonita or, Chifis—the girlfriend he left behind (and also Conchita’s older sister) in Calvillo in the 1960s—reveals, notes served as tools of surveillance, allowing each other to keep track of their movements, especially after their cross-border epistolary relationship failed. Indeed, soon after Paco and Chonita dissolved their noviasgo (courtship) months following his emigration in 1964, they wrote to their close friends and family to carry out surveillance as to each other’s physical whereabouts and social interactions, indicating they remained attached emotionally. Paco had an advantage over Chonita, however, for he had far more reporters beating the pavement in Calvillo keeping watch over her body than she had in el norte keeping watch over his. Most of Paco’s cuates responded willingly with chisme, telling him about what they heard about Chonita or had seen first-hand in the pueblo’s (town’s) streets, movie theater, and central plaza, among other public spaces. Contrary to popular beliefs, chisme, or social intelligence, was not (and is not) solely a female activity, males ascribed to it too. In correspondence between his friends, Paco’s buddies confessed to exchanging chisme, wilfully and joyfully, demonstrating that engaging in gossip did not compromise their sense of masculinity or what it meant to be a man in Calvillo. The implications of gossip, also used as a form of entertainment or a form of influencing others, however, is highly gendered. In Joanna’s Dreby’s research on contemporary Mexican migrants, she finds that “transnational gossip morally evaluates mothers to a greater extent than fathers (2009: 44).” In other words, women in Dreby’s research suffered harsher consequences than men from gossip. While both Paco and Chonita set out to determine each other’s commitment to the relationship during and after the courtship, Paco was less trusting of her sexual virtue than she of his, a reflection of the double standard of male and female sexuality. According to Mexican cultural and moral scriptures, women who engaged in sex outside the confines of marriage were dishonorable, while men who did the same faced little social and cultural censure. Dishonor came to men when their wives, daughters, or sisters engaged in dishonorable acts such as engaging in sexual relations with men who were not their spouses. A widow, mother, or daughter’s dishonor, in contrast, did not result from a male family member engaging in sex outside of marriage but, rather, from women’s sexuality deemed threatening to the stability of marriage and the family, including the transfer and inheritance of property, and the larger community (Lavrin 1992; Lipsett-Rivera and Johnson 1998; Twinam 1999). Among the friends and family members who spent the ink monitoring and relaying Chonita’s relationships was el Pinole, who Paco had accused earlier of attempting to seduce her shortly after his emigration. Curiously, neither Paco nor el Pinole broached the attempted seduction in their subsequent correspondence, suggesting Paco preferred to ignore it altogether or else risk losing the valuable source of communication, though he could not always guarantee its veracity. What Paco could guarantee was el Pinole’s sustained interest in Chonita. Indeed, in the letters he wrote to Paco about Chonita, he launched quickly into what he called “los chismes” of the day, which almost always began with an update on her latest relations. In the first letter he sent to Paco shortly after he departed in September 1962, el Pinole reassured him that Chonita was heartbroken over his emigration. “Look in the first place I am going to tell you about Chona she is sad and inconsolable (desconzolada) as she needs her teporocho (slang for boyfriend) and here she is in my house which is also yours and she says she hopes you come for December (Lozano to Chávez, 9/15/62).” Doubtless el Pinole’s update brought Paco some relief, as it settled the concerns he may have had about her commitment, though it also likely raised questions as well, particularly with her presence in el Pinole’s house in her vulnerable, distraught state, as Pinole had described her. To counter any suspicions of his intentions by having Chonita over at his home, el Pinole implicitly reassured Paco he had no interest in her by reporting on the latest “mango” (a sexually attractive woman) of the pueblo and his long-term plan of marrying his girlfriend. Whether Paco felt reassured with Pinole’s sexual interests in other women in town is unclear, though it is clear that, all he could do, was to remain hopeful that their relationship could be revived despite the social influences and physical distance keeping Chonita away. Three months later, depressed and lonely, Paco wrote to el Pinole telling him he was unsure of Chonita’s fidelity, indicating that, even though they had already parted ways, he felt entitled to monitor her social relations. Attempting to uplift his spirits, el Pinole moved swiftly to ameliorate Paco’s anxiety. “Regarding your Lombricienta (slang for worm-like or thin girlfriend) I am going to tell you . . . the truth,” he said. “I have not seen that she is betraying you and that is the pure truth (Lozano to Chávez 12/25/1962).” El Pinole’s report was reinforced by that of Pedro “Perico” Sánchez, who wrote much less often but nevertheless provided updates. Perico intimated that Chonita remained loyal despite the efforts of local men to pressure her into relationships. “Look when I was at the fiesta,” of the guayaba (guava), Perico said, “I was standing talking to the guys (la raza) in the plaza when your TEPOROCHA walked by accompanied but at the moment that I saw her he left and he didn’t give me the chance to say he was going to pay for it,” presumably for attempting to muscle in on Paco’s ex-girlfriend. According to Perico, she then said: “¡CONCEITED MAN HE DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE!” To Perico, Chonita’s public exclamation meant explicitly that she wanted the public to know she was uninterested in other men and implicitly remained committed to Paco. Given her loyalty, Perico warned Paco about maintaining his own fidelity, “don’t be the one who plays rude with her (Sánchez to Chávez 12/30/1962).” Likely relieved to hear the news from Perico, Paco nevertheless seemed unconvinced and asked el Pinole if he should continue to write to Chonita. El Pinole responded affirmatively, encouraging him to communicate with her, especially because he had spied her socializing with a man that neither of them – Paco nor he – approved. “Every night she spends time talking with that sangrón (conceited man) that one who annoys you so much and sometimes I think she is betraying you with el batito sangrepesada (with the annoying dude) that one who also annoys me the son of his granny (Lozano to Chávez 3/1/63).” Conclusion In today's world, hand-written or typed letters are largely irrelevant forms of producing, sending, and receiving information, regardless of the sender or receiver of the messages. The internet, social media, email, and cell phones, among other technology, and the ability to transmit and receive communication instantaneously, have replaced correspondence and made it nearly obsolete. Yet, the creative art of letter writing is an invaluable source of insight on the past and present world. Indeed, notes—no matter how mundane or intricate—provide a window onto the ways in which everyday people, including immigrants, soldiers, and those left behind, built, nurtured, and sustained intimate, emotional, and social relationships across vast distances, including nation-state divides. Despite the ability of distance and time to weaken, at best, and destroy, at worst, personal, family, and community relations, the missives indicate that individuals pursued their hopes and dreams and, sometimes, lost and shattered them altogether. Embedded in a richly textured social, political, economic, cultural, and historical contexts, letters provide a unique lens onto the lives of ordinary people negotiating extra-ordinary circumstances in their attempts to establish their lives in a challenging environment. As snapshots of a moment in time, letters reveal the thought processes and actions of individuals as a particular idea or event unfolded in a moment of time. Unlike oral histories, which, Abrams argues, are living memories and changing interpretations of those memories years after the episodes transpired, correspondence focuses primarily on the here and now and recounts the events as they were lived in all of their immediacy (Abrams 2010). Admittedly, the frozen or static nature of notes may distort how a letter writer's personal, emotional, and intellectual frame of mind are understood or interpreted, as they do not provide insight on the evolution of the author's understanding or perceptions on life. However, by paying attention to the letter writer's changing representation of the self as well as their interactions with the world around them, the author’s maturing outlook on their lives and the larger society becomes visible. Personal letters, complimented with other sources, such as oral histories, music, films, newspapers, material culture, and government records, have the power to bring into clearer focus the people, ideas, events, and structures shaping their relationships. Correspondence has a proven rich and unparalleled source, a relatively untapped window for mining the experiences of ordinary people and the relations they developed, sustained, and experienced in a larger social network and historical context. Indeed, personal letters provide a unique opportunity to delve deeply, richly, and widely into the range of emotional and intimate thoughts and feelings driving and guiding people situated across vast landscapes. They have the ability, too, to render ordinary and extraordinary past lives, experiences, and worlds often obscured in the dustbins of history. By creatively sleuthing, deciphering, and interpreting personal writings, new perspectives, meanings, and details come into sharper relief, reshaping what is known and unknown about past and present worlds. Further reading and online resources Barton, D. and Hall, N. (2000) (eds), Letter Writing as a Social Practice, vol. 9., Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. Breckenridge, K. (2000), ‘Love Letters and Amanuenses: Beginning the Cultural History of the Working-Class Private Sphere in Southern Africa, 1900-1933’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 26(2): 337-348. Earle, R. (1999) (ed.), Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600–1945, Brookefield, VT: Ashgate. Elliot, B., Gerber, D.A., and Sinke, S. M. (2006) (eds), Letters Across Borders: The Epistolary Practices of International Migrants, New York: New York University Press. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, ‘Irish Immigrant Letters Home’, https://hsp.org/education/unit-plans/irish-immigration/irish-immigrant-letters-home [accessed 13 June 2020]. Johnstown Area Heritage Association, Education, Heritage Discovery Center, ‘Letters from America’, https://www.jaha.org/edu/discovery_center/push-pull/letterstohome.html [accessed 13 June 2020]. Johnstown Area Heritage Association, Education, Heritage Discovery Center, ‘Letters from Home’, https://www.jaha.org/edu/discovery_center/push-pull/lettersfromhome.html [accessed 13 June 2020]. Kamphoefner, W.D., Helbich, W.J., and Sommer, U. (1991), News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. University of Minnesota, ‘Digitizing Immigrant Letters’, https://ihrca.dash.umn.edu/dil/ [accessed 13 June 2020]. References Abrams, L (2016), Oral History Theory, New York: Routledge. Adler, B. (2003), Letters from Vietnam. New York: Presidio Press. Alvarado, M.C. to Chávez, J., 28 January 1964. Alvarado, M.C. to Chávez, J., 28 February 1964. Alvarado, M.C. to Chávez, J., 24 March 1964. Alvarado, M.C. to Chávez, J., 13 April 1964. Alvarado, M.C. to Chávez, J., 1 October 1964. Cancian, S. (2013), ‘The Language of Gender in Lover's Correspondence, 1946–1949’, Gender & History, 24(3): 755-765. Cancian, S. (2010), Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian postwar Migration to Canada, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Carroll, A. (2001), War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars, New York: Scribner. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 27 December 1963. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 20 January 1964. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 4 February 1964. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 16 February 1964. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 22 March 1964. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 20 October 1964. Chávez, J. to Alvarado, M.C., 14 December 1965. Chávez, P. (12 December 2016), Interview, San José, California. Chávez-García, M. (2018), Migrant Longing: Letter Writing Across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. De la Mora, S. (12 December 2016), Interview, Santa Barbara, California. De Usabel, G.S. (1982), The High Noon of American Films in Latin America, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. Dreby, J. (2009), ‘Gender and Transnational Gossip’, Qualitative Sociology 32(1): 33-52. Fitzpatrick, D. (1994), Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia, Cork: Cork University Press. Gamio, M. (2002), El inmigrante mexicano: La historia de su vida, Entrevistas completas [The Life Story of the Mexican Immigrant, Complete Interviews], 1926-1927, México, D.F.: Instituto Nacional de Migración. Gerber, D. (2005), ‘Acts of Deceiving and Withholding in Immigrant Letters: Personal Identity and Self-Presentation in Personal Correspondence’, Journal of Social History, 39(2): 315-30. Gerber, D. (2006), Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century, New York: New York University Press. Griffith, R. (1982), ‘Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth’, American Historical Review, 87(1): 87-122. Guzmán, G. (2016), ‘The Transnational Life and Letters of the Venegas Family, 1920s to 1950s’, The History of the Family, 21(3): 457-482. Hernández, I. to Chávez, P., 4 June 1964. Hughes, C. (2013), My Dear Boy: Carrie Hughes's Letters to Langston Hughes, 1926-1938, Athens: University of Georgia Press. Hughes, L. (2016), Letters from Langston: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Red Scare and Beyond, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hughes, L., Hubbard, D., Harper, D.S., De Santis, C.C., Tracy, S.C., McLaren, J., and Martin-Ogunsola, D. (2001), The Collected Works of Langston Hughes (vol. 5), Columbia: University of Missouri Press. Lavrin, A. (1992) (ed.), Marriage and Sexuality in Colonial Latin America, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Lispett-Rivera, S. and Johnson, L.L. (1998) (eds), The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. López, J.L. to Chávez, P., 17 February 1964. López, J.L. to Chávez, P., 17 October 1966. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 15 September 1962. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 25 December 1962. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 1 March 1963. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 5 June 1963. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 15 November 1963. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 7 December 1963. Lozano, A. to Chávez, P., 3 December 1966. Mailer, N. (1979), The Executioner's Song, Chicago: Little, Brown and Company. Mártinez, R. to Chávez, P., 26 August 1964. Mártinez, R. to Chávez, P., 3 October 1964. Mártinez, R. to Chávez, P., 11 November 1964. McCulloch, G. (2004), Documentary Research: In Education, History and the Social Sciences, New York: Routledge. Miller, K., Schrier, A., Boling B.D., and Doyle, D.N (2003), Irish Immigrants in the Land of Canaan: Letters and Memoirs from Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1675- 1815, New York: Oxford University Press. Mraz, J. (2001), ‘Today, Tomorrow and Always: The Golden Age of Illustrated Magazines in Mexico, 1937-1960’, in Joseph, G.M., Rubenstein, A., and Zolov, E. (eds), Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico Since 1940, Durham: Duke University Press, 116-157. Orozco, J. (2017), Receive Our Memories: The Letters of Luz Moreno, 1950-1952, New York: Oxford University Press. Peckham, H. H. and Snyder, S. A. (2016) (eds), Letters from the Greatest Generation: Writing Home in WWII, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Ramírez, C. (2006), ‘Saying ‘Nothin’: Pachucas and the Languages of Resistance’, Frontiers 27(3): 1-33. Ramírez, C. (2009), The Woman and the Zoot Suit: Gender, Nationalism, and the Cultural Politics of Memory, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Roessel, D. (2000), ‘A Racial Act: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Ezra Pound’, Paideuma, 29(1/2): 207-242. Sánchez, P. to Chávez, P., 30 December 1962. Schrier, A. (1997), Ireland and the American Emigration, 1850-1900, Belfield: University College Dublin Press. Serna, R.M. (5 February 2017), Interview, Calvillo Aguascalientes. Serna, R.M. to Chávez, P., 28 March 1963. Siems, L. (1995), Between the Lines: Letters Between Undocumented Mexican and Central American Immigrants and their Families and Friends, Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Thomas, W. I., and Znaniecki, F. (1996), The Polish Peasant in Europe and America: A Classic Work in Immigration history, Champaign: University of Illinois Press. Twinam, A. (1999), Public Lives, Private Secrets: Honor, Sexuality, and Illegitimacy in Colonial Spanish America, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.