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The article discusses nationalism among Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Texas from 1910 through 1940, including in regard to their sense of belonging, citizenship and the depiction of nationalism within literature. An overview of Mexican and Mexican Americans' sense of ethnic and national identity is provided. An overview of the impact that Mexico's Revolution of 1910 through 1920 had on the Mexican government's attempt to modernize the country into a nation-state is also provided.

This article examines the meaning of pledging state and national allegiance at a multiethnic public school in Texas. An analysis of students’ metapragmatic discourses about various ‘styles of citizenship’ illustrates how female ‘preps’ typically viewed the Pledge as a seamless part of their white, middle-class, neoliberal lifestyles, thus positioning themselves, in accordance with institutional definition, as lawful and patriotic citizens. Yet institutional conflations of patriotic , lawful , and neoliberal citizenship styles were challenged by non-preps, who valued alternative transnational , dissenting , and cool styles of political membership. At the same time, hegemonic modes of belonging were not wholly dismantled; alternative citizenship styles sometimes complemented, rather than conflicted with, students’ patriotic stances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency has traditionally been equated with resistance and assumed to be universal. More recently, black and postcolonial feminist theories have emphasized contextualizing and differentiating agency with the end goal of uncovering the complex dynamics of oppression and subordination, particularly in matters related to violence against women. In this vein, I share the cases of fifteen Latina immigrant survivors of domestic violence in their search for nonviolence, autonomy, and citizenship at a US legal nonprofit organization in Texas. I show how both legislation and nonprofit organizations created to assist battered immigrants formally and informally frame survivors' agency, which is not only structurally and situationally constrained, but often compliant and unintended. By looking at the nuances of agency in this context, I reveal the ways in which some women are able to negotiate these constraints and complete their citizenship application process successfully, while others, often the most destitute ones, tend to be weeded out of this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the construction of the Texas Capital building in Austin, Texas in 1884 and the builders' use of prisoners from the state's Mexican convict lease to cut costs. The author explains that members of the National Granite Cutters Union were angry over this choice and refused to train the prisoners. The granite cutters brought legal suite against the builders. The use of Scottish immigrants as builders is also talked about. The article examines how the organization of white workers, Mexican convicts, and Scottish immigrants challenged images of American citizenship.