ustxtxb_obs_1999_09_03_50_00024-00000_000.pdf

44’Z’AtaN ft Flames after Midnight Murder, Vengeance, and the Desolation of a Texas Community By Monte Akers What happened in Kirven,Texas, in May 1922, has been forgotten by the outside world. In this nonfiction account written with the drama of a novel, Akers tells the true story of a young white woman’s brutal murder and the burning alive of three black men who were almost cer tainly innocent of it, He paints a vivid portrait of a community desolated by race hatred and its own refusal to face hard truths and traces the lynching’s repercussions down the decades to Kirven in the 1990s, now almost a ghost town. 232 pp., b&w photos $14.95 paperback, $29.95 hardcover Reinventing Texas Government By Michael Lauderdale The Survey of Organizational Excellence is revolutionizing the operation of Texas state agencies and other governmental and private organizations. This book gives a history of the survey and its use under four governors, including George W. Bush. Lauderdale explains what the survey is, how to use it, and how to apply its results to organizational change and improvement. He also gives a broader perspective by identifying some of the forces currently impelling change in organizations throughout our society and exploring where this push for change is taking us. 217 pp. $19.95 paperback Colonias and Public Policy in Texas and Mexico Urbanization by Stealth By Peter M. Ward Over 1,500 coloniasmany lacking even the most basic servicesoffer the only low-cost housing available to some 400,000 mostly Hispanic working poor in Texas.This book presents the results of a major study of colonias in three transborder metropolitan areas and uncovers the reasons why colonias are spreading so rapidly. Ward compares Texas colonias with their Mexican counterparts, many of which have developed into fully integrated working-class urban communities. He describes how Mexican governments have worked with colonia residents to make physical improvements and upgrade servicesa model that Texas policymakers can learn from, he asserts. 307 pp., b&w photos, maps $19.95 paperback, $45.00 hardcover Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados Class and Culture on the South Texas Border By Chad Richardson Here is the fullest portrait currently available of the people of the South Texas borderlands. The book uses the voices of several hundred Valley residents, backed by the findings of sociological surveys, to describe the lives of migrant farm workers, colonia residents, undocumented domestic servants, maquila workers, and Mexican street children. Likewise, it explores race and ethnic relations among Mexican Americans, permanent Anglo residents,”Winter Texans,” Blacks, and Mexican immigrants. This firsthand material vividly reveals how social class, race, and ethnicity have interacted to form a unique border culture. 314 pp., b&w illus. $17.95 paperback, $35.00 hardcover Gente Becente A Borderlands Response to the Rhetoric of Dominance By Leticia M. Garza-Falcon Garza-Falcon explores how prominent writers of Mexican descentsuch as Jovita Gonzalez, Americo Paredes, Maria Cristina Mena, Fermina Guerra, Beatriz de la Garza, and Helena Maria Viramonteshave used literature to respond to the dominative history of the United States, which offered retrospective justification for expansionist policies in the Southwest and South Texas. Garza-Falcon shows how these counternarratives capture a body of knowledge and experience excluded from”official” histories, whoselacts” often emerged more from liter ary techniques than from objective analysis of historical data. 327 pp , b&w photos $18.95 paperback, 535.00 hardcover UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS 800-252-3206 www.utexas.edu/utpress At bookstores, or request our complete Texana catalog. . 4’1;f4e020.-raiMrk45.;f15M.:..:. ,. SEPTEMBER 3. 1999 24 THE TEXAS OBSERVER