Panel Discussion

In this roundtable, Aguilar will address the importance of teaching students how to effectively assess the social, cultural, and political positionality of workers within transnational labor movements. Throughout the early twentieth century, Mexican laborers frequently found themselves building multiracial networks of solidarity both within Mexico as well as in the United States. Mexican workers came to these networks with their own set of experiences and expertise based on their participation in labor unions, agrarian leagues, feminist organizations, mutual aid societies, and revolutionary cells—all of which were forged through specific political and economic aspirations and biases. In the classroom, Aguilar utilizes primary sources—such as labor periodicals, manifestos, strike demands, and other materials produced by workers—to underscore how such positionalities informed Mexican workers’ efforts to build and sustain coalitions with white working class, European émigres, African American, Asian, Latin American and Latinx laborers. By conducting close readings of such sources, Aguilar encourages students to analyze how these positionalities informed Mexican worker consciousness through a vast array of spaces, places, and temporalities.