Agent of Change

Cynthia E. Orozco is a professor of history and humanities at Eastern New Mexico University, Ruidoso. She is the author of No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement and coeditor of Mexican Americans in Texas History.

Agent of Change presents a compelling argument that Adela Sloss-Vento deserves a place of honor in American history, especially Texas history, as a passionately persistent activist and archivist of the Mexican American civil rights and Chicano movements. (Lone Star Literary Life) [Agent of Change] presents a timely critical investigation into one Latinx activist who shaped Texas, US, and women’s history. (Ms. Magazine) By writing a biography of Sloss-Vento, Orozco eloquently gives readers an understanding into the everyday life of middle-class Mexican American women who have shaped community concerns into political issues. Adela Sloss-Vento’s biography is first of its kind, this book pushes the field of Latinx history to consider what women’s lives can tell about state and national debates, such as civic engagement, civil rights, and gendered expectations. (New Books Network: Latino Studies) Superb...In Agent of Change, Cynthia E. Orozco has marshalled in-depth materials that convincingly spell out how Adela Sloss-Vento took on the powerful and proved herself to be a committed, smart, and tough servant of her people...This essential and timely book reinforces her significance to that cause and to Mexican American history. (Southwestern Historical Quarterly) Orozco gives an outspoken, complex activist her due in this compelling biography. (Book Riot) Agent of Change is a masterfully written biography that makes a dynamic contribution to Mexican American and Latina/o history. Thanks to Orozco's work, historians and scholars alike can no longer omit Mexican American women's importance to Texas and civil rights activities. (Western Historical Quarterly) [An] impressive study of Sloss-Vento...Agent of Change gives Sloss-Vento her full due...Agent of Change breaks new ground by showcasing how a woman played a significant, if mostly unheralded, role in the movement for Mexican American equal rights…[a] compelling and splendidly researched story. (Journalism History) A solid and retrospective review of [Adela Sloss-Vento's] life that is also a study of the Mexican American civil rights movement in Texas from 1920 to 1970 and beyond...Orozco describes her vault from obscurity to historical significance eloquently, using the events of the Mexican American and Chicano civil rights movements as steppingstones in Sloss-Vento’s career. (Corpus Christi Caller-Times) Adela Sloss-Vento was a trailblazing Mexican American feminist and Democratic Party activist across eight decades, long before most other women of La Raza had the opportunity in Texas. Agent of Change skillfully restores this pioneering woman to her place in Latina history, making this book an invaluable and well-recommended resource for an array of disciplines. (Chiricú Journal) This biography is a corrective and offers an example of how one might recover the lost intellectual histories of marginalized women of color in the twentieth century who sought to have their voices heard...Orozco’s book helps us get a better understanding of the not fully excavated intellectual history of Mexican Americans in the United States and is a welcome addition to Chicanx history. (American Historical Review) [A] powerful historical chronicle of Adela Sloss-Vento’s life as a Mexican American civil rights activist and Texas feminist...Orozco has an uncanny ability for uncovering historical figures that have been excluded from the list of civil rights champions in U.S. history, and this volume gives Sloss-Vento her rightful place in the pantheon of relentless warriors...Agent of Change should be read by all interested in public and organic intellectuals...History owes a debt of gratitude to Orozco for placing Mexican American women in U.S. and Texas civil rights and women’s history. (Journal of American History) Inspirational. Ingenious. Audacious. Revolutionary. These are the words that come to mind as the story and contributions of Adela Sloss-Vento unfold across the pages of this important contribution and necessary analysis of twentieth-century activism, feminism, and negotiation in Texas. (Pacific Historical Review) Orozco’s biography of Sloss-Vento adds to the historiography of Borderlands studies; more specifically, it adds to the study of women in Borderlands, Mexican American women, and Latinas in the United States. By examining Sloss-Vento as an agent of social, cultural, and intellectual change, Orozco contributes to a broader conversation on women, gender, and ethnic studies. Furthermore, Orozco’s work uncovers a previously omitted history and examines the gender nuances within the Mexican American civil rights and Chicano movements. (New Mexico Historial Review)

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. Across Time Chapter 1. Civil Rights Leader, Public Intellectual, and FeministChapter 2. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1920–1950Chapter 3. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, 1950–1963Chapter 4. The Chicano Movement of 1963–1978 and BeyondPart II. Personas Chapter 5. Feminist in the Gendered Mexican American Civil Rights MovementChapter 6. Public IntellectualChapter 7. Democrat in the United States and Democrat for MexicoConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex