Ybor City bookcover

Ybor City

Crucible of the Latina South
4.9/5.0
21,000+ Reviews
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Description

Decades before Miami became Havana USA, a wave of leftist, radical, working-class women and men from prerevolutionary Cuba crossed the Florida Straits, made Ybor City the global capital of the Cuban cigar industry, and established the foundation of latinidad in the Sunshine State. Located on the eastern edge of Tampa, Ybor City was a neighborhood of cigar workers and Caribbean revolutionaries who sought refuge against the shifting tides of international political turmoil during the early half of the twentieth century.

Historian Sarah McNamara tells the story of immigrant and U.S.-born Latinas/os who organized strikes, marched against fascism, and criticized U.S. foreign policy. While many members of the immigrant generation maintained their dedication to progressive ideals for years to come, those who came of age in the wake of World War II distanced themselves from leftist politics amidst the Red Scare and the wrecking ball of urban renewal. This portrait of the political shifts that defined Ybor City highlights the underexplored role of women's leadership within movements for social and economic justice as it illustrates how people, places, and politics become who and what they are.

Product Details

PublisherUniversity of North Carolina Press
Publish DateApril 11, 2023
Pages266
LanguageEnglish
TypeBook iconPaperback / softback
EAN/UPC9781469668161
Dimensions9.2 X 6.1 X 0.6 inches | 0.9 pounds

About the Author

Sarah McNamara is assistant professor of history at Texas A&M University.

Reviews

"A rich account of Ybor City's cigar workers that deepens our understanding of the New South, American labor history, and immigration history. . . . The story of Ybor City also tells us much about what it means to be southern and American."--Journal of Southern History
"Ybor City broadens our understanding of Latino politics in the state and of labor and ethno-racial community organizing in the American South more broadly, while also providing a formidable example of Latino solidarity, ever timelier in the wake of the renewed far-right politics of the Florida of today."--The Volunteer
"Ybor City is the best that Latinx history has to offer--deeply researched and rigorous but with respect toward diasporic peoples and the rich communities they build and evolve within."--NACLA Report on the Americas
"Sarah McNamara offers an exciting multi-scale history told from a local vantage point that attends to the realities of diasporic life . . . A key contribution to the postwar, place-based histories of Latinas/os living and working in the various regions of the South. . . . McNamara's book will serve as a model for how to balance individual, familial, and communal histories with attention to (trans)national historical processes."--Southern Spaces
"The book is not some alternative perspective on what happened in Ybor City, but real history and storytelling verified by records in the archives of the USF special collections, petitions in the City of Tampa archives, and the city directories that are part of a treasure chest of artifacts at the Tampa Bay History Center."--Creative Loafing Tampa Bay
"There are books whose narratives draw you in, keeping you engaged and eager to turn the page. There are texts that keep you checking how many pages are left in that chapter, not because you want to finish it, but, to the contrary, because you want it to continue. It so happens that these books are not usually academic texts. This, however, is the case for Sarah McNamara's book. It is a thoroughly researched scholarly monograph written in a narrative style that captures the reader's imagination from beginning to end."--The Americas

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