From Coveralls to Zoot Suits

Book Response Assignment
200 points (20% of course grade)
Due Friday, November 10 (11:59pm)
DIRECTIONS: This assignment is a response to Elizabeth R. Escobedo’s From Coveralls to Zoot Suits: The Lives of Mexican American Women on the World War II Home Front. To complete this assignment, you must fully answer the below short-answer questions using specific details from the book. Remember that the purpose of this assignment is to make sure you have read and understood the book, so be as specific as possible and avoid vagueness! You should write a large paragraph (at least 10 sentences, but you may need to write more) for each question. There are FOUR questions below. Each question is worth 50 points, for a total of 200 points (20% of your course grade). Please use this sheet and TYPE your answers.
1 What is the author’s central argument in From Coveralls to Zoot Suits? How does this book add to what historians have written about World War II and Mexican Americans? What kinds of sources does the author rely upon to write this book, and what are the strengths and limitations of relying on those sources?
Within Escobedo's "From Coveralls to Zoot Suits" tapestry lies a profound assertion: Mexican-American women were not mere footnotes in the World War II narrative; they were pivotal architects of a societal metamorphosis. It is not a secret that history has relegated the role of women in the development of society as compared to men. Thus, this book was like a window into a previously obscured reality, where these women, with resolute tenacity, navigated the workforce and redefined gender norms under the shadow of a global conflict. In fact, this importance was discussed in great detail early on in the text, as Escobedo noted that "familial responsibilities and economic survival drew Mexican women into the workforce…” (p. 4). Throughout the book, again, this cycle of immigration and discrimination seems to reiterate itself, especially for immigrant women who were torn between their homeland and the Americas, since either one provides a level of prejudice and discrimination against them being in the workforce. This forced them to work in various industries, such as agriculture, production, and other domestic service sectors, despite the lack of social mobility and increasing discrimination and prejudice against them (p.77).
However, what gave her work a fresh stance against existing studies back then was the use of a narrative richly layered with personal interviews