Synopses & Reviews
Beginning after World War I and continuing throughout the twentieth century, Houston was transformed from a black-and-white frontier town into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse urban areas in the United States.
Houston Bound draws on social and cultural history to show how, despite Anglo attempts to fix racial categories through Jim Crow laws, converging migrationsand#151;particularly those of Mexicans and Creolesand#151;complicated ideas of blackness and whiteness and introduced different understandings about race. This migration history is also a story about music and sound, tracing the emergence of Houston's blues and jazz scenes in the 1920s as well as the hybrid forms of these genresand#151;like zydeco and Tejano souland#151;that arose when migrants forged shared social space and carved out new communities and politics. Houston's location on the Gulf Coast, poised between the American South and the West, yields a particularly rich examination of how the histories of colonization, slavery, and segregation produced divergent ways of thinking about race.
This interdisciplinary book provides both an innovative historiography about migration and immigration in the twentieth century and a critical examination of a city located in the former Confederacy.
Synopsis
Beginning after World War I, Houston was transformed from a black-and-white frontier town into one of the most ethnically and racially diverse urban areas in the United States.
Houston Bound draws on social and cultural history to show how, despite Anglo attempts to fix racial categories through Jim Crow laws, converging migrations--particularly those of Mexicans and Creoles--complicated ideas of blackness and whiteness and introduced different understandings about race. This migration history also uses music and sound to examine these racial complexities, tracing the emergence of Houston's blues and jazz scenes in the 1920s as well as the hybrid forms of these genres that arose when migrants forged shared social space and carved out new communities and politics.
This interdisciplinary book provides both an innovative historiography about migration and immigration in the twentieth century and a critical examination of a city located in the former Confederacy.
About the Author
Tyina Steptoe is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arizona.
Table of Contents
List of IllustrationsIntroduction: When Worlds Collideand#160;and#160;Part Oneand#160;1 andbull; The Bayou City in Black and Whiteand#160;2 andbull; Old Wards, New Neighborsand#160;and#160;Part Twoand#160;3 andbull; Jim Crowandndash;ing Culture4 andbull; andldquo;We Were Too White to Be Black and Too Black to Be Whiteandrdquo;and#160;and#160;Part Threeand#160;5 andbull; andldquo;All America Dances to Itandrdquo;and#160;6 andbull; andldquo;Blaxicansandrdquo; and Black Creolesand#160;
and#160;Conclusion: Race in the Modern Cityand#160;AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndexand#160;