Excerpts from "Americanization Through Homemaking"

Excerpts from "Americanization Through Homemaking"

"Americanization" of Mexican girls in California schools

These are selections from pages of "Americanization Through Homemaking," a manual meant to help California teachers educate the new and growing population of Mexican girls who had begun filling their classrooms in the early 1900s. The photo from the manual shows Mexican girls in a sewing class.

According to her A-file, Teresa Reyes Trujillo attended school in the Pomona Unified School District. This manual hints at what girls who had come to the U.S. from Mexico encountered in California schools. The manual emphasized the importance of "Americanizing" Mexican girls, offered a guide to teaching "homemaking for the foreign girl who comes to us," and envisioned students as a moldable workforce. "We who employ them are challenged to raise their standards of living, improve sanitation, and control disease," wrote author Pearl Idelia Ellis. "If we expect them to adopt to our customs, our ideals, and our country, let us set them a most worthy example."

Pearl Idelia Ellis

Library of Congress

Wetzel Publishing Co. , Inc.

1929

Public Domain

English