Posted on June 30, 2025 in Featured Review
Authors:
Luis H. MorenoCompton in My Soul: A Life in Pursuit of Racial Equality, by Albert M. Camarillo. Stanford, 2024. 312p, 9781503638198 $28.00, 9781503639317
Our memories of home, family, and life play a crucial role in how we experience the world around us. They shape our personal narratives and are deeply ingrained in who we are. Historian Mario Garcia highlights this idea in Literature as History (CH, Jul’17, 54-5307), noting that these narratives are more than just ways to communicate; they are also our histories. A compelling example of this can be found in Albert M. Camarillo’s memoir, Compton in My Soul.
Most people’s perceptions of Compton often emphasize gang violence, overshadowing the city’s working-class Mexican community’s history. Camarillo (emer., Stanford Univ.), who is considered one of the founding scholars of Chicana/o/x studies, highlights this important history throughout the pages of his memoir. In it, he recounts his journey toward racial equality, which is intricately tied to the history of Compton. Camarillo expresses this connection powerfully, writing, “I was born and raised in this city, and Compton, in so many ways, is in my soul” (p. 1).
His memories of Compton begin in the Mexican neighborhood they called “el barrio,” where they were shaped by his family and community members who came before him. The stories of what his parents and elders went through while settling into their adopted country, the United States, inspired his success in life and career as a historian. The memoir comprises three parts that encompass twenty-one chapters, ranging from his roots in Compton to his search for social justice before finally circling back to his beginnings.
Camarillo’s early years in Compton exposed him to racial tension, which opened his eyes to how bigotry operates in society. This tension provided him with a superficial understanding of racism; he later came to realize that some people despise others simply because they are different. He noticed that there were very few options in higher education for students of color beyond the path of assimilation. However, he felt fortunate to discover his academic interests and social passions along the way.
As he learned more about the history of race in the United States, he became increasingly involved in the Chicano Movement.
By the late 1960s, he had enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he began his intellectual and social justice awakening. As he learned more about the history of race in the United States, he became increasingly involved in the Chicano Movement. Camarillo felt free to celebrate and take pride in his Mexican heritage for the first time, and he embraced his identity as a Chicano.
His interest in understanding the dynamics of race and ethnic relations deepened, ultimately leading him to the field of ethnic studies. His political awareness was further shaped by the anti-war movement, the farmworker movement, and his classes at UCLA, all of which fueled his desire for knowledge. Studying under Dr. Juan Gomez-Quiñones, who played a crucial role in his intellectual and academic development, and later Dr. Norris Hundley, who mentored him, Camarillo discovered a passion for history alongside his political awakening.
Bolstered by their guidance, Camarillo, the son of working-class immigrants with almost no formal education, became the first Mexican American to earn a doctoral degree in U.S. history, specializing in Chicano history. Through his education he was introduced to a new approach to social history, one that examines history from the bottom up rather than the top down, which he carried over into his own research. In the early 1970s, he became part of a group of historians who laid the foundation for this new area of knowledge, reshaping our understanding of the past.
Camarillo secured a position at Stanford University, where, as one of the few Chicano faculty members, he focused on improving the campus environment for faculty and students of color. He recognized that publishing his first book, Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848–1930 (1979), in the emerging field of Chicana/o/x history was crucial for both his future and the advancement of this field at Stanford and beyond. Moreover, it legitimized the lived experiences of individuals, particularly those whose histories have been overlooked or, even worse, forgotten. As a result, it became a classic text within the field of Chicana/o/x history and studies. His passion and mission to lay the foundation for a new field of scholarship and teaching—Chicana/o/x history and ethnic studies—led to the establishment of the Stanford Center for Chicano Research, the Inter-University Program for Latino Research, and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
Believing that Compton deserved to be documented by a trained historian, he decided to take on the mantle.
Camarillo’s time in the ivory tower eventually brought him back to Compton. Over the decades, his hometown was often in the spotlight for negative reasons. Believing that Compton deserved to be documented by a trained historian, he decided to take on the mantle. As he began reconnecting with Compton, he encountered stories of sadness and loss, but also narratives of perseverance and hope that could fill volumes.
Personal memoirs, such as Ernesto Galarza’s Barrio Boy (1971) and Richard Rodriguez’s Hunger of Memory (1982) and later Brown (2003), have been important contributions to the fields of Chicana/o/x history and Chicana/o/x studies for how they expose readers to personal narratives of migration, labor, and activism. Compton in My Soul is a new addition to that list.
Summing Up: Recommended. General readers through faculty.
Interdisciplinary Subjects: Latin American & Latina/o Studies, Urban Studies, Racial Justice
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences
Luis H. Moreno is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Bowling Green State University. He received his PhD in Chicano/Latino studies from Michigan State University and is a member of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
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