"Strength in Unity presents the overlooked local history of Guadalajaras urban popular movement from the ground up, particularly highlighting the political, social, and cultural leadership and activism of women from poor, working-class, and marginalized spaces. Brad H. Wright uniquely recovers the voices and lives of ordinary people, the majority population in colonias populares, who took to collective action against neoliberal coaptation and established violent authoritarianism. Christian base communities and Freirean popular education projects are seen as training grounds for claims of "right to the city." Long-term grassroots campaigns from these marginalized communities focused on obtaining basic services, such as water, sewer, and electricity, as well as building schools and having access to public transportation. Wrights narrative counters portrayals of the poor and working class as "apathetic" and "uneducated." His research into oral histories, personal archives, and the Sagrado Corazón nuns archives plus interviews with participants allow him to track over time what he calls "counternarratives," particularly of women who are typically left out of state and Church archives and thus whose roles Wright sees to be downplayed by historians. He shows how community solidarity and movement success were based on communication tools and strategies such as community newspapers and immersion in popular culture via, for example, street theater and music.

This key work will be invaluable to scholars and others interested in urban settlements and grassroots successes in Latin America"-- Provided by publisher.