Pulitzer prize winning John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 about the Joad family - their poverty, their desperation and above all their dignity. It was and is an amazing social commentary, and Luis Rodriguez’s Music of the Mill is as well. Everyone knows about the Great Depression, but how many people outside of the little South L.A. towns where the steel mill ruled for so many years know about the economic and social decline the closing of those mills caused?
Billy Joel sang about Allentown and the whole nation was made aware of the loss of mills in Pennsylvania. Who sang for Huntington Park, Maywood, and South Gate, those little sad towns in Los Angeles? Luis J. Rodriguez has now done so.
In Music of the Mill, Luis Rodriguez writes about the Salcido family and their 60-year relationship to the mill called Nazareth Steel. The story starts with Propocio and Eladia walking most of the way from their home in Mexico to a new life in the United States. They wind up in Los Angeles and Procopio gets a job in the big steel mill. Rodriguez portrays the union battles, tensions between Blacks and Mexicans, the white domination in the union, and the fight of the Salcido family for equality and safety within the dangerous mill.
Johnny Salcido, the main protagonist, is as strong a character as any I’ve read. He has his dark side yet he is strong in his love for his wife and family. His portrayal - from the young vato loco getting in trouble to the young, green mill worker to the activist and father - all are so amazingly well done that you just feel like you know him and maybe you do. There is a lot of Johnny Salcido all of us, the rebel, the fighter, the lover of hearth, home, family.
The mill itself is portrayed as dangerous, a toxic yet seductive monster. Mr. Rodriguez brings the reader into the mill; you feel its heat, its intensity, its ugliness and its beauty. From workers grilling their carne asada on an ingot to the racial tensions and divisions - you are in that mill. You can feel the tension, smell the carne. People die in the mill, lose limbs, breathe in bad fumes. Workers turn to alcohol and drugs to stay awake in order to work more shifts. It is all too real.
Article comments
1 - Lisa Alvarado
Only a superb writer can do this book and Rodriguez's work justice. He, like Martin Espada, walks the talk, and in addition, crafts work of hearbreaking power and beauty. Kudos in spades to you for this lyrical and insightful review.
2 - Alberto Garcia
This book has a destiny, the trash can.