Ties that bind.

Fireman, Janet

No one could be surprised that the soulful songster Bruce Springsteen would write: "Now you can't break the ties that bind / You can't forsake the ties that bind." Sentiments of love and belonging are surely universal, but their expression is more overt and more conspicuous in some cultures than others.

"Invisible Borders: Repatriation and Colonization of Mexican Migrant Workers along the California Borderlands during the 1930s," by Benny J. Andres Jr., tells the back story of a voluntary Mexican repatriation in the 1930s, motivated by love for homeland, fueled by strategies to secure fair wages and improving working conditions, and made possible by the supportive administration of President Lazaro Cardenas. How it came to be that 175 Mexican families living in the San Joaquin Valley, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and the Imperial Valley formed a convoy and traveled to the Mexicali Valley in Baja California to establish a farm commune on land the Mexican government had expropriated from powerful foreign owners offers fresh insight on received understanding of Mexican farm workers during the Great Depression.

Acknowledging the significance of places that preserve our cultural memories, stories, and identities, California State Parks recently restored the nineteenth-century Cosmopolitan Hotel in San Diego. In "If Walls Could Speak: San Diego's Historic Casa de Bandini," Victor A. Walsh recounts the story of this landmark historic building that stands as a testament to waves of change from Californio to American frontier society. With its later commercially stimulated alterations inspired by affection for a much romanticized Spanish past stripped away, the full history of the current hotel, restaurant, and bar is revealed for readers and visitors alike.

Compadrazgo, or godparentage, practiced extensively during the Spanish and Mexican eras--and beyond--helped create spiritual, familial, and community bonds, as well as business networks. Erika Perez introduces the concept and provides numerous examples of its application by Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American families in "'Saludos from your comadre': Compadrazgo as a Community Institution in Alta California, 1769-1860s."

Nation, family, home, tradition: these are the ties that bind.