Alejandro Ramirez

NonfictionSocial SciencePolitics

99% Perspiration

Review by Alejandro Ramirez

American ideology stresses the value of hard work, tying it not just to wealth but to character. But we know hard work doesn’t always pay: Today, income inequality is worse than ever and wages have stagnated. But the pernicious idea that one’s value is tied to their employment status persists, influencing policies around welfare, housing, education and more. The COVID-19 pandemic changed many people’s views on work and government aid, but also inspired employers to rail against workers who sought employment elsewhere. It is against the pandemic backdrop that Adam Chandler begins 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life, which seeks to break down the myth of the American work ethic and offer new ways to think about our relationship with our jobs. 

Chandler, a journalist who traced the history of modern America through fast food in 2019’s Drive-Thru Dreams, uses the first half of his book to track how the U.S. came to place so much emphasis on the value of “hard work.” That’s not just the somber toil of farmsteading Pilgrims, but also the individualist hustle associated with Thomas Edison. Chandler dives into history, picking apart the folklore that became the basis for our modern attitude towards work, from Benjamin Franklin’s musings to the glitz of the Chicago World’s Fair. 

There’s an element of travel journalism at play, as he visits areas like Plymouth Rock and an Osage Nation reservation in Oklahoma. Sometimes these excursions feel more like detours from the subject at hand, as Chandler sets up a stronger second half, which slices through modern Americans’ unhealthy relationship to work. Technology keeps office workers tethered to their desks regardless of time or location, low-wage workers struggle with erratic schedules, and politicians decry the neediest as leeches. While Chandler explores possible solutions, like a universal basic income, he also calls for a realignment of this country’s values, touting the benefits of a society more invested in the health of the community than the potential for individuals to strike it rich.

Chandler’s breezy writing style makes the book an easy read with plenty of eye-popping statistics and gut-wrenching anecdotes. More importantly, 99% Perspiration will make readers question their own relationship to work, what their jobs mean to them, and why employment is so integral to our identity.

Adam Chandler’s history of labor can make readers question their own relationship to work, what their jobs mean to them, and why employment is so integral to our identity.
NonfictionHistoryAmerican History

Book and Dagger

Review by Alejandro Ramirez

Though physicists get the most attention when it comes to academic contributions to war efforts, the United States’ nascent intelligence team also relied on experts of another sort. Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II, tells the thrilling story of the professors, archivists and artists who were recruited by the U.S. and British governments to become highly effective spies and intelligence agents during the Second World War. 

Graham recounts the various missions made possible by professional researchers recruited from university campuses by the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. These men and women put their skills to use in unexpected ways, such as drawing strategic insights from the most mundane texts, like Moroccan phone directories that revealed munitions factory locations, and scientific journals available only in Europe, which kept the Allies abreast of nuclear developments.

A Hollywood version of Book and Dagger would feature heart-pounding scenes of disheveled scholars digging for scraps of crucial information in stacks of ancient tomes. Without falling into this mire of tropes, Graham follows some recurring characters and includes some thrilling scenes of sabotage. The book is also about how the OSS and U.S. military relied on unique, research-driven perspectives to outsmart and outmaneuver the Nazis. With a keen ear for narrative prose, Graham builds suspense and intrigue, and the book is a pulpy delight.

Graham acknowledges that spycraft is a complicated, messy business, and readers may find this tale of underdog heroism difficult to square with the CIA’s later history of surveillance and subterfuge in U.S. and international politics. Even so, a story where a passion for knowledge and appreciation for outsiders defeats a regime fueled by hatred and greed is most welcome. Book and Dagger is a necessary reminder of the value of the humanities and the importance of the freedom of information and ideas at a time when both of those things are under threat.

Elyse Graham’s thrilling history of how scholars and librarians helped the U.S. outsmart the Nazis is a pulpy delight.
NonfictionSocial Science

LatinoLand

Review by Alejandro Ramirez

The Latino community doesn’t exist as a monolith. Latin Americans hail from over 20 countries, each with its own unique ethnicity and culture. African, Spanish and Indigenous influences vary wildly but are consistently present in most groups. Labels like Hispanic or Latino don’t snugly fit this growing population, and some people shrug them off entirely.

Lauded author and Washington Post columnist Marie Arana admits early on in LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority that she is “working with a deficit” in her attempt to capture the diverse experience of American Latinos. Yet by embracing the variety of this diaspora—and its people’s conflicting views on race, religion and politics—she comes as close to success as one can get.

The book at first functions as a survey, with brief chapters on Puerto Ricans, Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans and other Latino groups. While these historical accounts might not unearth anything unknown to Latin American scholars, Arana’s punchy writing style is engaging, informative and full of pleasant surprises, like her tale about the first Dominican to settle New York in the 1500s, centuries before a bodega opened in Washington Heights. 

Arana also tackles the plurality of Latino identities from other angles, including the morphing religious affiliations of Hispanic Americans and a thoughtful dismantling of the myth of the “Latino vote.” Short profiles contextualize the broader themes and history lessons; some of the stories related here are harrowing, some amusing, others mundane. The horrors of colonialism, segregation and genocide are everpresent.

LatinoLand features interviews with an impressive swath of Latinos, from undocumented custodians and emboldened activists to federal policymakers and religious leaders—though at times there does seem to be a reliance on higher-educated professionals. While Arana celebrates the diversity of American Latinos and doesn’t push for any kind of assimilation, she also appeals to traditional American values when making the case for Latino acceptance, pointing to their contributions to business, academia and the military. But her most salient argument is that Latinos have contributed so much more to this country than what’s acknowledged in the mainstream; by spotlighting unsung heroes like climate scientist Mario Molina and labor champion Dolores Huerta, she gives them their due. 

As Arana pieces together a vibrant collage of American Latino lives, she communicates her belief that solidarity is possible among this fractured cohort. Perhaps, one thinks, it can emerge from the shared experience of being underestimated and undervalued.

Reporter Marie Arana paints a thoughtful portrait of how Latinos have shaped—and been shaped by—the United States in this punchy cultural history.

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