The Coke Works: “a thousand Mexicans came”

Bethlehem Moments, Local Color 1 Minute

Lehigh Review, Spring 1939

read by the Gadfly:

Coco 1
Coco 2
Coco 3
Coco 4

Lehigh University students view the wave of Mexicans working in and living by the infamous Coke Works.

What are you thinking?

Written 80 years ago.

Imagine Gadfly reading this today (with his Mexican accent!) to an
audience of many colors.

What discussion might ensue about the meaning of “history” and
how “history” is written?

What would a poem by one of the Mexicans look like?

Thanks to follower Ilhan Citak for supplying the copy and for permission to print.

Published by The Bethlehem Gadfly

Edward J. Gallagher, Bethlehem immigrant, retired, nearly 50 years as Professor of American Literature at Lehigh University, known as "Dr. G" and "Conan the Grammarian" to students, whose virtual world avatar "EdwardScholarhands" stares at you here, has reinvented himself as the Bethlehem Gadfly.

Published

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