Agent of Change presents a compelling argument that Adela Sloss-Vento deserves a place of honor in American history, especially Texas history, as a passionately persistent activist and archivist of the Mexican American civil rights and Chicano movements.
Lone Star Literary Life
[Agent of Change] presents a timely critical investigation into one Latinx activist who shaped Texas, US, and women's history.
Ms. Magazine
By writing a biography of Sloss-Vento, Orozco eloquently gives readers an understanding into the everyday life of middle-class Mexican American women who have shaped community concerns into political issues. Adela Sloss-Vento's biography is first of its kind, this book pushes the field of Latinx history to consider what women's lives can tell about state and national debates, such as civic engagement, civil rights, and gendered expectations.
New Books Network: Latino Studies
Superb...In Agent of Change, Cynthia E. Orozco has marshalled in-depth materials that convincingly spell out how Adela Sloss-Vento took on the powerful and proved herself to be a committed, smart, and tough servant of her people...This essential and timely book reinforces her significance to that cause and to Mexican American history.
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Orozco gives an outspoken, complex activist her due in this compelling biography.
Book Riot
Agent of Change is a masterfully written biography that makes a dynamic contribution to Mexican American and Latina/o history. Thanks to Orozco?s work, historians and scholars alike can no longer omit Mexican American women?s importance to Texas and civil rights activities.
Western Historical Quarterly
[An] impressive study of Sloss-Vento...Agent of Change gives Sloss-Vento her full due...Agent of Change breaks new ground by showcasing how a woman played a significant, if mostly unheralded, role in the movement for Mexican American equal rights [a] compelling and splendidly researched story.
Journalism History
A solid and retrospective review of [Adela Sloss-Vento's] life that is also a study of the Mexican American civil rights movement in Texas from 1920 to 1970 and beyond...Orozco describes her vault from obscurity to historical significance eloquently, using the events of the Mexican American and Chicano civil rights movements as steppingstones in Sloss-Vento's career.
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
Adela Sloss-Vento was a trailblazing Mexican American feminist and Democratic Party activist across eight decades, long before most other women of La Raza had the opportunity in Texas. Agent of Change skillfully restores this pioneering woman to her place in Latina history, making this book an invaluable and well-recommended resource for an array of disciplines.
Chiricú Journal
