Chicana/o Struggles for Education: Activism in the Community: 07

“This book is well researched and written. It is a unique and valuable contribution to the field that offers a detailed account of long-term changes achieved through litigation, legislative action, and other forms of advocacy. As such, it will be useful to scholars and also accessible to a student audience.”–Edwina Barvosa, Associate Professor of Chicana/o Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

–Edwina Barvosa (8/13/2012 12:00:00 AM)

“Chicana/o Struggles for Education will stand as a pioneering work in the historiography of Mexican-American educational history.”–Southwestern Historical Quarterly–Gene B. Preuss “Southwestern Historical Quarterly” (12/4/2014 12:00:00 AM)

“Chicana/o Struggles for Education: Activism in the Community is an excellent synthesis of Chicana/o efforts to obtain quality education in the United States. As a leading scholar in the field, San Miguel has collected an impressive amount of literature on the subject of Chicana/o education. His real contribution is that he has managed to chronicle it all in a single text that is both coherent and manageable. It is well documented, and the citations are extremely valuable, as are the tables that appear throughout the book.” — Journal of Southern History— “Journal of Southern History” (11/15/2014 12:00:00 AM)

“A lot can be learned from this book about social movement politics, education policy, and the struggle to assert local control over the education of Mexican American children.” — New Books in Political Science — “New Books in Political Science”

“Like his pioneering work, Let All of Them Take Heed, Guadalupe San Miguel’s Chicana/o Struggles for Education is destined to become a standard. Tapping into a massive bibliography of sources that includes court cases, legislative acts, policy reports, and numerous secondary works, San Miguel documents the strategies Mexican American activists used since the 1960s to challenge entrenched schoolroom practices; chronicles the campaigns Mexican Americans launched to implement curricula relevant to the Mexican American experience; and details Chicana/o efforts to found alternative schools that used innovative methods designed to produce Mexican American success. Chicana/o Struggles for Education is a master tome by the recognized authority on Mexican American historical struggles to achieve educational equity.”–Arnoldo DeLeón, professor of history, Angelo State University
–Arnoldo DeLeon (2/8/2013 12:00:00 AM)

“San Miguel Jr., renowned historian of Mexican culture and education, brilliantly demonstrates how Mexican Americans’ insistence upon equitable education persisted in different forms beyond the post-activist era of the 1960s and 1970s. Through detailed documentation and persuasive argumentation, San Miguel Jr. expands the narrative of Mexican American agency and collective action through his extension of educational history from pre-school through higher education. Inclusion of the lesser-known role of private secular and religious schools as forms of resistance accurately broadens our historical lens. In Chicana/o Struggles for Education we learn how activists creatively adapted strategies in response to the modern era’s shifting political and economic contexts. New tactics and victories in judicial decisions and congressional legislation during the late twentieth century nonetheless represented continuity in the powerful and enduring stance of Mexican communities to preserve core cultural values and language without sacrificing excellence and quality in education. Historians, policymakers, teachers, students, community leaders, and all individuals who seek to understand the tension between our country’s democratic commitment to public education as a vehicle of social equity and mobility in relation to the Mexican American community must read this invaluable history.”–Victoria-María MacDonald, author, Latino Education in the United States, 1513-2000, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching, Learning, Policy and Leadership, University of Maryland College Park
–Victoria-María MacDonald (3/8/2013 12:00:00 AM)

“This is an eloquent and thoughtful book that provides a rich history of the multiple and complex strategies Mexican Americans used to improve the educational opportunities of their children from 1960 to 2010. San Miguel documents how those who were involved in these efforts intensified the struggle that earlier activist had initiated. This is a readable, intelligent, and important historical narrative of Mexican American activism.”–Rubén Donato, University of Colorado at Boulder
–Ruben Donato (1/24/2013 12:00:00 AM)

GUADALUPE SAN MIGUEL JR., a professor of history at the University of Houston, is a past president of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies. He is the author of three books published by Texas A&M University Press: Brown, Not White: School Integration and the Chicano Movement (2001), Let All of Them Take Heed: Mexican Americans and the Quest for Educational Equality (reprint edition, 2001), and Tejano Proud: Tex-Mex Music in the Twentieth Century (2002).