(2001). The Best for Our Children: Critical Perspectives on Literacy for Latino Students. Language and Literacy Series. This collection of papers brings together the foremost leading authorities and scholars on the issue of literacy for Latino students. After an "Introduction" (Maria da la Luz Reyes and John J. Halcon), there are 14 chapters in three parts. Part 1, "Sociocultural, Sociohistorical, and Sociopolitical Context of Literacy" includes: (1) "The Diversity of Schooling: A Cultural-Historical Approach" (Luis C. Moll); (2) "Teacher as Sociocultural, Sociohistorical Mediator: Teaching to the Potential" (Esteban Diaz and Barbara Flores); (3) "The Need for Educators with Political and Ideological Clarity: Providing Our Children with 'The Best'" (Lilia I. Bartolome and Maria V. Balderrama); and (4) "Mainstream Ideology and Literacy Instruction for Spanish-Speaking Children" (John J. Halcon). Part 2, "Biliteracy, Hybridity, and Other Literacies," includes: (5) "Starting Off Right: Planting the Seeds for Biliteracy"…
(1995). Hispanic Psychology: Critical Issues in Theory and Research. This book provides students, researchers, and practitioners with access to major theoretical and empirical issues in the field of Hispanic psychology. The book is divided into six parts: acculturation and adaptation, ethnic identity and behavior, clinical research and services, health and AIDS research, gender studies research, and education and academic achievement. The educational section focuses on two-way bilingual immersion programs, educational resilience among Mexican American 10th-graders, and effects of educational reforms on Latino students. The 20 chapters are: \Environmental Influences and Personal Choice: A Humanistic Perspective on Acculturation\ (Raymond T. Garza, Placida I. Gallegos); \Mexican American Family Functioning and Acculturation: A Family Systems Perspective\ (Erich J. Rueschenberg, Raymond Buriel); \A Multidimensional Measure of Cultural Identity for Latino and Latina Adolescents\ (Maria Felix-Ortiz de la Garza, Michael D. Newcomb, Hector F. Myers);…
(1996). Teaching American Ethnic Literatures: Nineteen Essays. This book features scholarly criticism on works by 19 famous authors, such as N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, and more. These authors' works are widely taught, but little critical comment is yet available about them. Written specifically for instructors in literature courses, these essays focus on longer works of prose in each of the four major ethnic literatures of the United States: Native American, Mexican American, Asian American, and African American. The Native American section includes: (1) \Indian Preservation: Teaching \Black Elk Speaks\ (G. Thomas Couser); (2) \Beauty Before Me: Notes on House Made of Dawn'\ by N. Scott Momaday (Helen Jaskoski); (3) \Crying for Vision in James Welch's Winter in the Blood'\ (William W. Thackeray); (4) \Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony: From Alienation to Reciprocity'\ (Norma C. Wilson); and (5) \Building Bridges: Crossing the Waters to a Love Medicine'\ by Louise Erdrich…
(1993). Family Ethnicity: Strength in Diversity. Sage Focus Editions, Volume 41. Extensive information is provided about the various cultural elements, including attitudes toward education and work, that different family groups have drawn on in order to exist in the United States today. The family ethnicities of five distinct cultures (Native American, African American, Mexican American and Spanish origin, Muslim American, and Asian American) are considered. Each chapter provides information about such topics as the process of socialization, family values and histories, and family practices of these groups. The following chapters are included: (1) "Ethnic Families: Strengths that Are Found in Diversity" (Harriette Pipes McAdoo); (2) "Family Ethnicity in America" (Doris Wilkinson); (3) "Race, Mortality, and Families" (Edward L. Kain); (4) "Female-Headed African American Households: Some Neglected Dimensions" (Niara Sudarkasa); (5) "African American Extended Kin Systems: An Assessment" (Shirley J. Hatchett and…
(1997). Latinos and Education: A Critical Reader. Latinos are among the nation's most educationally disadvantaged and economically disenfranchised groups. Addressing this reality within the context of a rapidly changing economy and society, this book links educational practice and the structural dimensions that shape institutional life. Sections focus on the political economy of schooling, historical views of Latino schooling, construction of Latino(a) identities, politics of language, cultural democracy and schooling, and Latinos and higher education. The 25 chapters are: "A Theory of Racial Inequality" (Mario Barrera); "Economic, Labor Force, and Social Implications of Latino Educational and Population Trends" (Sonia M. Perez, Denise de la Rosa Salazar); "The Structure of Inequality and the Status of Puerto Rican Youth in the United States" (Hector R. Cordero Guzman); "Latinos, Class, and the U.S. Political Economy: Income Inequality and Policy Alternatives" (Rodolfo D. Torres, Adela de la…
(2015). Racial Microaggressions: What They Are, What They Are Not, and Why They Matter. Latino Policy & Issues Brief. Number 30. UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Racial microaggressions are a significant obstacle in the educational, professional, and life trajectories of Latinas/os. The authors present models for understanding racial microaggressions and recommendations for disrupting them…. [PDF]
(2014). The Growing Educational Equity Gap for California's Latina/o Students. Latino Policy & Issues Brief. Number 29. UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Although recent studies suggest that educational attainment for Latina/os has been improving, in this brief report the authors show that when demographic change is taken into consideration, it is clear that Latina/o students in California are not making gains but falling further behind. In California, approximately 60 percent of Latina/o students graduated from high school in 2012. In contrast, just over half of Latina/o high school students were graduating nationally in 2000, suggesting that educational attainment for Latina/os has been improving. The outlook changes, however, when educational attainment data are considered in terms of population growth. Snapshots that do not account for shifting demographics cannot present an accurate portrayal of educational attainment. When the data for California graduates are contextualized, an equity gap appears, indicating that in reality, the picture for Latina/o students is alarming…. [PDF]
(2005). The Latina/o Pathway to the Ph.D.: Abriendo Caminos. Stylus Publishing, LLC This is the first book specifically to engage with the absence of Latinas/os in doctoral studies. It proposes educational and administrative strategies to open up the pipeline, and institutional practices to ensure access, support, models and training for Latinas/os aspiring to the Ph.D. The under-education of Latina/o youth begins early. Given that by twelfth grade half will drop out or be pushed out of high school, and only seven percent will complete a college degree, it is not surprising so few enter graduate studies. When Latina/o students do enter higher education, few attend those colleges or universities that are gateways to graduate degrees. Regardless of the type of higher education institution they attend, Latinas/os often encounter social and academic isolation, unaffordable costs, and lack of support. This historic under-representation has created a vicious cycle of limited social and economic mobility. There is a paucity of the Latina/o faculty and leaders whom research… [Direct]
(1997). The History of Higher Education. Second Edition. ASHE Reader Series. This reader introduces students to the history of U.S. higher education. It is designed for courses in educational history or in United States history dealing with intellectual history. The selections are: (1) \History of Universities\ (Harold Perkin); (2) \College\ (Lawrence A. Cremin); (3) \From Religion to Politics; Debates and Confrontations over American College Governance in Mid-Eighteenth Century America\ (Jurgen Herbst); (4) \'For the Children of the Infidels?' American Indian Education in the Colonial Colleges\ (Bobby Wright); (5) \From Tutor to Specialized Scholar: Academic Professionalization in Eighteenth Century and Nineteenth Century America\ (Martin Finkelstein); (6) \The Scottish Enlightenment and the American College Ideal\ (Douglas Sloan); (7) \Freedom and Constraint in Eighteenth Century Harvard\ (Kathryn M. Moore); (8) \The Social Function of Eighteenth Century Higher Education\ (Phyllis Vine); (9) \Statutes of Harvard, 1646\; (10) \The Harvard Charter, 1650\;…
(1996). Racial & Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education. ASHE Reader Series. This text is a resource on racial and ethnic diversity for faculty and students in higher education. It is organized in sections related to the history of racial and ethnic diversity in higher education, curriculum and teaching, students, faculty, administration, leadership and governance, and research issues. The chapters are: (1) \History of American Indian Community Colleges\ (W. Larry Belgarde); (2) \Bricks without Straw: Missionary-Sponsored Black Higher Education in the Post-Emancipation Era\ (Johnetta Cross Brazzell); (3) \Ethnicity in American Life: The Historical Perspective\ (John Hope Franklin); (4) \Indian, Chicano, and Puerto Rican colleges: Status and Issues\ (Michael A. Olivas); (5) \The Ignominious Origin of Ethnic Pluralism in America\ (Stephen Steinberg); (6)\The Minority Student in College: A Historical Analysis\ (Michael Washington); (7) \The 'Untameable Savage Spirit': American Indians in Colonial Colleges\ (Bobby Wright); (8) \Multicultural Literacy and…
(2012). Voyvengo. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v37 n2 p1-7 Fall. Born in 1933, Rafael Ferrer has encountered, engaged, and challenged art movements that define the twentieth century, including European surrealism, American post-minimalism, and Latino neo-expressionism. He has worked in sculpture, drawing, and painting, and also with assemblage, collage, actions, and installation. His prolific and wide-ranging body of work embraces contradictory aesthetic tendencies, from conceptualism to figurativism, using the seemingly simple materials at hand–everyday objects, scenes, music, and language–toward divergent ends. Ferrer's diverse career makes him difficult to \map\ according to the prevailing narratives for art history. Simply put, he has been in too many places! Now in his seventh decade as an artist, Ferrer is more active than ever before. Two recent installations, \Pizarras\ (2005) and \Contraband\ (2011), are composed of wood-framed slate tablets (ninety-seven and sixty, respectively), the kind once used by schoolchildren. Each of these… [Direct]
(2012). "La venganza de Pancho Villa": Resistance and Repetition. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v37 n2 p11-42 Fall. The compilation film "La venganza de Pancho Villa" (ca. 1930), created by itinerant exhibitor Felix Padilla, combines footage from two national cinematic traditions–those of the United States and Mexico–to construct a biographical film about the regional hero and revolutionary general Francisco "Pancho" Villa. The film's use of found footage offers a retort to American films rife with stereotypical images of Mexican masculinity. However, a close reading of the film in the context of local practices of film distribution and exhibition finds that the film expresses an oppositional consciousness shaped by the structures and ideologies of the dominant film industries it draws from, including a masculinist nationalism that reinscribes racial and gender hierarchies. (Contains 10 figures and 17 notes.)… [Direct]
(2012). California's Agribusiness and the Farm Labor Question: The Transition from Asian to Mexican Labor, 1919-1939. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v37 n2 p43-72 Fall. During the interwar period, California's labor-intensive agriculture transitioned from reliance on diverse immigrants to preference for Mexicans. Political movements to restrict immigration, the Great Depression, and labor unrest compelled farm employers to search for labor that could be used flexibly and deported easily. To achieve this objective, the growers needed a central organization that could foster unity and articulate their collective interest. The formation of the California Farm Bureau Federation and the American Farm Bureau Federation in 1919 and 1920 provided such a political platform. When lawmakers sought to apply the quota provision of the Immigration Act of 1924 to Mexico, the growers' strong presence at congressional hearings demonstrated their rising influence in policy making. Moreover, the clear difference between Filipinos and Mexicans with respect to deportability during the Depression affirmed the flexibility of Mexican labor. Finally, at the height of labor… [Direct]
(2012). Narratives of Assimilation, Divergence, and Hybridity: The Reproduction Decisions of College-Educated Mexican American Women. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v37 n2 p73-94 Fall. Our study explored cultural understandings surrounding the reproductive decisions of US-born, college-educated Mexican American women through a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews. In considering the results, this article advances debates on Latina women's reproductive choices beyond the theoretical paradigms of \assimilation\ and \divergence\ prevalent in the academic literature. Analysis of emergent themes in the interviews identified cultural tension between a desire for family formation and expansion, motivated by a deep-seated attachment to family, and the socioeconomic constraints imposed by professional careers. We suggest that family size choices among educated Mexican American women result from the dynamic interaction between the history and cultural traditions of Mexican Americans, on the one hand, and the pressures of socioeconomic and cultural assimilation, on the other. We conclude that the cultural understandings surrounding the fertility choices of… [Direct]
(2012). Contested Cowboys: Ethnic Mexican Charros and the Struggle for Suburban Public Space in 1970s Los Angeles. Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v37 n2 p95-124 Fall. While most studies of Mexican American suburbanization since the 1970s focus on the transformation of residential (private) space, it is in suburban public space that some of the most important struggles over belonging and rights have occurred. This article builds a theoretical framework to analyze the relationships between public space, democracy, and cultural citizenship for historically marginalized groups in suburbia. It applies the framework to the efforts by two groups of charros (ethnic Mexican cowboys) who tried to hold charreadas (events similar to rodeos) on land leased from municipal governments in suburban Los Angeles during the 1970s. These cases demonstrate that localized histories of racialization intersect with distinct political geographies to shape unequal possibilities for the effective exercise of Latino cultural citizenship in suburbia. Where ethnic Mexican suburbanites resided in isolated neighborhoods, were disconnected from the urban barrio, and struggled for… [Direct]