This qualitative study examines how Mexican American students participating in an AVID for Higher Education course perceived their preparation for the workforce and efficacy of completing a college credential. A focus group approach was used to explore how social and cultural networks (networks for success) contribute to college completion. The…

This essay provides an overview of the huelga schools established in Houston, Texas, in 1970. For 2 years, from 1970 to 1972, the Mexican American community opposed the Houston Independent School District's plan to integrate the schools by pairing so-called White Mexican Americans with African American students. While they protested this decision,…

Latino men, part of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, stand to benefit from new knowledge related to factors that positively influence college persistence. In this study, the investigators examined whether "machismo"--a multidimensional and gendered social construct--was directly and indirectly associated with…

Guided by the framework of community cultural wealth, this study uncovered how 7 low-income, 1st-generation Mexican American PhDs interpreted their parents' and families' educational aspirations, messages imbued with aspects of normative parental/familial involvement as well as cultural forms of support. This study demonstrates the power of…

This Chicana Critical Feminist Testimonio reveals a Mexican/Mexican-American Ethic of Care and Testimonios of struggle and survival informing curriculum and pedagogy of one Mexican/Mexican-American female educator of predominantly Mexican/Mexican-American students. This work is part of a larger ethnographic study conducted through multiple…

Utilizing the critical race framework of intersectionality, this research reexamines the Chicana/o educational pipeline through a quantitative intersectional analysis. This approach disaggregates data along the intersection of race, class, gender, and citizenship status to provide a detailed portrait of the educational trajectory of Mexican-origin…

Drawing from sociocultural and anthropological perspectives, I present 3 case examples of bilingual, Mexican-origin students enrolled in a transitional bilingual educational program in an urban elementary school. By using the theoretical constructs of figured worlds, authoring, and "formas de ser" (ways of being), I examine how student identities…

In this interview, Reynaldo F. Macias, chair of the recently established Department of Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), talks about the historical significance of El Plan de Santa Barbara, its impact on Chicana/o studies throughout the Southwest, and its relevance in establishing a department at UCLA, and the…

The Brown v. Board of Education (1954, 1955) decision of the 1950s had no appreciable impact on ongoing Mexican American desegregation litigation during the 1st decade of its implementation. In the long run, however, it led to a shift in the community's litigation strategy for achieving equality of opportunity in the United States and for…

A study examining Latina parents' perspectives about their children's mathematics education invited three mothers to observe three middle-school reform mathematics classrooms and discuss their observations. The parents noted and approved of new roles for teachers and students, such as walking around the room, listening to students, and cooperative…

Examines the myth that Mexican American children have poor academic achievement because their parents don't value education. Focuses on the myth's origins in "deficit thinking" and concepts of "cultural deprivation" and "at-risk." Examines evidence to the contrary: Mexican Americans' long struggle for equal…

A professor giving a lecture/performance on Native American history to Mexican American second-graders wrestled with the limits of what he could tell the children about their own Native American identity and about Our Lady of Guadalupe's origin as Native goddess. The relationship between postcolonial scholarship and performance theory is explored…

What was unique about the Mexican American experience in Fort Collins (Colorado) was the extent to which the Great Western Sugar Company colonized Mexican workers. They lived in Mexican colonies, separate neighborhoods, or remote locations on sugar beet farms. In public schools, Mexican Americans were perceived as intellectually inferior and were…