The Other Struggle for Equal Schools

Book excerpt: Examining the Mexican American struggle for equal education during the 1960s and 1970s in the Southwest in general and in a California community in particular, Donato challenges conventional wisdom that Mexican Americans were passive victims, accepting their educational fates. He looks at how Mexican American parents confronted the relative tranquility of school governance, how educators responded to increasing numbers of Mexican Americans in schools, how school officials viewed problems faced by Mexican American children, and why educators chose specific remedies. Finally, he examines how federal, state, and local educational policies corresponded with the desires of the Mexican American community.