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Reviewed by:
  • We Fight To Win
  • Kraig Beyerlein
We Fight To Win By Hava Rachel Gordon Rutgers University Press. 2010. 248 pages. $72 cloth, $23.95 paper.

In "We Fight To Win," Hava Rachel Gordon richly describes the various struggles and triumphs of youth activism at the turn of the 21st century. She does so based on participant observation of, and in-depth interviews with, members of Youth Power in Oakland, California, and Students Rise Up in Portland, Oregon. Comparisons of these groups' dynamics are offered throughout, significantly enhancing our understanding of how youth activism operates and the forces that can derail it. Chapter 1 discusses the broader social context in which YP and SRU were embedded, reviewing how school defunding, the war in Iraq, and especially consumerism shape youth activism. While SRU activists mainly battled apathy in their white middle-class peers as a result of these neoliberal trends, because of poverty, racism and violence, YP students of color fought against hopelessness and cynicism. Gordon also documents variation in activist inspiration and support, with YP activists drawing strength from a rich tradition of activism and a politicized hip-hop culture and SRU activists relying on the larger anarchist and progressive activist scene.

Chapter 2 explains the various processes through which schools undermine youth activism, focusing on how they advance a "citizens-in-the-making" model for students rather than nurture and channel current activist passions. Among these processes are the political sanitation of school clubs, student government's focus on cultivating a non-activist "school spirit," and the lack of or inadequacy of social justice curricula. Responding to these failures, YP members led clean bathroom and youth center campaigns and students in Portland organized student unions. But for a variety of reasons, such as turnover of key actors, lack of networks reaching across schools, and the precariousness of student-teacher alliances, in-school mobilization was difficult and generally stymied. [End Page 1455]

Youth efforts to mobilize outside of schools are the focus of Chapter 3. In the case of YP, members were able to build and sustain a successful alliance with adults, which proved to be crucial for facilitating movement resources and continuity. But this alliance took work. YP activists initially encountered a lot of ageism in the adult activist networks and called on the adults to end it. Adults engaged in serious reflection to do so and did; thus, a bridge was forged between different generations of activists in Oakland. Conversely, SRU members created a youth-only organization because of the adultist ideologies and practices in the broader Portland activist community. The youth-only structure of SRU was a source of political agency, empowerment and hope among members. There were downsides, however, to this structure. For example, the lack of adult members made dealing with burn out and internal tensions difficult, and because people had to leave the group when they reached a certain age, sustaining membership was not easy either.

Chapters 4 and 5 document the different strategies in which YP and SRU activists engaged. Because of their social location, adults generally distrusted YP activists and their abilities. Succeeding academically was an important way for YP activists to overcome this "adult gaze" and gain legitimacy, which greatly facilitated organizing. YP was committed to making sure that all members did well in school, setting aside time to finish homework at events and looking to adult members for tutoring. Moreover, academic achievement was a way to resist the racist agenda of attempting to push people of color out of schools. Unlike YP students who were made hypervisible by the media's numerous derogatory images of them, SRU activists felt as if they were invisible. Their main strategy was thus to make the news, which they generally did. Although there were some positive consequences of mainstream news coverage—such as adults' positive interpretation of their pro-education rallies—this coverage tended to "infantilize" SRU activists. Reflecting the broader climate of ageism, their outrage and demands were depoliticized, and they were instead portrayed as either happy or sad.

The final substantive chapter of the book addresses parental opposition to youth activism and how gender affected this opposition. Gordon discusses that parents...

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