Reading, Writing, and Revolution: Escuelitas and the Emergence of a Mexican American Identity in Texas by Philis M. Barragán Goetz (review)

Philis M. Barragán Goetz has provided a significant intervention in the robust and well-respected field of Mexican American educational history in Texas, which has been led by scholars like Carlos Kevin Blanton and Guadalupe San Miguel Jr., by examining the heretofore obscured history of escuelitas. Escuelitas were locally run, grassroots schools that took many different forms. They could be created for children who had inadequate or nonexistent public schools on ranches or in small towns, or Spanish-speaking families could choose them as an alternative to segregated public schools. They offered a way to receive instruction that centered them.

Barragán Goetz provides a clear trajectory for different political and pedagogical approaches used by teachers and community members across a century of escuelita history by examining instructional approaches and the arguments made by their advocates. In so doing, she reveals the political importance of children in the community and asserts that escuelitas offer a window into "ethnic Mexican cultural negotiation" and cannot be explained merely through "a cultural resistance paradigm" (3).

Escuelita supporters sought the support and built the schools with the help of feminists, the Mexican consul, and civil rights leaders. Instruction in local schools varied widely and had different purposes, though all supported the agency of Spanish-speaking children. Early schools emphasized and embraced Mexican citizenship. Some also highlighted the important place of Texas Mexicans in the history of Texas. Barragán-Goetz traces changes in approach across five chronological chapters, from 1865 through the 1960s, using Spanishand English-language newspapers, Mexican and Texas archives, ancestry records, and early scholar records. She also includes student recollections of escuelitas, along with their treasured mementos that convey the lifelong respect students had for their teachers.

The escuelitas offered some of the first instruction in Mexican American history through counter-narrative lessons. By analyzing the childhoods, identity formations, and educational developments of important civil rights leaders, Barragán Goetz explains the deep impact that the revolutionary and reactionary teachers of escuelitas had on civil rights organizing. For example, Hector P. García did not advocate for continuing escuelitas in their traditional form, though he used the community school format to create preschools that instructed children in English. Progressive teachers like Jovita González and María Elena Zamora O'Shea gathered sources that explained Texas Mexican history, building on early escuelita curriculum approaches. After reading this book, it is impossible to deny the key role that escuelitas played in launching multiple generations of Mexican American activists of various political persuasions. The echoes of escuelitas are visible in the Chicano era.

Barragán Goetz makes important critiques of Marío García's long-standing "Mexican American Generation," a designation meant to encompass the first group of civil rights activists who considered themselves more American than Mexican. She argues for including women in the discussion, along with the home and school environments, where social constructions are formed and reformed. She also describes the Mexican American civil rights movement as intergenerational. While Barragán Goetz's expansions on the term are heavily supported with evidence throughout her book, it seems the critique destabilized the efficacy of using the term altogether. A new term would have broadened views of this period and better suited the reality her evidence uncovered.

It is not clear if the evidence would have suggested such a discussion, but an interrogation of how the racialization of Mexican children worked over time in Texas in light of the escuelitas would help explain the strategy of middle-class civil rights activists who placed language over race. Are there ways to connect Texas to the experience of students elsewhere and of different races? There are wonderful discussions of Mexican schools, but I was left wondering about other parts of the United States.

A great aspect of the book...