Marching Students: Chicana and Chicano Activism in Education, 1968 to the Present

Conclusion: Learning from the Chicana/o Blowouts

188 c o n c l u s i o n Learning from the Chicana/o Blowouts m a r g a r i t a b e r t a - á v i l a j u l i e l ó p e z f i g u e r o a Social movements are public forums used by communities, which are often pushed to the margins of society, to voice their realities. During the 1960s, students who identified themselves as Chicana/o brought attention to the educational injustices they confronted in the schools (Chávez, 2002). The Chicana/o Blowouts raised public awareness of the lack of quality education received by students of Mexican descent, and it raised questions about what it takes to provide an inclusive and responsive education to nonwhite students. In the process of achieving clarity on the social, educational, and economic conditions that accounted for the historical and contemporary second-class status of people of Mexican descent in the U.S., students gained just cause to embrace an identity rooted in political action and social justice. Depending on where they lived in the Southwest, their sense of leadership, what constituted a challenge, and what would take priority in an action plan varied, and collectively these factors unified the students who made the personal decision to identify themselves as Chicana/o (Muñoz Jr. 1989). Since the 1960s, the term “Chicana/o” has come to be associated with identity politics and activism of various sorts. The strategy of the time meant consciously interrupting the public landscape. It took on a more militant form to demonstrate the gravity of the unequal educational treatment students were experiencing. The Chicana/o movement exposed the role and power of majoritarian ideological frameworks that put into unquestioned c o n c l u s i o n 189 practice the mistreatment of under-resourced communities (Yosso, 2005). While the original militant stance of the Chicana/o movement is historically justified, mounting efforts with allies across various communities brokered new ways to address the social structures that present challenges. Such academic disciplines as cultural studies, women’s studies, queer studies along with theories like critical pedagogy, Latino critical race theory, and community cultural wealth outline the intellectual terrain framing current research methodologies from which counterperspectives emerge to interpret the existing conditions of the Chicana/o community. Chicana/o activism in education has focused on the rights of Latina/o students, especially non-English-speaking students, and the right to bilingual educational programs. Increased efforts for the integration of Latina/o students, equal distribution of educational funding sources, and the constant struggle against alienating schooling practices such as tracking, standardized testing, the mainstream curriculum, and access to higher education have also been important issues (Gándara 1995). This symposium invites readers to gain a historical and present-day understanding of the Chicana/o movement within the institution of education, thereby revealing the varied dimensions of Chicana/o activism across time and space. The transformative educational experiences discussed in this book occur because students, teachers, scholars, and other community members consciously practiced political action through accountability, collaboration, and leadership. what is the significance of this book in education? The chapters presented define a context and experience of resistance between home and school partnerships for the sake of understanding policy and practice. For example, the central theme in Olivos and Quintana situate the experiences of Chicana/o-Latina/o students within the educational system in both historical and contemporary contexts. Their work sets up a foundation to recognize that current debates about Chicanas/os-Latinas/os in the educational system are not just a response to social and political issues but are grounded in systemic educational realities that have not been addressed. This chapter represents how scholars and educators from within Chicana/oLatina /o communities can enrich the interpretation of those realities by naming and contextualizing an educational truth that is uniquely socially constructed to be Chicana/o-Latina/o. Their work indelibly prompts a dia- 190 m a r c h i n g s t u d e n t s logue that builds on a Chicana/o epistemology within the context of education . Given their focus on critical theories, they initiate an opportunity to analyze set voiced experiences that have been marginalized. In the attempt to generate knowledge on this topic, these authors pinpoint a tension that cannot go unrecognized...