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THE OTHER STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL SCHOOLS: MEXICAN AMERICANS DURING THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA by Ruben Donato.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997. 152 pp. $19.95.
Over the past few years, communities in the Southwest have been besieged by various statewide referendums, court decisions, and school practices that have rolled back the gains achieved by civil rights movements. When one looks to the literature on educational history or the civil rights movements, one is hard pressed to find a substantive amount of writings on Mexican American/Chicano communities. As I read through this literature, I am often left with several questions unanswered: How did public education and civil rights movements develop in the Southwest? What were Chicano communities doing during this period? What role did these communities play in the expansion of public education and educational reform? How did Chicanos initiate or respond to what was going on around them?
In The Other Struggle for Equal Schools: Mexican Americans during the Civil Rights Era, Ruben Donato provides a fascinating, insightful, and informative look at how Chicano communities in general, and one Chicano community in particular, asserted their individual and collective rights...