Editing Chicano (section)

=== Struggles in the education system ===
{{See also|Chicano studies|Chicano Blowouts}}
[[File:Sylvia Mendez.jpg|left|thumb|222x222px|[[Mendez v. Westminster]] (1947) overturned ''[[de jure]]'' segregation. Prior, most Mexican students were only allowed to attend designated "Mexican schools" that taught manual labor skills rather than academic education.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gonzales |first=Leticia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fNKXEAAAQBAJ |title=The untold story of Sylvia Mendez: school desegregation pioneer |date=2023 |isbn=9781669005049 |publisher=[[Capstone Publishers]] |location=North Mankato, Minnesota |page=4 |oclc=1336005572|via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>]]
Chicanos often endure struggles in the U.S. education system, such as being erased in [[curriculum]]s and devalued as students.<ref name="López-2009-1" /><ref name="Coffey-2016" /> Some Chicanos identify schools as colonial institutions that exercise control over colonized students by teaching Chicanos to idolize the American culture and develop a negative [[self-image]] of themselves and their [[worldview]]s.<ref name="López-2009-1" /><ref name="Coffey-2016" /> [[School segregation in the United States|School segregation]] between Mexican and white students was not legally ended until the late 1940s.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013">{{Cite book |last=Gonzalez |first=Gilbert G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KjA6Ngt3TQYC |via=[[Google Books]] |title=Chicano education in the era of segregation |date=2013 |isbn=9781574415162 |location=Denton, Texas |publisher=[[University of North Texas Press]] |pages=177–179, 200–202 |oclc=843881943}}</ref> In [[Orange County, California]], 80% of Mexican students could only attend schools that taught Mexican children manual education, or [[gardening]], [[bootmaking]], [[blacksmithing]], and [[carpentry]] for Mexican boys and sewing and homemaking for Mexican girls.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" /> White schools taught academic preparation.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" /> When [[Sylvia Mendez]] was told to attend a Mexican school, her parents brought suit against the court in [[Mendez v. Westminster|Mendez vs. Westminster]] (1947) and won.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" />

Although legal segregation had been successfully challenged, ''[[de facto]]'' or segregation-in-practice continued in many areas.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" /> Schools with primarily Mexican American enrollment were still treated as "Mexican schools" much as before the legal overturning of segregation.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" /> Mexican American students were still treated poorly in schools.<ref name="Gonzalez-2013" /> Continued bias in the education system motivated Chicanos to protest and use [[direct action]], such as [[walkout]]s, in the 1960s.<ref name="López-2009-1">{{Cite book|last=López|first=Antonio Reyes|title=Breaching the Colonial Contract: Anti-Colonialism in the US and Canada|publisher=Springer Netherlands|year=2009|isbn=9781402099441|pages=91–104|chapter=Walking Out of Colonialism One Classroom at a Time: Student Walkouts and Colonial/Modern Disciplinary in El Paso, Texas}}</ref><ref name="Coffey-2016">{{Cite book|last1=Coffey|first1=Jerica|title="White" Washing American Education: The New Culture Wars in Ethnic Studies|last2=Espiritu|first2=Ron|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2016|isbn=9781440832567|page=232|chapter=Common Struggle: High School Ethnic Studies Approaches to Building Solidarity between Black and Brown Youth}}</ref> On March 5, 1968, the [[Chicano Blowouts]] at [[East Los Angeles, California|East Los Angeles]] High School occurred as a response to the racist treatment of Chicano students, an unresponsive school board, and a high dropout rate. It became known as "the first major mass protest against racism undertaken by Mexican-Americans in the history of the United States."<ref name="Suderburg-2000" /> [[File:Sal-Castro.png|255x255px|thumb|[[Sal Castro]] (1933–2013) inspired the [[East L.A. walkouts]].]]

[[Sal Castro]], a Chicano social science teacher at the school was arrested and fired for inspiring the walkouts. It was led by [[Harry Gamboa Jr.]] who was named "one of the hundred most dangerous and violent subversives in the United States" for organizing the student walkouts. The day prior, FBI director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] sent out a memo to law enforcement to place top priority on "political intelligence work to prevent the development of nationalist movements in minority communities".<ref name="Suderburg-2000" /> Chicana activist [[Alicia Escalante]] protested Castro's dismissal: "We in the Movement will at least be able to hold our heads up and say that we haven't submitted to the gringo or to the pressures of the system. We are brown and we are proud. I am at least raising my children to be proud of their heritage, to demand their rights, and as they become parents they too will pass this on until justice is done."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bermudez|first=Rosie C.|title=The Chicano Movement: Perspectives from the Twenty-First Century|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=2014|isbn=9781135053666|pages=100–101|chapter=Alicia Escalante, The Chicana Welfare Rights Organization, and the Chicano Movement}}</ref>

In 1969, [[Plan de Santa Bárbara]] was drafted as a 155-page document that outlined the foundation of [[Chicana/o studies|Chicano Studies]] programs in higher education. It called for students, faculty, employees and the community to come together as "central and decisive designers and administrators of these programs".<ref name="plan">[https://livinghistory.as.ucsb.edu/2012/04/04/el-plan-de-santa-barbara/ El Plan de Santa Barbara; a Chicano Plan for Higher Education]'', 1 February 2013, La Causa Publications. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209063527/https://livinghistory.as.ucsb.edu/2012/04/04/el-plan-de-santa-barbara/|date=9 February 2018}}''</ref> Chicano students and activists asserted that universities should exist to serve the community.<ref name="Jackson-2009" /> However, by the mid-1970s, much of the radicalism of earlier Chicano studies became deflated by the education system, aimed to alter Chicano Studies programs from within.<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> Mario García argued that one "encountered a deradicalization of the radicals".<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> Some opportunistic faculty avoided their political responsibilities to the community. University administrators co-opted oppositional forces within Chicano Studies programs and encouraged tendencies that led "to the loss of autonomy of Chicano Studies programs."<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> At the same time, "a domesticated Chicano Studies provided the university with the facade of being tolerant, liberal, and progressive."<ref name="Soldatenko-2012">{{Cite book|last=Soldatenko|first=Michael|title=Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline|publisher=University of Arizona Press|year=2012|isbn=9780816599530|pages=94–130}}</ref>
[[File:L.A. teachers strike ‘Stand and Deliver'.png|thumb|200x200px|Los Angeles Teacher's Strike (1989)|left]]
Some Chicanos argued that the solution was to create "publishing outlets that would challenge Anglo control of academic print culture with its rules on [[peer review]] and thereby publish alternative research," arguing that a Chicano space in the colonial academy could "avoid colonization in higher education".<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> In an attempt to establish educational autonomy, they worked with institutions like the [[Ford Foundation]], but found that "these organizations presented a paradox".<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> [[Rodolfo Acuña]] argued that such institutions "quickly became content to only acquire funding for research and thereby determine the success or failure of faculty".<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> Chicano Studies became "much closer [to] the mainstream than its practitioners wanted to acknowledge."<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" /> Others argued that Chicano Studies at [[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]] shifted from its earlier interests in serving the Chicano community to gaining status within the colonial institution through a focus on academic publishing, which alienated it from the community.<ref name="Soldatenko-2012" />[[File:In_Lak'ech.jpg|thumb|Readings of ''[[In Lak'ech]]'' ("you are the other me") were banned in [[Tucson Unified School District|Tucson schools]] along with the [[Mexican American Studies Department Programs, Tucson Unified School District|Mexican American Studies Programs]] in 2012.|181x181px]]In 2012, the [[Mexican American Studies Department Programs, Tucson Unified School District|Mexican American Studies Department Programs]] (MAS) in [[Tucson Unified School District]] were banned after a campaign led by Anglo-American politician [[Tom Horne]] accused it of working to "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment toward a race or class of people, are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."<ref name="Planas-2015" /> Classes on Latino literature, American history/Mexican-American perspectives, Chicano art, and an American government/social justice education project course were banned. Readings of [[In Lak'ech]] from [[Luis Valdez]]'s poem ''[[Pensamiento Serpentino]]'' were also banned.<ref name="Planas-2015">{{Cite web|last=Planas|first=Roque|date=13 January 2015|title=Arizona Education Officials Say It's Illegal To Recite This Poem In School|url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/in-laketch_n_6464604|website=Huffington Post|access-date=10 November 2020|archive-date=19 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019162110/https://www.huffpost.com/entry/in-laketch_n_6464604|url-status=live}}</ref>

Seven books, including [[Paulo Freire|Paulo Friere]]'s ''[[Pedagogy of the Oppressed]]'' and works covering [[Chicano history]] and [[critical race theory]], were banned, taken from students, and stored away.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The dismantling of Mexican-American studies in Tucson schools|url=https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/us/how-tucson-schools-changed-after-mexican-american-studies-ban/index.html|last=Siek|first=Stephanie|date=22 January 2012|website=CNN|access-date=21 May 2020|archive-date=4 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201204003845/https://www.cnn.com/2012/01/22/us/how-tucson-schools-changed-after-mexican-american-studies-ban/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The ban was overturned in 2017 by Judge [[A. Wallace Tashima]], who ruled that it was unconstitutional and motivated by racism by depriving Chicano students of knowledge, thereby violating their [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] right.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Astor|first1=Maggie|date=2017-08-23|title=Tucson's Mexican Studies Program Was a Victim of "Racial Animus," Judge Says|newspaper=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/us/arizona-mexican-american-ruling.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=U.S.&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article|access-date=3 October 2017|archive-date=2017-10-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171003225107/https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/us/arizona-mexican-american-ruling.html?module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=U.S.&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Xicanx#Organizations|Xicanx Institute for Teaching & Organizing]] (XITO) emerged to carry on the legacy of the MAS programs.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fernández|first=Anita E.|date=2019|title=Decolonizing Professional Development: A Re-Humanizing Approach|url=https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1237646|journal=Equity & Excellence in Education|volume=52|issue=2–3|pages=185–196|doi=10.1080/10665684.2019.1649610|s2cid=203059084}}</ref> Chicanos continue to support the institution of Chicano studies programs. In 2021, students at [[Southwestern College (California)|Southwestern College]], the closest college to the [[Mexico–United States border|Mexico-United States Border]] urged for the creation of a Chicanx Studies Program to service the predominately Latino student body.<ref>{{Cite web|last1=Villareal-Gerardo|first1=Xiomara|last2=Ortega|first2=Bianca Huntley|date=24 February 2021|title=Students decry lack of Chicano Studies Program at America's border college|url=https://www.theswcsun.com/students-decry-lack-of-chicano-studies-program-at-americas-border-college/|website=The Sun|access-date=24 March 2021|archive-date=5 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210305140528/http://www.theswcsun.com/students-decry-lack-of-chicano-studies-program-at-americas-border-college/|url-status=usurped}}</ref>