Aztlán Arizona: Mexican American Educational Empowerment, 1968–1978 by Darius V. Echeverría (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Aztlán Arizona: Mexican American Educational Empowerment, 1968–1978 by Darius V. Echeverría Gonzalo Guzmán Aztlán Arizona: Mexican American Educational Empowerment, 1968–1978. By Darius V. Echeverría. (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2014. Pp. 179. Photographs, notes, bibliography, index.) Most works on the Chicana/o Movement of the 1960s and 1970s have focused on regional studies of the California and Texas experience. In Aztlán Arizona, Darius Echeverría expands the current literature by examining the educational experience of Mexican Americans in Arizona. Although the author is most concerned with the “Arizonan-Mexican” experience in public schools, Echeverría presents a larger educational profile that “provides an overview of how educational obstacles affected Mexican Americans in their pursuit of equal membership in the U.S. polity” (5). Echeverría situates his analysis in the current controversy surrounding the ban on ethnic studies in Arizona with the passage of House Bill (HB) 2281 in 2010. The discussion of HB 2281 serves to “historicize the present” and discuss Arizonan-Mexican educational activism as a long and continuous struggle. Grounding his work in current curriculum wars, the author divides his book into two major sections. The first section describes the creation of a public educational system in Arizona that deliberately marginalized the local Mexican American population. As described in chapter 1, in the first half of the twentieth century, Mexican Americans experienced a Jim Crow-like environment in Arizona public schools that defined them as second-class citizens. However, Arizonan-Mexicans were not idle during this period, and their demands for educational access and justice included two legal victories in Romo v. Laird (1925) and González v. Sheely (1951). Unfortunately, the victories resulted in only limited change, as chapter 2 captures. By the onset of the Arizona Chicana/o Movement, Mexican Americans were still lacking representation in every sector of the Arizona public education system. The second section of the book encompasses the Arizonan-Mexican community’s response to educational exclusion from 1968–78. In chapters 3–5, Echeverría focuses on the Chicana/o Movement at Tucson High [End Page 442] School, Phoenix Union High School, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and surrounding communities. Although the author is primarily interested in the student-oriented political movements, his discussion reveals a movement that was truly multifaceted and inclusive of the entire Arizonan-Mexican community. Here the author connects Arizona to the national Mexican American Civil Rights Movement that at many times parallels the movement in Texas and California, particularly in Houston and Los Angeles. However, the author identifies a larger transformation in Mexican American activism. This included a shift from demanding more educational access in the pre-Civil Rights era to reforming the entire K–16 public schooling system to address the Arizonan-Mexican community’s needs. Echoing the HB 2281 controversy, Echeverría demonstrates that the establishment of Mexican American Studies programs was one of the greatest and long-standing achievements of the movement in Arizona. Despite the major achievements of Aztlán Arizona, it is never clear throughout the text that a distinguishable Arizonan Chicana/o movement has developed. In his introduction, the author contrasts Arizona’s student movement to the prevailing Southwest narrative, arguing, “I posit that Arizonans, notably of Mexican descent, coalesced around regional interests, especially educational concerns” (7). However, it is never apparent how regional interests in Arizona differed from those in other states. The tactics, goals, and outcomes of Arizonan-Mexican activism often mirrored similar developments throughout the Southwest, as demonstrated in the work of Ruben Donato, Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Armando Navarro, and Guadalupe San Miguel Jr. Nevertheless, Aztlán Arizona addresses an important gap in Mexican American/Chicano educational historiography. Echeverría largely succeeds in showcasing how the Mexican American community in Arizona confronted and reformed a neglectful educational system not just in the 1960s and 1970s, but also throughout the twentieth century. Ultimately, this book should be standard reading for anyone interested in the Chicana/o Movement and also in understanding how community activism and student movements in general have shaped current educational controversies. Gonzalo Guzmán University of Washington Copyright © 2014 The...