"Mendez v. Westminster," a case about 1940s Mexican American school segregation, is a new vehicle for including Mexican Americans into U.S. history classrooms. This study explores how a class of primarily Mexican American students, who because of their heritage might develop a personal connection to the case, made sense of…

The current canons of education are replete with suggestions for how to raise the achievement of Hispanic and Latino students. Absent from that discussion is what to teach them in a way that anchors them to their uniquely American culture and history. The author considers how Mexican-American history is often taught as if it were an offshoot of…