Background: Drawing from research with 11th-grade history students, the authors illustrate how students' racial/ethnic and language experiences influence their analysis of Mexican American discrimination. Latinx students' experiences with white privilege helped them understand why 1940s Mexican Americans claimed whiteness to access better schools.…

This article explores how a curricular intervention that merges antiessentialist historical content and historical inquiry plays a role in how students complicate the narrative of racial progress. The 3-day curricular intervention centers on "Mendez v. Westminster," a case about 1940s Mexican American school segregation. The content and…