This article traces how Mexican American Studies (MAS) scholar activists led and supported a statewide movement for MAS in Texas. As a Xicana feminist scholar activist, Saldan~a draws from her retrospective memory and personal archive of organizational notes, movement documents, personal testimonies before the State Board of Education, and photos,…

The dismissal of students' backgrounds by the educational system has a deep effect on communities of color, perpetuating a system that sets them up for academic failure. Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012) created terminology for the process of systematic fragmentation, which she describes as an act of dismissal on a macro-level. This article…

Background: Making mathematics connections between home and school can have a positive impact on students' mathematics learning. This is particularly important for students whose experiences and perspectives are underrepresented in school curricula. Although there is evidence for how crucial it is to make connections between mathematics…

A wealth of literature shows positive outcomes and experiences from arts learning, yet youth access to arts education has become significantly more inequitable over the past 30 years. Alongside the growing discourse around arts learning and equity issues, there is a recognized and persistent need for more research. We conducted a critical,…

Students bring valuable cultural ways of knowing and worldviews to the classroom. Teachers who build on student cultures are able to motivate and make learning more meaningful. We believe that teachers should "Think Local" within a holistic orientation to create a student-centered and culture-centered education that arises out of student…

Federal and Arizona educational policies challenge U.S.-Mexico border educators to meet the diverse needs of bilingual, bicultural students while also being required to use instructional pedagogies that offer monolingual and monocultural schooling experiences. Ethnographic research captures American schooling experiences of Latino…

In response to the banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson, students in the newly formed Chican@ Literature, Art, and Social Studies program displayed their resiliency in the face of the oppressive actions of the Tucson Unified School District and the state of Arizona. This article serves as a platform for the voices of these dedicated youth…

Drawing from a nine-month critical teacher inquiry investigation, this article examines the experiences of eleventh and twelfth grade students who participated in a year-long Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies course in California shortly after the passing of Arizona House Bill 2281 (HB 2281). Through a borderlands analysis, I explore how these students…

For more than 50 years, college and high school students, families, and community activists have fought for the preservation of ethnic studies. Qualitative research studies consistently have shown positive outcomes, including increased academic engagement and affirmation, for students who take ethnic studies in K-16. In this article, I argue that…

"Undermatching" refers to college ready students who select and enroll in colleges with selectivity levels significantly lower than their academic profile, resulting in attending a non-competitive college, a two-year college, or foregoing applying to college altogether. The current research trend examining the topic of Undermatching…

This essay looks at Ethnic Studies activism in Arizona through a rhetorical lens in order to highlight epistemological aspects of activities such as a high school Chicano Literature class, Roberto "Dr. Cintli" Rodriguez's journalism, and student activism to defend the Mexican-American Studies Department. Taking rhetoric's premise that…

This essay reviews Latina/o students' counter-narratives challenging colorblindness. The author highlights the experiences of students from Tucson Unified School District's Mexican American Studies program. By examining student counter-narratives, the author also identifies race-related terms that are more suitable for dialogue among and with…

This study examines the experiences of 18 Latina/o students attending the University of Arizona in the wake of SB 1070 (anti-immigrant) and HB 2281 (anti-Mexican American Studies). Students experienced a hostile campus climate; however, many channeled their frustrations into political engagement. Findings indicate that despite anti-Latina/o…

This chapter proposes a conceptual framework that merges intersectionality and policy analysis as an analytical tool to understand the nuanced, multilayered, compounded educational inequality encountered specifically by low-income, Latino Spanish-speaking students in Arizona K-12 public schools as a function of intersecting educational policies.…

The author's class has been invited to speak on NPR's "Call-In-Radio" and two of her students, Omar and Diana, were elected to be their spokespeople regarding HB 2281, Arizona's controversial ethnic studies ban. Omar stressed that he and his classmates are engaged by this topic because they see what's happening in Arizona is wrong--that…