Guided by the concept of nepantleras and critical race nepantlera methodology, Nancy Acevedo presents the testimonios of Citlalli Bejarano and Natalie Ibarra Collazo, two Chicana students who attend urban high schools. Citlalli and Natalie share various forms of inclusion and exclusion that they experience as Chicanas attending private and public…

The year 2017 saw the publication of one of the strongest endorsements of language education on record: "America's Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century" (henceforth "America's Languages"). Commissioned by a bipartisan group of members of Congress and authored by the Commission on Language Learning of…

From 2013 to 2014, more than 66,000 children and adolescents, unaccompanied by their parents, made journeys from urban and rural areas of México and Central America and arrived in the United States in search of safety and educational opportunities. To date, various local, state, and federal agencies, as well as community and faith-based…

I spent the first two years of college at a two-year community in southern California. I had very sheltered high school experience, so attending college was exciting for me. In high school, I wasn't involved in extracurricular activities or organizations other than choir, and I didn't share my sexual orientation with others. College, I hoped, was…

The focus of the achievement gap seems to be less about racial and ethnic distinctions and more about disparities in socioeconomic status. Students from affluent and secure backgrounds have a running head start on students mired in poverty. Few young people in the United States live in more challenging conditions than the children of the eastern…

This essay documents the work of 67 Suenos, a youth-led collective based in Oakland, California. The group is committed to bringing to light the stories of the 67 percent of undocumented youth and young adults who would not qualify for the DREAM Act and who are in many ways left out of the dominant narrative around immigration reform. The author…

Mounted on the walls, windows, and bookcases of Ms. Cati de los Rios's Pomona High School classroom are a multitude of faces, mainly heroes, martyrs, and leaders of Latina/o and African descent. These faces are a symbol of the countercultural and student-centered approach to education that occurs in her classroom. The mere presence of these…

Written through the prism of Critical Race Theory (CRT), this paper addresses the question, "How can schoolhouses best serve the students within them?" The author begins by introducing "environmental racism" through a review of the literature. The author argues that CRT proponents, by allying with whites and using geographic…

This article sets Dorothy Bass' Christian practices movement in critical dialogue with U.S. Latina/o popular religion in order to explore ways that these distinctive sets of practices could enrich one another. Then, it focuses on "shaping communities" as a Christian practice and correlates it with the U.S. Latina/o popular religious…

In the very near future, Latino students will become the majority in California's public schools and because of their great numbers and presence, the pattern of lackluster academic achievement must be a major concern of teachers, school leaders, and policy makers. Despite having made great strides in narrowing the gap that separated them from…

The project of building the tenth University of California (UC) campus--UC Merced--was a lightning rod for all the various pushes and pulls in California society between 1983 and 2005. In fact, the author suggests, the project provides a clear window into California during this period. In this chapter, she describes the political and economic…

On March 1, 2009 from 2 pm to 5 pm at the Madison Hotel in Washington, DC, the National Science Foundation hosted a listening session, requesting input on Section 7033 of the America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Act regarding Hispanic-serving institutions and science,…

In this interview, Reynaldo F. Macias, chair of the recently established Department of Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), talks about the historical significance of El Plan de Santa Barbara, its impact on Chicana/o studies throughout the Southwest, and its relevance in establishing a department at UCLA, and the…

Minority language students can be successfully taught to write through programs that validate the students' experiences and cultural heritage. Adopting an approach developed by Eliot Wiggington in the Foxfire project, a California educator teaches his Chicano students English composition by emphasizing the richness of family and community folklore…

On-site reviews of California school districts suggest inadequate assessment, evaluation, placement, and re-evaluation of limited-English proficient Hispanic students. Sixteen policy considerations concerning such aspects as equal access, screening, multidimensional assessment, testing guidelines, and language competence are discussed. (Author/DB)