Chicano Students and the Courts - The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational Equality (Hardcover, New)

aI learned a great deal, even though I thought I had known or read all these cases. I was wrong. Valencia has corrected this record in an authoritative fashion that has set the bar for the rest of us.a
--Michael A. Olivas, editor of "aColored Men andHombres AquA-a"

In 1925 Adolfo aBabea Romo, a Mexican American rancher in Tempe, Arizona, filed suit against his school district on behalf of his four young children, who were forced to attend a markedly low-quality segregated school, and won. But "Romo v. Laird" was just the beginning. Some sources rank Mexican Americans as one of the most poorly educated ethnic groups in the United States. Chicano Students and the Courts is a comprehensive look at this communityas long-standing legal struggle for better schools and educational equality. Through the lens of critical race theory, Valencia details why and how Mexican American parents and their children have been forced to resort to legal action.

Chicano Students and the Courts engages the many areas that have spurred Mexican Americans to legal battle, including school segregation, financing, special education, bilingual education, school closures, undocumented students, higher education financing, and high-stakes testing, ultimately situating these legal efforts in the broader scope of the Mexican American communityas overall struggle for the right to an equal education. Extensively researched, and written by an author with first-hand experience in the courtroom as an expert witness in Mexican American education cases, this volume is the first to provide an in-depth understanding of the intersection of litigation and education vis-A -vis Mexican Americans.