front cover of Raza Studies
Raza Studies
The Public Option for Educational Revolution
Edited by Julio Cammarota and Augustine Romero; Foreword by David Stovall
University of Arizona Press, 2014
The well-known and controversial Mexican American studies (MAS) program in Arizona’s Tucson Unified School District set out to create an equitable and excellent educational experience for Latino students. Raza Studies: The Public Option for Educational Revolution offers the first comprehensive account of this progressive—indeed revolutionary—program by those who created it, implemented it, and have struggled to protect it.

Inspired by Paulo Freire’s vision for critical pedagogy and Chicano activists of the 1960s, the designers of the program believed their program would encourage academic achievement and engagement by Mexican American students. With chapters by leading scholars, this volume explains how the program used “critically compassionate intellectualism” to help students become “transformative intellectuals” who successfully worked to improve their level of academic achievement, as well as create social change in their schools and communities.

Despite its popularity and success inverting the achievement gap, in 2010 Arizona state legislators introduced and passed legislation with the intent of banning MAS or any similar curriculum in public schools. Raza Studies is a passionate defense of the program in the face of heated local and national attention. It recounts how one program dared to venture to a world of possibility, hope, and struggle, and offers compelling evidence of success for social justice education programs.
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front cover of Sueños Americanos
Sueños Americanos
Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities
Julio Cammarota
University of Arizona Press, 2012
Education is a primary route to rewarding employment and economic security. It is particularly significant for the future prospects of children who are ethnic minorities, were born into disadvantaged economic circumstances, or are dealing with language barriers.

For nearly a decade Julio Cammarota interviewed and observed Latino youth between the ages of seventeen and twenty-four who lived in a barrio in a city on the California coast. He conducted forty life interviews, selecting six people to investigate in depth. Twenty of the study participants worked at a fast-food restaurant, while the other twenty worked at a community cultural center.

Focusing on the experiences of his subjects in the primary settings of family, work, and school, Cammarota structured his research to examine how Latino youth negotiate myriad social conditions and hostile economic and political pressures in their daily lives. His extensive interviews and incisive analyses illuminate the complex relationships among low-wage employment, cultural standards, education, class oppression, and gender expectations.

Among other topics, Cammarota investigates how working affects Latino education; how gender influences social relationships and life choices; how Latinos and Latinas try to maintain their distinct ethnic identity while attempting to transcend marginalization; whether the Latino culture helps young people work hard for their families and for a better future; and how the connections and disconnections among work, family, and school constitute formative processes that shape the cultural identities of Latino youth.

One of the most extensive studies of barrio youth available, Sueños Americanos concludes with a discussion of social justice education for Latino youth and how this educational approach meets their academic needs while providing opportunities for self-determination and community activism.
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