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321 books match the query 'Mexican Americans' and 4 start with h

cover of Hector P Garcia: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights

Hector P Garcia

Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights

Michelle Hall Kells. Foreword by Rolando Hinojosa-Smith

Southern Illinois University Press, 2006

Examining the Mexican American civil rights movement through the public rhetoric of a veteran activist

Héctor P. García: Everyday Rhetoric and Mexican American Civil Rights examines the transition of Mexican Americans from political and social marginalization to civic inclusion after World War II. Focusing on the public rhetoric of veteran rights activist and physician Dr. Héctor P. García, a Mexican immigrant who achieved unprecedented influence within the U.S. political system, author Michelle Hall Kells provides an important case study in the exercise of influence, the formation of civic identity, and the acquisition of social power among this underrepresented group.

As a major influence in national twentieth-century civil rights reform, García effectively operated between Anglo and Mexican American sociopolitical structures. The volume illustrates how García, a decorated World War II veteran and founder of the American GI Forum in Texas in 1948, successfully engendered a discourse that crossed geographical, political, and cultural borders, forming associations with the working poor as well as with prominent national figures such as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Through his rhetoric and action, García publicly revealed the plight of Mexican Americans, crossing class, regional, and racial lines to improve socioeconomic conditions for his people.

Héctor P. García, which is enhanced by sixteen illustrations, contributes to rhetorical, cultural, and historical studies and offers new scholarship establishing García’s role on the national front, effectively tracing Garcia’s legacy of resistance, the process of achieving enfranchisement, and the role of racism in the evolution from social marginalization to national influence.

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cover of How Did You Get To Be Mexican

How Did You Get To Be Mexican

Kevin R. Johnson

Temple University Press, 1999

During an interview for a faculty position, a senior professor asked Kevin Johnson bluntly, "How  did you get to be a Mexican?" And, a young woman at a Harvard Law School dinner party inquired, "Are you one of those people whose high school friends are all dead from gangs and stuff?" The son of a Mexican American mother and an Anglo father, Professor Johnson has spent his life in the borderlands between racial identities. In this insightful book, he uses his experiences as  a mixed Latino Anglo to examine issues of diversity, assimilation, race relations, and affirmative action in the contemporary United States.

Johnson also grew up in the borderlands  between classes. He spent his childhood with his mother, first on welfare and  then with a racist working-class stepfather. As an adolescent, he moved to his father's home in a predominantly upper-middle-class suburb. His educational experiences too extend from a racially mixed elementary school to an all-white high school, and  from Berkeley to Harvard Law School. From this vantage point, he analyzes the intersection of race  and class in the United States.

This book looks not just at the question "Who is a Latino?" but also at the question of where persons of mixed Anglo-Latino heritage fit into the racial dynamics of the United States. Professor Johnson's mother was an ardent assimilationist who classified herself as "Spanish"; her failure to become a part o f middle America led her into depression and eventually mental illness. Her son has woven not just her experiences and his own, but also those of friends and relatives, into a complex and  moving story of one white/brown man's search for identity.
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cover of How We Came to Be: An Intellectual Genealogy of Chicano Scholars

How We Came to Be

An Intellectual Genealogy of Chicano Scholars

Edited by Teresa Córdova, Aída Hurtado, Francisco J. Hernández, Avelardo Valdez; Foreword by Juan González

University of Arizona Press, 2026

This work chronicles the lives and legacies of Chicana and Chicano scholars whose formative experiences in the Chicano Movement shaped the development of Chicano studies and transformed higher education. Originating from the Reuniónes de Colegas—gatherings of veteran scholars reflecting on their shared histories—the volume features sixteen essays organized into five thematic sections that explore the intersections of activism, scholarship, and institutional change.

The contributors document how grassroots organizing evolved into academic inquiry, leading to the creation of departments, student support systems, and policy reforms that advanced equity and representation in universities. Essays address how community-engaged research influenced urban planning, health advocacy, and cultural production, while also highlighting Indigenous and transnational epistemologies that redefined theoretical frameworks in Chicano studies. The volume concludes with reflections on academic leadership and the breaking of barriers by Chicana scholars in higher education administration.

Together, these essays offer a powerful intellectual history and a testament to a generation’s enduring commitment to social justice. How We Came to Be is both a scholarly archive and a call to action, preserving the legacy of those who built Chicano studies and inspiring future generations to continue the work of transformation within and beyond the academy.

Contributors

José Calderón

Gilberto Cárdenas

Teresa Carrillo

Teresa Córdova

Estevan Flores

Yvette G. Flores

Felipe Gonzales

Deena J. González

Francisco J. Hernández

Inés Hernández-Ávila

Francisco Hernández Vázquez

Aída Hurtado

Larry Trujillo

Avelardo Valdez

Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez

James Diego Vigil

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cover of How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories

How to Date a Flying Mexican

New and Collected Stories

Daniel A. Olivas

University of Nevada Press, 2022

How to Date a Flying Mexican is a collection of stories derived from Chicano and Mexican culture but ranging through fascinating literary worlds of magical realism, fairy tales, fables, and dystopian futures. Many of Daniel A. Olivas’s characters confront—both directly and obliquely— questions of morality, justice, and self-determination.

The collection is made up of Olivas’s favorite previously published stories, along with two new stories—one dystopian and the other magical— that challenge the Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies. How to Date a Flying Mexican draws together some of Olivas’s most unforgettable and strange tales, allowing readers to experience his very distinct, and very Chicano, fiction.
 
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