Includes index

ROOTS: schooling Puerto Rico Chicago (Mirelsie Velásquez); Mexican American women´s stories in 1950s Chicago schools (Angelica Rivera); Between poverty and segregation: Latino/a students surviving the urban crisis in Chicago´s public schools, 1980-200 (Lilia Fernández); Blowouts: Chicanismo and Latinidad in late-1960´s Chicago (Jaime Alnís). RESISTANCE: Roberto Clemente Community Academy: A counter-narrative on Chicago school reform 1988-19989 (Cristina Pacione-Zayas); Latina/o/x education in Chicago public schools: community research , resistance, and representation (Erica R. Dávila and Ann M. Avilés); Mexican -origin boys negotiating social and academic identity in a racialized school context (Leticia Villareal Sosa). TRANSFORMATION: ¿Dónde está nuestra escuela? (Where is our high school?): education, politics, and a hunger strike in Chicago (Gabriel Cortez); Critical civic praxis: examining the intersection of hip-hop music, community-based organizations, and the development of Latina/o/x youth consciousness (Isaura B. Pulido).

In this collection, local experts use personal narratives and empirical data to explore the history of Mexican American and Puerto Rican education in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system. The essays focus on three themes: the historical context of segregated and inferior schooling for Latina/o/x students; the changing purposes and meanings of education for Latina/o/x students from the 1950s through today; and Latina/o/x resistance to educational reforms grounded in neoliberalism. Contributors look at stories of student strength and resistance, the oppressive systems forced on Mexican American women, the criminalization of Puerto Ricans fighting for liberatory education, and other topics of educational significance. As they show, many harmful past practices remain the norm--or have become worse. Yet Latina/o/x communities and students persistently engage in transformative practices shaping new approaches to education that promise to reverberate not only in the city but nationwide.Insightful and enlightening, Latina/o/x Education in Chicago brings to light the ongoing struggle for educational equity in the Chicago Public Schools.