This essay recounts the efforts by various groups throughout Texas with a special emphasis on the Rio Grande Valley to implement Mexican American Studies at the turn of the twenty-first century. We offer a historical timeline of events that demonstrates how the Mexican American Studies course came into existence. We also detail the way in which…

The historical mistreatment of Xicanx (pronounced CHEE or SHE-canx) communities is rooted in nativism and white supremacist ideology that is inextricably linked to the conquest of the Americas and the creation of the United States. The subsequent multiple demonizing forces and ideology emanating from these origins have resulted in quantifiable…

This case study examines Mexican-heritage children's learning to dance ballet folklórico. Drawing from an interpretive, ethnographic approach, we argue the practices associated with the dance exist within encompassing domains of meaning that are individually enhancing while also prosocial, encouraging membership to the folklórico group and broader…

The author's reflexive account of what led to the construction of research grounded in Chicana Feminist Epistemology (CFE) and a new CFE approach coined "Mestiza Methodology" is presented. At the core of the methodology is the assertion that research processes must be decolonized in the image of Chicana relationships and sense-making to…

Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) formation is an important developmental task. Although families are a primary context for ERI socialization, little is known about siblings' role. Accordingly, we applied the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to longitudinal data from 2 siblings to examine the links between siblings' ERI exploration, resolution, and…

After the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the Mexican government sought to establish a series of frontier schools along the United States-Mexico border in an attempt to keep what officials believed were its most economically valuable citizens from migrating to the United States in search of improved economic and educational opportunities. This…

Although Latinx parents' perceptions of the climate of their children's schools may play a role in their children's academic adjustment, research examining this idea is sparse. Every 2 years beginning when children were in fifth grade (M[subscript age] = 10.86 years) until they were in 11th grade, Mexican-origin mothers (N = 674) reported on their…

This study investigated ethnic-racial identity (ERI) developmental processes (i.e., exploration and resolution) as pathways for adolescents to develop global bicultural competence, or the ability to meet heritage and host cultural demands. The sample included 749 U.S. Mexican-origin youth (30% Mexico-born; 51% male) followed from early-to-late…

The disruption of ordinary life by a deadly pandemic, an outrageous display of police violence, and a tumbling economy have left Americans isolated, frozen, and terrified. For many, the television screen has become the only contact with the outside world and the only source of entertainment. In recent years, cable television networks have drawn…

I explore my journey of creating my digital testimonios and how this intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and aesthetic process has aided in my healing journey. Throughout this process I illuminate the emotional labor that goes into creating these tools of healing by sharing personal experiences of trauma. Through my experiences, I demonstrate that…

The Queer Caucus created the Gloria Anzaldu´a Rhetorician Award to honor Anzaldu´a's impact on "studies of both rhetoric and queer theory" through forging "connections across difference and oppression in order to dismantle systems of privilege, whether that be heterosexism, heteronormativity, racism, sexism or ableism (as a…

This article examines the pedagogical potential of art-based, early critical literacy as a space in which young bilingual children can explore the issues of human diversity and uniqueness. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study focused on 12 five-year-old children of Mexican origin at a charter school located in Texas.

Neighborhood social processes may have important implications for parenting processes and ethnic-racial identity (ERI) processes and content in adolescence. Past research suggests that adolescents whose parents engaged in more cultural socialization, an important aspect of parental racial socialization, had higher levels of ERI processes and…

As a mother, daughter, and educator in Compton, California, the author writes a letter as an episolary offering/love letter for adjunct professors. The author offers these brief words as an act of gratitude, as an act of daily survival, and as an act of abundant defiance against the elimination of Women of Color (WoC) adjunct professors, writers,…

We present the first quantitative analysis of the impact of ending de jure segregation of Mexican-American school children in the United States by examining the effects of the 1947 Mendez v. Westminster court decision on long-run educational attainment for Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites in California. Our identification strategy relies on…