Written by a Los Angeles history teacher frustrated by the lack of culturally relevant materials, this book covers some of the most interesting events in the history of Mexico and the heritage of Mexican Americans. Chapters are: (1) Indian Mexico (Teotihuacan, the Maya, the Toltecs, and the Aztecs); (2) La Conquista (Cortes and Moctezuma, conquest of Tenochtitlan, and the Colonial Era); (3) The Loss of Aztlan (independence of Mexico from Spain, Mexican-American War, loss of northern lands to the United States, and Mexican Americans in the U.S. Southwest); (4) The Mexican Revolution, Part I--The Era of Porfirio Diaz (Juarez, the Diaz dictatorship, hacienda system, and modernization of Mexico and its costs); (5) The Mexican Revolution, part II--Revolutionary Decade (1910-1920) and Beyond (Madero presidency, Huerta dictatorship, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Constitution of 1917, Carranza presidency, Zapatismo lives on, Lazaro Cardenas, nationalization of the oil industry, and the present and future of Mexico); (6) The Zoot Suit Years (Mexicans return to Aztlan, World War II, racism and discrimination against Mexicans in the United States, Sleepy Lagoon trial, and riots as sailors attacked Mexican youth); (7) Cesar Chavez and Mexican Labor in the Southwest (labor and unions, California agribusiness empire, Chavez, birth of the United Farmworkers, Delano grape strike, and justice for Latino workers); and (8) Los Chicanos (the Chicano Movement, Chicano intellectuals and artists, demands for bilingual and bicultural education, and political and social advances). Each chapter contains five writing exercises (sentence vs. fragment, short answer questions, paragraph questions, clustering and identification items, and essay questions), and some contain pages on paragraph writing, answering essay questions, and taking in-class essay examinations. Introductory sections explain the writing exercises to the student and make suggestions about their use to teachers. Many photographs are included. (SV)