Pump Up the Blowouts: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary of the Chicano/a School Blowouts

Teaching Activity PDF. By Gilda L. Ochoa. 5 pages.
Reflections on teaching students about the 1968 walkouts by Chicano students in California.

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When only one of the 22 students raised her hand, I was not surprised. It is the rare student who begins college having learned the history of Mexican Americans in schools. This time, the question was how many knew about Mendez v. Westminster — a 1947 case that resulted in the elimination of de jure segregation for Mexican students and was influential in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. I probably would have received a similar reply had I asked about the Lemon Grove Incident of 1931 where the activism of Mexican immigrant parents resulted in the first successful desegregation case. Typically, a few more students know about the 1968 Chicana/o School Blowouts, but these overall patterns of historical exclusion are deep and their ramifications are real. Not only are many students denied access to crucial history, but also the myths about education, meritocracy, and equality are kept intact.

By not providing students with the tools to understand the historical continuities and changes in schools, we may be reinforcing beliefs that so-called student failure is rooted in individual students, families, and teachers — not in a legacy of structural and educational injustice. As I hear students’ anger about not learning this history until college, I also think about the millions of students who are not able to attend college and may never learn this history.

Published by Rethinking Schools.

Keywords: Mexican Americans, Mendez v. Westminster, Brown v. Board of Education, Lemon Grove Incident, Chicana/o School Blowouts, injustice, Civil Rights Movement, farm workers movement, land rights struggle, Gilbert Gonzalez, English- Speaking, Anglo-practicing, East Los Angeles, Chicano Power, Viva La Raza, bilingual, bicultural, Southwest, Midwest, Chicana/o Studies, Pomona College, inequality, Taking Back the School, inequality, Latinas/os, Enrique Ochoa, immigrants, Learning from Latino Teachers, Juan Gonzalez, Harvest of Empire, This Bridge Called My Back, Making Face, Making Soul, Pat Mora, Bernice Zamora, Laura Pulido, “Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left”