Immigration Archives

Columbus resources | Zinn Education Project

It’s Columbus Day . . . Time to Break the Silence

By Bill Bigelow

This past January, almost exactly 20 years after its publication, Tucson schools banned the book I co-edited with Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus. It was one of a number of books adopted by Tucson’s celebrated Mexican American Studies program — a program long targeted by conservative Arizona politicians.

The school district sought to crush the Mexican American Studies program; our book itself was not the target, it just got caught in the crushing. Nonetheless, Tucson’s — and Arizona’s — attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.

Mexican American Civil Rights in Texas

Book — Non-fiction. Edited by Brischetto and Avena. 2021. 408 pages.
This book is an examination of the social change of Mexican Americans of Texas over the past half century.

“Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration

Book — Non-fiction. By Victoria Law. 2021. 240 pages
An accessible guide for activists, educators, and all who are interested in understanding how the prison system oppresses communities and harms individuals.

Teaching Activity by Victoria Law

Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care

Film. By Emma Francis-Snyder. 2021. 38 minutes.
Takeover tells the story of the Young Lords’ 12-hour occupation of Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx in 1970.

Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands

Book — Non-fiction. By Kelly Lytle Hernández. 2022. 384 pages.
Taking readers to the frontlines of the magonista uprising and the counterinsurgency campaign that failed to stop them, Kelly Lytle Hernández puts the magonista revolt at the heart of U.S. history.

Arise!: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution

Book — Non-fiction. By Christina Heatherton. 2022. 336 pages.
This book tells the international history of radical movements and their convergences during the Mexican Revolution, reconstructing how this era's organizers found new ways to fight global capitalism.

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War

Book — Non-fiction. By Alice L. Baumgartner. 2020. 384 pages.
The story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States.

La historia del pueblo de Estados Unidos para jóvenes

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn, adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with additions by Ed Morales. Translated by Hugo García Manríquez. 2023. 608 pages.
A Spanish translation of the young adult version of the best-selling A People’s History of the United States.

A graphic showing a Black hand, medical equipment, and flowers, along with the words "The People's Hospital"

The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine

Book — Non-fiction. By Ricardo Nuila. 2023. 384 pages.
Tells the story of five uninsured Houstonians who are each struggling with life-threatening ailments and denied critical care until they arrive at Ben Taub Hospital, where they find a crucial model of innovative healthcare.

Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park

Picture book. By María Dolores Águila and illustrated by Magdalena Mora. 2024. 40 pages.
The true story of how community members organized a massive protest in 1970, forcing the city council to change its plans.

A depiction of two panels from The Great Wall of Los Angeles, a mural by Judy Baca. These panels show depictions from the Mexican-American War.

U.S. Mexico War: “We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God”

Teaching Activity. Lesson by Bill Bigelow and student reading by Howard Zinn. Rethinking Schools. 21 pages.
Interactive activity introduces students to the history and often untold story of the U.S.-Mexico War. Roles available in Spanish.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

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