Rodolfo Acuña

A comprehensive history reconstructs the migration patterns of Mexican laborers, connecting them to social, economic, and political developments that have shaped the American Southwest, while describing the racism and capitalist exploitation suffered by the laborers as well as the collective forms of resistance and organizing engaged in by the laborers themselves.

This 140-page hard bound book is designed to present pupils in the intermediate grades with the history of the Mexican Americans and their contributions to the United States.

The Making of Chicana/o Studies traces the philosophy and historical development of the field of Chicana/o studies from precursor movements to the Civil Rights era to today, focusing its lens on the political machinations in higher education that sought to destroy the discipline. As a renowned leader, activist, scholar, and founding member of the movement to establish this curriculum in the California State University system, which serves as a model for the rest of the country, Rodolfo F. Acuña has, for more than forty years, battled the trend in academia to deprive this group of its academic presence. The book assesses the development of Chicana/o studies (an area of studies that has even more value today than at its inception)--myths about its epistemological foundations have remained uncontested. Acuña sets the record straight, challenging those in the academy who would fold the discipline into Latino studies, shadow it under the dubious umbrella of ethnic studies, or eliminate it altogether. Building the largest Chicana/o studies program in the nation was no easy feat, especially in an atmosphere of academic contention. In this remarkable account, Acuña reveals how California State University, Northridge, was instrumental in developing an area of study that offers more than 166 sections per semester, taught by 26 tenured and 45 part-time instructors. He provides vignettes of successful programs across the country and offers contemporary educators and students a game plan--the mechanics for creating a successful Chicana/o studies discipline--and a comprehensive index of current Chicana/o studies programs nationwide. Latinas/os, of which Mexican Americans are nearly seventy percent, comprise a complex sector of society projected to be just shy of thirty percent of the nation's population by 2050. The Making of Chicana/o Studies identifies what went wrong in the history of Chicana/o studies and offers tangible solutions for the future.--Publisher description

"With elegance and erudition, Lewis explores that climactic year of 1492 as a clash of civilizations - a clash not only of the New World and the Old but also of Christendom, Islam, and the Jews. In the same year that Columbus set sail across the Atlantic, he reminds us, the Spanish monarchs captured Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the peninsula, and also expelled the Jews. Lewis uses these three epochal events to explore the nature of the expansion of Europe, placing the voyages of discovery in a striking new context. He traces Christian Europe's path from primitive backwater on the edges of the vast cosmopolitan Caliphate, through the heightening rivalry of Christianity and Islam, to the triumph of the West, examining the factors behind their changing fortunes. That contest long remained more important in many Christians minds than the New World: as late as 1683, Vienna almost fell to the Ottoman armies. Lewis also reflects on changing qualities in European and Islamic cultures and the place of the Jews in both. The Jews who fled Spain found a receptive environment in Turkey; but the balance of tolerance and openness to innovation steadily shifted west. The voyages of discovery were themselves a part of the Christian-Muslim conflict, he writes, an attempt to outflank the Islamic world. The European explorers sailed into a world they scarcely understood; and yet they imposed their own perceptions of geography on the lands they conquered. Africa, Asia, the Middle and Far East, the Old and New Worlds - as intellectual concepts, all are European creations, Lewis observes; ironically, these same definitions have been accepted by even the most anti-Western activists."--BOOK JACKET.

"In the new fourth edition of this text, Rodolfo Acuna continues in his quest to uncover the rich complexities of Chicano/a history. In addition to a vast amount of new and updated sources, there is new material throughout the text exploring issues of gender, making this edition the most comprehensive to date. With spirit and passion, Acuna engages students and professors alike with an examination of Mexican-American history that is both thorough and challenging."--BOOK JACKET.