Customer Reviews

The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography)

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It's a book that tells generations born after el Movimiento that it took brave Chicanas(os) to make changes in politics, and education systems. This was done by Americans with coraje (anger) and who took this anger and put it into positive aciton. Having been part of the Movimiento Chicano this book brought back many memories. If you read "Rain of Gold" you'll like this book--it's the other story about those of us who the river crossed us, we did not cross the river. This book should be a must for every Chicano(a) in political science or Chicano studies.

The Crystal City student walkout was sparked by the Crystal City's school board refusal to allow Chicano students to run for homecoming queen or cheerleader. No matter how you want to slice it, how would you feel if someone told you that your daughter wasn't good enough or pretty enough to run for homecoming queen or try out for cheerleader?
What the school board did was wrong, pure and simple. Gutierrez details how he channeled this anger to bring about monunmental changes in Texas, a state that used to regularly kill Hispanics for "getting out of line." There may be disagreement with his rhetoric, or his methods, but denying a large part of the student body from participating in high school traditions is just plain wrong.
Read it and decide for yourself.
It angered me, and I'm an old white guy with a teen-aged daughter.

I teach high school US history classes and as a teacher, I BELIEVE this book should be MANDITORY IN ALL CLASSROOMS! All of my students have to read it and will continue to read it until I retire! It's unfortunate that not many books tell the truth about this country's history. I am more than happy to state truthfully and without a doubt that this one absolutely does!

The events that took place in this book happened in my home town. The events started out as a good thing that was ment to help the hispanic comunity , in the end with poor planing it brought forth the slow death of a growing texas town.

i will be the first to admit that some thing had to change in order to help the hispanics, but after all was said done , the only major change that happened was the residence of the man that killed the town. if i sound harsh in my review , well i still live in the after shocks of the movment.