MACRI Talk: Mexican Arizona and the Politics of Educational Equality

Join us for a VIRTUAL MACRI Talk with Dr. Laura K. Muñoz about Mexican Americans’ efforts to attain educational equality in Arizona, from its territorial period in the 19th century to the post–World War II era. Dr. Muñoz’s presentation will give us a snapshot of her new book, DESERT DREAMS: MEXICAN ARIZONA AND THE POLITICS OF EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY.

Our FREE virtual event will stream live on Facebook at https://bit.ly/FB-MACRI & YouTube at https://bit.ly/YT-MACRI at 6PM Central Time. Just click on your preferred site to join the presentation at 6PM CT!

→ RSVP at the link to receive a reminder for the talk!

⭐️This is an official Dreamweek event⭐️

MACRI's programs are funded in part by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture, Bexar County, the Mellon Foundation, the John L. Santikos Charitable Foundation Fund of the San Antonio Area Foundation, Wells Fargo, and individual donors like you! To learn more about future MACRI events and how to make a donation, please visit www.somosMACRI.org. Gracias!

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Laura K. Muñoz is Assistant Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studies the people and histories of Mexican American, Chicanx, and Latinx communities in the United States with an emphasis on race, gender, and education in the American West.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Desert Dreams chronicles seventy-five years of Mexican American efforts to attain educational equality in Arizona, from its territorial period in the nineteenth century to the post–World War II era. Laura K. Muñoz reveals how Arizona Mexicans, or Arizonenses, embraced the United States expecting that they would be treated as American citizens. Instead, Anglo Arizonans wrote laws and designed schools to transform Mexicans from “unassimilable immigrants” into “American workers” by restricting their education to the acquisition of fluency in English and mastery of basic domestic and industrial skills.

Arizonenses confronted these anti-Mexican attitudes by developing their own politics of educational equality. They founded public schools, served as school leaders, promoted Spanish and English bilingualism, and encouraged their children to pursue high school and college. From these efforts, a small cadre of Arizonenses obtained enough education to sustain a successful middle class, comprised of students, teachers, lawyers, and politicians who fought for Arizonense civil rights, especially the right to a good education. These efforts culminated in Romo v. Laird (1925), the earliest known school desegregation case filed in the state. Arizonenses also developed regional networks that brought them into conversation with Mexican Americans and allies in Southern California and across the borderlands.

As the first comprehensive social history of Mexican Americans in Arizona before 1960, Desert Dreamsdemonstrates that Arizonenses across generations engaged in vital political, legal, and educational debates about civil rights and subsequently gave rise to a national Mexican American political consciousness.