Learning Loss for Generations: Segregated Mexican Schools and the 1918 Flu Pandemic

“With so many Mexicans in the grammar schools this would greatly interfere with class work, as the excluded students, who are always the slowest in the classes, would fall still farther behind, making the present task of completing a year’s work before next summer nearly impossible”. This denial of education for Mexican students during the 1918 flu pandemic, which was the same “logic” that established separate Mexican schools, was rooted in white supremacy and racism in the ideas that Mexican students were dirty, unclean, inferior in intelligence, and likely wouldn’t catch up with school work anyway.

75 Years After the Mendez Case: Our Children Still Need Us to Fight for Equal Education

By Irene Sanchez Today marks the 75th anniversary of the ruling that desegregated schools in the state of California. While Mendez is talked about a little more now than when I was a younger person, it is not talked about enough. The Mendez case was the precursor to the landmark supreme court case of Brown … Continue reading 75 Years After the Mendez Case: Our Children Still Need Us to Fight for Equal Education

Refusing to Disappear

Refusing to DisappearBy Irene SanchezXicana Ph.D.  How many of us have heard these sayings in the U.S.? “America is a melting pot…” “The national fabric is a diverse tapestry...”“America is united as one…”People who offer assimilationist snippets of what they believe "America" is fail to say that the dominant Euro American group often demands that “others” … Continue reading Refusing to Disappear

Building Back More Inequality: No Free Community College While Enrollment Dips In The Pandemic

By Irene Sanchez This is hardly a surprise, but the pandemic has impacted many students at all levels of education, particularly those who are underserved and over represented in a system like the community college. It’s no surprise that as a result community college enrollment has dropped in a global pandemic. Then there was a … Continue reading Building Back More Inequality: No Free Community College While Enrollment Dips In The Pandemic

Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia

Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia By Xicana Ph.D. The ivory tower as a whole doesn’t uplift anything, but those who reinforce it. It reinforces existing power. The status quo. A lot of folks within it do too. A lot of people who preach social justice do it every single day. Let’s … Continue reading Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia