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.
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Posters.
Portraits by Robert Shetterly and biographies of individuals who have taken a stand for justice.
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Article. By Manlio Argueta. From Cuzcatlán, Donde bate la mar del sur.
An excerpt from a novel of historical fiction about the impact of an export economy on peasants in El Salvador.
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Book — Historical fiction. Written and illustrated by Pablo Leon. 2025. 240 pages.
A graphic novel about Guatemalan immigrant youth who learn about the dictatorship in Guatemala through conversations with their mother.
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The Bisbee Deportation was the illegal deportation of more than 1,000 striking mine workers (IWW-led strike), their supporters, and citizen bystanders by 2,000 vigilantes.
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Film. Produced by Moctesuma Esparza. 2006. 111 minutes.
Walkout tells the true story of the Chicano students of East L.A., who in 1968 staged several dramatic walkouts in their high schools to protest academic prejudice and dire school conditions.
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Police shot peaceful protesters, killing 19 and wounding over 200 others in Ponce, Puerto Rico.
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Mexican anarchist, organizer, and journalist Ricardo Flores Magón was imprisoned for “seditious conspiracy” and assassinated while imprisoned in the United States.
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Book — Non-fiction. By David Dorado Romo. 352 pages.
From missions and the Alamo to muralists, revolutionaries, and teen activists, this is the true story of the Mexican American experience.
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Short Film. By Pablo Leon. 2024. 14 minutes.
In this animated historical fiction film, a journalist documents the experiences of three people who lived through the tragic 12-year-long Salvadoran Civil War in the 1980s.
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Book — Historical fiction. By Winifred Conkling. 2011. 160 pages.
Based on the true story of two girls who meet in 1940s California and a landmark lawsuit on education.
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Puerto Rican Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash while traveling at great risk in response to urgent requests to deliver help to earthquake devastated Nicaragua.
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Book — Historical fiction. By María Dolores Águila. 2025. 304 pages.
A middle grade novel in verse based on the true story of Roberto Alvarez and the fight for education equity in Lemon Grove.
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Book — Non-fiction. By by Yolanda Alaniz and Megan Cornish, with a foreword by Rodolfo Acuña. 2008. 368 pages.
A history of Chicana/o militancy, from the occupation of Northern Mexico to the 1990s.
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Film. Directed by Icíar Bollaín and written by Paul Laverty. 2010. 103 minutes.
As a crew shoots a film about Columbus' genocide, local people in Cochabamba, Bolivia rise up against plans to privatize the water supply.
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Mexican-American students were barred from attending their local elementary school. The parents took the school district to court.
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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.
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Film. Bill Brummel Productions. 2008. 39 minutes.
A documentary film and teaching guide on the grape strike and boycott led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Stephen Kinzer. 2007. 416 pages.
A history of U.S. government-supported (often initiated) regime change around the world.
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Teaching Activity. By Linda Christensen. Rethinking Schools. 9 pages.
Teaching about patterns of displacement and wealth inequality through the history of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop communities and the building of Dodger Stadium.
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Cuban poet of social protest and a leader of the Afro-Cuban movement, Nicolás Guillén was born.
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Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this lesson, students analyze who is to blame for the illegal, mass deportations of Mexican Americans and immigrants during the Great Depression.
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The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, ending the U.S. Mexico War and extending the boundaries of the United States west to the Pacific Ocean.
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Immigration agents raided La Placita Park where they arrested and deported dozens of Mexican Americans.
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A network of religious congregations that became known as the Sanctuary Movement started with a Presbyterian church and a Quaker meeting in Tucson, Arizona.
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