Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

In this examination of the Chicano Movement, Guadalupe San Miguel revises our understanding of the role played by Mexican American moderates in advancing the goals of social justice. He [End Page 207] introduces several individuals and organizations that pursued policies and programs that brought positive changes to Chicano/Latino communities across the country. Turning their energies away from confrontational tactics, they focused on conventional means of social change—lobbying, negotiation, voting, and compromise—to make their voices heard (p. 97).

Often dismissed by a racial lens that viewed American society in strictly black or white terms, Mexican Americans had to work hard to get the attention of policymakers and the nation at large. Despite their repeated disappointment over this lack of understanding about who they were, Mexican American moderates held fast to the notion that they could promote gradual social change through moral suasion. Yet, internal divisions based on class, regional histories, and identity also made organizing a united front challenging. But even here, as San Miguel points out, moderates understood the importance of radical protest. Despite their own reservations about such tactics, many were inspired by the United Farm Workers grape boycott, Black civil rights activists’ nonviolent direct action campaigns, protests against the Vietnam War, and the uprisings in Black communities. As the author makes clear, the “lessons of protest . . . were not lost on Mexican Americans liberal activists” (p. 12). Indeed, they would have to resort to some of these tactics themselves on occasion, just to be invited to the table.

San Miguel underscores the long history of radical activism among Mexican Americans dating back to the end of the U.S.–Mexico War. In the decades that followed, Mexican Americans would have to grapple with an aggressive Anglo settler colonial rule that identified them as an internal threat. Through countless acts of resistance, both legal and extralegal, Mexican Americans struggled against relentless assaults on their rights. As the book moves forward into the second half of the twentieth century, it focuses on five prominent figures in the radical tradition—César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Reies Tijerina, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, and Francisca Flores—and how “they expanded traditional concerns of the civil rights movement from [End Page 208] seeking rights, recognition, and resources to include economic justice, return of stolen lands, feminism, urban discrimination, and educational inequity” (p. 32).

San Miguel’s major intervention in the historiography of the Chicano Movement, however, lies in his examination of how the unrest of the sixties influenced a new generation of moderate activists to push the envelope, sometimes utilizing “measured militancy,” to achieve social change (p. 70). The book highlights the evolution of several grassroots organizations, with their origins in the Chicano Movement, into more formal community development corporations. Other grassroots organizations would similarly mollify their approaches, using a combination of creative tactics as they sought attention for their issues. San Miguel pays particular attention to the struggles by moderates to bring about reforms to education. Despite decades of efforts by communities across the country to bring an end to discrimination against Mexican Americans in public schools, systemic inequities remained. By 1970, a critical mass of moderates, especially at the national level, would play crucial roles in the development of bilingual/bicultural programs and other comprehensive school reforms. The book highlights several key figures such as María Urquides, Lupe Anguiano, Armando M. Rodriguez, Henry M. Ramírez, Nick E. Garza, and José A. Cárdenas. The book also emphasizes that this development was possible due to the involvement of large numbers of Mexican American educators, administrators, elected officials, parent policy groups, and others willing and ready to take on these institutions.

San Miguel is correct in stating that not enough attention is paid to the activism of moderate liberals during the era of the Chicano Movement. Amid the moral outrage and...