ABSTRACT
The early forced segregation of Mexican-origin students became the crucible in which school failure of innumerable Chicano children and youths originated and intensified.1 The intentional separation of Chicano students from their White peers in public schools began in the post-1848 decades following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The signing of the Treaty and the U.S. annexation, by conquest, of the current Southwest signaled the beginning of decades of persistent, pervasive prejudice and discrimination against people of Mexican origin who reside in the U.S. (Acuña, 2007; Perea, 2003). Subsequently, racial isolation of schoolchildren became a normative practice in the Southwest-despite states having no legal statutes to segregate Chicano students from White students (San Miguel Jr. & Valencia, 1998; Valencia, 2008, chapter 1). In light of the long-standing status of school segregation and its detrimental effects on students’ academic achievement, this topic has captured the interest of many scholars (e.g., Álvarez, 1988; González, 1990; Menchaca & Valencia, 1990; San Miguel, Jr., 1987; Valencia, 2005, 2008, chapter 1). The early segregation of Chicano students, however, needs to be contextualized in the larger realm of historical race relations in the Southwest. As a colonized people, Chicanos faced segregation in, or exclusion from, for example, movie theaters, restaurants, and public accommodations (e.g., swimming pools) (Acuña; Martínez, 1994), as well as in housing (Ramos, 2001), juries (García, 2009), and the labor market (Foley, 1997).2 For many Chicanos, segregation spanned from the “cradle to the grave.” There was forced segregation in maternity wards3 and separate cemeteries for Whites and Chicanos (Carroll, 2003). The treatment of Chicanos as nonpeers allowed Whites to maintain their system of privilege and domination.
