The National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP) is the story of a collective journey of informed and actively engagedmembers of the Latino/a education community.2 It is a story of resistance and renewal, about more than 200 people who have become sufficiently incensed by U.S. backlash education policies and practices to act. It is a tale of struggle, transformation, transcendence, and

proposed liberation; a response to incendiary and suffocating educational politics; and a statement about a vision for truly holistic learning for Latinos/as and others. How can we transcend the violence of our educationalpolicies andclassroompractices and insteadcloakour communities with peaceful and passionate exploration of self and others within a more humane and just world? It is in this spirit that NLERAP was birthed.