Conflicting Identities: The Mexican American Quest for Inclusion in American Education Policy

Abstract

Since the 1990s, there has been a growing debate on multiculturalism in the United States. For proponents it is a way to include minorities without full assimilation, a way to preserve culture alongside the national identity. For opponents, it weakens the social fabric if minorities do not fully take part in the shared identity and become full members of the imagined community. This debate often infiltrates concerns over the state of American education today as cultural pluralism becomes a major focus for policy change. To explore this debate further, this thesis gives a detailed analysis of the Mexican American quest for inclusion in education policy to answer the question: how has the national identity and Mexican American identity been used to include or exclude Mexican Americans in education policy change? In three chapters, using three different time periods, the history of Mexican American identity will be discussed during 1900-1930s – the period of assimilation, the 1930s to the 1950s – the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, and the 1960s to the 1970s – The Chicano/a Movement. The melting pot ideology of the first period restricted cultural pluralism, stigmatized Mexican Americans, and assigned to them a stereotypical vocational role in society. The second period focuses on the growth in power of the Mexican American elite middle class, and shows how identifying as White produces local education policy change. The third period explores a shift in the power balance in which sectionalism and a growth in group nationalism promoted a unique identity for the labor and student movements resulting in policy that directly responded to needs of the Mexican American group (i.e. bilingual education and full desegregation). Since Mexican Americans have the unique ability, as a biracial group to ascribe to whiteness or indigenousness, policy change can be explored depending on the identity ascription of the group in power allowing actors to influence institutional change resulting in two separate paths of institutional creation. In the end, a unique identity path produced policy change that encompassed more educational needs and fully included the group, a feat that could not be accomplished when ascribing to a White assimilationist identity path.