Reading, Writing, and Revolution: Escuelitas and the Emergence of a Mexican American Identity in Texas

From 1880 to 1940, ethnic Mexicans enrolled their children in both public schools and escuelitas (little schools)- two contradictory educational traditions with mutually exclusive messages, Philis Barragán Goetz writes. Texas public school administrators believed that you could not live in the United States and be a citizen if you did not speak English and demonstrate a familiarity with the laws of the country. Mexican consuls and many upper class Mexican nationals, on the other hand, believed that the residents of this Mexican colony had a responsibility to keep the true Mexico alive in the United States. Each side demanded that ethnic Mexicans choose the country to which they would belong, scoffing at the notion of anything in between. In this history of escuelitas in Texas, Barragán Goetz marshals deep archival and oral history research to show how, for many decades, numerous ethnic Mexicans did choose something in between, and how the escuelita model slowly transformed to meet the needs of Mexican Americans.https://digitalcommons.tamusa.edu/hist_books/1007/thumbnail.jp