The Harrison High School walkouts of 1968: struggle for equal schools and Chicanismo in Chicago

Abstract

For the most part, high school activism in the Midwest has not been the subject of scholarly research. Moreover, the Chicano Movement in Chicago is a history that at present remains largely unrecorded. This study examines archival evidence such as newspaper articles, intelligence reports, as well as oral interviews with key former students, and administrators of Harrison High School to chronicle Mexican-origin student activism and grassroots organizing for urban school reform that took place between 1968 and 1974 in the Little Village and Pilsen communities of Chicago. In 1968, Mexicano students, responded to their invisibility by organizing school walkouts and making demands for urban school reform. The student demands included among other things, the teaching of Latin American history along with the institutionalization of bilingual-bicultural programs which stipulated the hiring of qualified teachers, counselors, and principals. The politics of protest and confrontation that manifested at Harrison High School during the late 1960’s is a testament of how Mexicano students became makers of their own history at this particular high school which failed to respond to their unique needs in spite of the growing Mexican-origin student population. Although the notion of ‘Chicano’ never quite popularized the public imagination of most Mexicans in Chicago, Mexicano students, parents, and community activists forged a spirit of Chicanismo to fit their unique circumstances and local context for urban school reform during the height of the civil rights era.

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