Blowout
Blowout! by ISBN: 9780807834480Publication Date: 2011-03-21In March 1968, thousands of Chicano students walked out of their East Los Angeles high schools and middle schools to protest decades of inferior and discriminatory education in the so-called "Mexican Schools." During these historic walkouts, or "blowouts," the students were led by Sal Castro, a courageous and charismatic Mexican American teacher who encouraged the students to make their grievances public after school administrators and school board members failed to listen to them. The resulting blowouts sparked the beginning of the urban Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the largest and most widespread civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. history. This fascinating testimonio, or oral history, transcribed and presented in Castro's voice by historian Mario T. Garcia, is a compelling, highly readable narrative of a young boy growing up in Los Angeles who made history by his leadership in the blowouts and in his career as a dedicated and committed teacher. Blowout! fills a major void in the history of the civil rights and Chicano movements of the 1960s, particularly the struggle for educational justice.
Latin American Student Activism
Prior to the Chicano Movement of the late 60s and early 70s, the young Mexican-American community in the United States was fighting for equal treatment in American society. This climaxed in the East LA walk-outs of 1968 when Mexican-American High School Students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District took part in a series protests against unequal treatment in LA high schools. The protests rippled through the United States and caused a number of other student-led demonstrations throughout Southwest United States.
Students walk out at Abraham Lincoln High https://griid.org/2013/03/03/this-day-in-resistance-history-1968-chicano-students-walk-out-in-protest-of-racist-policies/
Further reading
Mexican American Youth Organization by ISBN: 0292755562Publication Date: 1995-01-01Among the protest movements of the 1960s, the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) emerged as one of the principal Chicano organizations seeking social change. By the time MAYO evolved into the Raza Unida Party (RUP) in 1972, its influence had spread far beyond its Crystal City, Texas, origins. Its members precipitated some 39 school walkouts, demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and confronted church and governmental bodies on numerous occasions.Armando Navarro here offers the first comprehensive assessment of MAYO' history, politics, leadership, ideology, strategies and tactics, and activist program. Interviews with many MAYO and RUP organizers and members, as well as first-hand knowledge drawn from his own participation in meetings, presentations, and rallies, enrich the text.This wealth of material yields the first reliable history of this extremely vocal and visible catalyst of the Chicano Movement. The book will add significantly to our understanding of Sixties protest movements and the social and political conditions that gave them birth.- Youth, Identity, Power by ISBN: 0860911977Publication Date: 1989-05-01Youth, Identity, Power
Carlos Muñoz places the Chicano Movement in the context of the political and intellectual development of people of Mexican descent in the USA, tracing the emergence of student activists and intellectuals in the 1930s and their initial challenge to the dominant white racial and class ideologies. He then documents the rise and fall of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, situating it within the 1960s civil rights and radical movements and assessing the Chicano Movement’s contribution to the development of the Mexican American population and the Latino population as a whole. 
Testimonio by ISBN: 1558852999Publication Date: 2000-01-01Beginning with the early 1800s and extending to the modern era, Rosales collects illuminating documents that shed light on the Mexican-American quest for life, liberty, and justice. Documents include petitions, correspondence, government reports, political proclamations, newspaper items, congressional testimony, memoirs, and even international treaties.
- Chicano Student Movement at Western New Mexico University Oral History Project, 1965-1991
This collection consists of seven (7) interviews, five of which are recorded on six (6), ninety-minute cassette tapes. The interviews were conducted by Mario A. R. Carreon with the following individuals: Johnny Arzola, Juan Castanoa, Maria Gutierrez-Spencer, David Maestas, Luis Nolasco, Mike M. Ordaz, and Saul Ramos. - Latina/o Students at U of IThis guide includes the history of latino/a students at U of I from Project 500 which aimed to increase the number of underrepresented students on campus to the various forms of activism that the students engaged in in order to support the Farm Workers Movement
- East L.A. Chicano student walkoutsOverview and gallery on the student walkouts in 1968; created by UCLA
- Interview with Paula CrisostomoPaula Crisostomo helped organize the walkouts in 1968
- TimelineTimeline of the East LA Blowouts
Databases and key words
For further research, I recommend starting with the following databases.
Among the terms used to find the information presented in this libguide are: student protest*, student activism, chican*, mexican american, mexican-american, chicano student blowout*, student blowout*
- Academic Search Complete (1975-present) This link opens in a new windowCovers topics in most areas of academic study. Full-text provided for over 10,000 publications, with over 7,850 peer-reviewed. Abstracts and indexing available for over 13,780 journals in the collection.
- America: History & Life (1964-) This link opens in a new windowA complete bibliographic reference to the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Published since 1964, the database comprises almost 400,000 bibliographic entries. Learn more about this database
- Ethnic Newswatch This link opens in a new windowIncludes current full-text newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The database now also contains Ethnic NewsWatch: A History, which provides historical coverage of Native American, African American, and Hispanic American periodicals from 1959-1989.