Genuine calm and a child-like mischievous chuckle obscure an underlying intensity in one of the most elder of the scholar-activists of the Texas Chicana/o movement.  Mario Compean remains as genuinely optimistic as when I first heard him speak to a group in November 1968. A group of dejected Mexican American parents had just learned that their children who had boycotted classes at Edcouch Elsa High School would be suspended or expelled from school.  Some  of  the 175 students would lose at least one semester of school credit.  Some would lose the entire school year’s credit.  For the boys, Vietnam seemed like the next stop.  A seemingly promising student boycott to call attention to the dire conditions of the school facilities, the undeclared war against speaking Spanish and the lack of Mexican American culturally relevant school textbooks appeared that evening like a catastrophe. Parents were finally out in full force that evening in hope that someone could explain why things had gone so, so wrong and whether there was any hope of recovery from this most severest of blows…