1. The first Texas compulsory education attendance law was enacted right at the time the Mexican Revolution of 1910 . Texas students were required to attend school for 60 days in 1916–1917, 80 days in 1917-1918, and 100 days from 1918-1919.
2. “Ethnolinguistic” refers to a community that is ethnically, culturally and linguistically similar.
3. Corporal punishment was common in the Texas public schools through the 1960s.
4. Articles from the 1930s referring to Mexican American education in Texas: See 1931 article by Gladine Bowers, Mexican Education in East Donna, reprinted from Texas Outlook, in the July 2021 edition of IberoAztlan, rationalizing a Salvatierra-type segregation; See the article by William O. Sisk, The Mexican in Texas Schools, reprinted from Texas Outlook, in the July 2021 edition of IberoAztlan.
5. Blandina Cardena, Breaking Through in Migrant Education, 2004, reprinted in the February 2021 edition of IberoAztlan.
6. See 1930 article by Hershel T. Manuel, The Spanish Speaking Child
7. See 1936 article by Emma P. Weir, The Mexican Child,
8. Dr. Severo Gomez would contend during the mid-to-late 1960s that language and culture are inexorably connected. Bilingualism was a fact wherever international borders artificially separated languages. He advocated for bilingualism as an express educational goal of the Texas public school system. For Gomez, where the child came to school with a language other than English, the objective was not to eliminate the first language as proficiency in English was gained. To use both languages, initially, basic learning had to occur in the child’s first language for some period of time. The basic concepts (what educators call essential elements; knowledge and skills; readiness skills) had to be in the child’s first language. Gomez’s idea was not earth–shattering. Others had advocated for bilingual education as one way to begin to address the (adverse; disastrous;) results in the education of Chicano students in the 1960s.
Gomez was at the time, a high–ranking official with the Texas Education Agency, serving as Assistant Commissioner of Education, Office of International Education and Bilingual Education.
9. See Interview of Dr. Leo Gómez, Retired Professor (Dual Language Training Institute) in the July 2021 ed. of IberoAztlan.com
10. See Interview of Dr. Franciso Guajardo in the July 2021 ed. of IberoAztlan.com
11. See Interview of Dr. Alejo Salinas in the July 2021 ed. of IberoAztlan.com
12. Al Ramirez (once Director of Region One Education Service Center, Edinburg, Texas) developed innovative dual language programs in the Rio Grande Valley during late 1960s and early 1970s. see See Interview of Dr. Alejo Salinas in the July 2021 ed. of IberoAztlan.com
13. See the Texas Attorney General’s legal opinion No. V-128 issued in 1947 and reprinted in the July 2021 edition of IberoAztlan advising local school districts how to legally construct and maintain separate schools and separate classrooms for Mexican Americans. See Cisneros v. Corpus Christi Independent School District, 330 F. Supp. 1377 (S.D. Tex. 1971); U.S. v. TEXAS; 342 F. Supp. 24 (1971) E. D. Texas, Tyler Division; for the litigation history of desegregation efforts by LULAC, see Del Rio ISD v. Salvatierra, 33 S.W.2d 790 (Tex. App, 1930);
14. see the excellent legal background of the desegregation cases by Carlos M. Alcala and Jorge C. Rangel, Project Report: De Jure Segregation of Chicanos in Texas Schools, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 7 (March 1972); see also: Carl Allsup, The American G.I. Forum: Origins and Evolution (University of Texas Center for Mexican American Studies Monograph 6, Austin, 1982). Carl Allsup, Education Is Our Freedom: The American G.I. Forum and Mexican American School Segregation in Texas, 1948–1957, Aztlán 8 (Spring-Summer-Fall 1977). Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Mexican American Organizations and the Changing Politics of School Desegregation in Texas, 1945–1980, Social Science Quarterly 63 (December 1982). Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., The Struggle Against Separate and Unequal Schools: Middle Class Mexican Americans and the Desegregation Campaign in Texas, 1929–1957, History of Education Quarterly 23 (Fall 1983).
