Using critical race theory and Latina/Latino critical race theory as a framework, this article utilizes the methods of qualitative inquiry and counterstorytelling to examine the construct of student resistance. The authors use two events in Chicana/Chicano student history—the 1968 East Los Angeles school walkouts and the 1993 UCLA student strike for Chicana and Chicano studies. Using these two methods and events, the authors extend the concept of resistance to focus on its transformative potential and its internal and external dimensions. The authors describe and analyze a series of individual and focus group interviews with women who participated in the 1968 East Los Angeles high school walkouts. The article then introduces a counterstory that briefly listens in on a dialogue between two data-driven composite characters, the Professor and an undergraduate student named Gloria. These characters’ experiences further illuminate the concepts of internal and external transformational resistance.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Acuna, R. (1996). Anything but Mexican: Chicanos in contemporary Los Angeles. New York: Verso.
2.
Anzaldua, G. (1987). Borderlands, la frontera: The new Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
3.
Austin, R. (1986). Resistance tactics for tokens. Harvard Black Letter Journal, 3, 52-56.
4.
Baca, C. (1995). [Transcribed interview conducted by Dolores Delgado Bernal with Celeste Baca]. Unpublished raw data.
5.
Barnes, L. , Christensen, C., & Hansen, A. (1994). Teaching and the case method: Test, cases, and readings (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
6.
Barnes, R. (1990). Race consciousness: The thematic content of racial distinctiveness in critical race scholarship. Harvard Law Review, 103, 1864-1871.
7.
Bell, D. (1987). And we will not be saved: The elusive quest for racial justice. New York: Basic Books.
8.
Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of racism. New York: Basic Books.
9.
Bell, D. (1995). Who’s afraid of critical race theory?University of Illinois Law Review, 1995, 893-910.
10.
Bell, D. (1996). Gospel choirs: Psalms of survival for an alien land called home. New York: Basic Books.
11.
Bell, D. (1998). Afrolantica legacies. Chicago: Third World Press.
12.
Berkeley Art Center . (1982). Ethnic notions: Black images in the White mind. Berkeley, CA: Author.
13.
Blackwell, J. (1988). Faculty issues: The impact on minorities. Review of Higher Education, 11, 417-434.
14.
Caldwell, P. (1995). A hair piece: Perspectives on the intersection of race and gender. In R. Delgado (Ed.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 267-277). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
15.
Calmore, J. (1992). Critical race theory, Archie Shepp, and fire music: Securing an authentic intellectual life in a multicultural world. Southern California Law Review, 65, 2129-2231.
16.
Carrasco, E. (1996). Collective recognition as a communitarian device: Or, of course we want to be role models!La Raza Law Journal, 9, 81-101.
17.
Castro, V. (1995). [Transcribed interview conducted by Dolores Delgado Bernal with Victoria Castro]. Unpublished raw data.
18.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989, 139-167.
19.
Crenshaw, K. (1993). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and the violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241-1299.
20.
Crenshaw, K. , Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (Eds.). (1995). Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the movement. New York: New Press.
21.
Crisostomo, P. (1995). [Transcribed interview conducted by Dolores Delgado Bernal with Paula Crisostomo]. Unpublished raw data.
22.
Critical race theory in education [Special issue]. (1998). International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11.
23.
Cuaron, M. (1996). [Transcribed interview conducted by Dolores Delgado Bernal with Margarita Cuaron]. Unpublished raw data.
24.
Delgado Bernal, D. (1997). Chicana school resistance and grassroots leadership: Providing an alternative history of the 1968 East Los Angeles blowouts. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
25.
Delgado Bernal, D. (in press). Learning and living pedagogies of the home: The Mestiza consciousness of Chicana students. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
26.
Delgado, R. (1984). The imperial scholar: Reflections on a review of civil rights literature. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 132, 561-578.
27.
Delgado, R. (1989). Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. Michigan Law Review, 87, 2411-2441.
28.
Delgado, R. (1992). The imperial scholar revisited: How to marginalize outsider writing, ten years later. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 140, 1349-1372.
29.
Delgado, R. (Ed.). (1995a). Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
30.
Delgado, R. (1995b). The Rodrigo chronicles: Conversations about America and race. New York: New York University Press.
31.
Delgado, R. (1996). The coming race war?: And other apocalyptic tales of American after affirmative action and welfare. New York: New York University Press.
32.
Delgado, R. , & Stefancic, J. (1993). Critical race theory: An annotated bibliography. Virginia Law Review, 79, 461-516.
33.
Delgado, R. , & Stefancic, J. (1994). Critical race theory: An annotated bibliography 1993, a year of transition. University of Colorado Law Review, 66, 159-193.
34.
Deloria, V. (1969). Custer died for your sins: An Indian manifesto. New York: Avon.
35.
Espinoza, L. (1990). Masks and other disguises: Exposing legal Academia. Harvard Law Review, 103, 1878-1886.
36.
Fact sheet: LatCrit . (2000, May). In LatCrit primer (Presented to the Class in LatCrit: Theory and Praxis in the World of Economic Inequality, 5th Annual LatCrit Conference, Breckenridge, CO).
37.
Fay, B. (1987). Critical social science: Liberation and its limits. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
38.
Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts: Notes on the politics of an urban public high school. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
39.
Foley, D. (1990). Learning capitalist culture: Deep in the heart of Tejas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
40.
Fuller, M. (1980). Black girls in a London comprehensive school. In R. Deem (Ed.), Schooling for women’s work (pp. 52-65). Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul.
41.
Fuller, M. (1983). Qualified criticism, critical qualifications. In J. Purvis & M. Hales (Eds.), Achievement and inequality in education. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.
42.
Garcia, R. (1995). Critical race theory and Proposition 187: The racial politics of immigration law. Chicano-Latino Law Review, 17, 118-148.
43.
Giroux, H. (1983a). Theories of reproduction and resistance in the new sociology of education: A critical analysis. Harvard Educational Review, 55, 257-293.
44.
Giroux, H. (1983b). Theories and resistance in education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
45.
Guinier, L. (1990-1991). Of gentleman and role models. Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, 6, 93-106.
46.
Harris, A. (1994). Forward: The jurisprudence of reconstruction. California Law Review, 82, 741-785.
47.
Haymes, S. (1995). Race, culture, and the city: A pedagogy for Black urban struggle. Albany: State University of New York Press.
48.
Hernandez-Truyol, B. (1997). Borders (en)gendered: Normativities, Latinas and a LatCrit paradigm. New York University Law Review, 72, 882-927.
49.
hooks, b. (1990). Choosing the margin as a space of radical openness. In b. hooks (Ed.), Yearnings: Race, gender, and cultural politics (pp. 145-153). Boston: South End Press.
50.
Hurtado, A. (1996). The color of privilege: Three blasphemies on race and feminism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
51.
Johnson, K. (1997). Some thoughts on the future of Latino legal scholarship. Harvard Latino Law Review, 2, 101-144.
52.
Johnson, K. (1998). Immigration and Latino identity. Chicano-Latino Law Review, 19, 197-212.
53.
Johnston, R. (2000, May). Talented, but not legal. Education Week, 19(38), 1, 10-12.
54.
Kretzman, J. , & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Chicago: ACTA Publications.
55.
Ladson-Billings, G. , & Tate, W. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education. Teachers College Record, 97, 47-68.
56.
Lawrence, C. (1992). The word and the river: Pedagogy as scholarship as struggle. Southern California Law Review, 65, 2231-2298.
57.
Lawson, R. (1995). Critical race theory as praxis: A view from outside to the outside. Howard Law Journal, 38, 353-370.
58.
Lorde, A. (1978). A litany of survival. In A. Lorde (Ed.), The black unicorn (pp. 31-32). New York: Norton.
59.
MacLeod, J. (1987). Ain’t no makin’ it: Leveled aspirations in a low-income neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview.
60.
Marmon, S. (1996). Yellow woman and a beauty of the spirit: Essays on Native American life today. New York: Touchstone.
61.
Martinez, G. (1994). Legal indeterminacy, judicial discretion and the Mexican-American litigation experience: 1930-1980. U.C. Davis Law Review, 27, 555-618.
62.
Matsuda, M. (1989). When the first quail calls: Multiple consciousness as jurisprudential method. Women’s Rights Law Reporter, 11, 7-13.
63.
Matsuda, M. (1991). Voices of America: Accent, antidiscrimination law, and a jurisprudence for the last reconstruction. Yale Law Journal, 100, 1329-1407.
64.
Matsuda, M. , Lawrence, C., Delgado, R., & Crenshaw, K. (Eds.). (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech, and the First Amendment. Boulder, CO: Westview.
65.
McLaren, P. (1993). Schooling as a ritual performance: Towards a political economy of educational symbols and gestures (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
66.
McLaren, P. (1994). Life in schools: An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
67.
McRobbie, A. (1978). Working class girls and the culture of femininity. In Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies women’s group. Women take issue. London: Hutchison.
68.
Mendez Gonzalez, R. (1995). [Transcribed interview conducted by Dolores Delgado Bernal with Rosalinda Mendez Gonzalez]. Unpublished raw data.
69.
Montoya, M. (1994). Mascaras, trenzas, y grenas: Un/masking the self while un/braiding Latina stories and legal discourse. Chicano-Latino Law Review, 15, 1-37.
70.
Ohron, E. (1993). Gender, influence and resistance in school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 14, 96-107.
71.
Olivas, M. (1990). The chronicles, my grandfather’s stories, and immigration law: The slave traders chronicle as racial history. Saint Louis University Law Journal, 34, 425-441.
72.
Pardo, M. (1990). Mexican American women grassroots community activists: Mothers of East Los Angeles. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 11, 1-7.
73.
Pardo, M. (1991). Creating community: Mexican American women in Eastside Los Angeles. Aztlan, 20, 39-71.
74.
Pardo, M. (1998). Mexican American women activists: Identity and resistance in two Los Angeles communities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
75.
Paredes, A. (1977). On ethnographic work among minority groups: A folklorist’s perspective. New Scholar, 6, 1-32.
76.
Parker, L. , Deyhle, D., & Villenas, S. (Eds.). (1999). Race is...race isn’t: Critical race theory and qualitative studies in education. Boulder, CO: Westview.
77.
Robinson, T. , & Ward, J. (1991). “A belief in self far greater than anyone’s disbelief”: Cultivating resistance among African American female adolescents. In C. Gilligan, A. Rogers, & D. Tolman (Eds.), Women, girls and psychotherapy: Reframing resistance (pp. 87-103). New York: Haworth.
78.
Russell, M. (1992). Entering great America: Reflections on race and the convergence of progressive legal theory and practice. Hastings Law Journal, 43, 749-767.
79.
Solorzano, D. (1997). Images and words that wound: Critical race theory, racial stereotyping, and teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 24, 5-19.
80.
Solorzano, D. (1998a). Critical race theory, racial and gender microaggressions, and the experiences of Chicana and Chicano scholars. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11, 121-136.
81.
Solorzano, D. (1998b). Role models, mentors, and the experiences of Chicana and Chicano Ph.D. scientists. In H. Frierson (Ed.), Mentoring and diversity in higher education (Vol. 2, pp. 91-103). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
82.
Solorzano, D. , & Solorzano, R. (1995). The Chicano educational experience: A proposed framework for effective schools in Chicano communities. Educational Policy, 9, 293-314.
83.
Solorzano, D. , & Villalpando, O. (1998). Critical race theory: Marginality and the experiences of students of color in higher education. In C. Torres & T. Mitchell (Eds.), Sociology of education: Emerging perspectives (pp. 211-224). Albany: State University of New York Press.
84.
Solorzano, D. , & Yosso, T. (2000). Toward a critical race theory of Chicana and Chicano education. In C. Tejeda, C. Martinez, Z. Leonardo, & P. McLaren (Eds.), Demarcating the border of Chicana(o)/Latina(o) education (pp. 35-65). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.
85.
Sosa-Riddell, A. (1974). Chicanas and el movimiento. Aztlan, 5, 155-165.
86.
Sosa-Riddell, A. (1993). The bioethics of reproductive technologies: Impacts and implications for Latinas. In R. Castro, E. Perez, B. Pesquera, A. Sosa-Riddell, & P. Zavella (Eds.), Chicana critical issues (pp. 183-196). Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press.
87.
Tate, W. (1997). Critical race theory and education: History, theory, and implications. Review of Research in Education, 22, 195-247.
88.
Thomas, C. (1980). Girls and counter-school culture. In Melbourne Working Papers. Melbourne, Australia.
89.
Tierney, W. (1993). Building communities of difference: Higher education in the twenty-first century. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey.
90.
Valdes, F. (1996). Forward: Latina/o ethnicities, critical race theory and post-identity politics in postmodern legal culture: From practices to possibilities. La Raza Law Journal, 9, 1-31.
91.
Valenzuela, A. (1999). Day laborers in Southern California: Preliminary findings from the day labor survey. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Urban Poverty.
92.
Villalpando, O. , & Delgado Bernal, D. (in press). A critical race theory analysis of barriers that impede the success of faculty of color. In W. Smith, P. Altback, & K. Lomotey (Eds.), The racial crisis in American higher education. Albany: State University of New York Press.
93.
Villenas, S. , & Deyhle, D. (1999). Critical race theory and ethnographies challenging the stereotypes: Latino families, schooling, resilience and resistance. Curriculum Inquiry, 29, 413-445.
94.
Ward, J. (1996). Raising resisters: The role of truth telling in the psychological development of African American girls. In B. Leadbetter & N. Way (Eds.), Urban girls: Resisting stereotypes, creating identities (pp. 85-99). New York: New York University Press.
95.
Williams, P. (1991). The alchemy of race and rights: Diary of a law professor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
96.
Williams, R. (1997). Vampires anonymous and critical race practice. Michigan Law Review, 95, 741-765.
97.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labor. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.
98.
Yosso, T. (2000). A critical race and LatCrit approach to media literacy: Chicana/o resistance to visual microagressions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
