Title: 
Headings: American Latino Theme Study
American Latino Theme Study
The Making of America National Park Service

Content: American Latino Theme Study
The Making of America National Park Service
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American Latino Theme Study
American Latino Heritage Projects
Preservation Toolkit
Education
This essay explores the struggles for equal educational opportunities for American Latino children in the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics include desegregation, struggles in higher education, and parents' advocacy for educational equality." Demanding their Rights: The Latino Struggle for Educational Access and Equity
Victoria-María MacDonald
The historical and contemporary purposes of public education in the United States are trifold: to create an educated citizenry for the democratic process, assimilate immigrants to American culture and language, and prepare a stable workforce for a productive economy. As a nation of immigrants, many newcomers, particularly northern Europeans, have been successfully integrated with full citizenship into the U.S. polity. Spanish-descent peoples in the U.S., by contrast, have often had to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech, peaceful assembly, and to petition for relief from the government to secure equity in schooling. Through consistently and continuously insisting upon treatment as full citizens, Latinos have reminded the nation that "equal treatment under the law" is a democratic concept that is not contingent upon land, territory, country of origin, language, or skin color. Schools have often been sites of political, racial, and linguistic conflict between the majority population and Latino groups. [ 1] Latinos today are underrepresented in key indicators of school achievement such as high school and college graduation rates, standardized tests, and college entrance examinations.