Blowout!: Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice (University of North Carolina Press)
Mario T. Garcia and Sal Castro will discuss and sign this fascinating oral history transcribed and presented in Castro's voice by historian Garcia, about Castro's historic leadership in the school walk-outs of 1968, the largest civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. history. Mario T. García was born in El Paso Texas. He has taught at San Jose State University, San Diego State University, Yale University, and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Fulbright teaching Fellowship and is the author of numerous books in Chicano history. Los Angeles native Sal Castro is an American educator and activist. In 1968 he was the leader of a series of school walkouts in East Los Angeles protesting years of inferior and discriminatory education for Mexican Americans. These "blowouts," as they were called, are the largest and most widespread civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. history, and the beginning of the urban Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS MARCH 23, 2011