Julian Nava is one of the most renowned and distinguished elder statesmen in the Hispanic community of the United States. The child of poor Mexican immigrants, Nava rose through years of hardship and hard work to achieve what no other Latino in the United States had achieved before him: Nava became the first Mexican American to serve as ambassador to Mexico. This unforeseen but deserved appointment by President Jimmy Carter followed a life of commitment to his education and that of his community. Nava became the first Mexican American to serve on the Los Angeles school board when it was embattled, facing the challenges of school walkouts and boycotts, desegregation, bilingual education, and a series of issues brought on by the changes in education during the 1970s. The recipient of a Ph.D. in History from Harvard, Nava has been on the front-lines of urban education and politics, while simultaneously building a successful career as a university professor celebrated throughout the United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Spain. Navas previously untold story is finally available to inspire people, young and old, toward study, commitment and perseverance, not only for ones self, but for the community and nation.

In the American imagination, no figure is more central to national identity and the nation’s origin story than the cowboy. Yet the Americans and Europeans who settled the U.S. West learned virtually everything they knew about ranching from the indigenous and Mexican horsemen who already inhabited the region. The charro—a skilled, elite, and landowning horseman—was an especially powerful symbol of Mexican masculinity and nationalism. After the 1930s, Mexican Americans in cities across the U.S. West embraced the figure as a way to challenge their segregation, exploitation, and marginalization from core narratives of American identity. In this definitive history, Laura R. Barraclough shows how Mexican Americans have used the charro in the service of civil rights, cultural citizenship, and place-making. Focusing on a range of U.S. cities, Charros traces the evolution of the “original cowboy” through mixed triumphs and hostile backlashes, revealing him to be a crucial agent in the production of U.S., Mexican, and border cultures, as well as a guiding force for Mexican American identity and social movements.

Julian Nava is one of the most renowned and distinguished elder statesmen in the Hepatic community of the United States. The child of poor Mexican immigrants. Nava rose through years of hardship and hard work to achieve what no other Latino in the United States had achieved before him: Nava became the first Mexican American to serve as ambassador to Mexico.

Mexican Americans are rapidly becoming the largest minority in the United States, playing a vital role in the culture of the American Southwest and beyond. This A-to-Z guide offers comprehensive coverage of the Mexican American experience. Entries range from figures such as Corky Gonzales, Joan Baez, and Nancy Lopez to general entries on bilingual education, assimilation, border culture, and southwestern agriculture. Court cases, politics, and events such as the Delano Grape Strike all receive full coverage, while the definitions and significance of terms such as coyote and Tejano are provided in shorter entries. Taking a historical approach, this book's topics date back to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, a radical turning point for Mexican Americans, as they lost their lands and found themselves thrust into an alien social and legal system. The entries trace Mexican Americans' experience as a small, conquered minority, their growing influence in the 20th century, and the essential roles their culture plays in the borderlands, or the American Southwest, in the 21st century.