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“Wise up!” Undocumented Latino Youth, Mexican-American Legislators, and the Struggle for Higher Education Access

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Latinos and Citizenship: The Dilemma of Belonging

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Abstract

At a rally in front of the California capitol building on Immigrant Lobby Day in May 2001, my eyes were drawn to a T-shirt with the message, “Education is a Human Right.” David,1 the skinny teenager who wore the shirt, had a moustache spare with youth, and his gelled hair stood up in pointed tufts. David told me that he had come from Los Angeles on a bus full of activists to lobby for Assembly Bill (AB) 540, authored by his assembly member, Marco Antonio Firebaugh. The T-shirt came from a youth conference with the same theme run by a community-based coalition that joins Latinos and African Americans to develop leaders in South Los Angeles.2

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Authors
  1. Hinda Seif
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Suzanne Oboler

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© 2006 Suzanne Oboler

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Seif, H. (2006). “Wise up!” Undocumented Latino Youth, Mexican-American Legislators, and the Struggle for Higher Education Access. In: Oboler, S. (eds) Latinos and Citizenship: The Dilemma of Belonging. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230601451_10

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