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Mexican American Youth Organization: Avant Garde of the Chicano Movement in Texas. By Armando Navarro. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995. 288p. $40.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.
One topic in critical need of scholarly attention is the role that Mexican-Americans played in the Civil Rights movement. The political upheaval that occurred on university campuses and in Mexican-American communities throughout the Southwest during the 1960s-commonly referred to as the Chicano Movement-was a complex phenomenon that has yet to be untangled. Organizations usually considered a part of the Chicano Movement include a wide range of groups such as the United Farm Workers Union, the Brown Berets, the Crusade for Justice, and La Raza United Party. A number of books have been published on the Chicano Movement, but most are journalistic accounts that do not place the period in the larger context of American history or deconstruct its political meaning. Armando Navarro's Mexican American Youth Organization is the latest attempt to deepen our understanding of this period through a case study of one of its most controversial organizations.
Navarro's book tells the story of the Mexican-American Youth Organization (MAYO) from the time it was formed in 1967 by students at Saint Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, to its dissolution five years later. Throughout its short and volatile existence, the group challenged Anglo domination in...