To Tlaloc 1

If you turn in pages of your manuscript and even one paragraph gets cut- you better believe it will be your favorite. It may not have been the best of my writing but it felt like the little sacrificial lamb, the first of many I am sure to go to the dissertation gods:

In the 197o's Mexican-American students were classified as mentally retarded based on the results of English Language IQ test scores. The discrepancies in reading and spelling were greater than mathematics, demonstrating that language was attributed to test results. When the same students were tested in their native Spanish language the students scored above the mentally retarded category (Hernandez, 1973). At that time acculturation was also seen as a solution to increased Mexican-American student achievement. What has been proven over the last thirty years is quite opposite. Academic achievement has decreased as acculturation increased as measured by generational variance (Hernandez, 1973; Valenzuela, 1999). Research has found that the educational system in the United States has failed to meet the educational needs of Mexican-American students: When a child is asked to lose his ethnic identity through acculturation, absenteeism, and withdrawal has ensued (Hernandez, 1973; Davison Aviles et al., 1999; Valenzuela, 1999; Yowell, 2000; Foley, Bradley, & Levinson, 2001; Tyrone, 2003; Cammarota, 2004).

What was said, "you can't really say that the U.S. educational system has failed to meet the needs of Mexican-American students..."

The wake was very tasteful, at a chic downtown eatery over a flight of red wine, small plates and talk with good friends.