World War II was a turning point in US history, and its impact on Latinas and Latinos was life changing. Women served in the military, worked in civilian and war-related factories, and toiled in the fields. Nearly half-million men served in the armed forces from throughout the country, and thousands were recognized for their courage. Twelve received the highest commendation, the Congressional Medal of Honor. This book examines one, Jose M. Lopez, who was born into abject poverty in Mexico ...

This book shows how the adoption of the neoliberal development model has increased the social vulnerability to disasters, with a special focus on Mexico, a country which once was the role model of the neoliberal turn in Latin America. It brings together 12 case studies of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and volcanic emergencies, in both urban and rural areas, to show how neoliberal development projects and changes in legislation affected disaster prevention and management in differen...

Américo Paredes (1915-1999) was a folklorist scholar and professor at the University of Texas at Austin who is widely acknowledged as one of the founding scholars of Chicano Studies. With the publication of With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero in 1958 Paredes soon emerged as a challenger to the status quo. His book questioned the mythic nature of the Texas Rangers and provided an alternative counter-cultural narrative to the existing traditional narratives. He is credi...

A free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere: this is the goal of the Khan Academy, a passion project that grew from an ex-engineer and hedge funder's online tutoring sessions with his niece, who was struggling with algebra, into a worldwide phenomenon. Today millions of students, parents, and teachers use the Khan Academy's free videos and software, which have expanded to encompass nearly every conceivable subject; and Academy techniques are being employed with exciting results in a...

Starting in 1902 at a country school that had an enrollment of fourteen, Frank Boyden built an academy that has long since taken its place on a level with Andover and Exeter. Boyden, who died in 1972, was the school's headmaster for sixty-six years. John McPhee portrays a remarkable man "at the near end of a skein of magnanimous despots who...created enduring schools through their own individual energies, maintained them under their own absolute rule, and left them forever imprinted with t...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author's classic, "brilliantly illuminated" account of education in America ( The New York Times Book Review).Mrs. Zajac is feisty, funny, and tough. She likes to call herself an "old-lady teacher." (She is thirty-four.) Around Kelly School, she is infamous for her discipline: "She is mean, bro," says one of her students. But children love her, and so will the reader of this extraordinarily moving book by the Pulitzer Pri...

While studying Chinese and Asian civilizations in college, Sabriye Tenberken was stunned to learn that in Tibet blind children were living in appalling conditions—shunned by society, abandoned, and left to their own devices. Sabriye, who had lost her sight at the age of twelve as the result of a retinal disease, promised herself early on that she would never allow her blindness to turn her into an invalid. When she heard of a place where sightlessness was practically akin to leprosy, the d...

People the world over have heard the name Einstein. From physics professors to sarcastic young school kids, Einstein is well known as a name of intelligence. Some may know him as the scientist with the funny hair and the peculiar accent. Either way, Einstein is a name that represents some of the greatest achievements in scientific theory this world has ever seen.Einstein is a man who has opened the door to some of the world’s most renowned breakthroughs in the field of physics and ...

Growing up and living in Kibera, Kenya, Abdul Kassim was well aware of the disproportionate number of challenges faced by women due to the extreme gender inequalities that persist in the slums. After being raised by his aunts, mother, and grandmother and having a daughter himself, he felt that he needed to make a difference.In 2002, Abdul started a soccer team for girls called Girls Soccer in Kibera (GSK), with the hope of fostering a supportive community and providing emotional an...

Compassionate Woman is the biography of a woman of Lakota and Chippewa heritage who was the winner of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 1991 for her work to save tribal languages that were becoming extinct throughout the United States. This fascinating biography of Patricia Locke, who was given the name Compassionate Woman, gives us a glimpse into the life of someone dedicated to restoring justice and helping those in need. Her life of service began in Anchorage, Alaska, when s...

In this classic study of Pandita Ramabai's life, Uma Chakravarti brings to light one of the foremost thinkers of nineteenth-century India and one of its earliest feminists. A scholar and an eloquent speaker, Ramabai was no stranger to controversy. Her critique of Brahminical patriarchy was in sharp contrast to Annie Besant, who championed the cause of Hindu society. And in an act seen by contemporary Hindu society as a betrayal not only of her religion but of her nation, Ramabai herself a hi...

Bataan Death March