Fighting for Mexican American Inclusion: An Autoethnography of Service and Research in a Segregated School Memorial in the Southwest

The paper summarizes the experiences of the author during a four-year period where he has volunteered and worked at a national historic site dedicated to telling the story of Mexican American segregation in the Southwest and West. The paper provides an overview of his experiences, intertwined with an overview of the site’s evolution from a Mexican school through a series of events that eventually saw it become part of a national-level system, commemorating the difficult history when Mexican/Americans were provided limited education and socialized to accept a second-class citizenship. Reflections and observations are provided vis-à-vis the author’s experiences and a series of conclusions are provided that address historical and intercultural elements of the era’s past in an era of great social debate about how best to remember the past.