Review Detail

What worked: As a former bilingual teacher and someone who shares Mexican heritage, I love books that share stories about Latinx leaders.

This biography tells the story of Jose de la Luz Saenz and how he longed for our country to stop discrimination and to accept those of Mexican heritage. He was a teacher and saw many injustices against those like him in Texas. Some don't know that at this time, there were signs that denied anyone who was Mexican to eat at their restaurants or to go to their schools. Yes, Latinx children were segregated into Mexican-only schools. Saenz then enlisted to fight in WWI, feeling this would help bring justice to his people, but he came back to the same discrimination. He kept a promise he made with fellow Mexican-American soldiers to form their own organization to help fellow Latinx people.

This story is important and I totally recommend to school libraries and classrooms. I taught a first grade bilingual classroom close to East L.A. In my classroom I taught my students to be proud of their heritage and shared stories of fellow Latinx leaders. This book would have been perfect! I also feel it could be used in high school classrooms.

Beautifully illustrated that gives a great insight into Latino Civil Rights Activist Jose de la Luz Saenz who helped create the League of United Latin American Citizens(LULAC). An important biography that I highly recommend.