Remaining and Becoming

[This book] deals with the politics of identity and the concept of boundaries during a time of rapid change. It investigates how the role of schooling for Hispanos in the Norteno School District in Northern New Mexico - a public school district not fully consolidated until 1972 - has changed significantly over the past three generations. Today, the Hispanos are debating how the functions of the school should respond to the changes resulting from the arrival of public education in their region. But the contemporary story of education in Norteno has much deeper roots in the political, religious, and cultural history of Northern New Mexico - a region where, over a period of several centuries, Spain, Mexico, and the United States have each claimed sovereignty, with differing goals for and attitudes about the welfare of the people." "This study is an analysis of the ambiguity of education, the losses and gains that are its consequences, the lingering doubts about the past, and the questions about who future education can and should serve. It is about asking: Is what the students are learning worth as much as what they are forgetting? How does schooling affect the evolving process of ass