This article traces how Mexican American Studies (MAS) scholar activists led and supported a statewide movement for MAS in Texas. As a Xicana feminist scholar activist, Saldaña draws from her retrospective memory and personal archive of organizational notes, movement documents, personal testimonies before the State Board of Education, and photos, to document her journey within this epistemic justice movement. In doing so, she narrates the processes of creation/resistance that led to change in a state that has historically excluded Black, Brown, and Indigenous histories from school curricula. As a scholar activist involved in various parts of this movement, Saldaña also examines the various interconnected layers of this movement—from local efforts in San Antonio, where she teaches, to statewide organizing—to chronicle the institutional and grassroots processes that led to this historic victory in Texas.

or years, teen pregnancy in San Antonio, Texas, has been identified as one of the city's most pressing and intractable social problemCs. As early as February 21, 1996, the San Antonio Express-News reported that the rate of teen pregnancy was 8% of total births for girls between the ages of 12-19, placing it above the national average (pg. 4N). While San Antonio is 74th among the United State's 100 largest cities in the rate of teen births to females between the ages of 15 and 19, it unfortunately leads the nation in the rate of teen pregnancy among girls, aged 15 and younger (Child Trends, 2002). 1 And, although teen birthrates in the city have recently declined, birthrates for San Antonio Mexican American teens continue to be higher than for non-Hispanic Whites (Realini & Berlanga, 2003). Moreover, given that in 2001, 81 percent of the total births to mothers under age 20 were from Mexican American 2 teens, this issue is often misperceived as a cultural concern. "Reyn" Archer, a Texas State Health Commissioner, for example, blamed "the sky-high teen pregnancy rate in Texas" on the fact that Hispanics lack the cultural belief "that getting pregnant is a bad thing" (New York Times, May 1, 2000).Indeed, this misperception may also stem from national data. Hispanic teen pregnancies rates are the highest in the nation (Child Trends, 2002). 3 The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (NCPTP) reports that approximately three out of five Hispanics become

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