By NICK C. TONKIN
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In March of 1968, students in East Los Angeles brought the high schools to a halt. Ignited by the cancellation of a school play and driven by decades of antipathy by administrators and board members, nearly 20,000 students walked out of their classrooms. These walkouts came to be known as blowouts and, according to UCSB Chicana and Chicano Studies Professor Mario T. García, sparked the urban Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
The man who brought the student organizers together was a Lincoln High School teacher named Sal Castro. Forty-two years later, Castro teamed with García to write, “Blowout! Sal Castro and the Struggle for Educational Justice,” a new book that tells the story of the walkouts.
As a high school teacher, Castro grew alarmed at the high dropout rate among Chicano and Latino students, poor reading scores, and a school system that ignored language and cultural backgrounds and steered them towards vocational jobs instead of higher education.
Castro brought together current and former Lincoln High students as well as UCLA and Cal State LA students to organize the students and make school officials address their grievances.
“I have no doubt that the walkouts wouldn’t have happened without Sal Castro,” García said. “He inspired the students. When they saw that their teacher was willing to put his career on the line, that gave them a lot of courage.”
Wednesday, February 23rd, UCSB is hosting a presentation from García and Castro at 3:30 p.m. in the McCune Conference Room, 6020 Humanities and Social Sciences Building. Free and open to the public, the authors will discuss the book and the protests that launched the biggest civil rights protests by Mexican Americans in U.S. History.
“Sal’s story is a history of a dedicated and committed teacher,” said García. “Through the walkouts, the students—and the entire Chicano community—learned that they could bring about change.”
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