Sometimes There Is No Other Side: Chicanos and the Myth of Equality

by Rodolfo F. Acuña

This book explores the link between higher education, the judicial system, and the American paradigm, and the New Right’s hold over the academy and the Courts. He argues that both institutions base their moral authority on the myth that they objectively interpret fact; but despite the fact that Euro-American scholars have usurped the power to define truth, what they claim as truth is really no more than what they agree on. Author Rodolfo F. Acuña defines the American paradigm as the core beliefs shared by the dominant Euro-American class and manipulated by it to control others. As a result, even Chicana /o scholars are under pressure to accept the rhetoric that minorities are not victims in American society, and ethnic studies are denied their rightful place in higher education.

292 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

About the author

Rodolfo "Rudy" Francisco Acuña, Ph.D. is the founding chair of the Chicana/o Studies department at California State University at Northridge—the largest Chicana/o Studies Department in the United States. He has authored twenty-two books, including three children’s books, and Voices of the US Latino Experience; Corridors of Migration: Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600–1933; and Occupied America: A History of Chicanos.

Reviews

[Michael Cervantes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Acuña gets it.