Whats civil rights history without Latinos?
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (8-6-06) [Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His latest book, “The Disappearance: A Novella and Stories,” is coming out this month from Triquarterly. ] The other day, while browsing through the excellent two-volume set on the civil rights movement “Reporting Civil Rights,” published by the Library of America, I was flabbergasted by a glaring absence. In that almost 1,000-page-long fiesta of journalism about a crucial period in the country’s past, the presence of Latinos is nil. Not a single mention is made of Csar Chvez and the farmworkers. The index includes nothing about Chicanos. The set first appeared in 2003, and reviews in the New York Times, the New Yorker, even The Chronicle failed to point out the omission. The anthology, which covers events from 1941 to 1973, showcases “eyewitness accounts of over 150 writers [offering] a panoramic perspective on the struggle to bring an end to segre
