Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

Armbruster-Sandoval (Chicano/a studies, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara) contextualizes the Chicana/o studies hunger strikes that occurred on the campuses of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and Stanford University during the decade of the 1990s. The author defines how the concepts of hunger strikes and spectacular speech were critical in the social and ideological construction of campus unrest and struggles. Individual chapters then examine the hunger strike and political struggle for the Chicana/o studies department at UCLA; the hunger strike and political engagement to attain faculty tenure track lines, a doctoral program, university funding, and student services for the growth of the UCSB Chicana/o studies department; and the hunger strikes and political struggle for a Chicana/o studies department at Stanford, which failed to became a reality. Finally, Armbruster-Sandoval summarizes the social and ideological impact that these three hunger strikes made to the Chicana/o studies struggle. The author bases his book on historical archival and oral interviews, making it original and organic. This is the first scholarship that investigates the Chicana/o studies social movements of the 1990s, and is a major contribution for future scholarly development of this critical subject. For all ethnic studies and history collections.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.