In rural Mexico, mothers protested the historical neglect of education for rural and indigenous communities. The protest led to brutalization of the participants but did not deter them from seeking an educational alternative. By re/claiming an indigenous identity in a de-Indianized pueblo, they received a new school, Nueva Creación, which became a symbol of reclaimed indigeneity and opportunity.

Luis Urrieta, Jr. is a professor of cultural studies in education at the University of Texas at Austin. Urrieta is specifically interested in Chicanx, Latinx, and Indigenous (P’urhépecha) cultures and identities, activism as a social practice in educational spaces, in oral and narrative traditions in qualitative research, and indigenous knowledge systems and research methodologies.