Dr. Julio Cammarota is an assistant professor in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the Mexican-American Studies and Research Center at the University of Arizona, who also co–directs the Social Justice Education Project (SJEP), a youth participatory action research program.

Throughout the 1990’s, I documented the education, work and family experiences of Latino youth in California (see my book, Suenos Americanos). My intention was to understand how young Latinos might achieve some success (i.e. educational achievement or decent employment) in a hostile political and economic environment. The most surprising finding of my research was that Latina females fared much better than Latino males, sometimes within the same family.

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