A group of five Anglo-American graduate students at Stanford University considered approximately 1,000 books, articles, and reports on the Mexican American or Chicano, actually examined 600, and eventually selected and annotated for this bibliography the 274 works they considered to be the best. In this effort they were assisted by two Chicano consultants, but the final responsibility for the annotations was that of the students themselves.
The coverage of the bibliography emphasizes the social science literature dealing with the contemporary and recent Chicano community. The annotations generally summarize in a matter-of-fact way the findings of each work, and evaluation or criticism is generally minimal, despite the fact that many highly controversial studies are included. The authors obviously have tried to be as fair and objective as possible while dealing with this emotionally charged subject of Chicano affairs. They have avoided polemics, and presented a maximum of information in the short annotations.
To my knowledge, this is the only extensive general annotated bibliography on the Mexican American. It immediately invites comparison with the excellent but unannotated recent bibliographies of the U.C.L.A. Mexican American Study Project, the Inter-Agency Committee on Mexican American Affairs, and the Mexican American Historical Society. In my opinion, the Stanford bibliography is greatly superior, both because it is a careful selection of the most useful and relevant sources and because it is annotated. I intend to use it as a required text. In the absence of any extensive critical review by Chicano scholars of literature on the Mexican American, the present work helps to fill a real need.
