{"id":1101,"date":"2017-10-12T03:04:25","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T09:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/?p=1101"},"modified":"2017-10-24T14:12:20","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T20:12:20","slug":"associate-professor-publishes-on-mexican-american-civil-rights-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/blog\/2017\/10\/12\/associate-professor-publishes-on-mexican-american-civil-rights-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"Associate Professor Publishes on Mexican American Civil Rights Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michelle Kells, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, recently published a book on Mexican American civil rights leader, Vicente Ximenes. Beginning as a grassroots organizer in the 1950s, Vicente Ximenes was at the forefront of the movement for Mexican American civil rights through three presidential administrations, joining Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s Great Society and later emerging as one of the highest-ranking appointees in Johnson\u2019s administration. One of the most influential government representatives of Mexican American issues in recent history, Ximenes succeeded largely because he could adapt his rhetoric for different audiences in his speeches and writings. In\u00a0<\/span>Vicente Ximenes, LBJ’s Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>, Michelle Hall Kells elucidates Ximenes\u2019s achievement through a rhetorical history of his career as an activist.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nKells draws on Ximenes\u2019s extensive archive of speeches, reports, articles, and oral interviews to present the activist\u2019s rhetorical history and begins each chapter with an excerpt from the collection that showcases Ximenes\u2019s ability to negotiate multiple public spheres.\u00a0 Exploring Ximenes\u2019s legacy against the backdrop of the Cold War era, Kells\u2019s analyses illustrate how Ximenes effectively agitated for open, inclusive, and pluralist democracy at regional and national levels. After a discussion of Ximenes\u2019s early life, the author focuses on his career as an activist, examining Ximenes\u2019s leadership in several key civil rights events, including the historic 1967 White House cabinet committee hearings on Mexican American Affairs, and highlighting his role in advancing Mexican Americans and Latinos from social marginalization to greater representation in national politics. Kells concludes by reflecting on the later years of Ximenes\u2019s life and his contributions to the post-World War II civil rights movement.<\/span><\/p>\n


\n<\/span>Vicente Ximenes, LBJ’s Great Society, and Mexican American Civil Rights Rhetoric\u00a0<\/i><\/span>shows us a remarkable man who dedicated the majority of his life to public service, using rhetoric to mobilize activists for change at the grassroots level as well as at the highest levels of government to secure civil rights advances for his fellow Mexican Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Kells, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing, recently published a book on Mexican American civil rights leader, Vicente Ximenes. Beginning as a grassroots organizer in the 1950s, Vicente Ximenes was at the forefront of the movement for Mexican American civil rights through three presidential administrations, joining Lyndon B. Johnson\u2019s Great Society and later emerging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-publications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1101"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1106,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1101\/revisions\/1106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.unm.edu\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}