The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 89, July 1985 - April, 1986 Page: 565

Book Reviews

already in place were maintained as new family ties with Mexican immi-
grants were established. Education, women's suffrage, and Victorian
morality similarly confronted Chicano rules toward child and adoles-
cent behavior, as well as attitudes toward sex. Once more, old views of
child rearing and sexual expression persisted instead of giving in to
outside forces.
A diversity of family arrangements resulted from the conflict be-
tween the ideal and the real. Griswold del Castillo identifies at least four
types of families present in the early years of the twentieth century.
These ranged from the poverty stricken lower-class units to the well-to-
do arrangements with ties to middle- and upper-class Mexico.
Newer forces, such as urbanization and industrial and commercial
growth, have thrust themselves on the Chicano family in more recent
times, he notes. Still, old ideals remain alongside modern ones, so that
the Mexican American family of today is mixed with regard to "tradi-
tional" and "modern" values.
By turning to new theories of family history, such as those of Barbara
Laslett and Mark Poster, Griswold del Castillo has given us a clearer
understanding of a subject heretofore much convoluted in the social
science literature. In the process, he has added to the growing body of
Chicano historiography that holds that the experience of Mexican
Americans has been a combination of allegiance to traditional customs
and adaptation to new values in the United States. His efforts have
yielded yet another example of the growing sophistication in Chicano
history.
Angelo State University ARNOLDO DE LE6N
Private Black Colleges in Texas, 1865-1954. By Michael R. Heintze. (Col-
lege Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1985. Pp. xiii+285.
Bibliography. $27.95.)
Serious students of southern history and Afro-American life will find
Private Black Colleges a useful book. Employing a rather traditional ap-
proach to the study of educational institutions, the author has focused
his attention on such topics as curriculum, faculty and administration,
finances, and student life. Heintze has also endeavored to strengthen
the view advanced by some scholars that these schools served as valu-
able social institutions and were more than imitations of white colleges.
Private schools in Texas, writes Heintze, educated more than half of the
black college students in the state until the 1950s. Much like similar col-
leges elsewhere, these Texas institutions struggled to devise a sound
curriculum. Predictably, debate raged over the place of vocational sub-

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