Museo del Westside Educational Program

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lesson plans

These lesson plans were developed to bring Westside San Antonio history into K–12 classrooms. Each unit explores a theme central to the community's story — labor, leadership, education, housing, culture, and civil rights — and connects local history to broader Texas and U.S. curricula.

All resources are free. Fill out the form below to access them.

LABOR STRUGGLES & Workers Rights

From pecan shellers to cigar factories, these lessons trace the Mexican American women and workers who organized, struck, and built the labor movement that shaped San Antonio and the Southwest. Their names deserve to be remembered.

    • Domestic Works of the Westside

    • Heritage of Texas Labor

    • Pecan Shellers & Finck Cigar Strikes

    • Laundry Strike San Antonio 1937

    • Monuela Solís Sager y más

women leaders & community builders

Parteras, activists, librarians, and neighbors. These lessons center the women of the Westside who held community together through faith, fight, and everyday acts of leadership that history has too often left unnamed.

    • Romana Ramos

    • Olivia Sánchez Zamarripa

    • Felipa Dolores “Lola” Solis

    • Sebastiana Ramirez Rodriguez

    • Isabel Sanchez y más

Education, schools & policy battles

These lessons follow the battles fought for bilingual education, equitable school funding, and the right to learn in your own language. From community escuelitas to the Supreme Court steps.

    • Arcadia Hernández López

    • Rodríguez v. San Antonio ISD

    • Escuelitas y mas

housing, neighborhoods & urban change

From New Deal public housing to redlined barrios, these lessons examine how policy shaped the Westside. Who was kept out, who was pushed out, and how residents built home and community anyway.

    • Public Housing

    • Alazán-Apache Courts

    • Laredito

    • Redlining the Westside

    • Corrales y más

cultural expression & arts of the westside

Carpas, chili queens, ranchera singers, and community theaters. These lessons explore the cultural life of the Westside as resistance, joy, and identity, told through the artists and traditions that kept the community alive.

    • Esperanza Peace & Justice Center

    • Museo del Westside

    • Westside Businesses

    • Teatro Zaragoza & Teatro Nacional

    • Carpas

    • Chili Queens

    • Chili Bowl - Lanier vs. La Tecla

    • … y mucho más

immigration, civil rights & Political empowerment

From the 1911 Primer Congreso to DACA, these lessons trace generations of organizing for dignity, citizenship, and political voice. Rooted in the Westside and connected to struggles still unfolding today.

    • Primer Congreso Mexicanista Jovita

    • Sociedad Mutualista

    • DACA & the West Side

    • Your Voice is Your Vote

    • Nickie Valdez y más