Augustín Romero could pack up his family and leave Arizona, and start over somewhere far from Tom Horne and Jan Brewer—but that would mean giving up on an education program that Romero passionately describes using words like “love,” “hope” and “purpose.”
The only reason he’s even considered leaving, Romero says, is the occasional threat against him and his family. The first and former director of the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Department has received pictures in the mail of his children playing during recess at Davis Bilingual Magnet elementary, along with a note telling him that the sender knows where his children go to school. The anonymous threats have also included pictures of Romero’s house with a note that the sender knows where he lives.
“I guess they want to scare me, and they want us to stop,” Romero says, shrugging his shoulders.
Despite the threats and the passage this year of state House Bill 2281—which prohibits Arizona public schools from teaching what are deemed to be ethnic-studies classes—11 of Romero’s colleagues continue teaching 45 classes in TUSD schools under the Mexican American Studies umbrella, in history, literature and art, from elementary school to high school.
Civil rights attorney Richard Martinez calls Romero’s fellow teachers the Tucson 11, and on their behalf, he filed a lawsuit on Oct. 18 against outgoing Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne and the Arizona State Board of Education. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of HB 2281 and seeks to shed light on what he says is the real purpose of the law: political opportunism.
Martinez hopes a judge will allow the classes to continue past Dec. 31, when the law goes into effect. Horne has said that he will find TUSD in noncompliance of HB 2281, and according to the law, if a school is found in noncompliance, it will be given a 90-day warning, and then the state is allowed to withhold 10 percent of its funding.
Horne, a former state legislator, authored the law, which Gov. Jan Brewer signed on May 10.
Horne has used a 2006 incident as a reason to make ethnic-studies classes illegal in Arizona schools. Horne’s deputy superintendent, Margaret Garcia Dugan, was sent to speak at Tucson Magnet High School and refute statements that labor activist Dolores Huerta made at the school that were critical of the Republican Party—and she was greeted by kids who stood up, silently, with tape over their mouths.
Before Election Day, most of the plaintiffs interviewed by the Tucson Weekly said they were growing tired of the fight and of Horne, but they were hopeful that perhaps the Canadian-born attorney and superintendent would finally go away if he were defeated in his race to become attorney general. However, Horne defeated Democrat Felicia Rotellini.
“Nothing has changed from my perspective; in fact, I look at it this way: The greater the challenge, the greater the opportunity,” Romero says about the election results. “This is an opportunity to demonstrate what we do—to … get the truth out there, to counter the lies, the rhetoric.”
Romero says he worries that many people in Arizona and across the country have bought into the claims that these classes—which have been proven to increase school attendance, markedly increase state test scores, and improve overall school grades and behaviors—teach kids that their ethnicity is better than everyone else’s (what Horne has described as ethnic chauvinism), or that the classes teach kids that they are victims of oppression.
“This really comes down to the pedagogy of love, the pedagogy of hope, and as teachers, we are going to invest in our children. We are reinvigorated.
“You wanna fight? Bring it on. Let’s go, because we know what we do is the right thing, and we do it for the right reasons,” Romero says.
A building across from Martinez’s Barrio Viejo law office serves as the headquarters for Save Ethnic Studies, a campaign run by ethnic-studies proponents who want to raise awareness of HB 2281 and the lawsuit, and raise money to cover the legal expenses.
In the office, about half of the Tucson 11 members sit around a table discussing how they became teachers in the department, why they signed on as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and why they continue to teach the ethnic-studies classes—knowing they could be out of a job in the new year.
Horne has talked to local and national media about what takes place in these Mexican American Studies classrooms, describing them as anti-American incubators that teach kids to overthrow the U.S. government or be revolutionaries. However, he has never observed the classrooms in person. TUSD has invited Horne and Garcia Dugan, but neither has ever accepted the invitation.
“He’s sort of right,” says Curtis Acosta, a Mexican American Studies literature teacher at Tucson High School. “Love in our schools is revolutionary.”
As a biracial student in a small town outside of Sacramento, Calif., Acosta says, he grew up struggling with his identity. He was only one of two Mexican-American kids in his school, and when he played basketball, the crowd would shout out his school nickname: Mean Bean. He never had a Chicano/Latino teacher, and he never told anyone how much the nickname bothered him.
“It took me a long time to find balance and be proud of my heritage,” Acosta says.
Dolores Carrion, a teacher with TUSD for 33 years, grew up in Coolidge, and also never had a Mexican-American teacher or mentor. During her freshman year of college at the UA, she left for Mexico and stayed there for seven years, learning her cultural roots.
“That’s my prime motivator as a teacher now. Growing up in Coolidge, we were made to feel (that) we were deficient, yet I grew up in an area that was culturally rich. It was one of the reasons I went to Mexico, to rediscover who I am,” the art teacher says.
Sally Rusk has taught at Pueblo Magnet High School for 20 years, and now teaches a Mexican-American perspectives history class. She talked to the Weekly on the day after Election Day, and she admitted it had been a very difficult day. Not only did Horne earn a narrow victory in his race; Republican state Sen. John Huppenthal, also an ethnic-studies critic, handily beat career educator Penny Kotterman in the race to replace Horne as the state superintendent of public instruction.
“It wasn’t just the results of his election that made it difficult. I don’t understand what is happening right now and what is going on in this country,” Rusk says, sighing at the end of her sentence, and finally crying. “This is a fear-based law, and it’s absurd.”
Rusk, who is white, started at Pueblo because she is bilingual, and the school needed a bilingual math teacher. “I lucked out getting a full-time job, but I always wanted to teach social studies and history, especially with a social-justice curriculum, because it is obvious we need thinkers.”
There is an excitement Rusk sees in her students, which is why she doesn’t understand why anyone would want to dismantle what they’ve accomplished.
Part of the reason Norma Gonzalez became a teacher in the Mexican American Studies Department was personal: Her daughter was taking an Advanced Placement English class at Tucson High, and she told Gonzalez that she felt she was being discriminated against.
“She was one of four Mexican-American female students, in a predominately Anglo class. She sat in the back, and that was the teacher’s choice. She would raise her hand, but was never called on, nor were the other girls; sadly, all four were pushed out. They left the class. I spoke to the teacher several times and suggested she make a circle with the desks,” Gonzalez says.
Nothing changed, and her daughter ended up taking a senior level Chicano-studies class—and everything was different. She saw her daughter excited and interested, and being asked to participate fully in the classroom experience.
“I think our schools are also not teaching critical thinking. It is absent from our traditional curriculum, but we are using critical thinking—critical consciousness about their world, understanding history and how it is cyclical, but also the ability to question,” Gonzalez says.
Mexican American Studies teacher José Gonzalez graduated from Cholla High School. He says he remembers Carrion teaching art.
“I admired Dolores from a distance. She worked across the hall from where I studied. I had a beautiful art teacher named Mrs. Belfur, but I remembered Dolores. She had long, beautiful hair, and that was, like, the first Chicana teacher I had ever seen, and man, I wish I’d had her (as a teacher),” Gonzalez says.
Gonzalez teaches a government and history class for the department, and he remembers that his high school history teacher merely read from the class textbook.
“Of course, he would put us all to sleep,” Gonzalez says.
Rene Martinez, whose father is the lawyer representing the Tucson 11, teaches in the department; he attended Northern Arizona University for three semesters, but came home to finish school at the UA and was hired by Romero as a student worker in the Mexican American Studies Department at TUSD.
“He told me to register for (a) Chicano movement (class). He was a big influence on me,” Martinez says, looking at the other people at the table and remarking that he feels that he’s “grown up with these folks here.”
“I probably wouldn’t have registered for (the Chicano-studies class otherwise). I said to him, ‘Does it count?’ ‘No, but it will be good for you.’ I trusted him.”
Although his lawyer father was involved in Chicano-student walkouts in Tucson in 1969 and protests in the 1970s, the young Martinez says seeing his father reflected in the course was an important moment, and one he thinks about when he teaches.
“Part of what we do is connecting with these students in how we care, and then showing them a part of history they didn’t know existed—and they identify with that history. It’s exciting what takes place in our classrooms,” he says.
The elder Martinez, the Tucson 11 attorney, says what is happening right now is linked to everything he fought for in the 1970s and in the 1980s, when the school board wanted to close Davis Bilingual elementary, and the district needed to create a desegregation plan. Martinez ran Raúl Grijalva’s successful campaign to get elected to the school board.
The creation of the Mexican American Studies Department was part of that fight that continued into the late 1990s, when UA students and activists began pressuring the school board to create the program.
“As all this Tom Horne stuff comes up, we said, ‘At some point, we’re going to have to take this to court,’ and unfortunately, the day came,” Martinez says.
After all of the fighting and the years of protests, why does the fight continue? Martinez says the work he and other activists did at the time made public schools better for Chicano students, but as the Mexican American Studies history teachers will say, history has a tendency to repeat itself.
“I think we met our obligations. The curriculum they developed is exactly what we wanted—to increase test scores, to keep kids in school,” Martinez says.
Horne and his fellow ethnic-studies opponents say the curriculum is un-American, but Martinez says they don’t provide a definition of “un-American.”
“The say in the law it is promoting ethnic solidarity, as if that’s something bad or something that could be awful. HB 2281 is a crazy hodgepodge of notions, designed primarily (against) one group: Mexican Americans,” the elder Martinez laments.
In Horne’s TV interviews, Martinez says he still hasn’t heard the superintendent give a rational example of what Romero and his teachers have done wrong.
“The students were rude (or) disrespectful, or look at it that they were politically engaged in voicing opposition to your beliefs,” he says, referring to the 2006 incident. “That’s democracy, and that’s American, but as soon as you have a group of Latino students actively voicing their viewpoint, somehow, that’s offensive. Some people who march, I agree with, and some I don’t, but it doesn’t matter, because they have the right,” Martinez says.
Horne has said he’s opposed to bilingual education. When HB 2281 passed, the Arizona Department of Education issued a mandate that teachers with accents would not be allowed to teach in Arizona. Martinez says he fears that Huppenthal will push the same policies.
“Their version is a 1950s notion that you assimilate into a white society and forget who you are and where you came from. It is a milquetoast mentality, and they don’t understand that long ago, we went from an assimilationist country to an acculturationist country. If you speak Spanish in your home, or somehow stay culturally connected to being Latino, then you are (considered) un-American. They confuse American values with (their values), being white,” Martinez says.
History teaches us that other immigrant groups—such as the Irish, Italians and the Poles—have had their difficulties. Why are we seeing a resurgence in anti-Mexican sentiments today? Martinez says it is demographics: The Latino population continues to grow, and the U.S. is projected to become the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world.
“That scares the white community, because they think it (makes the country into) something else, part of Mexico, part of Latin America, South America. Cultural retention, linguistic retention—that’s just part of who we are as a country. For Latinos, that doesn’t scare us to the exclusion of others,” Martinez says.
Romero agrees, and says if common sense entered the discussion, they wouldn’t have to deal with this law or this lawsuit.
“If you talk to my kids and ask them to tell you what the experience is like, why they appreciate the courses, they say things like, ‘I feel safe; I feel loved; I feel understood,'” Romero says. “Over the past years, countless parents told us, ‘Thank you for saving our kids’ lives.’ And some kids have come up to me and said, ‘Romero, if it wasn’t for these classes, I’d be dead today.'”
Part of the reason Romero came onboard to lead the Mexican American Studies Department was the 2001 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, which required school districts across the country to fill academic gaps. In TUSD and the state as a whole, Latino students made up the highest percentage in the dropout rate—as well as the highest percentage of people incarcerated.
Originally, the program was designed for Mexican-American kids, but Romero soon started getting requests from counselors asking if other kids could take his classes.
“We were Latino-focused, because that was the mandate from No Child Left Behind, but quickly, we learned all kids could benefit from a shift in the traditional narrative they were being taught. I started having Anglo kids tell me, ‘Thank you for not teaching me the story of the founding fathers all over again.'”
Romero says the program kept track of scores from the beginning. The first classroom of 17 kids all had dropped out of school at least once, with an average GPA of 1.2, “so in essence, this was a group of throwaway kids. We started working with them in August, and then in May, we walked in and asked them all the same question, ‘Why are you still here?’ They told us, ‘Because of what you teach us.'”
Romero worked to make sure the curriculum was state-aligned—to honors standards. “We didn’t want it lowered or dummied down. We elevated everyone’s expectations. This is really big stuff, but struggling readers struggled through it. One of our students said it took her four days to read the first page of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It took her three weeks to read the first chapter, and four months to read the entire book, but she didn’t put it down. It was a struggle, but she got through it: ‘This was the first class (in which) I ever read a whole book,’ I had kids tell us. ‘This is the first class I ever took that had books with chapters.'”
Sean Arce, who was there from the beginning with Romero and the UA college students and who protested to get the board to start the program, now works as director of Mexican American Studies and is working on his doctorate at the UA in education on language, reading and culture. He says he understands how to support his arguments with peer review research and anecdotal evidence.
“We’ve discovered that the academic work we’re engaged in not only benefits the Mexican-American community, but our entire community,” Arce says.
The evidence they’ve collected is clear: Most of the students who have gone through the classes stay in school; they enjoy school and other classes more; their reading levels increase; 66 percent of the students go on to college; and they outperform their peers on the AIMS tests.
“We have the solutions for creating positive educational programs and opportunities for all people. I don’t know why (Horne and Huppenthal) don’t look at it that way,” Arce says.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for the Chicano movement—none of us would be—but they are really trying to roll back those gains for their own political agenda and building on the fears of the public. It’s great for them as a platform … but the great thing about this country is that justice always prevails. It may take some time; there might be a lot of struggle and sacrifice, but I know the truth will win.”
Beyond showing Latino students their own history, which is often left out of traditional American-history classes and textbooks, Romero says success has to do with the fact that each of the teachers works from “a place of authentic caring.” This means that if a student helps his father, for example, clean a bar because his partner was sick, and the student is tired in class, the conversation goes like this: “‘OK, mijo, I gotcha. Here’s the assignment. Read it, come back another time, and we’ll talk about it.'”
“Revolution” is a term Horne uses when he describes the ethnic-studies teachers and students. Romero advises that he look up the word, which also means change.
“Are we teaching change? Of course. It goes back to how we came to do this, because we know we are leaving kids behind. How is it we can do a better job of not leaving kids behind? Invest in love; invest in hope; and invest in purpose,” Romero says.
The Weekly called Horne for comment, but he did not return our calls as of our press time. Huppenthal never returned calls or e-mails from the Weekly asking for comment, either, but in October, Huppenthal told the Arizona Capitol Times that he planned to take the ethnic-studies battle to the University of Arizona next.
“That’s really the problem, this stuff is coming out of our universities and the ethnic studies there,” Huppenthal told the Times. “Just dealing with it in Tucson Unified, I think you also have to deal with it over there at the University of Arizona.”
Huppenthal could take his argument against ethnic studies to the Board of Regents—where he will have an ex-officio seat as superintendent.
While politicians like Huppenthal and Horne are eager to continue the fight, the Tucson 11 teachers admit it is frustrating and tiring, especially when they just want to continue doing their jobs.
“I think that it’s mostly sad that our students have to engage in this type of struggle. I don’t know if I would describe it that we are happy to continue the fight, because it takes a toll on a human being to constantly be in a position where you are threatened. It is anti-human,” Norma Gonzalez says. “In that sense, they are ready to take on that struggle, because they know the history before them—that people have struggled to get to where they are today.
“It’s recognition of that struggle and a continuation of doing the right thing, but it’s important to acknowledge that it takes its toll on a human being.”
This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2010.
From TUSD Board Member Mark Stegeman’s newsletter
Ethnic studies
TUSD’s “Ethnic Studies” program actually comprises four programs: Mexican-American (Raza) Studies, African-American Studies, Native American Studies, and Pan-Asian Studies. Each program has a separate director, who reports directly to the Superintendent. Among these, only the Raza Studies program offers an extensive independent curriculum, beyond language courses. Controversy has focused mainly on that curriculum.
The Raza Studies curriculum was originally created in response to the desegregation orders. Most, but not all, of the students in the classes are Hispanic. The district has done internal analyses which find a positive statistical relationship between completing Raza Studies classes and overall academic achievement or performance on standardized tests. It is clear that many of the teachers and students in this program are highly motivated.
It will presumably be impossible to argue that TUSD has violated the law until classes resume in January; at that point, it would take time for the state to collect evidence of violation. If the state then claims a violation, H.B. 2281 gives the district a 60-day grace period in which to correct any alleged problems. Therefore, any budget sanction appears to be many months away, but, depending partly on the results of November’s election, this law still seems to create considerable peril for TUSD. (The financial risks include legal fees, if the issue enters the court system.)
The district’s off-stated position is that the Raza Studies program complies with H.B. 2281, but the state Superintendent’s apparent latitude in interpreting terms such as “resentment,” “class,” “primarily,” and “solidarity” suggests the possibility of a finding against the district, which the district would then be able to contest. The district seems confident that it would prevail in court, but, as for any new statute, the absence of precedent adds an element of uncertainty.
I am concerned about the polarization of the debate surrounding the Raza Studies program. For many months, I have advocated convening a small independent or bipartisan panel to review the program and to assess, at least, the specific question of compliance with H.B. 2281. The panel members should be persons who are not already identified with either side of the issue and who are credible to both the district and the state. It might be appropriate to include a respected retired judge.
An external review could create an opportunity for TUSD to start setting the terms of the debate, instead of simply adopting a defensive posture against the state’s attacks.
A variation on this idea envisions a larger committee, which would meet publicly under the provisions of the Open Meeting Law and accept public comment. A larger committee could include persons with a wider range of viewpoints, but it should still be balanced and include no district employees.
Some persons have expressed support (internally) for the idea of an external review, but nothing has happened yet. In May the Board acted preemptively by declaring the Ethnic Studies programs to be in full compliance with H.B. 2281. I thought that this step was premature and would have been more credible following an external review.
Thank you iread, for your coherent response to this one-sided homage to Hispanic nationalists like Romero and Arce. I agree with much of what you wrote in your comment, but there are some points that need amplification.
The district claims that these classes improve student performance. The only supposed study they have to prove this assertion is a review that compares the AIMS scores of 11th graders in the program with those not in the program. The students in the program score much higher than the comparison group. This looks great until you drill down and realize that students take the AIMS test in the 10th grade. The only reason 11th graders take the tests is either (a) to pass it because their 10th grade scores were not passing or (b) to improve their already passing scores so they can look better when applying to college. It is entirely possible…indeed it is even likely…that the success that TUSD trumpets is a comparison of 11th grade college bound students in the Mexican-American Studies program with 11th grade students who have failed this test before. The fact that they use 11th graders instead of 10th graders…even though the sample is much smaller…is a good hint that the district’s success story is a fraud.
The state compared students in the ethnic studies program with students from around the state not in the program. The state’s study has been vetted by experts in test methodology. Unlike the fake study referenced by TUSD which has never been submitted for peer review. (It is interesting that Sean Arce says he understands peer review, yet he never submitted his study for such a peer review.) The state’s test found no significant difference between the scores of students in the program and those not in the program. In some subjects students in the program scored higher, in some they scored lower, but in all cases the difference could be explained by random chance. It is also reasonable to suggest that those students more interested in these issues would be more intellectual and more likely to be in a college bound track than students who do not select these classes. Frankly, it does not appear that these programs lead to additional academic success.
The article skirts around the two issues that Tom Horne should have raised, but didn’t. These are the issues of (1) indoctrination versus education and (2) whether these courses ought to be used to meet state graduation requirements for social studies. Anyone who reads the course of study for these classes knows the focus is on what might be generously termed indoctrination. In the article the program administrators just about come out and proudly boast of it. Students are exposed to only one side of issues. They are exposed to an overarching claim that all of the southwest United States rightly belongs to the non-existent nation of Aztlan. They are taught… with no counterexamples… that the United States has been an oppressor nation, and that Chicanos and Chicanas have always been victims of that oppression. Any person who does not believe that everything so-called oppressed peoples should never be open to question who reads through the course of study…the assigned readings…the assignments, etc…must conclude that this application of the “social justice” model to the discredited theory of “critical race thinking” is pretty classic indoctrination.
Do these courses satisfy state graduation requirements for social studies? In TUSD these are the only elective courses that can be used for that purpose, though no one can point to an actual discussion or a discrete vote on that issue by the Governing Board. The approval was done underhandedly by including it in a mass approval of course content. Supporters claim that the courses merit such a standing because they teach students to think critically. The only problems with that are (1) students are thought to think unquestioningly about issues of ethnicity, and that is the opposite of critical thinking, and (2) in order to think…critically or otherwise… we need information. We don’t just “think” in the abstract; we think about “stuff”. Students in the Mexican-American studies program do not get information on enough of American History to make critical judgments; or even unquestioning judgments, except about the narrow band of information they have been taught. It is absurd to give students graduation credit for social studies when they have only been taught a small percentage of the information needed to make informed judgments about American history.
I expect that none of this will matter to advocates of the program who have suspended their own powers of critical thinking in order to be on the “right side” of their version of history. I have news for them, the Hitler Youth in the 1930s…who also marched in the streets wearing brown shirts…also thought they were on the “right side of history.”
Marty, iread should not take credit for his response. All he did was post the work of Mark Stegeman who is not an opponent of ethnic studies. He does however point out facts, and makes studied statements which is something this article lacks.
This article looks like something you would see on FOX News and they would claim it was fair and balanced.
Marty you are right about the brown shirts. Anyone who does not get what’s wrong with marching down the street in brown shirts should never get to meet the state graduation requirement in social studies or history.
Earlier I wrote, “Anyone who does not get what’s wrong with marching down the street in brown shirts should never get to meet the state graduation requirement in social studies or history.” If a kid can graduate from high school without knowing about the history of the “brown shirts” our schools are in worse shape than I ever thought.
I would venture to say 98% of the folks in the US “don’t get what’s wrong with marching down the street in brown shirts”. So, in essence, you’re saying all these folks should not graduate from high school.
I’ve been following this so-called controversy regarding TUSD ethnic studies for quite a while and there have been some things said here which I believe demonstrate the deep misunderstandings (unintentional or otherwise) that underlie the criticisms about it and efforts to destroy it.
I am an Anglo who grew up on the west side of Tucson in the 1960s. I attended Wakefield Jr. High, Pueblo and Cholla High Schools. I went to school with and/or know personally some of the leading figures in the Chicano community in Tucson – Isabel Garcia, Eddie Rios, Sol Baldenegro.
I am also a former social studies teacher who worked in Tucson on the west side, the Tohono O’Odham reservation and in Nogales.
I am also what Leland Sonnichsen referred to as a member of the “Order of Historians Minor,” with articles published in the Journal of Arizona History. I have done some pretty serious research on law enforcement in Pima County during the 1800s and was the consultant for the history published by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department not long ago. This required a deep and intense study of the early history of Tucson.
Although I have lived in Cochise County for many years, I continue to have a deep love for the Old Pueblo, particularly the south and west sides of the city where I grew up.
From what I have read and heard, the TUSD ethnic studies is an effort to promote cultural awareness while pursuing historical truth. The pursuit of truth requires looking at history through an objective lens rather than rose-colored glasses. Teaching about events that took place in the past is not indoctrination but rather a refreshing acknowledgment that the world is not a perfect place, and that there is a reason for why things are the way they are. To deny that institutional discrimination took place against people of color in Tucson (and elsewhere in this country) is to deny overwhelming evidence to the contrary – and to accept it as fact is not a call for revolution.
To teach children to have pride in their heritage and to examine history critically is indeed dangerous – but only to those who have something they wish to hide or who require unquestioning acceptance of the status quo in order to retain political and economic power.
I have heard far more radical viewpoints expressed on the right side of the political spectrum than on the left recently during the past three decades.) There is a strange “reconqusita” fantasy that is promulgated by nativists such as Glenn Spencer. This, despite the fact that people of color in Tucson and elsewhere serve in our armed forces in disproportionate numbers. If you take the time to walk down a street in any Hispanic neighborhood, whether in Tucson, Phoenix, Nogales, Naco, Yuma or Douglas, you will find two images placed in windows – La Virgen de Guadalupe and the U.S. flag.
If you actually take the time (as the Tory transplant Tom Horne has failed to do) to talk to Chicano activists, you will find them to be decent, hard-working and caring people who have a love for their country, a pride in their culture and a burning desire to see things get better for their own people and for the world in general. They are not racist but are proud of who they are.
It has long been a tactic of Tories in this country to denigrate those who question the way things are, and who want to educate people about why things are the way they are. It’s understandable that those who have the goodies don’t want things to change – people are naturally fearful of change and loath to accept that a system from which they have derived benefit doesn’t necessarily work for others. It’s also convenient for them to blame the failure of others to succeed on their moral shortcomings.
I believe Tom Horne and his ilk hate ethnic studies because it takes the shine off the myth that has served them and other Tories so well. But it does not promote revolution, hatred of others or create rifts between ethnic groups. What he fears, I believe, is truly educated minorities.
Dr. J
“I would venture to say 98% of the folks in the US “don’t get what’s wrong with marching down the street in brown shirts”. So, in essence, you’re saying all these folks should not graduate from high school.”
Should we graduate students from high school who do not know about Hitler’s rise and WWII?
There is an old expression, “Those who do not (remember/learn, read) history are doomed to repeat it” (Santayana). Using the level of logic found in the average high school grad and Weekly readers, that can’t be an important lesson either because 98% of the high schools grads do not know it?
The truth is that most social studies and history classes taught in this country are very ethnically biased, meaning they primarily focus on the history of western-European civilizations and the anglicanized aspects of American history. This leaves huge amounts of history out of the discussion, especially the history of minority groups in this country. If the history curriculum in Tucson schools were revised to be equally inclusive of all aspects of history then possibly separate classes would not be necessary, but even if they weren’t necessary from a curriculum perspective, if these classroom formats are increasing graduation levels, increasing student enthusiasm then they need to be continued. If Horne and his group have never even witnessed one of these classes then how can they possibly make an educated opinion of their divisiveness or effectiveness? The answer is they can’t. Why do so many of our state’s politicians seem to want to keep the population uneducated? The answer is that uneducated masses are easier to control and deceive.
I’ve been reading about this issue since 2006, and not once have I heard or seen any specific examples of what is being taught in these classes. Does anyone know where I could find a copy of the syllabi for these classes so we can make an educated decision about these programs? I’m inclined to side with the teachers over the politicians, but I’m also not inclined to make any public declarations about something I know almost nothing about.
Here is a link to a Tucson Weekly story but a teacher of La Raza studies that blew the whistle on the program. He was hired as a teacher and tells what happened. This is from 2008.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2008/05/21…
Cultural Studies are a major part of what people like Sal Baldenegro and others fought for in the 60s and 70s. They struggled and sacrificed tremendously so that our children could learn about their culture and their identity, and so that they would grow up to be proud of who they are. It was their blood, sweat, and tears that opened these doors for our future generations, giving them the tools to go to college and then go on to teach their own children.
They struggled so that we would have a truly equal society and a more just one. We must honor them by fighting with every breath we have to protect our children from this vicious attack by Phoenix politicians.
It is because of activists such as Sal and others before him in the 1940s, 50s and 60s – of all colors, but largely, people of color besides white – that the dual wage system, housing discrimination, discrimination in schools and places of business ended. If you do not believe that such a system of apartheid existed in this state (and territory) until very recently, I suggest you take the time and effort to talk to people who grew up in Tucson, Phoenix, the copper mining/refining towns such as Bisbee, Douglas, Clifton, Morenci, Globe-Miami, Superior and Ajo – and those who grew up in farm towns such as Duncan, Safford and Yuma. I suggest you read a book called Borderline Americans about the patterns of racial discrimination that existed in Cochise County up into the 1960s. I suggest you read any serious historian who has studied and written about conditions in Arizona up through the 1970s. What is taught in ethnic studies is the story that Tom Horne does not want told – that people can take pride in their own cultural identity while also remaining a healthy part of the whole, that they can educate themselves, organize and change conditions for the better. It is truly sad that the top official in the state department of education does not want children to be educated about their own culture and heritage.
Teaching about the religion/s, language/s, social structure/s, art/s, cuisine/s, and history of any group of people/s is not at issue; and no one objects to it. What is at issue is whether public school teachers should be training minors to be political activists and resentful of the country they live in. The later is the beating heart of what is innocently called “ethnic studies” in the TUSD Mexican American Studies Department.
Not so – Horne himself has attacked ethnic studies as “cultural chauvinism” (ironically borrowing a word popularized by communists). Your comments about training minors to be political activists and resentful of the country they live in are substantiated by what? Please be specific. Perhaps you can explain how one teaches history accurately without mentioning injustice, discrimination, racial hatred, miscegenation laws, etc. Or should we just teach the sugar-coated myth? Kids don’t get radicalized by their teachers. Do you think Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, David Duke, J.T. Ready and Glenn Spencer attended ethnic studies classes? They most likely learned their hatred at home…
I can’t believe anyone would be against TUSD’s ethnic studies social studies program. In fact, why stop there, we should have many more classes in the curriculum devoted exclusively to different ethnic groups. Let’s have latino algebra, appalachian gym, pima chemistry and somali home economics – what possibly could go wrong?
If for example, this was Appalachia and a teacher or district found it appropriate to incorporate content about Appalachian culture and its impact on music, literature, the history of the Scotch-Irish, the refusal of east Tennessee and West Virginia to join the confederacy, etc., it would make perfect sense.
What no one who has raised opposition to TUSD ethnic studies has offered to contest (because you really can’t if you have done any serious study of local history) is that a comprehensive pattern of racial discrimination did exist after 1880 (when the SP railroad came through, making it much easier for Anglo women and capitalists to travel and operate here, changing the economy, political climate and social structure in a major way.) Hispanics were by and large pushed out of the mainstream and their culture marginalized, by an Anglo culture that believed in white Anglo-Saxon Protestant superiority. Economic and social opportunity for Hispanics dwindled and de facto and de jure barriers were established to keep out browns, blacks, yellows and whites. Miscegenation laws were promulgated, prohibiting the marriage of Asians or Blacks to whites. Schools were segregated. In my town, Asians were forbidden to live or remain after sundown. “Mexicans” had their own yearbook page in the Bisbee High School yearbook and were not permitted to work in “white” jobs – i.e., underground mining, retail, professional – anything that paid well.
Neighborhoods were strictly segregated – in Warren, where I live, no non-whites were permitted to live until the 1960s. No “Mexicans” were allowed to enter Warren Ballpark through the 1920s. The Klan marched openly in the streets of Douglas. If you look at the Douglas city director of 1903, you will find only ONE Hispanic name – a doctor – listed within the city limits. All other Hispanics – hundreds – were listed as living in Ragtown, which is where present-day Pirtleville is located.
Hispanics were forced in Bisbee to live in Tintown, Zacatecas and on Chihuahua Hill. They could work as wood cutters, day laborers and other menial jobs – nothing else. Tucson’s history up through the 1950s wasn’t much better. “Mexican” kids were commonly tracked into vocational programs in high school – why? Because they couldn’t learn as well as the Anglo kids?
Hispanics, blacks and Indians were not allowed into many businesses (even Jews were excluded from such businesses as the Lodge on the Desert.) Blacks went to their own schools up through junior high.
And in schools, no Hispanic kids learned about Mariano Samaniego, Sabino Otero, Leopoldo Carrillo, Estevan Ochoa, the pioneer Elias family or any of the other Hispanics who helped create the community.
Will kids learn to be resentful of the country they live in? Tell me, should they express their undying gratitude to you that their grandfathers and grandmothers were excluded from the good life because of the color of their skin and the language they spoke at home? I don’t take any pride in that sordid part of our country’s history. Nor should anyone. But I have more confidence than you in children and schoolteachers. I think kids can learn about their own culture and the ups and downs it has faced without becoming revolutionaries – but teaching them all of the truth can help them to understand that yes, injustice exists, there are still mean, small-minded frightened people in this world who are ignorant of them and who hate and fear them because of their color or religion or culture. So they can learn that, while they learn that injustice can be overcome with knowledge and courage.
See, I don’t think those who are up in arms about ethnic studies have a clue about the kids who are enrolled as students in those courses, nor do they understand and feel comfortable about their culture. I believe that they are scared shit of any meaningful assertion of identity on the part of Hispanics, Native Americans or Blacks. Many white people in this country still haven’t learned the meaning of “e pluribus” in the motto “e pluribus unum.”
Learning about one’s culture and the history of one’s people won’t turn one into a terrorist. it will just make one a better educated citizen who can take more pride in being one of the many.
Highlights of Social Justice, Resistance, and Latino Literature English 7/8
This course will focus upon the themes of social justice, resistance, and transformation through world literature.
More than simply an English class, students in Social Justice/Latino Literature will conclude their high school writing experience with a portfolio that will illustrate, not only their role in the world, but their plans to transform the world. This class is designed to survey the passion, life, and art presented through this vital lens.
Second Quarter
Critical Race Theater
Third Quarter
Immigration – La Luche Sigue
Resistance Through Rhetoric
Speech at the Afro-Asian Conference by Ernesto “Che” Guevara
“Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation” by Angela Davis
Message to Aztlan by Corky Gonzales
Message to the Grass Roots by Malcom X
Does “Anit-War” Have to be “Anti-Racist” Too by Elizabeth “Betita” Martinez
Fourth Quarter
Resistance/Revolution in Spoken Word, Slam Poetry, and Hip Hop
Critical Race Theory
Today many in the field of education consider themselves critical race theorists and use CRT’s ideas to understand issues of school discipline and hierarchy, tracking, controversies over curriculum and history, and IQ and achievement testing.
I make no judgment about the course, just pointing out the highlights. If there is a desire to “transform” the world or begin a revolution as some say, I would suggest that it might be better to study the more successful revolutionaries; our founding fathers. At the time they started their “transformation” they too were oppressed. To the open minded it is all relative, to others there is no comparison.
Wait until the economic situation in the US deteriorates even further and you will soon realize that the poor (and the minorities) are indeed exploited. Arizona state is trying to put a lid on the reality of the division of social classes, which is as real as the air we breathe. Lies will be exposed and truth will prevail. My respects to the 11 teachers who are fighting against tyranny and for what they believe in.
Excellent comments, Mike from Bisbee. There is indeed a double standard in this country when it comes to public school curricula. Most of it is done to perpetuate the culture of those in power. The Anglo majority has to get over the fact that the world is changing (and changing rapidly) and minorities will no longer be silenced by a law or a set of laws. Today’s minority may very well be tomorrow’s majority. Changes are inevitable. Those who don’t adapt to this new reality will be left behind.
Mike from Bisbee asks, “Not so – Horne himself has attacked ethnic studies as “cultural chauvinism” (ironically borrowing a word popularized by communists). Your comments about training minors to be political activists and resentful of the country they live in are substantiated by what? Please be specific.”
Here you go. I have examined the course syllabus for the senior Mexican American studies class taught at Tucson High, and here is what I found. Please bear in mind that this is a course that satisfies…according to TUSD…the state social studies graduation requirement.
I’ll begin by noting what I did NOT find in this American history class. No mention of the defeat of the Aztecs by Cortez with the help of the all the surrounding tribes who despised the brutality of the Aztecs, no mention of the American Revolution, no mention of the US Constitution, no mention of the Civil War except as it connected to the War with Mexico and the struggle over Texas, no mention of the expansion of the US economy after the Civil War, no mention of the labor movement, no mention of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement, and no mention of the Great Depression, the New Deal, or the Two World Wars. In fairness, some of these topics were listed in the course syllabus, but there were NO readings nor assignments on these topics. This leads me to believe that the Governing Board of the district was shown the first page of the course syllabus, but nothing else.
What is there are assignments that promote the concept of Aztlan…an imaginary nation that never existed but is somehow based on the Aztec Empire, but which the teachers in this program want to restore/create out of the southwestern part of the US. (You have to wonder why the brutal Aztecs are so glorified.) What is there are lengthy and multiple attacks on Thanksgiving, one entitled “Plagues and Pilgrims,” essays on “why we don’t know our culture” that blame everyone other than themselves, US conquest and betrayal, a section called 1830-1910: Conquest and Colonization, a section on Texas that contains articles titled Conspiracy to Take Texas and The Truth of the Alamo, a section on why the US victory in the Mexican American War should be undone because the war was not fair, a section on maps that asserts the ancient Aztec Empire by right belongs to Chicanos, poems that pay homage to Aztlan, a section called News from a Red Brown Perspective that is followed by discussion questions that are as close to indoctrination anyone will find this side of the Khmer Rouge, a Manifest Destiny Project, The Mexican Revolution: a Socialist Experiment Betrayed, and a section called El Norte: The Borderland of Chicano America.
That’s pretty much it. Taking quotes out of the actual readings would be even more inflammatory and, frankly, anyone who doesn’t get the picture from this listing is so deep into denial they never will.
The way Arizona’s Racists are behaving is disgusting. They should learn something from the way these Raza Studies students carry themselves and learn what they stand for. West Los Angeles educators highly respect the program,which we’re very familiar with. Tom HOrne and his small mob should be exposed for their ties to white supremacist groups. The astrologers are right, we need another Mexican Revolution in 2010, and like MLK hoped, may it be of the mind…
Elias Serna
President, Assoc. of Mexican American Educators
Santa Monica/ West LA