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Why the Tucson Ethnic Studies Ban Matters
Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at DemocraticDiva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.
Hundreds of high school students walked out of their Tucson, Ariz., schools Monday in a coordinated protest against the banishment of the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program. This from Common Dreams:
In recent days, administrators and board members have issued a series of conflicting and inaccurate statements and carried out the extreme actions of confiscating books in front of children.
Last week, a recently hired assistant superintendent from Texas told Tuscon students to “go to Mexico” to study their history–nevermind that most of their families have been in the United States for decades.
If you are not familiar with the Tucson Mexican American Studies saga, Sunday’s New York Times
editorial summarizes the current situation nicely and says in part:
The Tucson Unified School District has dismantled its Mexican-American studies program, packed away its offending books, shuttled its students into other classes. It was blackmailed into doing so: keeping the program would have meant losing more than $14 million in state funding. It was a blunt-force victory for the Arizona school superintendent, John Huppenthal, who has spent years crusading against ethnic-studies programs he claims are “brainwashing” children into thinking that Latinos have been victims of white oppression.
More background and a disclosure: I ran (sadly, unsuccessfully) against John Huppenthal for State Senate in 2006. That was also the year Republican Tom Horne was reelected to his second term as Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction. Killing the Mexican American Studies program – often referred to as MAS or “ethnic studies” – was really Horne’s crusade from the beginning.
It all started in 2006, when famed labor organizer Dolores Huerta addressed a Tucson high school assembly. Huerta is known for being feisty and pulling no punches – ideal qualities for a labor organizer – and in her characteristic style at the assembly she made the blunt observation that “Republicans hate Latinos.”
Horne got wind of it, took umbrage, and sent Deputy Superintendent Margaret Garcia-Dugan, a Republican, to address the students and refute Huerta’s statement. Dugan was booed and some students turned their back on her. Superintendent Horne took even bigger umbrage at that. Rather than chalking it up to typical teenage recalcitrance and calling for disciplinary action of individual students if necessary, he decided that Tucson’s MAS program was to blame and that it needed to be dismantled. He enlisted Huppenthal and other eager Republican legislators in the effort.
Huppenthal was elected school superintendent in 2010, after campaigning heavily on a “stop La Raza” slogan in Anglo conservative Greater Phoenix communities hundreds of miles away from the Tucson schools where MAS is taught. Republicans swept every statewide office in the state in that election, in a result that could be attributed partly to the “tea party” momentum but mostly to SB1070 and relentless anti-immigrant rhetoric. Huppenthal won his race and Horne was elected Arizona attorney general. The two men got immediately began implementing their plan to eliminate that dastardly ethnic studies program. The law prohibits teaching that “promotes resentment” and that doesn’t treat students as individuals. But it stems from one man’s personal greivance and his assumption that Latino students are all alike. Ironic, to say the least.
Meanwhile, Arizona State Representative Terri Proud, a tea party freshman, just introduced a bill that
would allow Arizona public schools to teach an elective course about how the Bible and “Biblical principles” influenced Western civilization and American democracy. I guess there’s no worry about alienating students of other religions with that.
Whether or not the Tucson MAS issue, in itself, is important to you, everyone should be concerned about the disdain for education and a free flow of ideas displayed by Huppenthal, Horne, the Arizona Legislature, and Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who signed the law last year. Labor advocates should be especially alert to these heavy-handed attempts to censor education in the name of preventing “resentment” over
injustice. One can easily imagine how programs that teach about the labor movement and the brutality that labor organizers and striking workers experienced would be found unacceptable by self-appointed thought police like orne and Huppenthal.
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15 Comments
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I am against the MAS. They preached marxist ideas and wanted the southwest back into Mexico hands. That means Arizona,New Mexico,Texas,and California leaves the USA. Defund this commie group is the best you can do.
Go back to the 1950′s. your political philosophy would fit in well with Joseph McCarthy’s!
Nowhere in the MAS, La Raza or any other Chicano group is there a demand for the Southwest to “leave the US”. This is simply made up out of whole cloth. It is a typical tactic–assign a sinister purpose to attack a legitimate organization. What Chicano organizations want is a truthful recognition that they are the descendants of their native ancestors in the area, that they did not come from Spain, and that they have equal rights to everyone else, as opposed to being given the worst education and the worst jobs. They want respect and dignity, something that is in short supply among Anglos.
Those that have the Gold rule. I thought differences about the ethnic studies could be settled by dialogue and compromise of opposing views. Instead Arizona politicians chose passing a law specifically against the program and then “righteously” moved to enforce it “or else”. Great lesson for ALL students. If you have the money, you don’t have to have the best ideas or education.
Are you kidding? What real labor studies are being taught???? little I know of….. and that is the problem! We are worried about Latinos getting a history lesson rather than talking up labor strugles. We have made many things accessible specifically for Latinos (print in Spanish) to name one that other immigrants don’t enjoy so instead of teaching them their Mexican history, let their parents do that while we teach them English the language they should speak and understand just like everyone else. Remember.. its not what appears to be fair, its what is fair. Special treatment for some is not.
So it’s alright to teach white kids their history, but not latinos? How about blacks, native americans, etc?
Are you saying Labor Studies should be taught, or should not be? If they should be, then we must follow this example. Perhaps we need to learn from Labor leader Delores Huerta, and learn from their movement, so we can get labor studies into the schools. Until then, we must support Latino studies and Black studies because that is where our Labor history can be found. Or did you think Latinos and Blacks are not key components of the American working class? Ever hear of the United Farmworkers? How about the 1968 Memphis Sanitation workers strike, or the Pullman porters?
Instead of helping our enemies crush militancy against American workers who happen to be Latinos, we should support these programs and inject a union perspective.
if they are illegal aliens they don’t deserve anything in the United States!
Everyone is getting sick of the special treatment given to illegal aliens. Don’t be affraid to step on the “race card” they pull… its bullsh*t. Americans are starting to hate these illegals and those who support them because of the special accomodations made for them.
60% of the students attending the school have hispanic backgrounds…so what!!! This is AMERICA is everyone forgetting that? They may border Mexico but the schools are in AMERICA.
And America is only made up of whites, or are their other ethnic groups who helped make this nation great?
response,
You and I know what they are teaching…Just make sure they are teaching ENGLISH, the language spoken here!!!!What are they teaching in Mexican schools??? When we can cross the border with the same privilege illegals have here, we are at a disadvantage. It is not fair to demand the rich in AMERICA pay for welfare programs that support illegals in this country because middle class taxpayers end up paying for it while illegal aliens steal our jobs. They’re not just pickin lettuce anymore boys and girls.
Just as long as they don’t teach that they are some how victims of AMERICAS because they are truely victims of Mexico a country they fled rather than staying to fight for change. Illegal is illegal, there is a reason….overpopulation just what they are fleeing.. I don’t want to pay for your ten kids when you can only afford to have two. One thing about the other minorities is that no special exceptions were made for them… they learned ENGLISH like everyone else. How dare the Mexicans demand spanish text and special treatment,, theu are no better than anyone else. Are they too lazy to learn ENGLISH? or do they think we should change for them? Not going to happen!!!!
Who said anything about illegals? This action affects all students in the school district. The classes are open to every student in the district.
buzz 13,
In Arizona you don’t think there are illegal alien children going to school. Because they are children of illegals, they themselves are illegal. Do you think one day they will be competing for college grants and ultimately jobs all while living off of legal taxpaying citizens of this country. With people living in a dream world no wonder 12 million illegals got established here before we new it. We can’t afford to pay for the poverty stricken from other countries when unemployment is what it is and our own are suffering.