Tucson Students Stage Walkouts, Teach-Ins Over Suspended Mexican American Studies Program
Students organize school of ethnic studies to teach “forbidden” curriculum
Posts tagged Arizona.
Noam Chomsky: Banning of Mexican American Studies Is an “International Disgrace”
While in Tucson to give a lecture at the University of Arizona, Professor Noam Chomsky addressed TUSD’s banning of the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program and its reading list.
“When you start banning books of Chicano history … Rethinking Columbus, the classics and so on, it’s an international disgrace,” said Chomsky, one of the world’s leading intellectuals. “That’s reminiscent, I’m afraid, of Nazi Germany.”
Mr. Chomsky notes that a lot of the recent hostility toward the Mexican community is a calculated response to the displacement of millions of campesinos who were forced to seek opportunities in the United States when NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, came into effect.
“There used to be a pretty open border … it was militarized, strikingly, in 1994,” said Chomsky, referring to the year NAFTA was enacted.
Much of the issue behind the banning of MAS is about literally trying to re-write this history.
“…in the case of Arizona and banning of Mexican Studies programs, it’s particularly ironic because this is Mexico,” commented Chomsky.
But, ultimately, it’s about us. Do we accept the outlawing of our history and culture or do we, as MAS students have been doing, fight back?
The students and teachers of MAS have made this choice very clear. Fighting back is our only option.
Banned Books: Read With Caution, May Cause Independent Thinking
A photo from Sean Arce, former director of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program.
Credit: Precious Knowledge
Banned 500 Years of Chicano History Book Offered Free to Arizona Students
“One of the most motivating books on the Chicano experience as far as working class people and students are concerned…The visual quality adds a fantastic dimension to the understanding of our past.” ~Dr. Rodolfo F. Acuña
500 Years of Chicano History is a publication of the SouthWest Organizing Project, a New Mexican community organization whose mission is to empower our communities in the Southwest to realize racial and gender equality and social and economic justice.
In case you haven’t heard, the SouthWest Organizing Project is offering 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures for FREE to any Arizona Student and at a 50% discount to any Arizona resident.
Read More at ChicanoHistory.org
Read Letters From Arizona Students
Buy 500 Years at SWOP’s Store
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I’m pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I’m also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.
Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and filmmaker. His book “The Lone Ranger and Tonto’s Fist Fight in Heaven,” was on the banned curriculum of the Mexican American Studies Program.
(via chicanainchoos)
Sterilizing Words: Media Responsible for Collapse in Arizona
Media bound by fear and complacency, responsible for the collapse of rights and justice in Arizona
The media is responsible for the collapse of human rights and banning of books in Arizona, along with the racist Arizona legislators, state school head and corrupt politicians. The media has become frozen in fear, too timid to bang on the doors and find out why the Tucson schools banned the award winning books of Chicano and Native American authors this week.
Read More at Censored News
Photo: Campus Progress
Rodolfo Acuña on His Banned Book, “Occupied America: A History of Chicanos”
Forty years after it was first published, the book Occupied America: The History of Chicanos has been banned, and its author, Rodolfo Acuña, a widely published professor and prominent immigrant-rights activist thinks he knows why.
Read More at UAW
For more information, visit: Save Ethnic Studies
Tucson Students Confront Loss of Their Chicano Studies Class
On Wednesday, 28 seventh- and eighth-graders at Tucson’s Mansfeld Middle School followed their familiar routine. They walked into Room 306, sat at their desks and greeted teacher Rene Martinez.
But the class they’d known the day before had vanished.
No longer can the students discuss Chicano perspectives on history. And no longer can Martinez teach Mexican American studies.
After the Tucson Unified School District board voted late Tuesday to suspend the controversial classes to avoid losing more than $14 million in state aid, the students’ world shifted.
Read More at The LA Times
Photo: James S. Wood
via latimes
The Myths & Facts Framing Tucson’s Mexican American Studies Program
Attacks on the Mexican American Studies program of Tucson, Arizona continues. State officials are following through on a campaign promise to close the program, but its meeting resistance from students, family, and teachers.
The teachers of the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program have organized a legal defense fund, toured the United States showing “Precious Knowledge,” a documentary on MAS, and spoken out in interviews and press conferences - a strategy that has helped their cause immensely. However, the power of political office is heavy, and state officials are doing everything possible on their end to mischaracterize MAS.
Last week, the Tucson Weekly responded epically with a cover story addressing the myths behind Mexican American Studies.
Possibly the strangest, but most revealing myth was Myth No. 3, which states, “These classes are teaching a form of Mayan religion.” It traces this myth to a Luis Valdez poem inspired by the Popol Vuh called “In Lak’ Ech.”
A more analytical approach was taken by Tucson Citizen’s Three Sonorans. By using Arizona’s own audit report, it confronts the many factual errors the attacks on MAS are based on. Confronting the myth that MAS promotes resentment towards a race or class of people is a quote from Supt. John Huppenthal’s own report: “No observable evidence exists that the instruction promotes resentment towards a race or class of people. The auditors observed the opposite, as students are taught to be accepting of multiple ethnicities of people.”
A ruling from the state superintendent’s office is expected in the coming days. Regardless of its findings, the good people of Tucson will surely defend this program and its accomplishments. For state officials hoping this attack would quiet dissenters, they’re mistaken. If anything, they’ve awoken a generation of Tucson youth willing to fight for their education.
Read: Arizona Educators Clash Over Mexican American Studies via the LA Times
Photo: Precious Knowledge / Tucson Weekly
Organizers Respond to NCLR’s Call to Suspend the Arizona Boycott
NCLR Calls Off Arizona Boycott, But Who Gave Them The Authority To Do So?
Janet Murguía, President and CEO of The National Council of La Raza, wrote a letter this past Friday calling for the end of the Arizona boycott stating its goal had been achieved and was now causing hardship to the workers and businesses of Arizona. Objection to NCLR’s letter from boycott organizers has been swift and unanimous: It’s not over!
A newly formed corporate-backed group calling itself The Real Arizona Coalition first called to suspend the boycott earlier this year after a report from the Center for American Progress indicated it could potentially cost the state over $750 million in economic losses.
As seen in the image above, NCLR clearly understood the underlying aim the authors of SB 1070 had when drafting this legislation. Although portions of SB 1070 have been blocked in court, now is not the time to endt the economic boycott of Arizona’s tourism and hospitality industry.
Ironically, the website listed atop NCLR’s banner that once called for a boycott of intolerance today simply states, “we’re sorry!“
Video from the Boycott Commission of the Comités de Defensa del Barrio of Phoenix, Arizona:
Youth Leading the Struggle for Justice and Education
Dr. Nolan L. Cabrera takes a look at how brave Tucson students used civil-disobedience to shut down a board meeting planning to close the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, and how it’s the responsibility of academics to expose the falsehoods being used to thwart equality.
Read an excerpt of Dr. Cabrera’s article below:
Flashpoint Over Struggle To Preserve Mexican-American Studies in Arizona
In 1967, MIT linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky wrote the seminal essay, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” where he argued, “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies.” Forty-four years later, this statement is relevant to the struggle over ethnic studies in the Tucson Unified School District.
For several years, the state of Arizona has embarked on eliminating or dismantling TUSD’s highly successful Mexican American Studies (MAS) program on the premise that its classes:
• Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
• Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
• Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
• Advocate for ethnic solidarity.
Having never set foot in an MAS classroom or conducted an audit, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne embedded these allegations in the 2010 anti-ethnic studies law HB 2281. The law mandates that a school district can lose 10 percent of its state funding if it is out of compliance, and this was how Mr. Horne singled out MAS as his last act in office.
Within this context, TUSD Board President Dr. Mark Stegeman unilaterally proposed changing ethnic studies classes into electives instead of core courses. Dr. Stegeman argued he would be better able to defend the classes as electives. This would, however, effectively dismantle the program because it would force students to take additional English or history classes.
Read more at Diverse
Learn more about UNIDOS. Save Ethnic Studies.
Image: The Sound Strike Video: Three Sonorans
LulzSec Launches Operation “Chinga La Migra”
LulzSec’s Operation Chinga La Migra hit the internet yesterday with full force. Often painted as juvenile troublemakers, LulzSec made a pretty serious statement against SB 1070 and what it called, “the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona.”
Earlier today, Boing Boing updated its article on LulzSec that included a very revealing racist rant and several mentions of Mexico. Read their story here.
LulzSec has said it plans to release more info on Monday. We’ll keep you posted.
Image: LulzSec
Chente Pays the Price for Bud Contract
Mexican icon, Vicente Fernandez, is getting heat from the Phoenix-based human rights group Puente for accepting a 3-year contract with Budweiser, the leading beer for Hensley & Co., owned by Cindy Hensley McCain, wife of U.S. Senator John McCain.
Read more at The Feathered Bastard
Legit!
1 year against 1070 march in Phoenix
April 23, 2011
Scenes from Arizona: The community in resistance
Arizona’s SB 1070 Protest Art
We Are Human by Francisco Garcia
On the morning of April 23, 2010, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law. Later that day, an artist named Nomas threw 10 posters and a few spray cans into his bag, grabbed a bucket of paste, and jumped on his bike.
A few hours later, images of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in a military uniform with a swastika on his forehead and stenciled Hitlers saluting “SB 1070” were pasted and painted on public walls, light poles, and the backs of street signs in downtown Phoenix.
Lalo Cota’s “Invasion!” installation at The Hive
The artist doesn’t go by his real name — most of his work is illegal by city standards, and it’s usually scratched off or painted over within a couple of days.
“I had this weird feeling,” Nomas says from behind dark glasses, sitting at Lux, a Central Phoenix coffee bar. “I had to voice my outrage. It wasn’t a choice.”
While thousands crowded the downtown streets to march against legislation designed to send undocumented Mexicans home, Nomas’ images joined the growing sensory (and often censored) responses to border issues and immigration legislation across the United States.
Diane Ovalle: Scene from an anti-SB 1070 march
