Dr. Emilio Zamora awarded Organization of American Historians prestigious Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award

So proud of hubby and UT History professor Dr. Emilio Zamora for earning this major award this year from the Organization of American Historians. I like the nice write-up that his department did for him and posted to their website that lists his numerous awards and contributions. 

Much deserved. I can certainly vouch for all his hard, excellent work. So proud of you, Emilio! The world is definitely a much better place because of you. 💗

-Angela Valenzuela

P.S. He likes to share this short video of him nearly being born in the middle of the Rio Grande River in South Texas. Enjoy!

 

“A Mitad del Rio, An Autobiographical Video.” Edinburg: Historias Americanas, 2020.  https://www.wevideo.com/view/1773697343

EMILIO ZAMORA, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN, RECEIVES 2021 ROY ROSENZWEIG DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD FROM THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS

BLOOMINGTON, IN—The Organization of American Historians (OAH) today announced that Emilio Zamora, University of Texas at Austin, is the recipient of the OAH’s 2021 Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award, which is given annually for an individual or individuals whose contributions have significantly enriched our understanding and appreciation of American history. The Award was presented during the OAH’s 2021 Annual Meeting.

Recognizing a stellar career as an academic historian, and an equally stellar record as a public interpreter of the American past for communities across Texas, the Organization of American Historians presents Professor Emilio Zamora, University of Texas at Austin, with the OAH Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award. Professor Zamora is not only an award-winning researcher and writer but also a visible scholar-citizen who has made significant contributions to the public understanding of Mexican American people in Texas.

Emilio Zamora has roots in the Mexico-Texas region dating back to the 1700s, growing up and educating himself on both sides of the border.

His research interests include the history of Mexicans in the United States and their relationship with Mexico, as well as oral history, the history of the U.S. working class, Texas history, and the archival enterprise in Texas and northern Mexico. Dr. Zamora has single-authored three books, co-edited three anthologies, assisted in the production of a Texas history text, co-authored a Texas history text for high schools, co-edited an Ebook on Tejano history, translated and edited a World War I diary, and written numerous scholarly articles, chapters, and essays. He has received seven best-book awards, a best-article prize, and a Fulbright García-Robles fellowship. Zamora is a lifetime member of the Texas Institute of Letters, a lifetime Fellow with the Texas State Historical Association, and a former member of the Board of Directors and a former president of the Texas State Historical Association.

In recognition of his many contributions to the pursuit of historical knowledge and his work as a public-facing scholar, intellectual, and educator, the Organization of American Historians is proud to present Emilio Zamora with the OAH Roy Rosenzweig Distinguished Service Award.

For the full list of OAH 2021 award and prize recipients, please visit the OAH website.

The Organization of American Historians was founded in 1907 and is the largest professional organization dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. The mission of the OAH is to promote excellence in the scholarship, teaching and presentation of American history, and to encourage informed public discussion of and engagement with historical questions. The mission of the OAH is guided by the principles of the advancement of scholarship, historical advocacy, and professional integrity. The OAH national headquarters are located in the historic Raintree House on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus.

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Texas Republicans could have gotten an extra, third seat in Congress had state lawmakers invested in getting folks to respond to the U.S. Census. Why? Because they're afraid of the demographic shifts and they don't like the idea of counting all residents who may not themselves be citizens even if it means that they could have won an extra seat in Congress. Never mind the added resources that counting them means. This is a party that lives in fear of its own denizens, where leaders live in fear of losing their incumbencies.

What's new? 

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas Can Brag About Two New Seats in Congress, But It Should’ve Been Three

State officials didn’t make an effort to count every Texan, falling short of the census numbers needed to run up the score on California and other states.

By Jonathan Tilove | April 27, 2021 | Texas Monthly

The first official results of the 2020 census are in—and Texas has plenty to brag about. It grew more than any other state over the last decade, according to figures released by the Census Bureau on Monday. There are now 29,145,505 Texans, though as I type this another thousand migrants are surely packing up their belongings in Los Angeles, Lucknow, and Leon. That’s up from 25 million in April 2010, an increase  of 15.9 percent, or four million—more than the total population of Oklahoma (which once again makes one wonder why UT has lost two-thirds of its football games against the Sooners over the past two decades). The only other states to exceed Texas’s population boom, in terms of percentage growth, were Utah (growing by 18.4 percent) and Idaho (17.3 percent).

In contrast, the United States grew by only 7.4 percent over the last decade, the slowest growth rate of any decade in the nation’s history, with the sole exception of the Great Depression decade of the 1930s, when the population grew by 7.3 percent.

Seven seats in the U.S. House of Representatives were reallocated, with only the Lone Star State adding more than one. (Quick refresher: every ten years, the census results are used to reapportion the 435 seats in the U.S. House among the fifty states. It’s a zero-sum game: fast-growing states tend to add representatives while shrinking states tend to lose them.) Texas will now have a 38-member delegation in Congress, bigger than those of the least-populous seventeen states combined. Add in the two Senate seats, and Texas will have a nice, round forty votes to bring to the Electoral College in the 2024 presidential election.

Sweeter still for some Texas partisans, the gain came partly at the expense of archrival California, the nation’s other mega-state. In the long view of history, if it’s possible to make that call so soon, this week’s biggest news may have been that California has peaked. For the first time in history, the Golden State is losing a congressional seat and an electoral vote (down to 52). Even though California added 2.3 million residents, increasing from 37.2 million to 39.5 million, its growth rate of 6.1 percent was weaker than those of Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and even Nebraska.

Still, there was an undercurrent of letdown for Texas because the gain of two seats fell short of forecasts. “Everybody was expecting Texas to gain three seats, Florida to gain two seats, and Arizona to gain one seat,” said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer. Instead, he said, “Florida ended up with one seat instead of two, Texas with two instead of three, and Arizona with nothing instead of one.” Another surprise: New York lost a seat and Minnesota kept one by the tiniest of margins. If New York had counted just 89 more of its residents it would have kept its 27-member delegation intact.

So what happened?

Texas fell about 190,000 residents short of gaining a second seat, according to Michael Li, a redistricting and voting rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City, who formerly practiced law in Dallas. Li said there is an object lesson here for Texas. Minnesota has a storied civic culture. It had the highest census response rate of any state and enjoyed the highest voter turnout in 2020. New York invested heavily in a campaign to encourage census participation, without which it might have lost two seats.

Even though the Trump administration ultimately failed to add a citizenship question, Texas officials did little to assuage migrants’ fears.

Beyond political power, some $1.5 trillion in federal spending is keyed to census results. The George Washington Institute of Public Policy estimated that even a one percent undercount could cost Texas nearly $300 million a year. “I think there are a lot of people who are afraid of the demographic change that is taking place in Texas,” Li said, “and they would just rather not know.” It also rubs many Republicans raw to be counting people who are not citizens or legal residents for purposes of distributing power.

The next part of the process will be the most contentious. Later this year, state lawmakers will meet in Austin in a special session to draw new districts for themselves as well as congressional members. It’s a highly partisan process that will almost certainly produce a flurry of lawsuits from Democrats, voting rights groups, and racial minorities who will be at the mercy of ruthless GOP mapmakers. The Census Bureau says it will provide states by September 30 with the detailed data, including information on race, ethnicity, and voting age at the local level, needed for redistricting.

Earlier census estimates suggested that Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians account for almost 90 percent of Texas’s population growth. The Republicans who control the legislature must contend with those demographic facts when drawing new state legislative and congressional districts. But they’ve done so successfully in the past. For example, more Latinos live in the Dallas–Fort Worth area than in the state of Colorado, yet there is no Latino member of Congress from North Texas.

In an email on Monday, Democratic strategist Matt Angle, founder and director of the Lone Star Project, a PAC that works to promote Democratic fortunes in Texas, all but pleaded with Republicans to “do the right thing” by preserving congressional districts that give Black and Latino candidates a shot at winning.

All thirteen Texas congressional districts held by Democrats “should be preserved in some form, and then the two new seats certainly should be drawn probably as Latino seats, given the population growth.” That would still likely give Republicans 23 of the 38 seats, or 60 percent, which is more than the vote percentage that any Republican gets in a typical statewide election. “Any map that doesn’t net out 15 seats where minorities have the strongest voice is probably a violation of the Voting Rights Act,” Angle said. “I don’t think [Republicans] will concede to two Democratic seats. I fully expect them to violate the Voting Rights Act.”

In a state in which Republicans hold all the levers of power, and in a nation where Democrats control the U.S. House by just a six-vote margin, and Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have proven ready and willing to weaken the Voting Rights Act, there seems little chance of Republicans conceding anything. As Senator John Cornyn tweeted on Monday: “Texas will gain the most new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives under new Census numbers released Monday, while states in the Northeast and Midwest will lose seven seats, shifting some political clout to Republican strongholds before the 2022 midterms.”

In other words, Idaho wants its citizens to fly blindly into life. Be insensitive to the call for sensitivity to difference that rests at the conceptual center of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Become immune to others' experiences in the world. Be actively ignorant.

How is the banning of CRT a recipe for success in an increasingly diverse world? Have these folks in Idaho not read the parable of the Good Samaritan in the Bible that can be fully interpreted from a CRT lens? It teaches us that being open to difference is a much higher calling than being distrustful and cynical toward others—and most especially in their hour of need.

May I never become immune to others' experiences in the world.

I do take comfort in knowing that CRT existed before there was a name for it and will continue to exist after its banned. After all, we will always continue to learn much from the lived experiences of racism, sexism, classism, transphobism, and the like in society despite the predictable fashioning by the dominant group of illusory, inaccurate views of how society works—or doesn't work—as the case may be.

After all, a more heterogenous life experience provides more conceptual anchors from which to analyze social inequality, separate from what those in power want us, as minoritized subjects, to believe and parrot. Rather than learning from diverse viewpoints for which CRT courses create space, this anti-intellectual posture seeks to block alternative views of lived experience.

That's what makes this stance fascist: We are all being told what and how to think, that is, ahistorical, decontextualized, de-personalized, and prescriptive. These are ways of knowing that come with a cost. That is, how can we as a diverse society learn to live differently with each other—ideally, at peace in a vibrant democracy—if we're not open to reconceptualizing our ways of relating to each other in ways that the CRT classroom generally provides?

Why not unmask prejudices and bias? Don't we all want to be better people in the world and assume responsibility for our own growth? What would Jesus want us to do? Certainly not what we see playing out in Idaho and other places.

Hence, to be against CRT is tantamount to the institutionalization of ignorance, arrogance, and insensitivity. This is hardly a virtuous education. Far from it, especially since it ironically reinscribes majority-minority relations anew! "Once a Samaritan, always a Samaritan" is not the actual takeaway from this parable. Or at least it shouldn't be...

Thanks to Dr, Valerie A. Martinez for sharing.

-Angela Valenzuela

Idaho moves to ban critical race theory instruction in all public schools, including universities

By Leah Asmelash, CNN

Updated 5:48 PM ET, Tue April 27, 2021

The bill, having passed the state legislature, now awaits Gov. Brad Little's signature.

(CNN)As some public school districts move toward embracing critical race theory in their curriculums, others -- like in Idaho -- are doing the opposite.

Idaho lawmakers have advanced a bill that would prohibit public schools, including public universities, from teaching that "any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior," which, according to the bill, is often found in "critical race theory."

It also prohibits teachings arguing that "individuals, by virtue of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin, are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin."

Critical race theory and teachings like it "exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being of the state of Idaho and its citizens," the bill reads. Proponents have argued that students are being indoctrinated.

The bill, HB 377, passed the state House last week and the Senate Monday. It now awaits the governor's signature.

Critical race theory has become politicized in recent months, with proponents arguing the area of study is based on Marxism and a threat to the American way of life. But the study, according to scholars, explores the ways in which a history of inequality and racism in the US have continued to impact American society today.

"It's an approach to grappling with a history of White supremacy that rejects the belief that what's in the past is in the past and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it," Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and a law professor at UCLA and Columbia universities, told CNN last year.

CNN reached out to Idaho state Rep. Julianne Young and Sen. Carl Crabtree, both sponsors of the bill, for comment, but did not receive a response.

"The passage of HB 377 and the accompanying insinuations about Idaho teachers are very disappointing," said Layne McInelly, president of the Idaho Education Association, in a statement. "This is a 'monster under the bed' problem brought about by a false and misleading narrative that some legislators have willfully conflated. They aim to diminish the public's trust in our teachers and schools, just to come back next year and push to privatize education."

The bill has become a high-profile issue in the state, as dozens of Idaho students and teachers protested peacefully on the steps of the state legislature on Monday before the Senate vote, and filled the Senate gallery during the debate.

As HB377 is debated and passed by the Idaho Senate Monday, April 26, students and teachers filled the gallery.

"We have a group that's put out public comments that our teachers are brainwashing our children with a liberal, leftist indoctrination and that's simply not true," Idaho state Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking said during the debate, according to CNN affiliate KIVI.

Meanwhile, Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin announced a task force earlier this month, aiming to "examine indoctrination in Idaho education and to protect our young people from the scourge of critical race theory, socialism, communism, and Marxism."

"As I have traveled around the state and spoken with constituents and parents, it has become clear to me that this is one of the most significant threats facing our society today," McGeachin said in a news release. "We must find where these insidious theories and philosophies are lurking and excise them from our education system."

Across the country, public school entities are considering the inclusion of aspects of race education in school curriculums. In March, after years of debate, California approved an optional ethnic studies model curriculum for districts to employ if they so choose.

"By affirming the identities and contributions of marginalized groups in our society, ethnic studies helps students see themselves and each other as part of the narrative of the United States," a draft of the California curriculum reads. "Importantly, this helps students see themselves as active agents in the interethnic bridge-building process we call American life."

Other locales have made similar moves. Last year, Connecticut announced it will require high schools to offer African American, Black, Puerto Rican and Latino studies, becoming the first state in the nation to do so. Also last year, the San Francisco school board approved the development of a K-12 curriculum in Black Studies.

And yet, the area of study has been weaponized by some Republican lawmakers. In September, former President Donald Trump called critical race theory "divisive, anti-American propaganda," language similar to that found in HB 377.

"Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed," Trump said at the time.

CNN's Faith Karimi contributed to this report.

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A Special Word of Thanks to our Academia Cuauhtli Friends and Partners, by Angela Valenzuela

 

April 27, 2021

To Our Wonderful Friends and Partners,

I want  to  take  the  time  to  thank  those  individuals  and  organizations  that  went above and beyond to make this already exceptional year, possible. Due to remote instruction, our cohort was larger than all previous years such that our collective efforts focused on serving forty families with fourth-grade children throughout this school year of the pandemic. It truly takes a village!

Gracias mil to  the Austin Independent  School District's Department of Multilingual Education, especially to Executive Director Dr. David Kauffman, Ana Rojas, and Assistant Director of Humanities Jessica Jolliffe. Your hard work has not gone unnoticed. To the staff at the  ESB-MACC,  Michelle Rojas, Ulises Gave, Lori Navarrette, Olivia Tamzarian, and Cassie Smith, muchísimas gracias! We cannot  imagine a better home for our escuelita, Academia Cuauhtli. 

We are also very grateful to the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education, especially Dean Charles Martinez, Dr. Victor Saenz, Zhandra Andrade, Andrea Kehoe, Anthony Martinez, and Ezra Rebollar. It’s so important to have the resources of the university behind us. Gracias mil!

We are indebted to the Austin Area Association for Bilingual Education (AAABE) President Carolyn Slavin, and AAABE, as a whole, for their continued support to our Academia Cuauhtli students and community. Muchas  gracias,  as  well,  to  maestro Manuel Martinez and maestras Patricia Nuñez, Julia Hernandez, Liliana Batista- Rodriguez, and Luz Alvarez-Sims for their many contributions. The Austin History Center—through Marina Islas and its many treasures—has also been a constant source of  support  and  inspiration  for  us  throughout.

 

We are also in appreciation of our  partners, Dr.  Mario  Garza,  Maria  Rocha,  and  UT Fine Arts Professor Dr. Roxanne Schroeder-Arce of the Indigenous Cultures Institute (ICI). We look forward to our students  attending this year’s  ICI Powwow—in  addition to danza Mexica. Though we couldn’t teach danza this year because of the pandemic, the sacred space that maestra Rosa Tupina Yaotonalcuauhtli’s teachings nevertheless  made   for  a  culturally-rich,  identity-affirming  experience. 

The Mexican Consulate has been a steadfast supporter, too, helping us in the early days of the pandemic with resources to help us address parents’ computer literacy skills. What at first seemed insurmountable with all the challenges of technology, now feels like a path that we broke through with everybody, especially our teachers and volunteers, helping out.

Were it not for Lourdes Zuñiga with the Financial Literacy Coalition  of  Central Texas and other donors, Christmas would not have been as nice. Our elder, Martha Cotera, was genuinely happy about meeting the parents in her home and gifting them all with  $50.00  gift  cards.

We  cultivated  a  brand  new  friendship  with  “Su  Teatro”  out  of  Denver,  Colorado. They, along with so many other individuals, heard our pleas for help in the aftermath of the epic winter storm and its impact on our families, some of whom needed rental assistance, resources to evade eviction, and  food,  together  with ongoing vaccine information that involved numerous evening phone calls to homes to help them navigate the city’s Central Health websites. Su Teatro raised funds for us with one of their plays serving as a fundraiser for our families. Dr. Blandina “Bambi” Cardenas was equally generous as part of this same drive to support our families.

 

Last, but not least, is our  appreciation for  LILLAS,  particularly, Tiffany  Guridy, for your ongoing support to our Saturday school. It’s beyond cool when they reach out to you before you reach out to them. Gracias, Tiffany and LILLAS!

 

We invite you to read the following three reflections published on my blog that reflect the ethos of doing this work while capturing some of the more gripping moments of the pandemic. Reading these still puts a lump in my throat.

Garcia, Itzel Guadalupe(2020, Oct. 2). A Historical Moment of Dream Remembering: Returning Education to Rootedness [Inaugural essay]

Lara, Aracely  (2021, March 21). “Home y  La Esperanza Que Siempre Alcanza”  ("Home and Ever-Present Hope")

Garcia, Itzel Guadalupe (2021, March 5)."Winter Storm Reflections  on the Notion of 'Collapse' for our Academia Cuauhtli Mothers"

In sum, we faced numerous  and significant  challenges  this  year  with the pandemic, the time-consuming process of going digital, and surviving the winter storm, with several among us, sadly, experiencing serious personal tragedies. It’s all the more touching and humbling to know and feel in a deep way the power of love that we have for our escuelita to not solely provide quality, culturally rich, asset-based curriculum and pedagogy, but  to also be a loving force for good in the world.

 

May  all have a wonderful Summer  break!

Sinceramente,

Dra. Angela Valenzuela, Convener

Nuestro Grupo / Academia Cuauhtli

academiacuauhtli.com

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