A student of mine in my Race
& Ethnic Relations class this evening shared this scene from the
movie, "Selena." I must have seen this last when the movie
first came out 20 years ago in 1997, starring Jennifer López.
After
viewing it, I said, "This short segment is what totally made this movie
for me."
It
conveys the difficulties of being Mexican and American, marginal in two worlds.
Movies
and stories like this that express our truths are liberating, to say the
least.
This one
segment should find its way into every Ethnic Studies classroom in the nation.
We should
also demand for bilingual education as a new default in public education—less
because our languages are a resource
and more because they are our right—a
right that aligns to our original claim to the lands where we currently
live—and from which our ancestors never departed—as Mexican Americans in the
U.S.
Peace/Paz,
Angela
Valenzuela
c/s
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