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Friday, April 26, 2019

BUILDING UP MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES WITH LILLIANA SALDAÑA & VANESSA SANDOVAL

Friends,

Happy Friday!  I'm happy to share this interview of Dr. Lilliana Saldaña and Vanessa Sandoval from a podcast named "Visions of Education."  Scroll down to the bottom to get classroom resources.  I loved hearing the excitement in their voices as they told both the story and their story.


I have said previously elsewhere that we do not yet have the historiography of when what we know today as the field of "Mexican American Studies (MAS)" got started.  The historical record, I predict, will show that albeit under other names, MAS has probably existed as long as we have lived as a people in Texas after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848).  And it has existed as a way  to combat and  cope with systemic forms of oppression to which Dr. Saldaña and Vanessa give voice.

I just read this just-published April 26, 2019 article that appears in the Journal of Latinos and Education titled, “No Había Bilingual Education:” Stories of Negotiation, Educación, y Sacrificios from South Texas Escuelitas by ,, & Cinthia S. Salinas from the Universityof Texas at Austin.

I am on David's and Randy's doctoral dissertation committees and David defends his doctoral dissertation soon.  Dr. Salinas is a colleague of mine in the College of Education at UT.  

Great work, everybody!  We are making progress!  I will quote my good friend Tony Baez who expresses with wisdom, "The best curriculum is written in times of struggle."

Pa 'lante!  Onward! Sí se puede!  Yes we can!

Angela Valenzuela


In Episode 113, Michael and Dan talk with Dr. Lilliana Saldaña and Vanessa Sandoval about their (and the larger efforts) to create a Mexican American Studies course approved by the Texas State Board of Education.
https://visionsofed.com/2019/04/25/episode-113-building-up-mexicanamerican-studies-with-lilliana-saldana-and-vanessa-sandoval/


Books, Articles and Other Amazing Resources
    1. More on the ‘Reject the Text’ movement The Scholarly Reviews are in on that ‘Deeply Offensive’ Mex-Am Studies Text from The Texas Observer
    2. Interested in learning more about about attending professional development this summer? Check out MAS Social Studies Teachers’ Academy!
    3. Some mentioned resources from the episode
      1. http://education.utsa.edu/mas/social_studies_teachers_academy/
      2.  https://mastxeducation.com/
    4. Here are flyers and images from the MAS Teachers’ Academy and the movement that Dr. Saldaña and Vanessa shared with us!
    5. Stolen Education film.  Dan talked about Stolen Education which documents the untold story of Mexican-American school children who challenged discrimination in Texas schools in the 1950’s and changed the face of education in the Southwest.

Biographies
Vanessa Sandoval is a UTSA undergraduate and a first generation student with a concentration in Education and Human Development. Her research interest focuses on cross- disciplinary and interdisciplinary understandings of K-12 schooling experiences for Mexican American students, especially as these relate to curriculum.
Lilliana Patricia Saldaña is a Chicana activist scholar raised in San Antonio’s Southside. Saldaña attended Boston University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English and International Relations, with a concentration in Latin American Studies and a minor in Journalism in 1998. Shortly after completing her studies, Saldaña worked at a dual-language school in San Antonio’s Westside and earned a master’s degree in Bicultural-Bilingual Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2002. During her undergraduate and graduate studies, she was involved in numerous campus-activist projects and worked in community settings, synthesizing her passion for research and social change. As a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Saldaña worked with Latina/o families to establish Nuestro Mundo, the first dual-language school in the city, and Formando Lazos, community development project with Latina immigrant mothers. She earned a doctoral degree in Human Development and Family Studies, with a minor in Chicana/o families, schools, and communities, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2010. Her dissertation—“¡De mi barrio no me voy!: The identity and consciousness of Mexican American teachers at a dual-language school—examines the life histories of Raza teachers and the ways in which they transform, negotiate and reproduce the culture of schooling in San Antonio, Texas.

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