“I Will Not Submit”: A Powerful Day at the Historic Texas People’s Hearing, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., August 13, 2026

“I Will Not Submit”: A Powerful Day at the Historic Texas People’s Hearing

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

August 13, 2026

Yesterday’s historic Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus People’s Hearing in Austin on “Threats to Diversity and Academic Freedom” was powerful—intellectually, emotionally, and politically. It was also a reminder of what becomes possible when elected officials, students, faculty, advocates, allies, and community members come together to insist that public institutions remain accountable to the people they serve.

My special thanks go to Texas State Representative Lulu Flores for convening the hearing and for placing yesterday’s gathering within a much longer history of Mexican American political struggle in Texas. I especially appreciated her acknowledgment of the late State Representative Irma Rangel, the first Mexican American woman elected to the Texas House of Representatives, as well as the presence yesterday of former State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos.

That recognition mattered. Rangel and Barrientos represent a generation of Mexican American legislators who understood the importance of listening directly to communities and translating public testimony into policy. Their work reminds us of an earlier era when People’s Hearings and other forms of public engagement helped legislators confront inequities in higher education and imagine remedies. Barrientos helped initiate the legislative response to the elimination of affirmative action in Texas higher education, and Rangel ultimately authored House Bill 588, which became the Texas Top Ten Percent Law.

That history gives yesterday’s hearing even greater significance. People’s Hearings are not merely symbolic exercises. They create a public record, bring harms into public view that institutions might otherwise treat as merely administrative, and generate ideas capable of changing public policy.

I am also deeply grateful for the tireless work of the Latino Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, whose members have worked for months to bring attention to what is happening at UT Austin and to help make yesterday’s hearing possible. Dr. Emilio Zamora deserves special recognition for conceiving the idea of holding a People’s Hearing in the first place and for playing a central role in transforming that idea into reality. 

Drawing on the long tradition of People’s Hearings as vehicles for public testimony, democratic accountability, and policy change, he recognized the need to create a public forum where students, faculty, advocates, and community members could place their concerns directly before elected officials. He was also deeply involved in the organizing work required to bring the hearing together. 

I am also very grateful to Alicia Perez Hodge, Dr. Maria Unda, Neto Longoria, and the rest of this remarkable crew, whose sustained work, relationships, and persistence were indispensable. Organizing an event like this requires countless conversations, meetings, phone calls, invitations, drafts, negotiations, and acts of persistence that the public rarely sees. Yesterday’s powerful gathering was possible because people had an idea, organized around it, and refused to give up.

I left equally grateful to everyone who participated: the legislators who listened, the students who spoke with eloquence and courage, the faculty who brought scholarship and experience to the conversation, the community leaders who reminded us of the historical stakes, and the advocates who have been doing this work for years. People spoke with intellect, heart, urgency, and an unmistakable commitment to the future of public higher education in Texas.

And the timing could hardly have been more striking.

Today, the Austin American-Statesman Editorial Board published an opinion piece titled, “Texans Deserve Answers About UT’s New Center for Humanities,” arguing that a public university entrusted with taxpayer dollars has an obligation to explain major institutional decisions, particularly during a period of sweeping change.

That call for public accountability echoes one of the clearest messages emerging from yesterday’s hearing:

What is happening at UT Austin cannot simply be explained away as administrative reorganization.

The consolidation of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and American Studies into a new institutional structure involves fields representing decades of scholarship, institution-building, mentorship, intellectual struggle, and community investment. What happens to them matters not only to the university. It matters to the people of Texas whose histories, experiences, cultural contributions, and struggles for democracy these fields have helped document, interpret, and preserve.

We are, quite literally, in the fight of our lives for the heart and soul of Texas higher education.

I post a short, pre-hearing video and then a link to the hearing, compliments of Texas State Representative Lulu Flores. 

There was a palpable sense in the room that something consequential is happening—and that silence at this moment would itself constitute a choice, and a poor one at that.

One message came through repeatedly:

There is still time for repair.

But that window will not remain open indefinitely.

Once departments lose their institutional standing, faculty lines disappear, graduate programs weaken, students go elsewhere, intellectual communities disperse, and decades of accumulated institutional knowledge are lost, restoration becomes extraordinarily difficult. What may look reversible on an organizational chart can become practically irreversible in the life of a university.

That is why this moment requires more than documentation.

It requires intervention.

And perhaps no moment captured that spirit more powerfully than longtime Chicana activist, intellectual, and movement leader Martha Cotera’s clarion call:

“I WILL NOT SUBMIT!”

Her words rang through the halls.

They were more than an expression of defiance. They summoned a much longer history of communities that fought their way into universities, demanded the right to study their own histories, created Mexican American Studies and Ethnic Studies, challenged exclusion, and insisted that public institutions become more genuinely democratic.

That history was present in the room yesterday—from the acknowledgment of the late Irma Rangel, to the presence of Gonzalo Barrientos, to Martha Cotera’s declaration, to the students now inheriting struggles they did not create but are being called upon to confront.

We inherit these struggles, but we also inherit their possibilities.

The question before us is whether we will allow institutions built through decades of sacrifice to be quietly diminished—or whether we will insist that Texas higher education remain capacious enough to tell the full story of Texas, accountable enough to answer to the public, and courageous enough to sustain the scholarship a democratic society requires.

Yesterday, the answer from the People’s Hearing was unmistakable.

We will not submit.

We will organize.
We will testify.
We will document.
We will teach.
We will remember.

And, most importantly, we will continue demanding repair while repair is still possible.

The Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus is holding hearings throughout the state and recording these important public proceedings. Rep. Lulu Flores’s recording of yesterday’s hearing is available here, helping ensure that the testimony, concerns, and calls for action expressed in Austin become part of the public record.

Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture featuring Dr. Emilio Zamora on Art, Memory, and Movement: A Conversation We Cannot Miss

Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture featuring Dr. Emilio Zamora on Art, Memory, and Movement: A Conversation We Cannot Miss

“The young Chicano and Chicana artists who emerged in Austin during the 1970s were part of an unprecedented national flowering of creative expressions, galvanizing meanings, and rousing identities meant to serve their communities.” 

— Emilio Zamora

There are moments in our history when art does more than reflect the world—it helps make it. In Austin during the 1970s, Chicana and Chicano artists did exactly that. Through murals, prints, performances, and collective organizing, they gave visual and cultural form to a movement grounded in dignity, resistance, and community.

This Thursday, we have a special opportunity to revisit—and learn from—that powerful moment.

The Center for Mexican American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin invites us to a lecture by Professor Emeritus Emilio Zamora, titled, "The Emergence of the Chicano Art Movement in Austin, Texas." 

Drawing from history and the artists’ own voices, Dr. Zamora will walk us through the early days of this movement—when creative expression became a vehicle for confronting marginalization, imagining new futures, and asserting cultural and political presence.

This talk is part of the Américo Paredes Distinguished Lecture Series, which honors Américo Paredes—a towering figure in Mexican American Studies, a musician, scholar, and the founding director of CMAS in 1970. His leadership came at a pivotal time, when student activists demanded a university that recognized their histories, their communities, and their ways of knowing. This lecture continues that legacy.

There is something especially meaningful about gathering in this moment—when questions of representation, voice, and belonging remain as urgent as ever. The Chicano Art Movement was never only about aesthetics; it was about claiming space, telling truth, and building community through culture.

Join us:

📍 Texas Union, Santa Rita Room (UNB 3.502)
🗓 Thursday, April 16, 2026
🕓 4:00–6:00 PM
🎟 Open to all

I hope you can be there. I hear you need to get there early to get a good seat.😊

Textbooks, Truth, and Justice: Lessons from the Reject the (Racist) Text Campaign Before the Texas SBOE, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Textbooks, Truth, and Justice: Lessons from the Reject the (Racist) Text Campaign Before the Texas SBOE

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

In this November 15, 2016 testimony before the Texas State Board of Education, I speak out against the adoption of a proposed textbook that contained distorted and racist portrayals of Mexican Americans. Textbooks shape how young people understand their history, identity, and place in society. When they disparage or erase our stories, they cause real harm.

The textbook, which would have been used to miseducate our Texas youth—perhaps especially Mexican Americans—was ultimately defeated. So far, the best published recounting of this story is by Dr. Emilio Zamora, as captured in this April 12, 2017 blog titled, "The Mexican Fight for Ethnic Studies in Texas: The Biography of a Cause."

In his reflections, Dr. Zamora, recipient of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Scholar Award in 2017, recounts how the NACCS Tejas Foco K–12 Committee led a statewide campaign to expose the book’s hundreds of factual errors and racist depictions. The campaign—known as “Reject the Text”—united thousands of scholars, students, educators, parents, and community organizations, including MALDEF, LULAC, school boards, and legislators. Their collective effort persuaded the State Board to vote unanimously (15–0) against adoption.

I share this video because it is vital for the public to see how these decisions are made—and to hear the voices of those who resist attempts to marginalize and misrepresent our communities. My testimony is part of a larger, ongoing struggle for truthful, inclusive, and dignified education in Texas and across the nation.

This victory was more than the rejection of a single book. It affirmed the strength of collective action, the responsibility of scholars to remain rooted in their communities, and the power of organizing for educational justice. It reminds us that even in difficult times, we can prevail.

We must always remember that democracy is also always about authorship and our right to it—both as individuals and communities. 

References

Valenzuela, A. (2016, April 8). "Reject the Text" Testimony Delivered before the Texas State Board of Education, Austin, Texas

Zamora, E. (2017, April 12) "The Mexican Fight for Ethnic Studies in Texas: The Biography of a Cause." https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-mexican-fight-for-ethnic-studies-in_12.html

"The Need for Ethnic Studies Policy in Texas," by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. and Emilio Zamora, Ph.D. May 21, 2025

The Need for Ethnic Studies Policy in Texas

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. and Emilio Zamora, Ph.D. 

May 21, 2025

In the midst of the so-called culture wars, we must ask: Is Ethnic Studies House Bill 178, authored by Representative Christina Morales, a radical departure from the conventional interpretation of history? Or is it, more accurately, a democratizing call—a "We the People" project aimed at healing and rebuilding a fragmented nation?

We argue it is the latter. If this were truly a radical departure, it might resemble calls for secession—an idea still whispered in some corners of the Texas Anglo community. It might also involve rejecting assimilation or the English language, despite the fact that, throughout our civil rights history, Black and Brown communities—alongside our allies—have never taken such a stance. Instead, we have consistently fought to expand the American narrative, not abandon it.

Despite being filed for three consecutive sessions by Rep. Morales and passing out of the House Committee on Public Education, the Ethnic Studies bill—HB 178—failed to reach the House floor this session. It is, for now, “dead.”

From the moment it was filed, HB 178 faced an uphill battle in today’s hostile political climate. At its core, the resistance to this bill appears rooted in a deeper discomfort: the challenge it poses to a dominant narrative that seeks to silence, erase, or distort the histories and lived realities of marginalized communities.

In an era marked by book bans, curriculum censorship, and the systematic dismantling of DEI efforts, defending Ethnic Studies is more than a policy stance—it’s an act of resistance against forces that falsely equate truth-telling with division.

So many people who advocate for Ethnic Studies are themselves either teachers or students who want to promote critical thinking and affirm the value of diverse cultural perspectives, even when doing so invites backlash.

Morales’ House Bill 178 is reasonable, forward-looking policy. It does not make Ethnic Studies a requirement for high school graduation. Rather, it establishes a pathway to a high school diploma that for a given student, can include the taking of Ethnic Studies courses like Mexican American Studies, Native American Studies, African American Studies, and Asian American Studies.

As Mexican American Studies scholars, we find it striking that high school enrollment in Mexican American Studies courses has grown from just 40 students in Houston in 2015 to an impressive 11,941 students statewide in 2024. This is an extraordinary growth rate, indicative of massive and sustained interest, organizing, and curriculum development in Mexican American Studies across Texas.

University of Texas San Antonio professor and researcher Dr. Lilliana Saldaña attributes this meteoric rise not only to student interest but also to the steady growth in teacher preparation. In 2015, only four educators joined the Mexican American Studies Academy that she and her colleagues established to train teachers in the field. In contrast, over the past two years alone, the academy has welcomed more than 80 teachers annually—a testament to the growing demand for Ethnic Studies and the infrastructure needed to sustain it.

Failing to pass sound Ethnic Studies policy disrupts the natural progression of integrating decades of historical scholarship into our classrooms. House Bill 178 seeks to address the longstanding logjam that has prevented the inclusion of vital historical findings, particularly those produced since the 1970s. Put simply, our current curriculum lags significantly behind the breadth of knowledge that scholars have already brought to light. It’s time to break through that impasse and ensure our educational standards reflect the richness and complexity of our shared history.

Studies consistently demonstrate that well-structured Ethnic Studies programs enhance students’ academic success. A review by Christine Sleeter, conducted for the National Education Association, underscores that Ethnic Studies courses boost student engagement, encourage critical thinking, and elevate graduation rates.

Further research from the NEA confirms that students enrolled in Ethnic Studies cultivate a greater sense of self-efficacy and achieve higher academic performance. These outcomes highlight the transformative power of acquiring windows into both one another's experiences and one's own.

Advocates for Ethnic Studies are not just fighting for curriculum—they’re defending the right of students to see themselves reflected in the classroom and to engage honestly with the complex realities of the as yet unfinished great American story.

***

The authors, Angela Valenzuela and Emilio Zamora, are married and are longtime advocates for Ethnic Studies in Texas and are formally affiliated with the Mexican American Studies program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Testimony Before the 1836 Project Advisory Committee, Laredo, Texas by Emilio Zamora, Ph.D. May 2, 2025

Emilio Zamora, Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin,
delivered invited testimony before the 1836 Project Advisory Committee on May 2, 2025, at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas. Established by the Texas Legislature in 2021, the Committee was charged with advising the governor on teaching patriotism and values in Texas history.

Dr. Zamora used the occasion to foreground the importance of Mexican American history by highlighting the lives and contributions of two key historical figures. His remarks underscored the urgent need for a fair and inclusive account of Texas history—one that acknowledges the foundational role of Mexicans and other historically marginalized communities in both the past and present civic life of the state.

Other presenters included Dr. Cynthia Orozco, Professor Emeritus at Eastern New Mexico University–Ruidoso, and Dr. Jerry Thompson, Professor of History at Texas A&M International University–Laredo.

It was a privilege to hear their testimonies—each grounded in deep scholarship and a commitment to historical truth. Together, they issued more than a critique; they offered a call to conscience. At a time when historical narratives are being narrowed and politicized, their words reminded us that telling the full story of Texas is not only an academic duty but a moral imperative.

—Angela Valenzuela

Testimony Before the 1836 Project Advisory Committee,

Laredo, Texas

Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.

May 2, 2025

On May 2, 2025, I had the opportunity to interrogate "old histories" with the historical narratives of marginalized communities in Texas, particularly those of Mexican origin. The occasion was a public hearing in Laredo, hosted by the Texas 1836 Project Advisory Committee. Established in 2022 by the 87th Texas Legislature. The Committee's mandate is to advise the Governor on promoting “patriotic education” and increasing awareness of "the Texas values that continue to stimulate boundless prosperity across this state.”

The Committee, chaired by Dr. Don Frazier, Director of The Texas Center at Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, heard from other invited scholars, including Jerry Thompson, Cynthia Orozco, and Roseann Backa Garza. The reception was positive, and we engaged in friendly and productive conversations following each presentation.

To establish my authority and underscore the importance of incorporating neglected or overlooked histories, I referenced my credentials as a professional historian and highlighted two historical figures: Sara Estela Ramirez (1881-1910) and José de la Luz Saenz (1888-1953), advocating for their inclusion in the conventional narrative. Furthermore, I urged the Committee to recommend that the Governor approach Texas history as an inclusive narrative, encompassing both its commendable and contentious aspects that he might envision.

As a scholar of nearly fifty years, I have had the privilege of contributing to the development of Texas and Mexican American history through my academic and public engagement work. I currently hold the position of Professor and Clyde Rabb Littlefield Chair in Texas History at the University of Texas at Austin. My contributions have been acknowledged by professional and community organizations in Texas and Mexican American history. Along the way, I have served in various academic departments and professional organizations, including the Texas State Historical Association (President, 2019-20).
The following two textbook publications should be of special interest to the committee: Zamora and Walter Buenger, Texas History (New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc., 2015); and Zamora and Andrés Tijerina, Eds., Mexican Americans of Texas, A History of Tradition and Struggle, Coauthors, Zamora, Tijerina, Amy Porter, Sonia Hernández, and Guadalupe San Miguel (New York: Kendall Hunt Publishers, 2024).

My work as a professional historian is deeply grounded in the rigorous training and ethical standards that define the discipline. As professional historians, we adhere to a strict commitment to evidence-based inquiry, ensuring that our interpretations are fair, accurate, and grounded in the careful study of primary sources. We engage with our work within a robust intellectual infrastructure, where it undergoes peer review and is disseminated through a wide array of scholarly and public venues. This process fosters a shared responsibility to our profession, colleagues, students, and society, ensuring that our findings contribute meaningfully to the broader and complex understanding of historical change.

One of the key aspects of studying history is the critical examination of historical events within their own contexts. This is particularly important when exploring patriotism and values in Texas history, themes that the 1836 Project Advisory Committee is particularly interested in discussing today.

In my work, I define values as the ethical guideposts used by individuals to navigate decisions and understand the world, while patriotism are expressions of profound affection for one’s country, its people, and its foundational ideals. To understand these themes, we must study and interpret them within the historical circumstances that shaped them, rather than imposing present-day or retrospective assessments onto the past.

I illustrate this approach by revisiting two historical figures from Texas: Sara Estela Ramírez (1881-1910), a teacher, journalist, feminist, and member of a Mexican exiled group called the “intellectual precursors of the Mexican Revolution,” and José de la Luz Sáenz (1888-1953), a teacher, World War I veteran, and a principal co-founder of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the leading civil rights organization in Mexican American history. Both figures provide insightful examples of how Mexicans navigated the complex issues of values and patriotism.

Sara Estela Ramírez & José de la Luz Sáenz

In The World of the Mexican Workers in Texas, I examine Ramírez's advocacy for the cultural values of mutuality, reciprocity, and altruism popular in Texas civic life during the early 1900s. At a time when modern infrastructure was sparse, communities across Texas Mexicans in Texas formed mutual aid societies, or benevolent organizations, that provided essential services, such as widow funds, unemployment insurance, and language training to their largely working-class members.

These self-help organizations were vital in offering support and fostering collective solidarity in families, communities, and other social groupings throughout the state. Other Black, Anglo, and immigrant communities also experiencing general distress associated with labor exploitation, poverty, disdain, and discrimination established benevolent organizations, including masonic orders, religious confraternities, immigrant societies, and unions. I identify four key features of these organizations:

1. They broadcast foundational collectivist values in their communities.

2. They sponsored mutualist activities like constructing churches and schools, and sponsoring community events.

3. They adhered to strict codes of moral conduct that created upstanding, and self-respecting leaders in their communities.

4. Their embrace of philosophical justifications offered by public intellectuals from Laredo like Ramírez mirrored similar observations by other working-class leaders like Thomas Hickey and E. O. Meitzen from Central Texas and the Reverend G. G. Hamilton in the northern part of the state.

Ramírez's 1909 keynote speech at the 20th anniversary of La Sociedad de Obreros, Igualdad y Progreso, one of the largest and popular binational organization from Laredo, offers a compelling example of the philosophical justifications behind the multi-ethnic self-help movement and the cultural values that sustained it. 

She framed the Golden Rule as a secular ethical framework for understanding mutuality, reciprocity, and altruism, arguing that nature (or God, if you prefer) compels us to recognize the equal worth in others and to commune with them for the sake of the whole. Free will, however, often diverts us from fulfilling our earthly and eternal purpose in life. Compassion and caring unity, however, will prevail in the end, when we realize that our inherently divine purpose always require adherence to the moral laws of nature which elevate the human condition, place us on the path to both moral and social progress (especially in time of need), and ennoble us as caring and compassionate human beings.
The moralistic values of these early organizations have been integral to the development of our society—as Mexicans, as Texans, and as a nation. 

Over time, they have converged with the almost purely rationalist principles embedded in the nation’s founding documents and manifest in the structure of modern institutional life. This convergence helps explain why union organizers have long proclaimed that “in unity there is strength,” why national leaders continue to call us to engage the ongoing project of perfecting the republic, and why religious leaders consistently advocate for a shared moral purpose grounded in the recognition that everyone has equal worth (under the law or in the eyes of God, whichever you prefer) and that we have the ethical obligation to pursue this idea. 

Mutuality, reciprocity, and altruism, which first emerged as moral guides within self-help organizations, the most popular form of organization in Texas during the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have since permeated contemporary society—manifesting to varying degrees as genuine, even philanthropic, expressions of vital collective action.

I have also examined theme of patriotism in the life of José de la Luz Sáenz from Realitos and the author of a World War I diary entitled The Mexican Americans in the Great War (San Antonio: Artes Gráficas, 1933), the only war diary published by a Mexican veteran and possibly the only one of its kind published by a Texan. His wartime reflections provide a nuanced perspective on what we might now, from the comfort of our secure homes, celebrate as an exalted sense of duty and responsibility to the nation. Society, after all, often accords veterans the status of patriots because they have given so much to the nation, including their lives as sacrifices on the battlefields.

Sáenz, however, reveals that the soldiers who served with him in the 20th Texas-Oklahoma Division rarely self-identified as patriots. They most often perceived themselves as victims of circumstances beyond their control and lamented their service as an everyday experience in the horrors of war. They seldom spoke of patriotism as a motivating force or engaged in self-adulation, despite the exhortations of many of their officers and politicians back home during and especially after the war. Instead, they conveyed a sense of disillusionment and resignation.

Sáenz clearly suggests that labeling servicemen as patriots without truly understanding their military service and how they wished to be remembered constitutes a disregard for their sacrifice and a misuse of the concept of patriotism.

Our discourse on patriotism, therefore, should encompass the full narrative, including the responsibility of a supposedly grateful nation to its idealized veterans. This is particularly pertinent for the Mexican doughboys in Sáenz’s diary, who served honorably in the 90th Texas-Oklahoma Division but saw no appreciable change in their lives as Mexicans at the homefront in Texas.

They enlisted in impressive numbers, contributed to the preservation of democracy in Europe, and shed their blood on the battlefields of France. Sáenz notes that many of the soldiers, including himself, had hoped that the experience of “foxhole democracy” and their demonstration of fidelity would improve their marginalized condition in Texas. They were profoundly disappointed. Despite their significant wartime contributions and LULAC’s emphasis on their sacrifices, which promoted an amplified form of patriotism in their twentieth-century social justice campaigns, society often failed to recognize them as patriots or accord them the respect they deserved.

As with Ramírez, Sáenz represents a distinct historical trajectory and intellectual perspective that coexisted alongside competing viewpoints; thus, neither figure should be seen as representing the entirety of Mexican American history. For example, some Mexican Americans—much like individuals in other ethnic and social groups—adopted more individualistic approaches to civic life or radical departures from the conventional approach to domestic politics. 

In contrast to Sáenz’s appeals for Americanization and the articulation of a collective ethnic identity, others responded to national calls for unity with skepticism, questioning the sincerity of American institutions and, in some cases, evading the military draft.

As suggested earlier, the textbooks that colleagues and I have published offer the committee and the governor an inclusive treatment of the past that they may want to use in their deliberations. The latter one, Mexican Americans of Texas: A History of Tradition and Struggle, is especially important. 

This pioneering work is the first textbook on Mexican American history published for our schools in accordance with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), our state’s standard curriculum for our public schools. It spans from the Indigenous past to the present and includes a comprehensive learning system featuring timelines, periodization schemes, definitions, concepts, and classroom activities.

Organized around key themes, the book highlights the integral role of Mexican Americans in shaping both Texas and American history, reinforcing the idea that Mexican Americans are inextricably linked to broader narratives. Their contributions to the history and culture of the United States and Texas are undeniable and must be shared widely if we are to call ourselves a Democratic society.

"Anti-DEI Law Implementation Has Been a Disaster," by Emilio Zamora & Angela Valenzuela, Texas Observer, Feb. 13, 2024

Many thanks to the Texas Observer for publishing this piece appearing today that captures the sad state of affairs with respect to the carrying out of anti-DEI policy at UT Austin. Please share widely.

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Zamora, E. & Valenzuela, A. (2023, Feb. 13). "Anti-DEI Law Implementation Has Been a Disaster," Texas Observer. https://www.texasobserver.org/anti-dei-law-implementation-has-been-a-disaster/

Anti-DEI Law Implementation Has Been a Disaster

Kowtowing to the legislature, UT Austin disbanded all its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs wholesale—with little input from students or faculty.

February 13, 2024 | Texas Observer

In Texas, we know that incoming hurricanes require preparations to reduce damage. But the state’s colleges and universities were ill-prepared for the superstorm of Senate Bill 17 (SB 17). Passed during the recent, regular session of the 88th Texas State Legislature, SB 17 ostensibly prohibits the privileging of individuals based on race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, thereby defunding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in higher education.

Officials from the University of Texas at Austin, a leading university with Texas-size influence, have been recklessly inconsistent in implementing SB 17 in anticipation of a legislative audit. Administrators have also been indifferent to the vigorous response by students and their supporters to the highly consequential decision to defund initiatives designed to meet their needs.

Beginning on January 1, 2024, the University of Texas directed the Multicultural Engagement Center to shut its doors and discontinue the critical support that it provides for student-centered programs. Instead of a transparent and deliberative approach to redesigning and redefining student service programs to retain much of what has been built over the years, university officials’ interpretation of SB 17 has been an astonishing one of demolition. 

To wit, the university bulldozed the many programs that the Multicultural Engagement Center housed, including: the New Black Student Weekend, Adelante, CultivAsian, Bloq Party, Four Directions, the Leadership Institutes, Afrikan American Affairs, the Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective, Latino Leadership Council, Native American and Indigenous Collective, Queer Trans Black Indigenous People of Color and Allies, Students for Equity and Diversity, and signature graduation ceremonies like Black Graduation, Latinx Graduation, GraduAsian, Lavender Graduation, the Monarch Center.

Almost everyone who followed the legislative process understood that the passage of SB 17 would lead to the elimination of DEI offices and initiatives in all higher education institutions statewide. We further assumed that this would result in a plan to safeguard units like the Monarch Center, which serves undocumented youth of all races, ethnicities, and genders—SB 17 criteria that might have reasonably, if not lawfully, disqualified it from this sweep.

This blunt instrument of policy reflects fears of antidiversity legislators who are not only protecting their incumbencies but also doing so as part of a well-funded national assault on DEI programs throughout the country—a hostile, gale force campaign rooted in the fear of a browning America.

The core premise of DEI detractors is that DEI programs violate the principles of fairness and meritocracy when they accord “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.” This despite an utter lack of evidence surrounding their claims. They also failed to offer credible, first-hand information on the long-standing operations of the numerous DEI programs in Texas that have been beneficial to students. Though conservatives have lacked good reason, sound evidence, and the sensibility of just change, they nevertheless wield excessive decision-making power in the Texas Legislature.

Higher education institutions inherited the responsibility of informing the Legislature, the governor’s office, and the public about how they would implement SB 17. Based on the wholesale dismantling of the Multicultural Engagement Center, it is highly likely that UT officials indeed had a preapproved plan. This raises important policy and procedural questions.

First, University of Texas executives began dismantling DEI programs without either a transparent or democratic process that would have ideally included consulting with important stakeholders, including students, faculty, and staff. They also failed to respond to requests from Texas senators and members of the university community for copies of the implementation plan that they were preparing. Further, they conspicuously failed to offer exceptions to programs like the Monarch Student Scholarship Program that serve students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. The executives also self-servingly overlooked the fact that the spirit of SB 17 does not exempt whites from preferential and privileged status in senior management and faculty positions. 

Finally, this flagrant disregard for sound judgment and a culture of fairness and equity that we all strive to maintain at the university may be violating federal law and guidelines that guarantee equal rights under the law. We may differ on how to define, measure, or enforce equity principles or antidiversity ideas, but we must, in all instances, proceed in an open, deliberative, and democratic manner. To not do so is to incite unnecessary political acrimony and strife.

EMILIO ZAMORA is a professor in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin.

Angela Valenzuela is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

A Personal Reflection on The 1619 Project and a Word of Thanks to my Husband, Dr. Emilio Zamora

Friends:

I’m reading The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Nicole Hannah-Jones, that I highly recommend. My husband, Dr. Emilio Zamora, a recent past president of the Texas State Historical Association, and I had an amazing conversation this morning about this book and the history of slavery and the Civil War.

Emilio says that it’s a conventional history on the topic, despite what literally outlawing it, as Texas has done, to suggest otherwise. The difference is the context in which it appears. “There are critical texts going back for decades,” he said, rattling off a few. My main statement in response is that it’s also so very well written. “It’s honest,” he responded.

 
He went on to discuss the different interpretations of the reasons for the Civil War and the ideological camps into which scholars themselves fall in his characteristic manner of great detail. You're such a treasure, Emilio.

This morning's conversation reminded me of just how terrible and backward it is for states like Texas and Florida to not just ban, but also distort and misrepresent texts like these. I asked him if he thought that the negative press might have a boomerang effect and draw readers to it.

He hesitated, saying that he wasn't sure. "Most people don't read history," he said. This was not what I wanted to hear. I like to think that the bad press is drawing a new generation of readers to texts like these. After all, it's the "forbidden fruit." I trust that it will sometime soon join the literary canon as a must-read not unlike Howard Zinn's, A People's History of the United States.

This morning reminded me of why I married a historian. What an honor and privilege to read this and so many other texts that we can share and chew on at any time he or I wish.

As mentioned in my earlier post, Emilio has a forthcoming anthology that he is co-editing with the inimitable historian, Dr. Andrés Tijerina. It's titled, The History of Mexican Americans in Texas and will be available this year to 10th graders in Texas public schools. My heart is full.

It’s awesome and profound to think that we are both the fulfillment of each other’s dreams for this life we’ve lived.

Thank you, Emilio. Please forgive me for the many times that I have taken you for granted. I can't imagine my life without you. You, our children, son-in-law, grandchildren, and extended family make my life whole. It's all so humbling. Gracias!

Love you! Por vida! 💗

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Hannah-Jones, N. (2021). The 1619 Project: A New American Origin Story. Random House.

Tijerina, A. & Zamora, E. (in press). The History of Mexican Americans in Texas: A History of Tradition and Struggle. Kendall Hunt Publishers.

Zinn, H. (1980). A People's History of the United States. Harper & Row.

Photo credit: Juanita Tijerina Dec. 19, 2023, San Antonio, Texas

Dr. Andrés Tijerina Nominated "2023 Texan of the Year" because 10th Graders in Texas can now learn the history of Mexican Americans

Friends:

So happy to acknowledge that my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Andrés Tijerina was nominated for the Dallas News "Texan of the Year 2023" award. I like the story that the newspaper editors wrote about him below. While he did not ultimately prevail, it is such an incredible honor nonetheless to get ranked among of list of luminaries like "Yellowstone" creator Taylor Sheridan, Pulitzer prize-winning author, Lawrence Wright, the storied former Texas Prairie View A&M President Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, and others—all of whom lost out to the Atty. General Ken Paxton whistleblowers.

It's wonderful that this piece nevertheless mentions Dr. Tijerina's, as well as my husband's, Dr. Emilio Zamora, co-edited anthology for 10th graders titled,“The History of Mexican Americans in Texas: A History of Tradition and Struggle." The other authors that contributed to this anthology are Texas A&M University College Station Associate Professor of History Sonia Hernández; Texas A & M -San Antonio History Professor Amy Porter; and University of Houston History Professor Guadalupe San Miguel. Early critical reviews are already suggesting that this is going to be a blockbuster! Super exciting!

This is not just a personal, but also a community, achievement as it is very much integral to the advances of the Texas Mexican American and Ethnic Studies Movement before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) about which I have blogged significantly. 

Specifically, in 2018, our struggle resulted in policy that allows for elective courses in the areas of both Mexican American Studies and African American Studies to be taught in Texas public schools. The text is in its last stages and is due to come out in 2024. 

I very much believe that, among other factors like changing demographics and the Black Lives Matter movement, so much of the backlash in Texas politics that we are witnessing today (against CRT, DEI, book bans, etc.) is an artifact of our success. After all, this is exactly what played out years earlier in Arizona when Mexican American Studies was banned in the Tucson Unified School District which actually motivated us back in 2013 to be strategic and take action before the SBOE. We KNEW back then that the backlash was headed our way. It all connects.

I know first-hand how this has been a slow and patient process. Hats off to both Andrés and Emilio for going the distance. So proud of you both.

Andrés, you're still our Texan of the Year! Felicidades! Congratulations! It was fun breaking the news of your nomination to you.

Despite all the politics, it's still a bit stunning that this is the first book of its kind to find a home in Texas public schools. It will be of course available for folks everywhere once completed. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Tijerina, A. & Zamora, E. (in press). The History of Mexican Americans in Texas: A History of Tradition and Struggle. Kendall Hunt Publishers.

10th graders in Texas can now learn the history of Mexican Americans
Andrés Tijerina is a finalist for 2023 Texan of the Year.


Andrés Tijerina, a Texas historian, is the co-author of a textbook on the History of Mexican Americans. Tijerina also won the Tejano Book Prize in 2023.

By Dallas Morning News Editorial

2:00 AM on Dec 25, 2023'

Andrés Tijerina still remembers a Texas where Latino kids were not allowed in swimming pools, barber shops or theaters. When he was a child in West Texas, attending school and learning English meant defiance.

He was a cotton picker who managed to earn a doctoral degree in history in the ‘70s at the University of Texas in Austin. Even then, he was not allowed to write a dissertation on Mexican American history. He wrote it anyway, labeling it “American history.”

This defiance has allowed Tijerina, 79, to be a historian with a never-ending curiosity, but with the added value that he has lived through this Texas history himself. His new book for 10th graders, “The History of Mexican Americans in Texas,” co-authored with Emilio Zamora, is expected to publish soon.

“You have a state that is absolutely based on the Mexican culture. And there has never been a history of that Mexican culture in Texas. This is the first book ever. And what’s more significant is that it is a textbook for all 10th graders in all school districts,” Tijerina told us.

After enduring discrimination during his youth, his college years were transformative. The first time he was seen as an equal was at Texas A&M University, he told us. He became a military cadet and later joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War.

Tijerina retired from Austin Community College in 2018, but his inquisitiveness about Texas and the Mexican American culture has not receded. In 2022, he published Beasley’s Vaqueros: The Memoirs, Art, and Poems of Ricardo M. Beasley, after 15 years of compiling illustrations by Beasley, a vaquero who drew some of the few known images of actual vaqueros, or Mexican cowboys. For this book, he was awarded the Tejano Book Prize in 2023.

“I’ve seen all the movies and paintings of the Anglo-American cowboys [like] John Wayne. I never saw anything of a Latino, who were the original vaqueros.”

Not only is he still writing history books, but Tijerina is also busy as an expert witness in some lawsuits. Whenever there is a case of discrimination against Latinos, in voting rights or education, he sometimes is tapped to write a report. He is compiling some of this information for an eventual book as well.

The Texas he was born in has changed a lot. Tijerina still recalls how Jim Crow was hard on Latinos and how many got lynched without due process. “Today you can actually get arrested for killing a Latino,” he said.

Another thing that has changed since his West Texas days is how Mexican culture is now omnipresent, and he points to the recent World Series as an example. “They’re singing the song about baseball, buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. But they’re all eating tacos and nachos and salsa. … Well, that’s a big change.”

For continuing to explain our history for the next generations, Andrés Tijerina is a finalist for Texan of the Year.

We are announcing our Texan of the Year finalists in a countdown to naming the 2023 honoree on Sunday, Dec. 31. You can follow all of the finalists as they are published at dallasnews.com/opinion/texanoftheyear.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com

BBDP Teach In, featuring NAACP President Gary Bledsoe, Esq., Emilio Zamora, Ph.D., and Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Moderator

Colleagues:

I am happy to share with you this

full video of an April 4, 2023, presentation, featuring NAACP President Gary Bledsoe, Esq. and Emilio Zamora, Ph.D., and myself as moderator.

This Black Brown Dialogues on Policy (BBDP) Teach In took place with UT Austin Policy Analysis masters' and Ph.D. students sharing opinions on the 88th (2023) Texas Legislative Session, addressing Texas politics, history, electoral power, political strategy, and Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bills that are currently at play in the Texas State Legislature.

Besides moderating, my specific contribution is to suggest how the role of Gen Z youth in the current moment might could get amplified.

Thanks a million to BBDP member and documentarian, Lana Husband, for recording this important conversation.

Enjoy!

-Angela Valenzuela

#GenZ #Diversity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdGvgHus8tA&t=1616s

"Ramsey, History and Corpitos," by Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.

Friends:

Happy to share Dr. Emilio Zamora's eulogy to Ramsey at his funeral service that just happened in Corpus Christi, Texas, Ramsey's birthplace. Dr. Zamora teaches in the History Department at the University of Texas at Austin. 

So moving, all of this, Emilio. Just beautiful. May Ramsey rest in peace. Que en paz descanse.

-Angela Valenzuela

Ramsey, History and Corpitos

by

Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.

October 16, 2022

On Saturday, October 15, I travelled to Corpus Christi to offer a eulogy to the recently departed Ramiro “Ramsey” Muñiz’ and to pay my respects to his family during the beautiful rosary they offered for his salvation and in his memory. I wish to share the part of my comments pertaining to his hometown, the place that has given our social movement a disproportionate number of major leaders in Texas and perhaps in the nation. Ramsey was no doubt one of these significant leaders coming out of Corpus. 

Before moving to my remarks on Corpus, I consoled Ramsey’s family and assured them that he is in God’s magnificent Kingdom, with his parents—Rudy G. Muñiz and Hilda Longoria. I offered my prayers so “that the family will find peace and comfort knowing that they you gave the world so much in the person of Ramsey. All of us wish you the everlasting joy of living with the memory of a historic giant manifest as kindness, generosity, a champion for social justice, and loving and dedicated family member.”

In case some of my “facebook friends” may not know, Ramsey was a candidate for governor in 1972 and 1974 under the banner of the Raza Unida Party. Ramsey electrified the party with his enthusiasm and untiring campaign to the point that we should give him much of the credit for the party’s success in democratizing the electoral system in Texas. The progressive Raza Unida Party was instrumental in forcing a conservative flight out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party. The result was the start of a two-party state system in Texas, in name and deed, beginning in 1978.

The Party and Ramsey did much more. They encouraged the greater participation of Texans—including Mexican Americans—in the political process as voters, candidates, elected officials and members of the Democratic Party. For instance, Mexican representation in the Texas Legislature, as well as in school boards, city councils and county commissioners courts, increased significantly beginning in the 1970s and 1980s partly because of the Party’s effective challenge and Ramsey’s important role in it. 

Also, the establishment of the Raza Unida Party, the fielding of candidates and the soliciting of votes gave a significant number of young Party activists the necessary training and confidence to prompt and participate in the momentous changes of the 1970s and 1980s. I should add that the Party and its candidates advocated for some of the most progressive ideas at the time, including opposition to the War in Vietnam, support for women’s and workers’ rights, and bilingual-bicultural education, and an end to racial and gender discrimination.

Political repression, internal divisions and a distaste for a progressive party led by Mexicans explain the demise of the Raza Unida Party. Ramsey’s brilliant career as a star athlete in high school and college, and an attorney and major political leader, on the other hand, was cut short, by drug charges and his incarceration for 26 years. Ramsey always claimed that he was a political prisoner, framed for his leadership in the Raza Unida Party. My hope is that history will fully set him free.

I spoke as one of Ramsey’s friends, and as was one of the foot soldiers in the Raza Unida Party, including my service as Party Chair in Travis County in 1977-78—and for a short while—a candidate for State Representative in 1974, and, more recently, a point person in the campaign to gain his release from the dungeon, as he used to say.

Now I turn to Corpus Christi, the place that has given us so many giants in our history. Ramsey, as noted earlier, is only the latest extraordinary historical figure that the South Texas town nurtured and sent out to lead us to a better, more prosperous world that we deserve as a people.

Corpus Christi, you graced us with a Ben Garza, the first National President of LULAC, one of the most honest leaders in our social movement. Mr. Garza was an office of the Sons of America in the 1920s, modest goliath and a successful business person who nevertheless questioned whether he was the best educated person to lead our first and longest running civil rights organization in the country. Alonso Perales, another LULAC co-founder from nearby Alice, and second national president of the organization, convinced him that no one else had the necessary character and honesty to lead the organization in 1929.  

Corpus Christi, you also contributed a Montemayor family whose extraordinary son, Apoloneo “Paul,” led the historic effort to found the famous steelworkers’ union in 1953, local 5022, and used the union platform to advance our social movement through a local chapter of the Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations and the famous Cisneros case, the 1970 legal fight that chipped away against the evils of racial discrimination and segregation against our youth in the schools.

Corpus Christi also gave us the Bonilla family, whose men and women have filled major leadership positions in LULAC for decades. Not even the extraordinary Idar (Nicasio, Clemente, Eduardo, Jovita) family from Laredo comes close to matching the continuous and unswerving service to our community. I knew Mr. Ruben Bonilla best, and can attest to the fact that he represented Corpus Christi as well as any self-sacrificing leader who made a significant difference in our social justice movement beginning in the 1960s.

The García family, especially Dr. Hector and Dr. Clotilde, has also give us much with their leadership in the American G.I. Forum and her work in genealogical research. They were unselfish, bold and confident in recognizing that our purpose on earth is to recognize and act on the equal worth that God bestows in all of us. God bless the García family, we thank Corpus Christi for blessing us with your just and righteous leadership.

In the present moment, you have gifted us the Muñiz family and their wonderful, sacrificing son Ramsey, yet another historic contribution to the development of our people.

I don’t have an explanation for the outsized role that Corpus Christi has played in our history. Maybe God proclaimed you his pueblo amado—similar to the Reverend, Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community—when you honored his own sacrificed son by naming your town after him.

Perhaps you have been sufficiently hidden in the proverbial fork in the road, apart from the major thoroughfares that have moved the masses on a North-South axis. This may have helped you avoid much of the racial violence and  lethal racial discrimination of the twentieth century that have stunted and blocked the development of our community in other parts of our state.  This good fortune may have also helped you escape much of the unsettling hardship associated with migrant work by receiving hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers instead of also taking to the road yourselves in search of opportunities. The constant, hurricane-charged Gulf may have also nurtured in you a special place of comfort and beauty, offering respite from the stifling and otherwise toxic air of oppression against our people. 

It could be that your other favored sons and daughters captured and reinforced that special gift of an edifying and life-giving spirit that found expression in vigorous and dedicated service.

Domingo Peña, for instance, used the air waves to inculcate the thought that we should not always take ourselves so seriously. On the other hand, the crowds that love Johnny Canales, the other popular entertainer, recognize and reinforce the symmetry and balance in life, as in “You got it Johnny.” The popular Galván music store directed your attention to the beautiful comforting sounds in life and the communion of the bailes grandes that made you “just Mexican enough.”

Perhaps Selena Quintanilla-Pérez inspired you to be the outsized town with her self-adoring play and boundless joyful, the kind of performance of confidence and beauty that you recognized in her.

I cannot explain why Corpus Christi has given us such special leaders, singular perspective and inspiring outlooks in life. But you have done it. Other places have given us their share, including Jose Tomas Canales, Adela Sloss Vento, Sara Estela Ramirez, Emma Tenayuca, Jovita Idar, Clemente Idar, José de la Luz Sáenz, Alonso Perales, María Hernández, Henry B. Gonzalez, Gustavo García (San Antonio), Carlos Cadena, James de Anda, Antonio Orendain, Gustavo García (Austin),  Willie Velazquez, María Jimenez, Mario Compean, Martha Cotera, Luz Bazán, José Angel Gutiérrez, to name a few. They may have different outlooks and may have even opposed each other, but they have all been giants.

As important as other places may be in giving birth to amazing leaders, no town or city has matched the disproportionate contributions of Corpus Christi. Austin regularly convenes much of our talent, but the roots of activism lie in local areas like Corpus. Bigger cities should be expected to offer us more, but they don’t next to the relatively smaller Corpus Christi.

Thank you Corpus, for the Garza, Montemayor, García, Bonilla and Muñiz families and for everyone else—the persons behind the pulpit, the entrepreneurs, the artists, the teachers, the parents—who no doubt helped you give us so much, including the leaders, the model of sacrifice, and the well springs of hope and inspiration that we need.