Five Years Later: Ethnic Studies as Renewal in an Age of Structured Forgetting, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Five Years Later: Ethnic Studies as Renewal in an Age of Structured Forgetting*

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

December 29, 2025

Five years ago, I stood at Teachers College, Columbia University, as the Edmond W. Gordon Lecturer, invited to speak on “Liberating Ways of Knowing: The Struggle for Ethnic Studies and the Educators We Need.” Time has passed,but the message has not aged. If anything, it has sharpened—because what was already a struggle over curriculum has become, unmistakably, a struggle over free speech, academic freedom, and democracy itself.

I began that day with land, because land is truth we too often treat as optional. We are never not on Native land. To acknowledge that is not to check a box; it is to practice another relationship to knowledge—one that insists history lives beneath us, not behind us. I've always said that "if there isn't dirt under your fingernails, you're not grassroots enough."

From there, I shared floricanto—meaning flower and song—because education, at its best, is not merely transmission. It is renewal. It is the restoration of spirit, connection, and belonging. We named the feelings the song “Agua de Estrellas” evoked—peace, tenderness, longing, hope—and I remember thinking: these are not “extras.” These are educational indicators and outcomes of a just and worthy education.

What I offered then was not simply an argument for Ethnic Studies as a course. It was an invitation to recognize Ethnic Studies as a different orientation—a framework that refuses the isolated, objectifying logic at the heart of so much assimilationist schooling. 

The Cartesian “I” that stands alone, producing knowledge as if the world were merely an object to be measured, ranked, and managed, is precisely the mindset that makes it possible to treat communities as problems, children as data points, and histories as inconveniences. Ethnic Studies pushes back—not only by adding content, but by challenging the deeper rules: whose knowledge counts, whose humanity is centered, and what education is ultimately for. 

Ethnic Studies pushes back against the Cartesian ego by insisting that learning is not an individual accomplishment detached from context, but a collective practice shaped by memory, power, and care. It recenters the body, spirit, and lived experience as legitimate sources of insight. It affirms that students do not arrive in classrooms as empty vessels, but as carriers of language, culture, ancestral knowledge, and moral imagination. And it asks educators to see themselves not as neutral technicians, but as ethical actors whose work either reproduces or resists injustice.

In this sense, Ethnic Studies is not simply about representation. It is about reorientation. It refuses the idea that schooling should prepare students only to compete, comply, or perform for systems that were never designed with them in mind. Instead, it calls for an education that prepares young people to belong, to think critically, to care deeply, and to act responsibly in a pluralistic democracy.

This is why Ethnic Studies cannot be reduced to a unit, a month, or a box to be checked. Its power lies in its ability to unsettle the assumptions that structure schooling itself—to interrupt the logics of ranking, sorting, and disposability that have long governed public education. And it is precisely this unsettling force that makes Ethnic Studies both transformative and threatening in our current moment.

At a time when Ethnic Studies and DEI initiatives are under sustained political attack—framed as divisive, ideological, or dangerous—the deeper truth is this: what is being resisted is not “identity,” but relational ways of doing, knowing, and being in the world. What is being feared is not history, but the possibility that students might learn to see themselves as fully human, fully entitled to voice, and fully capable of naming the structures that shape their lives.

This is why I shared the work of Academia Cuauhtli (meaning "Eagle Academy" in Nahuatl)—our Saturday academy grounded in bilingual learning, co-constructed curriculum, and community partnership. 

One lesson from that work has stayed with me because it continues to prove true: if you anchor an initiative only in the university, you risk losing it to faculty mobility and institutional drift; if you anchor it only in the district, you risk losing it to organizational restructuring and political turnover. Anchored in the community—the holders of memory, consequence, and continuity—the work sustains.

When I look back now, what feels most enduring from that lecture is not any single policy detail, but a posture: the insistence that education must be a site of relationship rather than extraction; of truth rather than avoidance; of renewal rather than punishment. Five years ago, the urgency was clear. Today, the consequences of ignoring it are unavoidable.

Ethnic Studies pushes back against the Cartesian ego—and against the isolation, erasure, and moral indifference it produces—by offering something far more demanding and far more hopeful: an education rooted in connection and the shared work of becoming fully human together.

Like I always say, "Some day, Ethnic Studies will simply be called 'a good education.'"

Reference

*I draw from Trouillot (1995) who first expressed this concept of "structured forgetting."

Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Beacon Press.

UT explores merging 'fragmented' departments, raising fears over ethnic studies’ future | “What Happens Here Happens to Us”

The sense of alarm among many right now is profound. What appears to be a routine “consolidation” of departments within UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts is, in truth, anything but routine. Words like “flexibility” or appeals to “political neutrality” mask a deeper politics—not only of erasure, but of disciplining how we think, teach, and speak from the authenticity of our own experience and standpoint.

I’m reminded of a conversation years ago with my dear friend and former UT professor, Doug Foley. In the middle of a lively exchange, he looked at me with that characteristic glint in his eye and belted out with his voice, “You’re not supposed to have a standpoint!”

For a moment I was taken aback—“Them’s fightin’ words,” my face must have said. Then he burst out laughing. “What do you expect? You’re a Chicana!” He made me smile.

But his point stays with me. Our universities are under siege. Instead of embracing deliberation and democratic dialogue, they are succumbing to control—decisions made in private rooms, cloaked in bureaucratic language. Words like “consolidate” can easily mask what is, in practice, the erosion of intellectual autonomy and the quiet dismantling of programs that took generations to build—programs born from community struggle and sustained by public trust. It’s disheartening how similar this language sounds to the rationale now being used for the next wave of school closures in the Austin Independent School District.

Departments such as African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Asian Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies are not bureaucratic redundancies—they are living archives of research, creativity, and truth-telling. They produce cutting-edge scholarship that grapples with some of society’s hardest questions. These programs exist because communities demanded greater balance in perspectives forged through struggle and love.

Their existence testifies to the courage of generations of students, faculty, and community members who refused to let their histories, languages, and epistemologies be erased. I am a product of Mexican American Studies—and I am proud of it. I am a teacher, researcher, friend, and colleague shaped by a tradition of care, rigor, and purpose. We prepare exceptional scholars and public servants who engage the needs of our communities with professionalism, insight, and hope. We do this work well—and it matters.

After all, many of us are from here and live here. We’ve been here since before there ever was a Texas or a United States. Contrary to what some might think, we have nowhere “to go back to.” Our histories, our children, our grandchildren, and our dreams are interwoven with this place. What happens here happens to us.

There’s nothing “woke” about this—there’s only truth: the truth of who we are, where we come from, and our enduring commitment to the future of this place we call home.

Students and faculty are right to demand clarity, transparency, and above all, honesty. We deserve to know what problem this reorganization is meant to solve—and at what cost. When programs that have long served the heart of our communities are merged, diminished, or dissolved, we are not strengthening the university—we are surrendering its soul. And for what? And for whom?

This is not consolidation; it is capitulation.

— Angela Valenzuela

UT explores merging 'fragmented' departments, raising fears over ethnic studies’ future

As rumors circulate that UT’s ethnic studies programs may be at risk of consolidation, the school’s College of Liberal Arts told faculty a committee is reviewing “overly fragmented” departments.

From left, Mia, Daniel Schoeggl and Elijah Rivera, from Students for a Democratic Society, lead the crowd in chants at a protest at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday, October. 13, 2025. About 150 people gathered to protest Trump's compact, which was sent to UT and eight other schools. If signed, UT will get exclusive benefits but also pledge to follow trump's guidance. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

By Lily Kepner, Staff Writer, Austin American-Statesman, Oct 30, 2025

As rumors circulate that the University of Texas’ ethnic studies programs may be at risk of consolidation, the school’s College of Liberal Arts told faculty a new committee is exploring administrative changes to some of the school’s departments that “may have become overly fragmented.
In an Oct. 23 email sent to department chairs, an associate dean wrote that the advisory committee is considering changes to the “administrative departmental structure of the college,” not individual academic programs or centers. However, the consolidation changes may result in some programs losing autonomy, the administrator conceded in the email obtained by the Statesman.

“There are, of course, tradeoffs to be considered, including potentially some loss of autonomy for small units,” wrote Daniel Brinks, the associate dean for academic and faculty affairs. “But the ultimate goal is to strengthen the college and its individual components.”

The task force’s work is to propose ways to reorganize some departments into new larger units that will “provide greater opportunities for collaboration and have more flexibility to accommodate change,” Brinks added.

The email did not name which departments are poised for consolidation, but the committee includes representatives from Asian Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Classics, American Studies, American Sign Language, Spanish and Portuguese and is chaired by Brinks.

The announcement comes as Texas public universities face tremendous political pressure to rid institutions of “gender ideology” and target LGBTQ and ethnic studies. Texas A&M recently fired children’s literature professor Melissa McCoul when a student accused her of teaching about gender identity in a viral video that caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott.

RELATED: Texas A&M professor loses job after talking on gender identity in children’s lit

Third-year PhD student Lena Mose-Vargas, who is pursuing a doctorate in Mexican American and Latino/a Studies, is one of many students who emailed the College of Liberal Arts to oppose the feared consolidation and ask if their program will be impacted. Mose-Vargas, who spoke to the Statesman on behalf of themself, said they received no information in response. They chose to study at UT because of the program’s rigor and fear the rumored changes will compromise their program’s excellence.

“Students are asking questions and they’re not receiving answers,” Mose-Vargas said. “We anticipate, in this political climate and with the particular attacks on WGS (Women and Gender Studies) and ethnic studies, that this is likely going to be what we’re looking at.”

‘A full education’

In a recent speech, President Jim Davis said that UT will restore balance and “completeness” to students’ education amid concerns that departments have become too “splintered and specialized” at the expense of including all viewpoints.

“We don’t want degree programs that are so narrow they develop only one perspective,” Davis said. “Instead we must provide a balanced education — a full education — for every degree program.”

Students have protested the new College of Liberal Arts committee in demonstrations across campus, calling for the institution to resist external political pressures. UT has been silent on whether it will accept an offer from the administration of President Donald Trumpthat would require the institution to close or change programs that “belittle” conservative voices.

TRUMP'S DEAL: UT Austin refuses to say if it will make a deal with Trump to get more funding

Like students who oppose combining ethnic studies departments, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Chair Mary Neuburger joined other department faculty in writing a letter to Interim Dean David Sosa to critique the concept of consolidation. The faculty members said consolidation would threaten their department’s ability to teach the cultural complexities of regions.

“People are upset about this for good reason,” Neuburger said. “Because we’re not understanding what is going to be gained, and we are definitely seeing what is going to be lost.”

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies opened in 1917, Neuburger said. Though her department is a segment of global area studies, she fears its size could make it eligible for consolidation. But its size is also an advantage, she said.

The department provides a key opportunity for specialization that can distinguish graduates from other job candidates and allows for in-depth learning. A broadening of her department would prohibit students from deeply understanding important parts of Slavic history, impacting the work and grants its research center brings in, she said.

But Neuburger fears “it’s inevitable,” she said. “It’s going to dilute our ability to do what we want to do. It’s going to dilute our community, and it’s going to take away from our leadership, all the work on our curriculum but also extracurricular programming that’s really important to students.”

The university and the College of Liberal Arts declined to comment.

‘Fighting for a voice’

The College of Liberal Arts houses 20 departments, 18 centers, 9 institutes and 14 programs. The structure of ethnic studies programs is similar to peer colleges, such as the University of Michigan. The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies reaches students in a wide variety of majors through cross-listed courses and core classes, Neuburger said.

Ethnic studies units, including Mexican American Studies and African American Studies, have existed for more than fifty years, and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies opened in 1979. Several rose out of student advocacy, expanding over the years to produce more research, programming and academic options, including doctoral programs.

“These programs come from a very long history of students in marginalized communities fighting for a voice,” Mose-Vargas said. “Getting rid of ethnics studies or (Women's and Gender Studies) at UT is not just some meaningless maneuver, it would directly be removing a part of UT’s history from itself, a part that is indispensable to ethnic studies as a whole.”

Last year, Texas A&M University cut its LGBTQ minor along with 51 other minors and certificates because of “low enrollment” after facing pressure from the extremely vocal Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, who called it a “victory.” Texas A&M faculty said they were not given an opportunity to raise enrollment before the cuts.

A department reorganization isn’t the only change UT could face. The UT System is auditing courses concerning gender identity to ensure compliance with system priorities and the law, and the university is conducting its own audit of courses. UT launched a new core curriculum task force to “thoroughly review” general education.

Senate Bill 37, the higher education reform bill passed last session, also charges regents with reviewing programs to ensure schools meet standards for enrollment and return on investment.

Brinks said in his email that the college will consult faculty, staff and students once a proposal is formed. Neuburger said she hopes the College of Liberal Arts listens to faculty and is transparent about goals.

“For an R-1 institution like ours, this is just the model that has worked, that exists nationally for a reason,” Neuburger said, referencing UT's research status. “If they would tell us what exact number is the problem, or what exact problem they’re trying to solve, we could sit down with them and be creative and think through how to solve whatever problems they’re seeing, but they have not.”


Editor's note: This report was updated to reflect that the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies is not classified as an ethnic studies program, but as a global areas study program.


Lily Kepner

HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER

Lily Kepner started at the American-Statesman in October 2023. She has appeared on BBC, NPR and Texas Standard to talk about her coverage, which has spanned the impact of state laws and politics on the University of Texas, pro-Palestinian protests, free speech, the anti-DEI ban, LGBTQ student belonging and more. Kepner graduated with honors from Boston University's College of Communication in 2023, where she received the college's highest awards for writing and journalism leadership and led the award-winning student newspaper as Editor-in-Chief. In her time with the American-Statesman, she contributed to reporting that won an Edward R Murrow Award for breaking news, won the School Bell Award for Outstanding Feature from Texas State Teachers Association, and Critics Choice for Best of Austin in the Austin Chronicle. Previously, she has been published in USA Today, The Boston Globe, The National Catholic Reporter and GBH. Kepner is passionate about accountability and service journalism and encourages anyone to reach out to her to tell their story or share a tip.

CALL FOR SUBMISSION PROPOSALS: “Pedagogies for Creative Justice: Artivism, Digital Media, and Film Making”

 

Ethnic Studies Pedagogies, Volume 1, Issue 2 (Fall 2023) 

 

CALL FOR SUBMISSION PROPOSALS 

 

“Pedagogies for Creative Justice: Artivism, Digital Media, and Film Making” 

 

Lead Editor: Lani Cupchoy, lcupcho@calstatela.edu 

 

Open Call for Submissions: August 29, 2022 

Proposals due: December 15, 2022 

Submissions due: June 10, 2023 

Publication date: September 2023 

 

 

ISSUE THEME 

 

This issue will highlight innovative action-based research, voices, knowledge, and experiences connected to artivism, digital media, podcasts and filmmaking. We seek pieces that align with an ethnic studies ethos of community-based practices and culturally relevant pedagogy, especially works that challenge patriarchal colonial and capitalist frameworks. This issue aims to demonstrate the nuances of how different knowledges are processed and creatively taught in schools including non-traditional spaces such as multimedia installations, community events, photography, dance, gardens, etc. Submissions may include classroom practices, lesson plan samples and deep reflections on pedagogies.  

 

 

SUBMISSION PROCESS 

 

Please submit a 500-word proposal of your submission by December 15, 2022, detailing contributing authors, methodologies, and how it connects to the issue theme and broader journal vision. All manuscripts should contribute to a living archive of ethnic studies pedagogies in all its forms, written from and for anti-racist, decolonial, and rehumanizing movements both inside and outside K-12 contexts. 

 

We invite submissions from scholar-activists, educators, organizers, and students in the form of scholarly research, teacher narratives, archival histories, testimonios, photo essays, art, etc. 

 

Proposals will undergo an initial review. If accepted, Lead Editors will contact you for further questions about the project. Our review process is collaborative and pedagogical in nature. Accepted proposals that lead to a full manuscript will be due June 10, 2023. 

 

Please consult the Submissions guidelines in our journal website for more detailed information: http://secure-web.cisco.com/1iLVDt4g7RQkrH_Vxm7ufGfrjyHhcE9pDDkBH0an2pLTw5fodwdsUlt2hYVcC-E-cL7QYMqgmxbjIJcL2f6Ic2O2HDAkL4BHiuuQyXz6eMr14EA_bffEfewxNHhqv8Q3DH7_mhrYbCW6QFr29vO8iIrRZpFcq-fZHQ0E5mkCoM3EHT-vFfypyBXvn-8Px9n-sh3ANazC-lbjI36vONq8s7nYSfZxy62dyqeTWNX3RqDRI9pYHQh_xKDm9yjXAiQs1hvjI8lkHDPKhYSCoR2lUar9htqD4Sney5K8SQvbS2VwLT8hhEpry541SBTILVIBSs4RGzJkrEpGtWEi75jQNzJbLEBvDUr18t9oV4Q5shK2jbuzNRDWF3wJMdmMMKuykUHzWbmRdx1_KuDMBSblOLHvefNDruP1232kQLfujwuoFxhXmTvPJU9pik8HzdB7KtIj5zEtzfgBT75ZtXPDbcGVX7yfhOSqm7emle52Iw-QPM0aI1Y7JPP7rShueyD4_hGbnCHSn1rf3C_s3QJMm8D-hasUA3hyN5dD0BK0d8GCtXr6xfVrIeKqHFKVrA_fz9gX4hP3WKuzH-G22xBgx7g/http%3A%2F%2Fethnicstudiespedagogies.org%2FSUBMISSIONS%2F 

 

SUBMISSION LINK 

 

https://forms.gle/eTUCc6jXKsGSGEuu9 

Beautiful 2012 piece by Dr. Rudy Acuña. His powerful words on the purpose of Chicana and Chicano (or Mexican American) Studies still resonate. Liberation is simply not achievable without a vigorous life of the mind that a critical education provides. Expressed differently, literacy gets corrupted when it's about testing companies making tests, young people hopefully scoring highly on them, and even internalizing the results as saying something meaningful about them.

Once we relax these assumptions about students' test scores, we must ask not only why they have such a grip on both students' and educators' lives, but also what they say about students' education? 

Dr. Acuña provides some key insights that link pedagogy to the practice of freedom.

-Angela Valenzuela

Rodolfo F. Acuña: The purpose of Chicano Studies was “to liberate students through literacy”

By Rodolfo F. Acuña

June 13, 2012

LatinaLista

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
-Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I always start a meeting with the farm worker handclap in a tribute to University of Arizona Professor Mark Stegeman, the former president of the Tucson Unified School District, who as a pretext for eliminating the TUSD’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) Program, said that he went after MAS because after listening to Mexican Americans use the clap, he knew that Mexican American Studies was a cult. Stegeman’s statement proves my mother’s saying that “Para pendejo no se estudia. Se nace.”

I joined the struggle to Save Ethnic Studies in Arizona because the stupidity of xenophobes and their intent to destroy all the educational reforms that Mexican Americans have struggled for.

In this context I pay tribute to Paulo Freire who has become a legend so much so that we know the legend, but have contesting views of Freire. Our understanding of Freire and his relevance differ due to the fact that several generations separate us and time has a way of distorting reality. In other words, we do not have a common epistemological base, although we are all concerned with education.

Not everyone wants to be educated, however. The forces who benefit from the status quo want this generation to conform to their interests. Consequently, they see Freire as a subservice and worse, according to them, un-American. This is at the crux of the inquisition in Tucson.

When I first read Freire, it was in the context of another time. He was not a legend yet but one among other progressive educators.

The Sixties were a time when we wanted to transform society and create the underpinnings of a democratic and just society. Educators such as Freire were the antithesis of today’s “No Child Left Behind” which reduces learning to indoctrination with subject matter drilled into students.

Education today is reduced to “Roses are red and violets are blue” with no other answer acceptable.

As a junior high school teacher, my education included the great John Dewey who wrote, “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” The purpose of teaching was to educate – to motivate, to engage students to learn – and if they did not, it was your fault not theirs.

Dewey gave literacy a meaning beyond reading the bible. Dating back to the days of Plato and the birth of the notion of democracy literacy has been associated with citizenship.

An American myth is that what makes this nation exceptional is its commitment to public education. The reality is that while Massachusetts Bay Colony had schools, eligibility was limited to race – blacks and Indians could not attend them. As the nation developed, former colonies became states. Compulsory education became more common.

Yet this changed with the growth of cities and the growing number of immigrants; by the second half of the 19th century, education was neither compulsory nor available to the children of immigrants. Reformers fought for compulsory education for the newcomers and the various states passed compulsory education laws — California in 1874 and Texas in 1915. However, the laws were not enforced, especially in the case of migrant children.

As the number of Mexicans grew, organizations such as the Alianza Hispano-Americana and the League of United Latino American Citizens pressed for educational reform. After World War II, educators such as George I. Sánchez demanded better education for Mexican American children and advocated for pedagogies such as bilingual education.

In 1960, the median education of Mexicans in Texas was the third grade and in California the eighth. However, teachers knew that this was an illusion and that large numbers of Mexican Americans were functionally illiterate. They knew that the schools were not teaching Mexicans rather warehousing them.

Reformers were also motivated by Vatican II which began in 1962; it gave birth to Liberation Theology. The poor had the right to enjoy the bounties of the earth – salvation was communal.

This environment produced giants such as Ivan Illich who in 1960 established a center in Cuernavaca, Mexico — CIDOC (Centro Intercultural de Documentación). It was a watering hole for educators and intellectuals throughout the Americas. His books Deschooling Society and Tools of Conviviality were anchors.

Many educators, myself included, looked at a lasting transformation emanating from education. Literacy was not the possession of communism or any other ideology, although note was taken of Mao’s literacy campaign in China.

Educators knew that literacy had broken the isolation of Helen Keller, a blind child with a limited vocabulary. Words freed Keller and words made her a world intellectual.

It did not take much to look around the schoolyard and recognize students mired in poverty and hopelessness. Many would go to jail because of a lack of literacy. I remember teaching literature from Classic Comic Books and occasionally motivating students to read.

I remembered my mother who had been legally blind since the age of four reading the Encyclopedia Britannica peering through the largest magnifying glass I had ever seen. Although she could not help me, she wanted me to read.

In this context I read The Invisible Minority (NEA) in 1966. An essay by a 13 year-old Mexican girl caught my senses:

Me
To begin with, I am a Mexican. That sentence has a scent of bitterness as it is written. I feel if it weren’t for my nationality I would accomplish more. My being a Mexican has brought about my lack of initiative. No matter what I attempt to do, my dark skin always makes me feel that I will fail. Another thing that “gripes” me is that I am such a coward. I absolutely will not fight for something even if I know I’m right. I do not have the vocabulary that it would take to express myself strongly enough…

How could someone who looked at herself in this way learn?

I looked for inspiration to the work of humanist psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. His writings gave me goose pimples:

I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

When students created an opening in 1968 and 1969, I became part of the first wave of hires. The mission was to set up a Chicano Studies Department.

My epistemological underpinnings differed from most activists — I did not consider the disciplines to be at the core of Chicano Studies. For me, its purpose was to liberate students through literacy. Its purpose was pedagogical.

This discipline-pedagogy dialogue consumed the next forty-two years. No one seemed to be listening until one day I was invited to speak at the 12th Annual Institute for Transformative Education sponsored by the TUSD Mexican American Studies Department.

I had written about the Arizona-Sonoran Border and published Corridors of Migration (Arizona 2008).

In the early 2000s I accompanied Armando Navarro and others to the border to protest the growing violence against Mexican immigrants. But participating in this conference and witnessing their resurrection of Freire reminded me of an encounter I had had in the 1980s when I got a call to go up to La Paz, the United Farm Workers headquarters.

I was not thrilled at the prospect of spending time there, I was not into rabbit’s food. However, I greatly admired César Chávez.

Much to my surprise when I go there I was introduced to Paulo Freire; César and he were to have a special encuentro. César arrived late and immediately launched into dialectic on how he was in the middle of union business and as a poor man could only control his time so it was a duty to use that time for the union.

I had feared that César was going to get blown away. However, after he finished, Freire got up emotionally and pointed to him and said only one word “praxis.”

My emotions so overwhelmed me at Tucson that I too could only think of the word “praxis” when I met Sean and the MAS teachers. These people were teachers.

So when the “rose are red” people tried to eliminate them I had no other choice but to enlist.

In this struggle I have often recalled the words of Fanon,

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.
— Frantz Fanon (Black Skin, White Masks)

I understand this but as a teacher I also understand that everyone has the right to be “Me” and feel proud of themselves. Roses can be blue and violets red.

Dr. Rodolfo Francisco Acuña, called the “father of Chicano Studies,” is a historian, professor emeritus, activist and the author of 20 titles, 32 academic articles and chapters in books, 155 book reviews and 188 opinion pieces. Currently, he teaches Chicano Studies at California State University, Northridge.

This is a really good report by John Fensterwald in EdSource. Research evidence points strongly to the positive impact of Ethnic Studies curricula over the long term with respect to key outcomes about which we should care—when taught, of course, by well-prepared teachers. 

Although it most certainly is a movement unto itself, support for Ethnic Studies is evidence-based and shouldn't at all get caught up under today's "culture war" frame that opposes the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Why, when Ethnic studies is the antidote to to student alienation from school contexts that are often sterile, unfriendly, or even hostile to children of color? Why, when, as Stanford researcher Thomas Dee states, such classrooms create "spaces where they [students] feel a sense of belongingness and engagement?" The short answer is that with changing demographics, many leaders in power do not want to empower these youth with either the precious knowledge or uplift that ethnic studies classrooms provide.

Regardless of the intention behind those shrill voices making the case against Critical Race Theory—which is but one methodological orientation—among many utilized by our Ethnic Studies teachers, the benefits that accrue to ALL, including white, children merit mention. 

These courses simply make school more interesting because they speak to students' lived experiences while opening the creative door to personal or individual expression—and freedom of expression is everybody's inalienable right in a democracy.

Someday, I trust, what we know today as "Ethnic Studies" will simply be called "a good and virtuous education."

-Angela Valenzuela

Research finds ethnic studies in San Francisco had enduring impact

Ninth grade course engaged and motivated students who hadn't shown prior success in school 

by John Fensterwald | September 7, 2021 | EdSource.org

Research released Monday found that the benefits for San Francisco Unified students who took an ethnic studies course in ninth grade lasted throughout high school, resulting in higher attendance, higher graduation rates and increased enrollment in college, compared with similarly matched students who didn’t take the course.

The update of an often-cited 2017 study provides the first quantitative evidence of the longer-run academic impact of ethnic studies. Not only did the strikingly large benefits from the course not fade after ninth grade, but the course produced “compelling and causally credible evidence” of the power to “change learning trajectories” of the students targeted for the study — those with below-average grades in eighth grade, said Thomas Dee, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-author of the research.

Those historically underserved students “experience school environments as unwelcoming, or even hostile,” Dee said. The course appeared to succeed in changing their expectations at an important time, when students are deciding if they belong in high school. San Francisco Unified succeeded by engaging students “critically in an honest discussion of U.S. history and creating classroom spaces where they feel a sense of belongingness and engagement,” Dee said.

The peer-reviewed study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dee’s co-authors are Emily Penner, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Sade Bonilla, a former Stanford Graduate School of Education doctoral student who is now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Its publication coincides with a final vote later this week in the California Legislature on a bill that would require all students to take a semester course in ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement, starting with the class of 2030. High schools would have to start offering ethnic studies by 2025-26. Assembly Bill 101, authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, is expected to pass easily. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have a month to decide whether to sign it.

Dee and the co-researchers caution, however, not to generalize the results of a study of 1,405 ninth-graders, only 13% of whom — about 180 students — took the ethnic studies course. The study was designed to measure the effect on at-risk students by comparing the results of students with grades of C or slightly below in eighth grade, who were assigned ethnic studies by default, to students with average grades of C or slightly above.

Whether the positive impact would apply to all students, especially those already thriving academically, is “an important, open question,” Dee said. Another caveat, the study noted, is that in San Francisco Unified, the ethnic studies course, developed over several years, was taught by well-trained teachers.

“It’s exciting because it’s a proof point about what this type of pedagogy can do for students, but the fact that it was a smaller-scale pilot should create some agnosticism about our capacity to replicate and scale this up,” Dee said.

The initial study, which measured the course’s impact on students in ninth grade, produced surprisingly positive results. Attendance of the students who took the course improved 21%; grade point average grew 1.4 out of 4 points, and credits earned improved 23 credits, out of 60 possible credits.

The impact continued throughout high school with impressive effects. The ethnic studies students’ graduation rates were 16 to 19 percentage points greater than similar students who didn’t take the course. Ethnic studies takers neared the district’s 220 credit requirement for graduation; the non-takers had 20 fewer credits. By between 10 and 16 percentage points, more ethnic studies takers enrolled in college within a year or two of graduation.

The demographics of students in the study and San Francisco Unified significantly differ from that of the state and the nation; 60% were Asian, 23% Latino, 6% Black and 5% white. Asian and Latino students showed significant gains in graduation; the numbers of white and Black students in the study were too small for reliable comparisons, the study said.

San Francisco Unified was one of the first districts to develop an ethnic studies curriculum; the study covered students who took the course between 2011-12 and 2013-14.

The state’s model ethnic studies curriculum, approved in March after two years, with multiple drafts and heated debates over what it should include, is optional; districts can pick and choose elements they like — or choose none of them. Assembly Bill 101 would not prescribe the content, although a district must offer a course that the University of California approved as meeting A-G admission criteria.

In a letter to the State Board of Education in January, three dozen professors from across the nation argued there was insufficient evidence to support assertions in the proposed model curriculum that research had found extensive benefits from ethnic studies. The evidence was overstated or unfounded, it said, and should be removed from the document.

Most of the 10-page letter was directed at the writing of Christine Sleeter, an author and emerita professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a strong advocate of ethnic studies. But in a section about the San Francisco Unified study, the writers criticized Dee and Penner for not including low-performing students who declined to take the ethnic studies course in their comparison. They also said the authors had glided over data showing that taking ethnic studies did not lead to improvement of students with a higher or lower GPA than the students at the center of the study.

San Francisco course’s anti-racism focus

The study summarized the themes of San Francisco’s course as “social justice, anti-racism, stereotypes, and social movements led by people of color from U.S. history spanning the late eighteenth century until the 1970s.” It stressed ties to the Third World Liberation Front, the coalition of Black, Latino and Asian student groups whose 1968 strike at San Francisco State University led to the nation’s first ethnic studies courses. The learning objectives of the course included “student knowledge of and ability to combat racism and other forms of oppression, increased student commitment to social justice, and improvement of student pride in their own identities and communities.”

Districts outside the Bay Area might steer clear of the course that promotes activism, comes across as ideological and could alienate some parents, ethnic groups and students in the class.

The study itself draws no conclusion about whether the particular course content contributed to the positive results.

What’s more essential, Dee said, is “culturally relevant” instruction that motivates and engages students. “So it’s not clear to me those mediating mechanisms require really doctrinaire, inflammatory content,” he said.

“There’s something I found impoverishing about the public debate over ethnic studies and, more recently, critical race theory,” he said. “And it’s because it has a cultural war frame” instead of focusing on “what’s going on with teaching and learning and student motivation and engagement.”

To get more reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource’s no-cost daily email on latest developments in education.

House Bill 1504 Update: Senate Floor Vote Occurs tomorrow on Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Friends and Colleagues:

SUPER EXCITING! PLEASE TAKE ACTION AND SHARE WITH YOUR NETWORKS.

Here is the pertinent message on HB 1504 from Tony Diaz:

TX HB1504 is poised to make history. The Texas Senate will vote on the bill Wednesday, May 26, 2021. 

We need you to call your Texas State Senator today.

Find out who your Senator is by visiting: https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home.

You can find the phone number for your senator by visiting: https://senate.texas.gov/members.php

Call at least your Texas Senator. If you have time, call several or call all 31. 

This is a link that includes a post of the phone number of all 31 Texas State Senators and talking points about this bill that would make Mexican American History and African American History count towards high school graduation requirements if a school chooses: 

http://bit.ly/HB1504TXSenators

Or visit my blog at: www.TonyDiaz.net

www.TexasSizedHistory.com