"Creating a Just Future {Martha Cotera}: Save Palm School and Palm Park," by Guadalupe Triana

Hats off to the legendary Martha P. Cotera for doing all she can to advocate for the preservation of both Palm School and Palm Park for future generations. 

With a proposed focus on Austin's unique history, that includes the history of East Austin's historic Mexican American community, the Tonkawa, the Trail of Tears, and other Indigenous groups like the Coauhiltecans, the Apache, and Comanche, as well as Texas' Underground Railroad legacies that highlight an important history of Black-Brown relations, this initiative will educate generations to come on a core part of Austin's history that has been overlooked. With well-documented stories of victory, survival, and resistance, this initiative will encourage and promote more research in these areas, as well as greater understanding of a neglected history that promises to foster positive intergroup relations.

Hence, Saving Palm School and Palm Park for the future, offers a unique and important opportunity for our community to both enrich, deepen, and enliven the story of our city, state, and nation. 

Please consider joining the effort, beginning with a visit to the Save-Palm-School Facebook page to get informed and take action: https://www.facebook.com/Save-Palm-School-353274911962999 Thanks, Martha, for all you do to preserve our history in ways that enrich our city for future generations to come.

-Angela Valenzuela

Creating a Just Future {Martha Cotera}

Writer, Historian, & Community Leader

Words by Guadalupe Triana  Photos by Eric Morales

---

Inside Martha Cotera’s office is a grand, wooden bookshelf that displays a colorful array of her most powerful tools to date: books. On the shelf are plenty of influential titles, like La Historia de México and The New Jim Crow, books that have clearly inspired Martha’s work through the years. 

As a professional historian and librarian, Martha’s two occupations have long been intertwined with her work in the community. “Knowledge and information are my strengths,” she explains.

These days, the writer, historian, influential Chicana feminist, and civil rights activist expresses that la lucha sigue. Martha proves that the work is far from over, and her schedule shows it. 

While there might be plenty left to do, it’s also important to step back and acknowledge what’s been achieved. Few can say that they’ve helped shape history—especially when it comes to civil rights in Texas. Even fewer can say their work has opened doors for the women after them.

Through her published works, Martha has cemented her influential status in the Chicana Feminist movement, something she doesn’t take lightly. To Martha, it’s powerful to hear young people boldly claim the feminist label, something that hasn’t always been the case. “This is despite the fact that everything has been done to suppress the power of women.”

Throughout the years, Martha’s been involved in movements and campaigns that sought to ensure that Latinx, along with other disenfranchised BIPOC populations in Austin, received access to the resources they desperately need to succeed. It all clearly inspires her work today. 

“My wish is that Austin would live up to its promise to become a progressive community for everybody,” she explains. 

She credits her inspiration to do lifelong liberation work to a value her mother taught her when she was young: to be servicial, or to be helpful, and service-minded. “I saw people stepping up to help my mother navigate a foreign country, a foreign language—I  was learning from it,” Martha reflects. “I now realize I got those skills by watching people help us.”

Martha is passionate about many of the issues affecting some of the city’s most vulnerable populations, but now there’s one issue she’ll be dedicating extra time to these next few months.

Martha is focused on the reclamation of the historic Palm School and Palm Park on Cesar Chavez Street. She explains that at least nine generations of Mexican American students attended Palm School, making it a significant part of Mexican American history in Austin.

Martha, along with several other community activists, wants to ensure that the space, and the history surrounding it, are properly preserved. 

“Justice calls for an acknowledgment of this rich history,” Martha smiles.

---

Saving Palm Park
In order to preserve its cultural heritage, many Latinx community leaders are urging the county to transfer ownership of the Palm School building to the Mexican American Cultural Center, which is run by the city. 

Activists want to ensure that the space, and the history surrounding it, are preserved properly. Many are working diligently to ensure the museum also honors indigenous peoples’ history, as well as the often-overlooked Afro Mexican and Underground Railroad legacies. In order for the museum to happen, the county will have to partner with the city.

---

Contact:
savepalmschool@gmail.com 
speakupaustin.org/palmdistrict

Every American needs to take a history of Mexico class, by Dr. Gabriela Soto Laveaga

Excellent piece! Harvard University professor of the history of science and the study of Mexico, Dr. Gabriela Soto Laveaga, makes a compelling case for why every American should learn about the history of Mexico—presumably in K-12, as well as higher education. After all, our histories are intertwined. It would help us to have a broadened perspective in debates on immigration, race relations, the U.S.-Mexico border, and why so many of us advocate for bilingual education. 

It's pretty incredible that one can earn a college degree and still know precious little about Mexico or Mexican history. Even well-educated people know little more than knowing how to order tequila or Mexican food in a restaurant, as if symbolically consuming Mexicans in this way makes one culturally competent. 

These mindsets are transborder and hemispheric, too, with many Americans regarding Mexico and Latin America as little more than a playground for tourists designed to cater to mostly Anglo Americans, as well as Anglicized ones, who may be of any hue. This posture translates into the gobbling up choice property throughout Mexico, elevating gentrification to a global scale. 

In places throughout Mexico like San Miguel de Allende in Guanajuato, one pays for property in U.S. dollars and at least half the city is Anglo. I have many friends from Guanajuato, including from San Miguel, and they can't afford to live there because Anglos have raised the cost of housing as a result of what they call, "colonización," the Spanish term for gentrification (and colonization) that makes it difficult for them to live there, impelling them to migrate to the U.S. 

Once here, they're targeted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE). Then they become the targets anew of gentrification as their apartments get bulldozed in East Austin, forcing them to vacate and move to the outer rings of the city and county, resulting in long-distance commutes to largely either construction, domestic, or service-sector jobs working in restaurants and hotels throughout our city. Many of these persons have advanced degrees in Mexico that unfortunately count for little here. We work precisely with families like these at our Saturday academy, Academia Cuauhtli.

Instead of being entitled and self-serving and teaching future generations to be so oriented, let's do take up Dr. Soto Laveaga's plea for greater understanding based on a long-overdue, clear reading of the history of Mexico and the Southwest. 

As the Mexican American experience itself suggests, we shall acquire an enhanced understanding of social relations, policies, politics, culture, and how to be better neighbors with a community whose future is caught up with our own in ways big and small. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Every American needs to 

take a history of Mexico class

Learning the history of Mexico can help Americans better understand themselves.

Members of the Sons of the Republic of Texas gather in front of the Alamo Cenotaph monument in San Antonio to commemorate the 184th anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 2020. (Tamir Kalifa for The Washington Post)

By Gabriela Laveaga | Washington Post | July 22, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

The recent backlash over a new book on the history of The Alamo is not about partisanship nor misapplied critical race theory. It is, however, about denying who we are as a nation. More than an erasure of historical fact it is another example of the ongoing and dangerous practice of cherry-picking parts of our past to fit prepackaged national myths. This is not a new practice nor is our society the only one to rewrite history to suit current political winds. Yet denying a serious, factual analysis of our past sabotages the ability to achieve a more just and equal society. If we start our national origins story with historical falsehoods, we will continue to repeat and expand these fictions to make the initial lie make sense.

One way to right this tendency is by studying the role of Mexico and Mexicans in the making of an American identity. It will not solve a concerted effort to refuse historical truths, but it may help us develop critical skills to identify the problems with teaching a single story of American history. Why Mexico? Among other reasons, Mexico lost more than 50 percent of its territory to the United States. Put starkly, much of our country was once Mexico. Analyzing the origins of this territorial gain places current debates about immigration, the border and even what languages can be taught in schools in a broader perspective.

Essayist and Nobel laureate Octavio Paz understood the value of this decades ago when he wrote, “by coming to know Mexico, North Americans can learn to understand an unacknowledged part of themselves.” That unacknowledged part is complicated. Let’s use just one example, the Mexican American War or the U.S. Invasion, as it is known in Mexico, to illustrate how this pivotal event could be taught in American classrooms to expand how we study the actions of our then still-fledgling nation.

While the history of The Alamo is not as consequential for Mexico, Mexican schoolchildren learn that when their country granted Anglo-Americans permission to settle in the sparsely populated territory of Tejas these settlers agreed to abide by the laws of Mexico and were encouraged to learn Spanish, convert to Catholicism, intermarry with Mexicans and, eventually, renounce slavery.

Instead, Anglo-Americans defied all of these expectations. They started by blowing past the cap on the number of Anglo-Americans who could settle in Mexico. That enabled them to outnumber Mexicans in its northern territory. The Americans then refused to follow the laws of the land; in response, Mexico sent troops to patrol its borders, understanding that a faction of Texans were intent on fostering secession from Mexico.

That is the backdrop for the 1836 siege of The Alamo: a country intent on quelling a rebellion of lawless foreigners who had overstayed their welcome in Mexico.

Yet the fate of Texas would not be decided on the battlefield but in Washington, D.C. In 1837 the U.S. recognized Texas as an independent state, fueling the anger of its southern neighbor. A few years later in 1844, James K. Polk ran his presidential campaign on the annexation of Texas, which many in Mexico still considered a rebel territory that was part of their nation.

Part of the dispute was where Texas claimed to draw its border, at the Nueces or the Rio Grande, which would give it an additional 150 miles of territory.

This geographic detail is important. Polk, determined to push for war, claimed that a border skirmish involving Mexican and American troops spilled “American blood on America’s soil.” But this claim was false; the battle happened in this disputed territory. A young congressman from Illinois, future president Abraham Lincoln, objecting to Polk’s lie, introduced the Spot Resolution of 1847, which laid out the evidence that the fight did not happen on American soil.

What if schoolchildren learned to examine Lincoln’s resolution and protests against what he thought was an unjust war? This broader context would show students that national stories are not tidy, they are messy and sometimes brimming with illegal, or at least problematic, acts. It would also teach students to interrogate presidential actions and claims, not simply accept them as fact.

In the past few months, diverse battles over what will be taught in our classrooms have a common denominator: pushback against a triumphalist narrative, which glorifies the actions of one group over another. Studying the Mexican American War can also teach us about the changing roles of race in our country. Specifically, how some ethnic groups that enjoy broad acceptance today were once reviled, such as, for example, the Irish.

One of the most symbolically powerful events of the war is mostly forgotten in the U.S. today. But Mexicans see the U.S. execution of a predominantly Irish regiment — the Saint Patrick’s Battalion — for treason, as a key event in the war.

In the 1840s, the Irish, fleeing famine, arrived destitute, hungry and, as political cartoons of the era show, in droves to the United States. Relegated to low-class jobs and living in crowded ethnic ghettos, the Irish were portrayed as undesirable immigrants with less-than-average intelligence, who were prone to criminality.

Yet when the call went out for an additional 50,000 troops to invade Mexico, immigrants — many of them Irish — answered the call with the hopes of achieving acceptance in the U.S. It did not take long, however, for many Irish to realize that they were fighting an unjust war started on false pretenses. As Catholics, they also sympathized with Mexicans who were appalled at the desecration of churches by the invading American army. Switching allegiances, a battalion of Irish deserted and fought on the Mexican side. While most were captured and hung for treason, today in Mexico you can find memorials to the Irish, considered heroes of the war. Not every Mexican schoolchild will know about The Alamo but they will all know about the Saint Patrick’s Battalion, when a group of unwanted immigrants rose up against a falsehood. In other words, the questions we ask of the past matter.

At the war’s end the U.S. gained the future states of California, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and portions of Oklahoma, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana from Mexico. To carry through with the belief that it was a God-given right to expand from “sea-to-shining sea” Mexicans were transformed into strangers on their own land. The new courts and laws helped take away the rights of Mexicans, setting a legal precedent for making them second class citizens, penalized for speaking Spanish or simply gathering in groups.

To be sure, mandating a history of Mexico class for a fuller understanding of our current society implies that we will have teachers trained and willing to teach a factual past. So far, we have mixed results in that area.

Despite these challenges, expanding our curriculum will enrich the understanding of the next generations of Americans. Borderlands scholar Gloria Anzaldua described the U.S.-Mexico border, a product of the Mexican American War, as an open wound, the marker of a collective and traumatic history that continues to have an impact on the present lives of communities and individuals. Problems, whether these be workers’ rights, migration, declining ground water at the border, economic development or drug trafficking affect both countries and cannot be solved with unilateral decisions. Unilateral histories also do not work.

The past few years have shown us that to remain purposefully ignorant of history is dangerous for democracy. If we move to erase uncomfortable pasts then we remain tethered to fictions.

Gabriela Soto Laveaga is professor of the history of science and the Antonio Madero Professor for the study of Mexico at Harvard University. She is working on a book on agricultural research and water in Sonora and the Punjab.  Twitter

Are Mexicans Indigenous? by Roberto Rodriguez

Such an interesting and profound question that Dr. Roberto Rodriguez asks.  It gets at the depths of one's being.

To this question—and what I would hope would be a conversation to have with those you trust—I would add a recent discovery of mine in talking to a former student, Dr. Olmo Freire, who lives and teaches today in Guadalajara, Mexico.  You see, our continent wasn't always called "America" or "the Americas," even if that's what we've all grown up to believe.

Indeed, nearly everything you find on the web refers to Amerigo Vespucci and his impact as a cartologist on the naming of the American continent that is even referred to as its "original name."

Its little-known pre-conquest, pre-Columbian name was "Abya Yala," from the Kuna language.  Abya Yala means "land of vital blood" and "land in its full maturity."

To be sure, today's "America" had so many other names, but this one has survived.  Repeat it several times in a row to get a full sense of its beauty and poetics.  

At first, it sounded to me like children's play language, "Ubbi Dubbi," and recalled learning somewhere in my former life as a sociolinguist about the a-b and a-p combinations as among children's first vocalizations.  The "A-B-Cs"—and why they're called the "ABCs" would seem to fit this reasoning, as well.  

I have a recent memory of my grandson's first utterance of the first few letters of the alphabet and can't remember too many things more precious or divine than that moment.  It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.  Parents and grandparents of little ones can surely connect to this as these soft, tender utterances equate to the building blocks of language.  

Also, sense the vocalic alliteration and how the name, "Abya Yala," rolls off the tonge.  I like thinking that "Abya Yala" was among children's first spoken words thousands of years ago—and perhaps even today among the Kuna of Panama.

Back to Dr. Rodriguez' question, "Are Mexicans Indigenous?"  

While the genetic answer is "yes," the answer to this question is deeply personal and profound.  After all, we are all products of our own socialization experiences growing up—even if we morph and change throughout our lifetimes in terms of our own identities.

As for myself, I have only grown and deepened as a wife, mother, grandmother, community member, teacher, and scholar by engaging the complex mestizaje or indigeneity to which my DNA attests.  It will no doubt always be an endless journey and exploration simply because I find it to be so fulfilling and liberating.

Abya Yala, my friends.  We are one America!  Spread the word!

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

#AbyaYala

Are Mexicans Indigenous?

Sunday, October 08, 2017 By Roberto Rodriguez, Truthout | Op-Ed

A dancer in Aztec clothing dances in Los Angeles, California, July 19, 2009. (Photo: Jorge Gonzalez)
As many US states and municipalities have begun to eschew the colonial tradition of "Columbus Day" in favor of adopting Monday's holiday as "Indigenous Peoples' Day," one might wonder where people of Mexican heritage fit in.
For some, this is a controversial question due to hundreds of years of mestizaje, or mixture, and also due to hundreds of years of colonialism and colonized thinking. For others, this is not controversial at all, because with few European women brought to this continent, the mixture was not co-equal and consensual, and thus, most Mexicans essentially remain Indigenous or are de-Indigenized peoples as a result of colonization.
All answers are complex because the category of mestizo/mestiza is actually a non-scientific term born of a racial caste system of exploitation, designed primarily not as a racial descriptor, but to deprive people of their full human rights. If it were simply a racial designation, in all likelihood, most Mexicans would be considered mestizo or Indigenous; in Canada, a metis or person of "mixed-blood" is considered a First Nations person. In Mexico, very few Mexicans are considered "white."
One of the primary answers also gives us a clue as to why Mexicans have always been exploited in the United States.

The Mexican American Identity Throughout History

In the US, Mexicans represent memory; a reminder of land theft and unjust war. Yet what is commonly expressed by omission is that they are the antithesis of idealized, blonde and blue-eyed Americans. Mexicans are viewed as utter outsiders, as enemy "others." This has to do with the unfinished business of Manifest Destiny: Blacks were to be enslaved and Native peoples were supposed to have been eradicated from these "promised lands" of North America.
Mexicans have been viewed by white Americans as inferior peoples and convenient scapegoats. This thinking was behind the periodic, massive and inhumane deportation campaigns throughout US history, from the lynching campaigns of the 1840s-1920s, to the Trump administration's current immigration policy.
During the height of the Chicano Movement, activists asserted a radical pride: they were mestizo/mestiza (mixed-peoples) and part of a bronze continent that did not recognize any "capricious borders." This was the origin of "Brown is Beautiful" and "Brown Power," and such ideas were embedded within El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, one of the foundational documents of this movement.
Many in the movement also proclaimed Indigeneity. This was contrary to how previous generations of Mexican Americans had identified, insistent upon a white identity, in particular, for waging legal desegregation battles. However, as University of Texas scholar Martha Menchaca has demonstrated in "Chicano Indianism," Mexican Americans were never actually treated by society and its institutions as white, especially in the courtroom.
Almost 50 years after the height of the movement, the question now being posed is whether Mexicans/Chicanos/Chicanas are Native peoples, especially since the population has skyrocketed and is no longer confined to the US Southwest. They have also been joined by many more millions of peoples from Mexico and Central America, who often share a common Mesoamerican root, and who increasingly come from living Indigenous pueblos.

Shifting Identities

Communities of Zapotec, Mixtec, Purépecha, Otomi, Nahua and Maya peoples, to name a few, identify as Indigenous, as do some Mexican peoples that have mixed with Native Americans throughout the United States.
The question of Indigeneity, then, is largely about de-Indigenized Mexicans and Central Americans: Are they Native? That question should be restricted to de-Indigenized peoples, but even Yaquis (who generally live in the Southwestern US, as well as northern Mexico), for example, are viewed by some as Mexican, as opposed to Native. Adding to this complexity, some consider O'odham peoples who live in Sonora also as Mexicans and not O'odham.
During the Chicano movement, Mexicans/Chicanos/Chicanas generally spoke of descending from Indigenous peoples -- Aztec and Maya, primarily. They never identified when they themselves stopped being Indigenous. That is the key -- Indigeneity is not simply the past, but also the present.
Given that we are speaking of perhaps 30-40 million people, is a shift toward identifying as Indigenous, among a population that is itself historically anti-Indigenous, possible? Who decides? Does white America -- including the US government -- have a say in this matter? The government can define US citizenship, but arguably has no standing when it comes to defining a historical identity that precedes the formation of the United States and, in effect, involves the entire continent, as opposed to just the US.
It is a conversation that needs to be had, especially within a society that is hell-bent on erecting a massive wall -- the consummate symbol of white supremacy -- to keep the "Brown hordes" out.
The people who would have a say in this matter would be the AmerIndigenous peoples -- the original peoples of this continent -- especially within the United States. This may not be an easy question to answer. Due to colonialism and extreme racism, many Mexicans over the centuries have been trained or raised to reject their own ancestry, and many have done so and continue to do so. Given this reality, many original peoples would never "accept them back." Others have and do, and many do so with open arms, wondering why it has taken them so long "to return."
I suspect that if there ever comes a time of full acceptance, it will come about as a result of much dialogue. And yet, it will be these de-Indigenized communities that will ultimately have to decide upon not simply their identity, but also their future.
However Mexicans ultimately choose to identify, what is certain is that unless something radical happens, chances are very likely that they will not be accepted as full human beings by this society in the foreseeable future. Thus, will Mexicans acknowledge their future as intertwined with the recognized original peoples of this continent, or will they choose a different course?

Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Roberto Rodriguez

Roberto Rodriguez is an associate professor in Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona and can be reached at Xcolumn@gmail.com.

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Educators fight textbook that vilifies Mexican Americans - Education Votes

Couldn't let the weekend go by without mentioning this on my blog.    

First, the National Education Association (or NEA), which is one of the two biggest national educators' unions in the country, has joined the #RejectTheText movement in Texas against the Riddle and Angle Mexican American Heritage racist, nativist textbook that is currently under consideration by the Texas State Board of Education.  

Second, this piece by Sabrina Holcomb has great quotes from NEA/local leadership (see below), as well as by #MASforTexas leader Juan Tejeda, who in his quote conveys the sentiment of our movement here in Texas: "I can’t think of any time since the late 60s and early 70s the activism surrounding this issue has been so prominent.”

The piece closes with this quote by Education Austin President Ken Zarifis—who nails it: 

This issue goes beyond November and this textbook, says Ken Zarifis. “The salient question is how do you tell the history of all the people who make up this nation? Why are we scared to acknowledge the contributions others have made,” asks Zarifis. “When I taught 8th grade language arts, my kids were thirsty to hear their stories in the classroom. Why would we deny them that?” The only reason I can think of is we don’t want them to feel empowered by their heritage and the real story of those who came before them.”

I like how he eloquently and succinctly expresses this view in the powerful voice of a caring teacher. 


This is a struggle that has to get named along the lines of majority-minority relations for us to begin to un-do the damage that comes from the SBOE, and by extension, the curriculum and instruction that similarly inflict harm to the degree that they are either ignorant about, if not altogether indifferent to, the empowering, precious knowledge to which our children and communities have been systematically deprived for well over a century. 

Many thanks to NEA staff extraordinaire, Bill Moreno, for facilitating this news story and helping us to get the word out.  And, of course, special thanks to Sabrina Holcomb, who wrote it.  

Thanks, as well, to NEA President Lily Eskelsen for her outstanding leadership in addressing systemic and institutionalized forms of racial oppression that you can read more about here.

Please sign/consider signing the petition if you've not done so.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

Educators fight textbook that vilifies Mexican Americans - Education Votes: Mexican American Heritage textbook is so riddled with factual errors, key omissions, and blatantly racist statements it has no place in any classroom.

Educators fight textbook that vilifies Mexican Americans

Posted September 30, 2016

1 comment

Posted in: Education News, NEA EdJustice Features, Texas

Demonstrators at Texas Board of Education hearing. Credit: Texas Freedom Network

By Sabrina Holcomb

Critics consider a new Mexican American Heritage textbook so
dangerous, hundreds of people braved the Texas heat to speak out against
its adoption at a Texas Board of Education hearing.

The proposed textbook has offended and outraged activists
who say the book is so riddled with factual errors, key omissions, and
blatantly racist statements it has no place in any classroom.

Take Action ›

Stand with educators supporting diverse books in schools. Click here ›

If this textbook is adopted, say concerned educators, students will
“learn” that Mexican American workers are lazy, Mexican-American labor
leaders wanted to destroy American society, and Mexican American people
are cultural separatists—and that’s just a start.

 “When you are a young person and you read a book that says people
like you are lazy and uneducated and bad for society, you internalize
that,” says Montserrat Garibay, Vice President of Education Austin and an early childhood teacher. “That’s what your friends are reading about you. It denigrates you as a person, and perpetuates institutional racism.”

Over half of Texas’ five million students are Latino, and the
majority of them are Mexican American, leading some educators to
advocate for a more inclusive curriculum that incorporates Mexican
American history—a commonsense approach they say, given research that shows students who take ethnic studies courses perform better on state tests and are more likely to graduate from high school.

Instead of implementing an inclusive curriculum or full ethnic  studies program, however, the Texas Board of Education called for
publishers to submit textbooks for an optional social studies course.
The sole submission, Mexican American Heritage—written by a publisher
who had no subject matter expertise—provoked an incredulous backlash
when the board released a sample.

 “Over 140 errors have been identified in this book already,” says
Education Austin President Ken Zarifis, “yet a spokesperson for the
publishing company questioned having scholars review it. That statement
stunned me. People who deny healthy scholarship shouldn’t be making
decisions about our kids.”

A broad coalition of scholar-activists and organizations, including Education Austin and the Texas State Teachers Association, have organized against the adoption—coordinating scholarly reviews, holding meetings and press conferences, and circulating an electronic petition that has secured over 10,000 signatures.

Martha P. Cotera, Angela Valenzuela, Alonzo Mendoza, Montserrat Garibay,

Ken Zarifis, and Celina Moreno

Coalition members and students, concerned about the negative impact
of a book that “distorts history,” showed up in force at the Board of
Education hearing last week, where over 100 people signed up to speak.
They and other stakeholders must wait until November to hear the school
board’s decision—a choice that could reverberate beyond Texas.

In the world of school textbooks, Texas is the giant in the room—a
large and profitable market that exerts a powerful influence on the
content of textbooks throughout the country. It’s not the first time the
Texas Board of Education has been in the news. In fact, the publisher
of Mexican American Heritage is a former member of the Board who once
said that sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the
enemy’s flames.”

Despite an uphill climb, some educators have persevered, heartened by the “movement atmosphere” they say has taken hold in Texas and other areas of the country—such as California, which just passed a landmark bill ordering a model ethnic studies course for all state high schools.

“I can’t think of any time since the late 60s and early 70s the
activism surrounding this issue has been so prominent,” affirms art
professor and movement leader Juan Tejeda, who spoke at the schoolboard
hearing along with other stakeholders. “We’re asking the Board to make
the right decision in November.”

This issue goes beyond November and this textbook, says Ken Zarifis.
“The salient question is how do you tell the history of all the people
who make up this nation? Why are we scared to acknowledge the
contributions others have made,” asks Zarifis. “When I taught 8th grade
language arts, my kids were thirsty to hear their stories in the
classroom. Why would we deny them that?” The only reason I can think of
is we don’t want them to feel empowered by their heritage and the real
story of those who came before them.”

Tags: Education Austin, ethnic studies, Ken Zarifis, Mexican American Heritage, Montserrat Garibay, Texas State Teachers Association

#MASforTexas @TFN

Please sign the Texas Responsible Ethnic Studies Textbook Coalition Petition

It is my wish that all of my friends sign this petition against the racist and otherwise highly problematic treatment of Mexican Americans in the book titled, "Mexican American Heritage," written by Jaime Riddle and Valarie Angle.  It is currently under consideration for statewide adoption by the Texas State Board of Education.

Mexican American Studies—of which Ethnic Studies is a part—is a large and growing movement that is taking place right now in Texas and California, two bell weather states with respect to both education and trends in the Mexican American community, in particular.

It is an inspired movement with many adherents of which the publisher and authors of this racist textbook were obviously unaware. 

But then, their cluelessness on the matter maps on perfectly to their woefully inaccurate and offensive interpretation of the Mexican American experience.  This non-trivial, major blind spot explains a lot.

The irony here is—who are they to talk about our heritage without including our decades upon decades worth of research and writing in the area of Mexican American Studies in their book?  How is such a gargantuan oversight even possible?

This area of scholarship is so vast that from where I stand, it takes more effort to ignore than not to. In contrast, these authors are unknown by the Mexican American Studies scholarly community.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out at the September and November meetings of the board.  And not just for the publisher and authors, but for the SBOE members, as well.

Not unlike children of other races/ethnicities in the teaching of their respective heritage and notwithstanding this proposed text, our children and grand children still need to know their Mexican American heritage and history.  They need to know who they are, where they came from, and how their personhoods were formed as a consequence.  From a position of strength and self-awareness, they need to know what their responsibilities are to society and to furthering the public good.  

A well taught and well designed Mexican American or Ethnic Studies course will guide them along in this direction.  This proposed book will not only not take them there; it misrepresents and derogates their experience. 

I should know.  I have been teaching Ethnic Studies for over 26 years. I see many of my students—minority and majority alike—blossom and unfold before my very eyes in ways that are life changing, as well as personally and professionally meaningful.

Your signing this petition will help block the book.  

Our students deserve to see an accurate and fair representation of their communities, elders, and ancestors in their classrooms and schools through the textbooks that they read.

If our children are to assume power and a sense of ownership over the profound demographic, political, economic, social, and cultural challenges of the 21st century, every last one of them will benefit greatly from learning about this diversity, addressing important research questions on which we have staked our careers and reputations and to which we have dedicated our lives.

Angela Valenzuela

c/s

#nothingaboutuswithoutus #TxEd #MAStexas  #LibrotraficanteNation