The Texas GOP has Declared War on Books. I've Seen This Before," by Lupe Mendez, the Texas Observer

Great read by librotraficante Lupe Mendez in this Texas Observer piece. Many of us have seen this before, as well.

As Yogi Berra famously said, "It's deja vu all over again."

With Arizona as the test case for how to respond to banned books, we need to re-ignite the Librotraficante movement in Texas again—but this time, for Texas instead of Arizona. 

So prescient of Librotraficante founder, Tony Diaz, who brought a lot of imagination and motivation to the fight over the dismantling of Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District back in 2010 that involved a court battle and subsequent victory. These struggles not only give us hope, but they chart a path toward success against those that would deny us our First and Fourteenth Amendment Rights to our precious knowledge and curriculum.

In the meantime, students must continue to gain access to the liberatory knowledge that they're being denied by fearful zealots and bullies. 

More immediately, we all need to show up to the SBOE the first week of April to get involved in the conversations taking place right now on the social studies standards for the state of Texas. 

El movimiento continua! The movement continues.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

The Texas GOP has Declared War on Books. I've Seen This Before," by Lupe  Mendez

Jan. 14, 2022

A decade ago, in March 2012, a group of writers, artists, educators, and activists banded together to combat the deplorable actions of Arizona’s state legislature. The state’s lawmakers had recently passed a bill making the teaching of “Ethnic Studies” illegal, along with banning courses that “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” and “are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.” The bill also created a list of banned books. Of the more than 80 books that were eventually added to the list, many of the authors were Black and Latinx.

The Arizona law was so restrictive that it made news here in Texas, where we created the Librotraficante Movement in order to highlight the attack on books, educators, and education by “conservative” politicians. Librotraficante means “book smuggler,” and that’s what we did: collect books in Texas and “smuggle” them to Arizona, where those same titles had been abruptly banned. We used all of our book nerd talents to create an old-school freedom ride, collecting 35 bus riders and caravanning to six cities: Houston, San Antonio, El Paso, Mesilla, Albuquerque, and Tucson. We collected more than 1,000 copies of Arizona’s banned books and disseminated them to community libraries through book bundles to Arizona high school students. The Librotraficante Movement has been crucial in giving a voice to students of color across the nation.  

A decade later, that work stays with you. Now the attacks are happening right here in the Lone Star State.

In the last legislative session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3, which banned the teaching of “critical race theory” in Texas classrooms. Governor Greg Abbott and other Texas Republicans have also called for bans of school library books that might make students “uncomfortable.” State Representative Matt Krause, a Fort Worth Republican, has named 850 books he’d like to see removed from libraries. Like in Arizona, the lists seem to target non-white and LGBTQ authors. This much is clear: The Republican Party intends to deny children access to books, authors and an education that would spur their intellectual growth. And in an effort to satisfy their base, Republicans in Texas are pushing away the one population that needs their attention the most: youth—and more pointedly—youth of color.

LUPE MENDEZ

 State Republicans’ run on libraries and classrooms comes as the state’s demographics continue to shift. In the 2019–2020 academic school year, Hispanic students accounted for the largest percentage of the state’s student enrollment with roughly 53 percent. White students made up only 27 percent of the student body; Black students represented 13 percent, and Asian students represented 5 percent. Each year Texas schools get more diverse, but the same can’t be said for the state legislature.  

It’s worth noting that at the same time the Legislature was cooking up Senate Bill 3, the body quietly shot down another bill that could have created a whole new set of possibilities for youth in Texas. House Bill 1504, filed by state Representative Christina Morales (D-Houston), would have allowed school districts to create an Ethnic Studies course as an alternative to World Geography and World History courses. The bill made no mandates but would have granted the thousands of school districts across the state the ability to adapt coursework to their specific student bodies. It was a beautifully fair bill that gained both Republican and Democratic sponsors. 

The bill couldn’t survive the state’s intensifying culture wars, however. It was placed on the Senate’s intent calendar in May before dying.  

That brings us to the present. For a playbook of how to combat the troubling new actions in Texas, I think back to the last days of the Librotraficante caravan. As we arrived in Tucson, where the school district had shut down a Mexican American Studies course, a few of us were assigned the task of sorting the more than 1,000 books amassed during the caravan. It was early morning—7:30 or so—when we noticed that a tiny group of teens had come by. They quietly approached to see the books and grabbed some, retreating without a word. Later, a young lady grabbed a book and took it away to the corner to read it. 

As the day went on, the young lady returned, saying, “Thank you for giving me this moment. I was just about to finish this book on the day the district personnel came to forcibly take the books away from us.” Wise beyond her years, she left us with some parting advice: “I want you to have this book back. Give it to somebody else. I hope somebody can learn from this book.”   

As an educator and a writer, those words were especially powerful. If you can get a kid to pick up a book that they haven’t seen in three months, then read it like it’s a sacred text—hell, you have witnessed all that is good in education. 

Now, 10 years later, I’m still a Librotraficante. And I’m ready to do it all over again.

It is demonstrably problematic for Senate Bill 3 to supersede House Bill 3979 in Texas. Whereas the latter applied to the social studies curriculum that focused on "hard patriotism," Senate Bill 3 applies to the entire K-12 curriculum. The other issue is with respect to Rep. Michael Krause's textbook inquiry that focuses not on state-level textbook adoption processes, but on local decision-making that is appropriately in the hands of local school boards and teachers with such selections based to some extent on context and interests organic to those communities.

This violates republican notions of "big government" and the principle of local control. That said, we do appear at this moment to be at least going down the path of self-censorship which may be the chief aim of such requests. It all still has to play out. If there's any silver lining, it's the reading list that should give us all good ideas for good reading.

-Angela Valenzuela

Will Texas repeat a McCarthy-like investigation into what students read in schools?

A 1962 House Committee delved into textbooks until rancorous hearings upended their process.

“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson, “New Kid” by Jerry Craft, “Perfect on Paper” by Sophie Gonzales, “This Book Is Anti-Racist” by Tiffany Jewell and “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates photographed on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, at the Morning News studio in Dallas. (Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News)(Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)

Heightened scrutiny over how schools teach history -- and whether it was patriotic enough or indoctrinating kids -- spurred the Texas lawmakers to investigate.

Five House members were charged with studying the state’s textbooks with the desire that they emphasized the “glowing and throbbing history of hearts and souls inspired by wonderful American principles and traditions.”

The year was 1962.

Now new fears about censorship in Texas classrooms have reignited as a state lawmaker opened an investigation into districts that carry any of the hundreds of books he’s listed that largely deal with race, gender identity or sexuality.

But even six decades ago, at the height of schoolhouse scrutiny, a former House member charged with investigating textbooks cautioned against state overreach.

“When the time comes when the State Legislature dictates selection of library books in our local school districts, a serious blow will have been dealt to freedom and democracy,” Rep. Ronald E. Roberts, D-Hillsboro, wrote then.

Roberts served at a time when the textbook approval process was mired in controversy and protests against specific sections of books were frequent. Some feared Texas’ textbooks were obscenity-filled or designed to subvert America’s youth.

This was just a few years after Sen. Joseph McCarthy famously held investigations into Communism’s influence on the media and federal government.

Texas’ House Textbook Investigating Committee held hearings across the state, which were suddenly halted after they became so rancorous and the lawmakers received threats.

The legislators couldn’t agree on any conclusion. Each eventually submitted their own individual reports to the Legislature in a move that reflected the heightened discord over what students should learn in school.

Now recent maneuvers at the Texas Capitol to investigate books and curriculum echo this era, historians and educators say. Lawmakers spent months on anti-critical race theory bills that restricted how teachers discuss racism and current events in the classroom or promoted “patriotic education.”

And in late October, Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, launched an investigation into whether schools have purchased or stocked any of the more than 800 books he’s identified. He also asked schools to identify any content or curriculum that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” because of their race or sex.

Krause has declined to comment on how he chose the books on his 16-page list, which districts are under investigation or on any possible repercussions for schools that admit to carrying such texts.

In a recent radio interview, Krause said the list of books was not exhaustive and noted that even if a book is on the list, it may not mean it is “problematic.” It could mean that it has some content that may be touched by new laws passed by the Legislature, he added.

But educators see the Fort Worth Republican’s investigation as “akin to the Red Scare, but this time with scurrilous accusations against our teachers and librarians,” said Zeph Capo, the president of the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, in a statement.

Fighting communism, glorifying American history

Texas lawmakers continued to worry about eliminating communist themes from the classroom and bolstering the teaching of American history well into the late 20th century.

During the late 1940s, the State Board of Education unanimously voted to hold up the distribution of a geography textbook until the publisher took out sections that seemed to glorify Russia.

SBOE member Vernon Singleton cautioned at the time that one of the chief dangers was the loss of faith in democracy because of writings that teach “our nation’s accomplishments are insignificant, our heroes were selfish, that strong centralized government is more important than the opportunities for personal freedom and initiative.”

Such fears appeared to fuel a 1961 resolution where lawmakers declared the need for textbooks to teach the traditions and philosophy of America “to inspire young people to revere our fundamental principles of this greatest Country in all the world.”

The front page of The Dallas Morning News on March 3, 1962 shows the growing strive over Texas' textbook selection process.(Emily Donaldson)

When the five-member committee was appointed to study content in textbooks and began holding hearings, lawmakers recognized the complex nature of the committee’s task from the start.

“I felt that, in the wrong or fearful hands, this committee could become an instrument to undermine the confidence of the people of Texas in our public schools,” Rep. John C. Alaniz, D-San Antonio, wrote in his final report.

When the committee started hosting hearings in January 1962, meetings were dominated by “the ultra-right and the John Birchers,” and educators were largely absent, Alaniz wrote. The John Birch Society was founded during the time of the Cold War as a far-right group that fought against signs of communism in American society.

Testifiers complained that books mentioning the United Nations were “communistic or socialistic” and texts that “failed to mention or glorify our early American heroes” were part of a communist plot, Alaniz wrote.

Many of those commenting appeared not to have read the textbooks they discussed, he observed.

In his own final report, Rep. Nelson Cowles, D-Hallsville, wrote that American history textbooks showed a pattern of portraying America’s flaws and failures.

“A history book which fails to create a feeling of pride in our nation and a love of country, should not be adopted for use in our public schools,” Cowles wrote. “Every textbook used in our schools should be prejudiced and biased in favor of individual freedom, freedom of enterprise and our Republican form of government.”

Eventually, each of the five committee members submitted their own recommendations about how the textbook approval process should change and what flaws existed with the stock of available texts.

Today, the primary power to approve textbooks remains with the elected State Board of Education. And the SBOE itself has often been the source of intense debates over political hot-button issues such as evolution, sexual education and ethnic studies.

More local than before

How far lawmakers should weigh into local matters has long been at issue.

Over the summer, a Leander ISD mother asked Texas legislators to add teeth to legislation that sought to restrict how teachers talk about race and current events. She said she didn’t trust local school boards to enforce the anti-critical race theory law.

A December 21, 1962 Dallas Morning News article shows the decision of lawmakers on a House textbook investigating committee to submit their own individual reports to the Legislature, rather than submit one common report.(Emily Donaldson)

Diane Birdwell, a Dallas history teacher, testified against the bill in Austin and found the mother’s testimony troubling.

“That is McCarthyism, pure and simple,” Birdwell told lawmakers. “That should send a shiver to any conservative who believes in local control, who believes in holding back government overreach, who believes in the power of educators that they all say they respect.”

Now while Krause’s inquiry reminds scholars of the 1962 investigation, it is distinct in that it narrowly focuses on local decisions, the texts that local school boards, campuses and teachers have a hand in picking. The 1962 committee’s work centered more broadly on textbooks, which have state oversight.

Historian Jeremi Suri, a professor in the University of Texas at Austin’s history department and at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, has found the recent statewide interest in classroom matters out of line with most of Texas history.

In general, most Texans don’t want state lawmakers delving into local school affairs, Suri said.

“This is a member of the state Legislature from Fort Worth, who seems to think that the Legislature should tell people across the state what they should read and what they shouldn’t read,” Suri said. “I can’t think of anything that’s more un-Texas.”

Texas parents or organizations have previously confronted school boards with concerns over individual books, but those were dealt with at the local level, Suri said.

Evaluating classroom books is not a simple or straightforward task, so determining their place in a district should be done community by community, educators say.

Many of the books on Krause’s list are novels or literature that don’t necessarily deal with hard facts or truth the same way that historical textbooks do, said Jonna Perrillo, an associate professor of English Education at the University of Texas at El Paso.

“You can’t really say whether novels are factual or not,” Perrillo noted, giving the example of the current debate over the novel “Beloved” by Toni Morrison.

The novel is set after the Civil War and recounts the story of a family of former slaves. While it deals with historical events, it is not about chronicling the past. Rather, it’s about what those events and characters mean to readers, which is much harder for any one person -- or lawmaker -- to define, she said.

“So much of this debate has been focused on history and hard patriotism curriculum, and I think English teachers have been waiting on this,” Perrillo said. Krause’s investigation and Texas’ new law restricting classroom discussion in all subject areas are “putting a whole other sort of classrooms and teachers at risk and under the spotlight.”

Digital archivist Spencer Bevis contributed to this story.

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Opinion: Why books have become a battlefield in Texas

Important opinion piece in the Washington Post by Karen Attiah on Rep. Matt Krause's reading list that you yourselves can link to here. It's a doozy.

Most importantly, it begs the question of how these books were picked. It's interesting what was NOT picked, as it reflects a bias against Mexican American authors and topics from Texas and the Southwest. Even the recently controversial book, Forget the Alamo, authored by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson and Jason Stanford failed to make the cut. Never mind Dr. Rodolfo Acuña's  Occupied America or Dr. Emilio Zamora's award-winning book, Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas. 

Where is Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La frontera: The New Mestiza or Cherrie Moraga's Loving in the War Years? I could go on and on. 

These structured omissions suggest that either Rep. Krause isn't a real Texan or he simply lifted this list from somewhere else in the country or both. If he were, he'd be an equal opportunity offender—particularly in light of our great successes at the state board level in getting Ethnic Studies passed. 

In any case, "the list" provides great Christmas gift ideas for our kids who actually have far fewer issues with such topics than adults who pump them up with baggage they'll end up carrying for the rest of their lives—short of, of course, a virtuous education that is inclusive of the richness and diversity of the human experience.

-Angela Valenzuela

Opinion: Why books have become a battlefield 

in Texas

The Texas Capitol is seen on the first day of the 87th legislature's third special session, on Sept. 20, 2021 in Austin. (Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images)

By Karen Attiah

Columnist|

November 1, 2021 at 5:17 p.m. EDT

DALLAS — “Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature,” wrote Cassandra Clare in her novel “Clockwork Angel.” A powerful and debilitating strain of such intellectual fragility has been sweeping across red states such as mine. Texas stands at the front lines of America’s thought wars, with books increasingly the battlefield.

Last week, state Rep. Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth), chairman of the House General Investigating Committee, sent school districts a list of more than 800 books and asked that they investigate how many copies are in their classrooms or libraries, as well as the amount of money spent on them. Krause also wants the districts to identify books or content dealing with human sexuality, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and graphic depictions of sex.

And borrowing language from the so-called anti-critical-race-theory laws recently passed in Texas and other states, Krause asked schools to report whether they have books that could make students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Districts were given until Nov. 12 to respond.

As colder weather approaches, it’s as though Krause plans to use school books to keep us all warm this winter — at the requisite 451 degrees Fahrenheit. Given our rickety power grid, I suppose torching books might tide Texans over for a while.

On a more serious note, looking at Krause’s list, it’s hard not to conjure up images of totalitarian regimes and violent groups that have gone after books throughout history, from Nazi attacks on works considered “un-German” in 1933 to al-Qaeda destroying precious manuscripts in Timbuktu. A gander at Krause’s list reveals an almost exclusive focus on race and racism, sex and sexuality, LGBT issues, abortion and — gasp — even puberty.

Popular anti-racism titles such as Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to be an Antiracist” and Ijeoma Oluo’s “So You Want to Talk about Race” unsurprisingly were targeted. But in general the list seems anything but painstakingly curated. It’s as if someone typed in the keywords “Black,” “racism,” “LGBT,” “gender” and “transgender” and simply poured the results into a spreadsheet. How else to explain the inclusion of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s chronology "And Still I Rise: Black America since MLK”? How is Tim Hanley’s “Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine” a possible threat to Texas students?

And as to making students uncomfortable? Many of the titles were written precisely to help developing young people become more comfortable with being and feeling different — whether it be due to their race, gender or sexuality.

For now no bonfires are planned, but really none will be necessary if teachers are scared out of introducing books into classes in the first place, which one imagines is the point of this exercise. There have already been reports of teachers pulling titles preemptively to avoid controversy. Other state-supported educational institutions have felt the pressure, too — this summer, the Bullock Texas State History Museum canceled an event around the launch of “Forget the Alamo,” which challenges whitewashed myths about the fort and the famous battle that took place there.

On one hand, the whole thing reeks of a political stunt that will waste valuable educational time and resources. Krause is challenging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a Republican primary next year. In today’s Texas politics, there is no penalty for going to extremes on the right.But on the other hand, a dangerous blueprint is being written and fine-tuned.

Outside of Texas, GOP leaders and candidates are increasingly using book-banning to burnish their credentials. In Virginia, GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin has seized on the anti-CRT hysteria, producing an ad featuring a White mother in Fairfax County who campaigned to have Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” removed from her son’s curriculum. And it doesn’t stop at books. Wisconsin Republicans want to ban specific words, most of which have to do with race and diversity, from the state’s public schools.

It’s not hard to read between the lines. These attacks on books come as a response to the growing power that marginalized people have demonstrated recently in our public discourse. Book-banning, like the Southern Strategy of old, is an effort to harness White fears of a new, more racially equal America.

And so another cycle turns. For as long as the GOP tries to stop new generations from learning from America’s past, we will be doomed to repeat the darkest elements of it.

Rep. Matt Krause's Campaign for Attorney General Scrutinizes Texas School Districts for Texts on Race and Sexuality

Compliments of the Voice of the Mainland blog, here is specific detail on the specific request by Ft. Worth Rep. Matt Krause who is running for attorney general for texts purchased by school districts, including award winners, that address issues of race and sexuality [also read: Analysis: Matt Krause’s campaign for attorney general comes with a reading list]. This amounts to a new level of scrutiny of Texas public schools that falls on the heels of anti-CRT bill, Senate Bill 3, that promises to earn him a measure of notoriety. 

Accordingly, read my earlier post titled: "Texas House committee to investigate school districts’ books on race and sexuality." You can't make this stuff up.

Glad to see the the Austin Independent School District not going through with this primarily since there's already a link to the requested information [read: "Austin ISD dismisses Texas lawmaker's probe into books on race, sex"]. 

Requests like these that are designed to bolster the political aims of lawmakers are not only a cost to taxpayers, but involve an inordinate amount of time—and for what purpose other than to polarize society even more? The Rs have reached the limits of their political leadership if this is all they have, pestering superintendents and local school boards for narrow, political ends.

-Angela Valenzuela

***

Editor: Texas State Representative Matt Krause is asking several Texas schools to conduct an assessment of books in their library and see if any of these books are in their library system, how many copies and the amount of dollars expended by the school district to purchase those books. The public has no knowledge what Rep Krause intends to do with the outcome of his investigation. Maybe noting. Maybe burn the books. Maybe deduct the amount spend on the books from the school district's budget. We do not know. Anyway, book burning seems to be making it's way into Texas education, maybe not as an act, but as a threat.

The text of his message is below. The full letter can be linked to here.

1. Please identify how many copies of each book in the attached Addendum your

District possesses and at what campus locations including school library and

classroom collections. Please identify the amount of funds spent by your District to 

acquire the books identified in request No. 1 above.

3. Please identify any other books or content in your District, specifying the campus

location and funds spent on acquisition, that address or contain the following topics:

human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus

(HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually explicit images,

graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain

material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of

psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue

of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or

unconsciously.

Your prompt attention to this request is appreciated, and I request a written response via 

email by November 12, 2021. If you have any questions, please contact me or the 

Committee’s General Counsel, Darren Keyes.