Book bans are so horrific. This is censorship. It's unbecoming of a free society. I feel for this Llano County librarian. I really hope the Llano County community realizes this travesty and supports her even more strongly in the event that they already do. No one should be subjected to this wrongdoing.

We must honor our librarians as their work is sacred.

-Angela Valenzuela

Librarian's wrongful termination lawsuit against Llano County can move forward, judge rules

by Bayliss Wagner, Austin American-Statesman | Aug. 29, 2024

A librarian who was fired amid a pressure campaign to remove books from Llano County public libraries can sue for wrongful termination and employment discrimination, a federal judge has ruled.

Suzette Baker, who was head librarian at a county library in Kingsland, filed the lawsuit in March and accused Llano County of firing her in 2022 because she refused to remove books that a group of activists deemed inappropriate for children, some of which focused on race and LGBTQ+ experiences. The county eventually removed 17 books, ranging from the children’s book “I Broke My Butt!” to the nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent.”

Baker also accused county officials of suppressing her First Amendment rights by barring her and other librarians from attending public Library Advisory Board meetings during their personal and vacation time.

Baker, a 57-year-old veteran and mother of five adult children, now works as a cashier at a hardware store in Kingsland.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman on Tuesday evening denied Llano County's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to advance toward a potential trial in Austin. The litigation could prove costly for Llano County, a rural Texas community in the Hill Country about 80 miles northwest of Austin, as it simultaneously defends itself against another federal lawsuit over the book removals.

The defendants in the case – the county, the Commissioners Court, the county's library director and several community activists who were appointed to the Library Advisory Board during the push for book removals − categorically rejected Baker's claims for legal relief in their June 4 motion to dismiss.

As per Llano County Library Director Amber Milum's writeups, Baker was given a verbal warning and later fired for several instances of "insubordination" and "disruptive" behavior, including calling in sick to attend a library board meeting and falsely stating Milum had sent her. Baker also erected a library marquee that read, "We put the 'Lit' in Literature," a double entendre referring to book burning, according to court filings.

"You are allowing personal biases, opinions and preferences to unduly influence your actions and judgment," Milum wrote in a March 9, 2022 memo noting she had terminated Baker’s employment.

The defendants largely declined to comment on Tuesday's order in response to individual requests sent by the American-Statesman, saying the county could not comment on ongoing litigation.

"We respect the legal process and look forward to finalizing this litigation," Llano County Judge Ron Cunningham wrote to the Statesman on Wednesday.

Commissioner Jerry Don Moss emphasized that the Commissioners Court did not vote for Baker’s termination or order Milum to fire her in a phone call with the Statesman Wednesday.

Baker's case, and the situation in Llano, have drawn national attention as restrictions on books read by children in schools and public libraries generate fierce debate around the country. In June, the Author's Guild in New York City gave Baker the "Champion of Writers" award for her "brave defense of her community's right to read."

For Baker, the judge's order signals that she and her lawyer are "going in the right direction."

"I know what I did was right," Baker said.

Denver-based attorney Iris Halpern, who is representing Baker, told the Statesman she hopes this initial order "sends a message" to libraries and government bodies that are considering placing restrictions on content. Halpern represented another Colorado librarian in a successful wrongful termination suit.

"Libraries are playing politics with First Amendment and constitutional and civil rights, and it's time that that stops happening," said Halpern, a partner at Rathod Mohamedbhai, in a phone interview.

"Librarians like Suzette Baker and other librarians across the country are heroes for protecting our rights and standing up to censorship and discrimination," she added.

The defendants' attorneys – Joanna Lippman Salinas and David Solomon of Austin-based firm Fletcher, Farley, Shipman & Salinas – did not respond to a request for comment.

In November 2021, community member Bonnie Wallace sent a spreadsheet with about 60 books to Milum and requested that librarians remove "all books that depict any type of sexual activity or questionable nudity." The list was based on one compiled the month prior by Texas Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth.

Milum directed Baker to remove the books from circulation in Kingsland, but Baker refused, believing taking them out of the library would constitute a First Amendment violation, according to the complaint. At the time, she wrote in an email to Milum that the library system should counter parents’ concerns with “information on how to effectively see what their children are doing and on how to choose those books.”

In a phone interview Tuesday with the Statesman, Baker noted that the library has a process for patrons to file formal challenges to books, but said that process was never used for the removals in 2021 and 2022.

In total, 17 books were removed. Some were children's books, such as "Larry the Farting Leprechaun." Some were related to puberty, like "It's Perfectly Normal." Others were award-winning adult nonfiction books, including "They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group” and “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents." The library serves community members of all ages and books are labeled to indicate their recommended age range.

The county noted in its court filing that public employers have authority to limit speech and speech activities, such as attending public meetings, when that speech contradicts policies or impairs performance.

"Plaintiff's speech was intimately connected with her professional duties and thus is not protected employee speech," Salinas argued in the motion to dismiss.

The defendants note in their motion that neither the Commissioners Court nor the Library Board voted to authorize or order Milum, who oversees all three county libraries, to terminate Baker.

"The Commissioners Court had nothing to do with the termination," Moss, a defendant in the lawsuit, told the Statesman in a phone call Wednesday.

But Baker argues in the lawsuit that the defendants all "planned, authorized, and supported her termination,” including by repeatedly pressuring Milum to have books removed. She also contends that the county terminated her employment to discriminate against minority groups through book bans and suppressed her First Amendment rights as well as those of other residents.

Baker is seeking back pay, attorney's fees and an injunction ordering the county to cease behavior that discriminates against minorities and suppresses residents' First Amendment rights.

I appreciate University of Massachusetts Amherst, College of Education professor Dr. Warren Blumenfeld's focus on book bans and censorship, while pointing in this piece very appropriate connections to Nazi Germany as well as to our own recent history in Arizona with the banning of the district's Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District. This banning similarly also involved the banning of many books, some of which Dr. Blumenfeld lists below. Go to this Banned Books Link to see all of the books banned by the Arizona Department of Education.

I love this pertinent piece by the late Dr. Roberto Cintli Rodriguez titled, Why ban Indigenous philosophies in the classroom? Actual philosophy that is as relevant to our times today as it was to our ancestors is what happens, as well, when we ban books.

Another great read by Dr. Blumenfeld is titled,  "Are We in Higher Education Reverting to the Pitfalls of the Banning Books and Classroom Discussions Movement of K-12?"

I so appreciate the connections that Dr. Blumenfeld makes to higher education that I myself have always referred to as a "slippery slope." By this I mean the importance, as a policy maker or advocate to attend to K-12 issues as these migrate to higher education, as we are all witnessing at this very moment.

If this is something you care about, see today's earlier post about being present to protect literature at the December 13th meeting of the Texas Board of Education.

-Angela Valenzuela

Banning Courses for Political Purposes Violates Students Rights To Learn

 

The bill bans the teaching of Critical Race Theory and other discussions around the topic of the country’s racial history in the schools and diversity and inclusion training in corporations.

January 31, 2023 by Warren Blumenfeld Leave a Comment

 

Under the guise of “freedom” to determine “their children’s” education, though not a new phenomenon, we are seeing some parents, legislators, and school administrators attempting to place severe limits on the teaching of our nation’s past and the legacies of this history upon the lives of people and the functioning of institutions today.

Republican legislators throughout the U.S. have enacted new laws and policies intended to define the narrow parameters of what and how students will discuss our country’s past and our present.

Many of these efforts have attempted to ban Critical Race Theory, even though CRT is not taught in the public school and is generally discussed in selective college and university graduate level courses.

Possibly because the notion of Critical Race Theory is so vague to most conservative voters, then Republican candidate for Virginia’s next Governor, Glenn Youngkin, calling himself the “parents’ rights candidate,” has attempted to instill further fear on the part of the electorate.

Youngkin has raised his racist bullhorn by declaring not only his intent to ban Critical Race Theory the day he was elected, but also to outlaw the reading of the critically acclaimed and award winning novel by author Toni Morrison, Beloved, which was turned into a major feature film.

By his own admission, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has also attempted to prevent residents, schools, and corporations in Florida from becoming actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice) in his rhetoric and his support for the state’s so-called “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act.”

In addition to demonizing Latinx and black immigrants coming from the U.S. southern border and using their bodies as props to promote himself and his far-right agenda, conservative Republicans in the state legislature, along with the Governor’s absolute backing, passed the act to supposedly provide businesses, employees, children, and families the legal means of opposing alleged “woke indoctrination.”

“DeSantis” in Italian means “of the Saints” or “of the Holy,” but Governor Ron is certainly no saint. The bill bans the teaching of Critical Race Theory and other discussions around the topic of the country’s racial history in the schools and diversity and inclusion training in corporations.

DeSantis announced during his second inaugural address, January 3, 2023:

“We reject this woke ideology. We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy,” he reiterated. “We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional.” And then he pledged, “We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Now, DeSantis is attempting to cancel Florida students’ attendance into an AP course on African American studies because, according to the governor, it “significantly lacks educational value,” even though the College Board, the association that administers standardized test like the SATs, has dedicated over a decade in developing the AP African American studies course, which has been pilot tested across the nation in over 60 high schools.

Actually, in his statement and actions, DeSantis is not allowing reality, facts, and truth to enter the public sphere.

DeSantis is not only criminalizing discussions of race and racism, but he is also preventing Florida residents from actively attending to important societal facts and issues of sexuality and gender as well.

Florida’s so-called “Parental Rights in Education” law, called by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, was to take effect weeks later on July 1, 2022.

Passed primarily by Republicans in the state legislature and signed into law by DeSantis, the new law reads in part:

“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Though Florida has positioned itself at the tip of the spear to cut and bleed to death school curricular materials on topics of race, gender, and sexual identity, school contexts, as reproductions of the larger society, function on an overarching system of racism, heteronormativity, and other forms of oppression.

We must never forget, however, the prophetic words of German poet, Heinrich Heine: “Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also.”

Arizona as Case Study

By comparison, I ask how these attitudes and actions are any different from the draconian practices enacted by Arizona state officials in 2010 in stripping away primarily the Mexican American Studies programs from Tucson public schools? Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, suspended the highly successful and student empowering program.

Then Arizona School Superintendent, Tom Horne, in 2010 when the state legislature passed the measure, House Bill 2281, asserted that the law is necessary because Tucson, Arizona’s Mexican American, African American, and Native American studies courses teach students that they are oppressed, encourage resentment toward white people, and promote “ethnic chauvinism” and “ethnic solidarity” instead of treating people as individuals.

Huppenthal released a list of books he had banned from classrooms throughout the state, including The Tempest by Shakespeare, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by Bigelow and Peterson, The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by Delgado and Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by Delgado and Stefancic, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by Freire, United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by Remy, Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by Rosales, and Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by Zinn.

Anyone who believes in academic freedom and cultural liberty must find practices of censorship offensive. Students previously enrolled in the Mexican American Studies program achieved a 94% high school graduation rate, up significantly from around 50% of Latino/a students not enrolled. The program had given students a sense of cultural pride, a passion and joy in the learning process, and a feeling of hope for their futures.

Unfortunately, however, Arizona politicians placed social and cultural conformity as the major considerations. This reflects educational researcher’s, Kochman, in Black and White Cultural Styles in Pluralistic Perspective (1994) contention that dominant society mandates linguistic and cultural assimilation as a requirement for social support:

“The nonreciprocal nature of the process of cultural assimilations of minorities does not permit the mainstream American culture to learn about minority cultural traditions nor benefit from their official social incorporation. It also suggests an unwarranted social arrogance: that mainstream American society has already reached a state of perfection and cannot benefit from being exposed to and learning from other cultural traditions” (p. 287).

Censorship as Cultural and Physical Genocide

As wisely and eloquently stated by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in his 1839 play, Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, “the pen is mightier than the sword,” this adage holds that the written word acts as a powerful tool in the transmission of ideas. Why else would oppressive regimes and other avid enforcers of the status quo engage in censorship and book bannings and burnings throughout the ages?

For example, Pope Gregory IX in 1239, in his quest to maintain the Catholic Church’s economic and ideological stranglehold, ordered all copies of the Jewish holy book, the Talmud, confiscated, and one of his successors, Pope John XXI, commanded that the Talmud be burned on the eve of the Jewish Passover in 1322.

Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, in his 1526 treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, argued that “First, their synagogues should be set on fire.” Jewish prayer books should be destroyed, and rabbis forbidden to preach. The homes of Jews should likewise be “smashed and destroyed” and their residents “put under one roof or in a stable like gypsies, to teach them they are not master in our land….These “poisonous envenomed worms should be drafted into forced labor. The young and strong Jews and Jewesses should be given the flail, the ax, the hoe, the spade, the distaff, and the spindle and let them earn their bread by the sweat of their noses.”

As Luther’s dire pronouncements make perfectly clear, what begins as banning then torching of books and other property eventually results in the denial of civil liberties, torture, and eventually murder of people scapegoated by dominant social groups and by their government leaders.

This was certainly the case in Nazi Germany. Nazi storm troopers, in 1933, invaded, ransacked, and padlocked The Institute for Sexual Sciences in Berlin, founded by Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish sexuality researcher.

The Institute conducted early sexuality and gender research, the precursor of the Indiana-based Kinsey Institute in the United States. Storm troopers carried away and torched thousands of volumes of books and research documents calling the Institute “an international center of the white-slave trade” and “an unparalleled breading ground of dirt and filth.”

Soon thereafter, Nazis and conservative university students throughout Germany invaded Jewish organizations, and public and school libraries and confiscated books they deemed “un-German.” The German Student Association, (Deutsche Studentenschaft) declared a national “Action against the Un-German Spirit.”

On May 10, 1933, the students along with Nazi leaders set ablaze over 25,000 volumes in Berlin’s Opernplatz. Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, “fired” up the crowd of over 40,000 sympathizers by declaring “No to decadence and moral corruption. Yes to decency and morality in family and state.”

Joel Spring, in his book Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States, addresses “cultural genocide,” which he defines as “the attempt to destroy other cultures” through forced acquiescence and assimilation to majority rule and cultural and religious standards. This cultural genocide works through the process of “deculturalization,” which Spring describes as “the educational process of destroying a people’s culture and replacing it with a new culture.”

An historical example of “cultural genocide” and “deculturalization” can be seen in the case of European American domination over Native American Indigenous nations whom European Americans viewed as “uncivilized,” “godless heathens,” “barbarians,” and “devil worshipers.”

European Americans attempted to deculturalized indigenous peoples through many means: confiscation of land, forced relocation, undermining of their languages, cultures, and identities, forced conversion to Christianity, and the establishment of Christian day schools and off-reservation boarding schools where they took youth far away from their people.

The U.S. government under President Hayes approved and developed off-reservation Indian boarding schools, the first in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1879 run primarily by white Christian teachers, administered by Richard Pratt, a former cavalry commander in the Indian Territories.

At the schools, officials stripped Indigenous children from their cultures: cut short the young men’s hair, forced all to wear Western-style clothing, prohibited them from conversing in their native languages and made English compulsory, destroyed all their cultural and spiritual symbols, and imposed Christianity on them.

As Pratt related to a Baptist audience: “[We must immerse] Indians in our civilization, and when we get them under, [hold] them there until they are thoroughly soaked.”

As Santayana reminds us: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” We now, though, have an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past by speaking out against the racism and cultural genocide that surrounds us.

Standing together and standing firm, we can reverse the tide of ruthless censorship engulfing our educational system.

—

This Post is republished on Medium.

INVITATION: Support a Major Youth Leader, Cameron Samuels, on Two Panels proposed for SXSW—March 2024 (Aug. 20, 2023 Deadline to Vote)

Friends,

I'm endorsing Cameron Samuels for two sessions at next year's SXSW EDU conference in March in Austin, Texas, and hope you do, too. I had the experience and honor of testifying side-by-side with Samuels against Senate Bill 3, Texas' anti-CRT bill that passed during the second-called special session of the 87th 2021 Texas State Legislature. They have mobilized hundreds of youth to take a stand against book bans, anti-transgender bills, and turning school libraries, as they're doing in Houston right now, into detention centers. You can't make this stuff up.

I honestly can't think of anyone more deserving of a voice and platform at South by Southwest.

To get a more complete and on-going sense of who they are, follow their grassroots, student, and student-led organization they founded, namely SEAT, on Instagram: @studentsengagedtx

SEAT stands for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas and their tagline reads: "Students Engaged in Advancing Texas is a movement of young people developing transferable skills and demonstrating youth visibility in policymaking."

SEAT is a testament to how anyone with a conscience—no matter how young—can organize, mobilize, and be a player in politics and policy at the school board and state level. Cameron is inspiring a new generation of young people to stand up and be counted.

One of the panels is with Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give. The panel addresses how to fight book bans. In an email sent to me, they express, "This platform to speak on this issue, especially as a student, would be tremendous for students' right to read." 

Folks can vote on this through Aug. 20th with community votes counting for 30% of the outcome. If you'd like to support Cameron and these book banning/censorship panels, then please register a positive upvote for them by following the links to these panels.

How to Be a Freedom Fighter

Beyond the Censor's Gavel: Anatomy of New Censorship

I'm obviously a total fan. Samuels and his fellow students at SEAT inspire the hope that the next generation of Gen Z youth is keeping the world on track.

-Angela Valenzuela

Select Articles and Podcast by or about 

Cameron Samuels

Drabinski, E. (2023, March 25). The Fight Against Book Bans Is Mobilizing a New Generation of Student Activists, Truthout. Retrieved: https://truthout.org/articles/the-fight-against-book-bans-is-mobilizing-a-new-generation-of-student-activists/

Hardy, M. (2022, May 4). In a Houston Suburb, Book Bans Fuel a Bitter School Board Race, Texas Monthly. Retrieved: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/katy-book-bans-fuel-bitter-school-board-race/

Pitcher, M. (2023, Jan. 5). Students Taking Back "Ownership" of Education, Texas Observer. Retrieved: https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-book-bans-cameron-samuels/

Samuels, C. (2023, June 14). Texas Book Ban Bills Set a Dangerous Precedent for the Narratives of Young People in Education, Project Censored. Retrieved: https://www.projectcensored.org/texas-book-ban-bills-set-a-dangerous-precedent-for-the-narratives-of-young-people-in-education/

Samuels, C. (2023, May 29). Texas Book Ban Sets Dangerous Precedent for Young People, People's Tribune. Retrieved: 

https://peoplestribune.org/2023/06/texas-book-ban-sets-dangerous-precedent-for-young-people/ 

Samuels, C. (2023, May 29). Texas Book Ban Sets Dangerous Precedent for Young People, People's Tribune [podcast]. Retrieved: https://www.projectcensored.org/censorship-and-book-banning-in-texasand-going-remote-a-teachers-journey/

Samuels, C. (2023, June 28). As a Katy student, I fought book bans. We're losing. Houston Chronicle.

Retrieved: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/lgbtq-book-bans-katy-isd-school-board-pride-gay-18175035.php

How a Texas student packed school board meetings to challenge book bans

Cameron Samuels, a graduating senior in Katy Independent School District, organized students to fight the district’s internet content filters and book bans.

June 1, 2022, 8:25 AM CDT

By Jo Yurcaba

In honor of Pride Month, NBC Out is highlighting and celebrating a new generation of LGBTQ trailblazers, creators and newsmakers. Visit our full #Pride30 list here.

When Cameron Samuels was a freshman at Seven Lakes High School in Katy, Texas, they tried to visit the website for The Advocate, the oldest LGBTQ publication in the United States.

But Samuels, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said the page was blocked by their school district.

“I received a page that said that website was blocked because it was under the category of ‘alternative sexual lifestyles, GLBT,’” said Samuels, now 18 and about to graduate. 

Samuels was troubled by the block, but at the time said they didn’t have the leadership skills to fight it. 

About two years later, when Samuels returned to the school for in-person instruction, they began to organize students against what they described as the “discriminatory internet filter.”  

In November, Samuels spoke about the issue at a school board meeting.

“I was the only student and received no applause,” Samuels said in a recent video interview. “That was really frightening as I walked back to my seat after speaking and just saw people staring at me, but I realized that those stares were stairs to climb on.”

After Samuels organized more students, they said the district removed its block on the website for the Montrose Center, a local LGBTQ group in the state, in December. In January, it removed restrictions on websites for three national organizations: Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the country; GLSEN, which fights for the rights of LGBTQ students; and PFLAG, which supports LGBTQ people and their families, among other sites. 

But Samuels said the district continues to block The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, because of a chat feature that connects young people with trained counselors. 

“They’re claiming it’s because of a chat feature, but really the category that it’s blocked under had been ‘alternative sexual lifestyles,’” Samuels told NBC News in February.

Students will have to continue to challenge the block after Samuels graduates in June, which Samuels said they’re well-equipped to do. Samuels said one of their proudest moments has been mobilizing students from all nine of the high schools in the district — a total student body population of 90,000 — to fight not just the internet filter but also book bans. 

Their district, the Katy Independent School District, has been one of many where school board meetings have turned into heated debates over books and instruction on topics related to race. The district pulled nine books off shelves earlier this year, NBC News reported in February. All of the titles are related to LGBTQ issues or race. 

Students, including Samuels, responded by organizing book drives at schools across the district and at several public spaces. In late February, Samuels said more than 80 people showed up to a book distribution event at Jordan High School. 

“The librarian said that was the most people that had ever been in the library, which is where the event took place,” Samuels told NBC in February. “It was like a record for the school. … They distributed 70 books, so more people showed up than could get a book. But we have hundreds more that we’re hoping to continue distributing.” 

They said some of the students who attended the book distributions were not out as LGBTQ, because they feared their parents or friends wouldn’t support them. They’ve taken books that affirm who they are, and “they have told me with such great appreciation that these books have helped them, that these books will help them, and that is why it’s so important that students have access to literature that affirms their identity,” Samuels said, recalling the events.

At a school board meeting, also in February, Samuels said students packed the room and so many of them spoke against the book bans that they outnumbered the opposition. 

“There were Pride flags and stickers across the room, and almost every seat was filled, which was such an empowering moment to see that I, as a single student with no applause, have now built this movement where students are coming to school board meetings, outnumbering the opposition in February, in March, in May and hopefully in the future,” they said.

Samuels said the movement they started is sustainable, and it will be something they leave behind after they leave to go to Brandeis, a private research university outside Boston, to study computer science and politics, “and maybe legal studies and journalism,” they said.

They said their advice to younger LGBTQ students who want to oppose book bans or other anti-LGBTQ efforts is to seek support where you can find it. 

“Seek friends who will accept you for who you are, and don’t try to fit someone else’s expectations,” they said. “You are you. There’s nobody else that is you.”

Latino history gives teachers a great opportunity to address identity, diversity, language, civil rights, and U.S. history that reflects the Latino experience. Consider that a fourth of all public high school students are Latina/o, this warrants much more coverage beyond the ostensibly "pivotal" moment that Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the Supreme Court represents, per an analysis of major history textbooks covered herein.

Of course, we know that curriculum equates to the reproduction of consciousness in ways that those in power resist. Hence, all the sad stories about book bans happening today when we already experienced a dearth of texts reflecting the experiences of people of color in U.S. society. 

My only concern with this piece is its failure to mention Mexican American Studies/Chicana/o Studies/Boricua/Dominican Studies as these not only represent legacy agendas dating back to the late 1960s and early 1970s, but these are what are actually currently taught in our nation's college classroom since those early years, as well.

That said, this should scream at us loudly about doing everything we can to get out the vote and get these fascist book banners—that further advocate for a triumphalist, white-washed version of history—out of office.

-Angela Valenzuela

Most U.S. Latino history is left out of high school textbooks, study finds

A vast majority of key topics are ignored or barely covered, including aspects of the Mexican-American War, the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico and racial segregation.

A picture of the USS Maine, which sank in Havana Harbor and was a catalyst for the Spanish-American War. AP file

May 17, 2023, 2:42 PM MDT

By Edwin Flores | NBC Latino

Most of the seminal events impacting U.S. Latino history are not a subject of study in high schools across the country, according to a new report by Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and UnidosUS, a national Latino advocacy and research organization.

The study found that 87% of key Latino topics were either not covered in U.S. history textbooks or were mentioned in just five or fewer sentences.

"Only 28 of 222 important topics were covered well, leaving out many aspects of the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico, the Panama Canal, the modern civil rights movement, Cold War politics, and legal developments shaping the Latino experience, such as the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and racial segregation," according to a release on the report.

Over a quarter of the nation's K-12 public school students are Latino.

Researchers analyzed five U.S. history textbooks used in seven states and one AP U.S. history book. The study looked at the overall depiction of the Latino experience throughout the centuries, the balance between discussions about inequality and the Latino contributions to the U.S., the use of language and the authenticity of images.

The topics with the greatest depth of content were American land purchases from Mexico and Latin American foreign policy — a 1.4 out of a maximum of three. But when it came to coverage of U.S. Latino "firsts" from 1821 to the present, the coverage was the "thinnest" — a .1 out of three.

The report also found that while the AP textbook and a couple of other textbooks contextualized the significance of certain concepts and their impact on the Latino experience — for example the role of nativism to examine how certain groups of people, including Latinos, were treated — other textbooks "were intellectually flat."

Additionally, the research revealed that Sonia Sotomayor's appointment as the Supreme Court's first Latina justice was the only event in the past 200 years that was noted in all the books as a pivotal Latino moment.

The report issued several recommendations, including that publishers develop textbooks "that fully expose students to the experiences of Latinos, incorporating rigorous content including both primary and secondary sources. At a minimum, publishers should commission independent reviews of their texts, measured against the seminal content."

The researchers also urged teachers, parents and community leaders to advocate for more inclusive curricula and materials, and to hold meetings with school officials and school boards.

 "As the country grows more diverse,” Viviana López Green, senior director of the racial equity initiative at UnidosUS, said in a statement, “it’s essential for our future workers, businesspeople, community leaders, and public officials to learn about the contributions and experiences of all Americans, including Latinos, the country’s largest racial/ethnic minority.” 

José Gregory, a U.S. history teacher in Atlanta and a consultant on the project, said in a statement that the "American Latino experience must be accurately depicted to our young people in the classroom if we want them to grow up in a society that recognizes and values the contributions made by people of color."  

Edwin Flores

Edwin Flores reports and produces for NBC Latino and is based in Anaheim, California.