A Thoughtful Introduction to my book, Subtractive Schooling—Through Becky Morales’ Lens, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

A Thoughtful Introduction to my book, Subtractive Schooling—Through Becky Morales’ Lens, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Every now and then, someone comes along who is able to take a body of work and make it newly accessible—clear, grounded, and meaningful in ways that reach beyond the academy. I want to share one such example with you. In this YouTube video, educator and global learning advocate Becky Morales offers a thoughtful and generous reading of my book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring. What I appreciate most about her interpretation is not simply that she engages the core ideas, but that she does so with care, clarity, and a deep respect for the lived experiences at the heart of the work.

Becky brings into focus what “subtractive schooling” really means—not as an abstract concept, but as something that shapes students’ identities, language, and sense of belonging. As she notes, the book examines how schooling processes can strip away students’ cultural and linguistic resources even as they claim to educate them . At the same time, she highlights the importance of what I have called “authentic caring”—a form of relational, humanizing practice that stands in contrast to these subtractive forces.

What is especially meaningful to me is how Becky translates these ideas for educators, parents, and community members. She reminds us that this work is not only about critique, but about possibility—about how we might do schooling differently, in ways that affirm rather than erase who students are.

I share this not to revisit my own work, but to lift up hers. In a moment when conversations about education are often flattened into soundbites or politicized narratives, Becky Morales offers something else: a careful, accessible, and deeply humane engagement with what is at stake for young people in our schools.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch. It’s a beautiful example of what it means to read with care—and to teach with purpose. You may follow her YouTube @BeckyMorales

 

Becky Morales, creator of KidWorldCitizen.org and author of GlobalEdToolkit.com, shares activities to enhance global learning. Topics include: geography, world culture, empathy, service learning, cultural exchange, family travel, world recipes/music/films for kids, multicultural crafts, multicultural children's literature, educational technology, adoption, and multicultural families.

A New Year's Reflection on Cecilia Ballí's NYTimes story on "Charro Days" and what "This Glorious Celebration Shows What Border Communities Can Be"

Friends:

Instead of the hideous, iron-gated wall along the U.S.-Mexico border championed by Trump and Texas' Governor Abbott—marked by violence, death, and tragedy for many seeking refuge from hardship and striving for a better life—let's envision a more positive and affirming approach to the U.S.-Mexico border. This is where art and the enduring beauty of cultural traditions come into play.

Journalist and cultural anthropologist Cecilia Ballí shares a beautiful story appearing in the New York Times about Brownsville's annually celebrated "Charro Days." A "charro" is a traditional Mexican horseman known for ornate attire, including fitted pants, intricately embroidered, fitted jacket, and a sombrero. Charros are known for "charreadas," or rodeo-like events that are Mexico's national sport. They're worth going to if you've never been to one.

As a side note, "charros" are analogous to, yet distinct from, "vaqueros," or "cowboys." It is important to recognize that vaqueros were the original cowboys of the American Southwest, predating the stereotypical image of the white, Marlboro-looking man popularized by Western films. Both charros and vaqueros are skilled horsemen and work with livestock, but charros are deeply intertwined with Mexican traditions, culture, and formal attire. 

Their role may extend beyond ranch work entirely such as through equestrian events and competitions.  In contrast, vaqueros were primarily members of the American working class of their time, with attire that was more functional than aesthetic. 

Not only do women participate in charrería, known as "escaramuzas"—together with silver threads and ornate sombreros, but the sport is gaining traction in the U.S. as you can learn from this CBS morning news story. A distinctive talent is riding sidesaddle and equally daunting and competitive "horesmanship" (or "horsewomanship"). Escaramuzas get scored on what they're wearing and may become rodeo queens. Check out this pertinent documentary titled, "Escaramuzas: The Elegant Tradition of the Mexican Charrería & Charreada."

Charrería dates back to the haciendas of the 1500s and is recognized by UNESCO as an "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity." This designation acknowledges charrería not only as a sport but also as a rich cultural expression that reflects Mexico's history, values, and artistic heritage. 

A UNESCO designation further means that charrería has achieved international acclaim despite challenges like assimilation and urbanization, while simultaneously contributing to its preservation and ensuring its transmission to future generations as a powerful symbol of Mexican cultural identity. 

As beautifully recounted by Ballí, Brownsville's "Charro Days" is an annual fiesta, established in 1937, that celebrates the shared Mexican heritage of the border region.that U.S. assimilation policies have wanted us as U.S. Mexicans to ignore or somehow forget altogether. In the educational arena, I term this "subtractive cultural assimilation"—or simply, "subtractive schooling," to convey how priorities, policies, and practices have systematically sought to eviscerate our language, culture, and identities.

Thanks to the vision and leadership of Brownsville's business leaders, "Charro Days" defies subtractive cultural assimilation with its redemptive annual fiesta that began in 1937, celebrating a shared Mexican heritage across the border—a heritage U.S. assimilation policies have often pressured Mexican Americans to overlook. This year’s event, scheduled for February 20 to March 1, 2025, serves as a vibrant reminder of the power and beauty of cultural traditions. As Ballí’s account suggests, why should we ever stop celebrating something that not only fosters conviviality but also showcases the resilience and richness of our culture? 

The answer is clear. Transforming the border into a space of dialogue, connection, and aesthetic beauty empowers a community that state and national policies have historically sought to marginalize.

Finally, and most importantly, heartfelt thanks to Cecilia Ballí, whose work consistently reminds us of the transformative power of art, culture, and aesthetics. Through her storytelling, she demonstrates how, when guided by visionary leaders, these forces can heal divisions, uplift communities, and, indeed, save the world.

Happy New Years, everybody!

-Angela Valenzuela

This Glorious Celebration Shows What Border Communities Can Be

June 8, 2024 | New York Times



Thalía Gochez for The New York Times

By Cecilia Ballí | Photographs by Thalía Gochez

Ms. Ballí is a journalist and cultural anthropologist who is writing a book about competitive high school mariachis in South Texas. She wrote from Brownsville, Texas. Ms. Gochez is a Salvadoran Mexican American photographer based in Los Angeles.

The sky was muddy gray when I arrived at the Sams Memorial Stadium parking lot on a cool February afternoon. As soon as I parked, a school police officer appeared in a golf cart to rush me to the front of the parade line. I clambered aboard, one hand holding my large white Mexican sombrero rimmed with gold embroidered roses, the other scooping my thick, long skirt.

I was there for Charro Days, a festival that honors Mexican culture and our city’s intimate connection with Matamoros, Tamaulipas, across the border. As an alumna of the Brownsville school district, I’d been invited to serve as grand marshal of the children’s parade.

I felt regal dressed in a bright salmon pink traje de charro, a modified version of the traditional Mexican horseman outfit worn by mariachis and ranchera singers. As we whizzed by the century-old red brick buildings of my junior high campus, norteño music wafting from nearby speakers, my eyes welled up and I felt a lump in my throat.

via Cecilia Ballí

Every year, right around Lent, life slows down in my hometown, and for eight glorious days we celebrate Charro Days. The first time I took part in the festival was in 1983, when my twin sister and I danced in the children’s parade to “La Cacahuata,” a norteño folk song, with our schoolmates.

During this week, residents often show up to work or school dressed in traditional Mexican clothing. Some wear charro outfits — the costume from central Mexico most associated with national identity. Others dress as chiapanecas and china poblanas, jarochas and tehuanas, in the blouses and skirts typical of the south. And there are lots of tamaulipecas, the fringed suede jackets of Tamaulipas.

To outsiders, it may all seem like a caricature of Mexican culture, but for Brownsville natives this is a time when we get to take pride and joy in who we are, in a country where it sometimes feels difficult to do so.



In the coming months, as the presidential campaign gets in full swing, Americans will no doubt be bombarded with visions of a broken U.S.-Mexico border. (Just this week President Biden issued an executive order that temporarily blocks most migrants from seeking asylum.)

What will be missing are portraits of the beautiful border some of us know — a place of community, continuity and celebration.

I like to say the border begins in Brownsville, where President James K. Polk first provoked a war with Mexico.

In April 1846, after the U.S. annexation of Texas, Polk dispatched 4,000 soldiers into the Nueces Strip in South Texas, ordering a land and water blockade of Mexican troops and civilians. Mexico claimed the border ran along the Nueces River in Corpus Christi, while the United States insisted it was the Rio Grande, 150 miles to the south.

When Mexican forces crossed the Rio Grande attempting to break the blockade, Gen. Zachary Taylor sent a small force to meet them. The Mexican Army fired, killing 11 American troops. Polk then convinced some skeptical members of Congress that it was an invasion.

Charro Days fiesta in Brownsville, Texas, February 1942.Credit...Arthur Rothstein, via Library of Congress

The war ended two years later, with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory to the United States. Soon surveyors began the task of demarcating the new border from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, which was nearly 2,000 miles long.

Thus the U.S. Southwest was born, marking the beginning of American westward expansion.

As children, we didn’t learn much about our city’s pivotal role in the construction of our nation, but the repercussions of that history hung over us. Both sides of my family, the Ballís and the Hinojosas, had been in the region since the 1700s and once owned vast tracts of land that, as was true for most Mexican American families in the region, they lost over time to Anglo land grabbers. My paternal grandfather was raised in Texas but moved to Matamoros in the late 1910s, during a period of intense racial violence against Mexican Americans.

While the national boundary changed, the border remained fluid. My parents were born in Matamoros. After they married, they got jobs as seasonal farmworkers. Eventually they saved enough to build a home in Brownsville.

Even though a vast majority of students I went to school with in the 1980s were Mexican American, there was a strong pressure to assimilate. In first grade, my teacher gave me a C in English because I spoke too much Spanish with my friends.

On Sundays, we crossed the international bridge to visit our grandparents on their small ranch outside Matamoros, which had an outhouse and no running water. We ate tamales and celebrated Christmas there. At night, my grandmother lulled us to sleep with Mexican folk tales.





Mexican culture was the salve that helped blunt the pain of growing up in poverty and of my father’s eventual cancer diagnosis and premature death.

Living in Brownsville I was able to be both deeply Mexican and deeply American — and crossing the border showed me that it was possible to hold those two identities at once. I learned to shift between countries, cultures, societies and political systems, ultimately giving me a stronger sense of myself.

Charro Days was founded in 1938, the brainchild of a local white businessman who wanted to stimulate the economy during the Great Depression, draw tourists and cultivate civic pride. It eventually morphed into a four-day fiesta that included parades, street dances, fireworks, a carnival, a rodeo and motorboat races.

It soon captured the nation’s imagination. National Geographic wrote about it. Paramount and Universal showed reels of the event in theaters across the country. By the 1950s, radio and television networks were broadcasting some of the festivities from coast to coast.

Around the same time, the main parade began crossing over into Matamoros, which also held its own events. In 1954, the U.S. government began opening the Gateway International Bridge in downtown Brownsville, which connects the two cities, so revelers could cross back and forth freely during the festival.

But our binational ties would wear thin as the border became harder to cross.

Beginning in the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans and Guatemalans fleeing civil wars poured into Brownsville and across other parts of the border. The Reagan administration responded by prosecuting religious activists who provided them safe harbor.

As world economies became more interconnected, the movement of people and goods across national borders increased. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, further changed the nature of border enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security was established in 2002; the Border Patrol eventually doubled in size.

In communities like Brownsville, these changes were felt intimately. Many residents stopped going to Matamoros, afraid of growing violence among Mexican drug cartels. With waits in customs lines to get into the United States now stretching for hours, many Matamoros residents also lost the incentive to come to Brownsville.

After my grandmother died in 2022, my family, too, lost our anchor across the border. So, when the school district invited me to participate in this year’s parade, it was a chance to reconnect with an older Brownsville that I missed.

I arrived in town a few days early to attend Fiesta Folklorica, an evening event where the children who will dance in the parade perform for their families. Dozens of little girls in elaborate costumes stomped on the wooden dance floor and swirled their colorful skirts furiously, like butterflies ready to fly.

That morning, the White House announced that Mr. Biden would be coming to Brownsville the same day as the children’s parade to underscore his policy wins. For a moment, we weren’t sure if his visit would interrupt our celebration. It’s a form of theater that border communities are familiar with: politicians visiting, flanked by border agents and cameras.

The record numbers of migrants and refugees are undeniable. In the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September, Customs and Border Protection apprehended over 2.4 million people at the southwest border, many of them hoping to gain asylum.

Border communities are sandwiched between the issue, the politics surrounding it and the often misguided policies, which can prove unhelpful or even make the situation worse.

In the end, the children’s parade went on as planned. When I arrived at the meeting point that day, the young costumed dancers were lining up behind the car I would ride in. They were a picture of sheer beauty and joy, decked out in red lipstick with flowers and bows on their heads.

“I like your dress!” one little girl yelled, pointing at me. “You’re so pretty!” another one said. I laughed and asked if I could take their picture.

A mile away, the Rio Grande meandered languidly. On the grounds of the old Amigoland Mall, carnival operators added finishing touches to the mechanical rides that would begin receiving thousands of guests that evening.

My car lurched forward and what followed was a sweet, nostalgic blur. Spectators on metal folding chairs cheered. Children dressed as small charros and charras flashed toothy grins and waved. One little boy with a mustache penciled on his upper lip took off his cowboy hat, twirled it chivalrously and bowed.

All the while local, state and federal agents lurked at every street corner: hulky tactical vehicles and men in camouflage with radios, buzz cuts and bulletproof vests. It was emblematic of all the increased policing we’ve seen on the border.

A woman waved, and I realized it was Mrs. Gomez, my former kindergarten teacher. A couple of bandmates from high school called out my name.

But it was my mom, aunts and cousins who screamed the loudest when I passed by them in front of the old Majestic Theater. Fourteen blocks from where it started, the parade ended at the Gateway International Bridge — the bridge that had defined our lives.

As the festival wound to a close, I visited with Rosendo Escareño, the director of Charro Days Inc., the main organizer of the festival, and Henry LeVrier, the group’s board president. They described the simple satisfaction they get watching children enjoy themselves at the parades with their parents, as so many generations did before them. Every cycle builds the tradition. “It becomes a really huge memory for us,” Mr. Escareño said, “and that’s why we’re here, 87 years strong this year.”

While the country becomes increasingly divided over the border, during Charro Days, those of us from Brownsville have something that still brings us together. In one another’s waves along the parade route, in our approving gazes, we saw ourselves. We belonged to the same thing, the same place. A place called home.




Cecilia Ballí is a journalist and cultural anthropologist based in San Antonio. She is writing a book about competitive high school mariachis in South Texas.

Thalía Gochez is a photographer based in Los Angeles. The photographs of the Children’s Parade were taken during the Charro Days festival in Brownsville, Texas, this year.


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25th Anniversary of "Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring," by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Friends,

Before the end of 2024, I want to highlight that this year marks the 25th anniversary of my award-winning book, Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring, published by the State University of New York Press. 

My book was honored with several prestigious awards, including the 2000 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association, the 2001 Critics' Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association, and an Honorable Mention for the 2000 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award.

I'm pleased to know that teachers and university professors are continuing to use this text in K-12 schools and college classrooms and that it continues to be a source of transformation for those who read it.

It is selling as strongly as ever, indicating that the dynamics I captured 25 years ago remain highly relevant today. It is also useful to researchers who want to understand differences in what I term, "subtractive acculturation assimilation," or "acculturation," with empirical findings on perceptions of schooling that distinguish immigrants from non-immigrant, regular-track youth in a Houston, Texas, high school where I conducted my case study research. 

I have presented my text throughout the country—too many to name—and without exception, it opens a window to understanding regardless of context. 

Thanks to Dr. Christine Sleeter who back in 1999, allowed my book to appear in her SUNY series, The Social Context of Education where she served as series editor, as well as for her writing of the book's foreword. She and I are great friends and colleagues today. Thanks, as well to Bill Ayers, Jonathan Kozol, the late Nel Noddings, and the late Henry Trueba for their strong, beautiful endorsements at such a critical point in my career.

I am humbled by all it took for me to bring this text to life, paralleling, as it were, with the births and early childhoods of our two daughters, Clara and Luz, and with Emilio's own challenges on the tenure track while teaching at the University of Houston. The late Dr. Linda McNeil was also pivotal to mine, and the book's success. Ok, I'm getting teary-eyed here. I need to post before the year ends!

Thanks for considering this for your classroom. Credible accounts that illuminate the dynamics of schooling that marginalize far too many of our youth remain necessary. Make Subtractive Schooling a holiday gift for someone you care for and love. 🩷

-Angela Valenzuela

SUNY Press Description

Subtractive Schooling provides a framework for understanding the patterns of immigrant achievement and U. S.-born underachievement frequently noted in the literature and observed by the author in her ethnographic account of regular-track youth attending a comprehensive, virtually all-Mexican, inner-city high school in Houston. Valenzuela argues that schools subtract resources from youth in two major ways: firstly by dismissing their definition of education and secondly, through assimilationist policies and practices that minimize their culture and language. A key consequence is the erosion of students' social capital evident in the absence of academically oriented networks among acculturated, U. S.-born youth.

"Corruption of My Mexican Identity," by Dan Acosta, Ph.D.

There is a lot to appreciate from this story by a former member of the University of Texas at Austin faculty, Dr. Dan Acosta, who also previously served as Dean Emeritus of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati. He offers a powerful narrative that resonates deeply with struggles faced by Mexican Americans. In my own research, I describe the systemic erasure of our identities as "subtractive schooling," a deliberate process that undermines our cultural heritage, as well as individual and community power.

Dan Acosta, Ph.D.

In Dr. Acosta’s story, I sense profound pain and frustration rooted in a long history of prejudice and discrimination. The inability to speak Spanish, or not speaking it “correctly,” reflects the success of assimilationist policies designed to strip away cultural ties. The stakes are high for those in power—especially as manifest throughout ongoing battles within the State Board of Education over culturally relevant curriculum and Ethnic Studies programs.

The irony here is striking. Current anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies seek to suppress initiatives that promote these very principles. Albeit with a few exceptions, the tragedy here is that DEI efforts have rarely been abundant in any meaningful way, as Dr. Acosta’s experiences illustrate. On the contrary, his story reveals a history of exclusion to which I can relate as one who has fought for her own place in higher education despite my Stanford Ph.D. and credentials.

Anti-affirmative action and DEI opposition appear to be preemptive strikes in an environment where people of color might otherwise gain access to higher education and subsequently assume their rightful places at the table in culture and society. These policies send a clear message: These opportunities are reserved primarily for white people. So wrong-headed. So sad.

So much talent has been wasted. It is truly a shame. Thanks, Dr. Acosta, for your story. We need more of these so folks out there don't believe the lies about the academy getting overtaken by "woke" students and faculty of color. Rather a more sinister agenda is at play.

—Angela Valenzuela

Corruption of My Mexican Identity

By Dan Acosta | Summer/Autumn 2024 | Rise Up Review, Resistance is Fertile

Now that I am retired one of my weekly tasks is to read what is happening at the Society of Toxicology, the largest professional group for toxicologists of all types--academic, government, and industrial- in the world. As the first elected Hispanic president of the organization, I like to keep up to date with issues facing the society. One current topic is to increase membership and to bring in more diverse scientists into the discipline, especially non-toxicologists who want to learn more about toxicology. Without getting too much into the weeds about the issue, I was struck by a comment made by a past president who strongly objected to the possibility that standards would be lowered to allow more people of diversity (i.e. people of color) become members of SOT. He did not want a "dumbing down of the society with unqualified individuals". He was alluding to affirmative action and "DEI" issues that have become hot political topics in America. It got me thinking about my life and qualifications as one of those people of diversity that SOT wants to have as some of its members.

As a first-generation Mexican American, my mother and grandparents emigrated to El Paso from Mexico; her parents wanted to create a new life for themselves by escaping the discord and troubled times in Mexico during its revolution in the early 1900s. Nana Cuca often told me stories of what it was like to live in Mexico and recounted her vivid memories of some of the revolutionaries like Pancho Villa. My paternal grandfather also came from Mexico; he later married his wife who was born in Presidio, Texas. My father was born in Valentine, Texas. He stopped going to school after the sixth grade so he could work with his father who was a hired hand on a ranch near Marfa. My parents never completed high school.   

When I was very young especially before I started grade school in 1951, my mother was often asked about my heritage. I later learned that they really wanted to know if I was white and not a Mexican. Nana Cuca used to brag that our family tree had strong Portuguese ties and that the lighter skin colors of her ancestors were passed on to her daughters--my mother and her sister, Babe. Although as a young boy I looked like a chubby white kid with fat cheeks, my Mexican heritage became more apparent as I grew older. My light brown hair started to become darker and by the time I began high school my hair had turned black, and my facial features were more Mexican-like.

I refused to speak Spanish at home and at school; my parents and family spoke to me in Spanish and did not force me to respond in Spanish. Many of my teachers wanted to help me because of my eagerness to learn and my desire to become the best student in their classes. I wanted to acquire at all costs those American traits or characteristics of my white classmates who were most successful in the classroom. Because of my skin tone and hair color when I started grade school, I did not experience the discrimination and hatred that my brown-colored friends and classmates often encountered. This Americanization process corrupted my Mexican identity at a very young age, and it has taken me a lifetime to confront my mistake. As I progressed through college, the army, graduate school, and my academic career, I was no longer that smart little Mexican boy. I now faced subtle discriminations and at times overt racist remarks from highly educated individuals.

I eventually graduated as one of the top students in my high school class, and later on I graduated top of my pharmacy class at the University of Texas in 1968. I received one of the few highly competitive national fellowships awarded to graduate students to attend a school of their own choosing. I earned a doctorate in toxicology at the University of Kansas and accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Texas in 1974.

However, I was rudely introduced to the role of DEI and affirmative action in hiring more people of color at Texas. Pointedly, I was told several times by my supervisors that the only reason I was hired was because the college needed to hire more Hispanics and Blacks. During my 22 years at Texas, I helped develop one of the first graduate programs in toxicology in the state and mentored over 50 undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellows in my research program. I later became dean of pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where I established one of the first councils on diversity at the university. In the final phase of my career, I accepted a position as Deputy Director for Research at FDA's major research center--The National Center for Toxicological Research. Although I had what many called "a successful career", I paid the price of never becoming fluent in Spanish and having to live with the shame and embarrassment of not being able to converse in Spanish with my family and many of my former classmates and friends.

I also experienced many times during my career what are now known as "microaggressions" or thinly veiled putdowns of my accomplishments and successes. For example, when I was elected president of the Society of Toxicology, some of my colleagues suggested that I won the election because I was a person of diversity. I grew up in Texas where this attitude was quite common; it did not really bother me. I just laughed it off.  

In the past, it was all right to ask where you were born or what was your family ancestry. It was out of curiosity because many Americans have relatives who were not born in the US. People were interested in knowing more about you, especially if you recently moved into the neighborhood, were a new employee, or a new customer in a local store. But in today's America asking that question is fraught with anxiety and possibly danger for a person of color who is asked that question. As a Mexican American who has lived in one of those states that border Mexico, I have observed the tension when one is accused of being an undocumented immigrant and not an American citizen. And as America has become more polarized, there are many reports of violence against people of color because it is thought that they are not truly American or to be more blunt-not white enough.   

Today, affirmative action and DEI policies that were supposedly lauded and supported by institutions of higher education, corporate America, and local, state, and federal agencies and departments have come under attack by many white Americans who believe that they are the ones who have suffered from discrimination. State legislators, especially in red states like Texas, Florida, and several others, have passed laws to abolish or limit the use of offices that help students and employees of diversity navigate organizational obstacles. White students and employees are not denied assistance as some of them like to suggest. 

Where are those colleges that thought that it was right to limit the admission of students of color to keep their classes filled with mostly white students? Where are those corporations and institutions that thought it was right to employ mostly white men and restrict the hiring of women and people of color in the workplace? The answer is that they never left and are ready to go back to the pre-affirmative action era. 

When I left the UT College of Pharmacy in 1996, there were two Mexican American Ph.D. professors on the faculty. When I returned to Austin for my retirement years, there was only one full-time professor; no progress has been made in the 50 years since I joined the faculty as one of those two Mexican American professors in 1974. There has been some improvement for people of color and women in the classroom and workplace, but the Supreme Court has now declared that it has seen enough of this intrusion into the lives of white men. American universities must turn a blind eye to matters of race and gender in student admissions. It will happen very soon in the workplace, but that does not mean that we should stop trying to admit more students of color and to hire more faculty of diversity. My biggest regret was that I did not speak up sooner about what I faced as a student and professor during my career in Texas and elsewhere. 

It took me a lifetime to realize that my generation has failed in maintaining America's faith in our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I write this story to reach out to the young people of the country with the hope that they will restore and secure those rights for all. If they don't, who will?

***

Dan Acosta is a first-generation Mexican American, whose mother and grandparents emigrated from Mexico. He is a former professor, research scientist, and administrator, who retired in 2019 at age 74. He writes about his experiences as a Mexican boy trying to succeed in white America. His stories have appeared in The Acentos Review, Sky Island Journal, Somos en Escrito, The Rush, Toasted Cheese, Latin@Literatures, Midway Journal, and The Manifest Station.

This is a very important piece on the vitality of the Spanish language in Texas. The rate of alleged "Spanish-language loss" is held up to scrutiny with not all agreeing whether this is reality or a measurement error. Another interpretation is compositional, meaning that it's not so much that Spanish is on the decline, but rather that places like San Antonio and perhaps Austin are increasingly comprised of third-generation Latinas/os that are less likely to speak Spanish. This maps on to the fact of growing cities that bring in increased numbers of non-Spanish speaking individuals. 

Still, others don't believe the numbers, saying that they're sensing a high demand, for instance, in San Antonio ISD, for dual language programs. I sense the same here in Austin, as well. Of clear concern for all is the real possibility of any decline in the aggregate, especially considering the importance of Spanish as a state and world language.

Regardless of data and interpretation, this is a historic problem that connects not just to prior legal prohibitions toward the Speaking of Spanish in our state, but also to existing structural dynamics with education policy itself—outside of dual language programs—not sufficiently supportive of fully-vested bilingualism and biliteracy. In my own work (Valenzuela, 1999), I term this "subtractive schooling," where schools are more about taking away one's fluency and culture than they are about adding and expanding upon these from an asset-based perspective. 

These concerns are felt personally, often accompanied with a great deal of anguish. It is a significant loss for children not to be able to communicate with their grandparents. It's also frequently humiliating when people expect you to speak Spanish simply because you're brown despite a long history of language oppression in our state and nation that continues into the present.

These concerns are what motivated us to start our Saturday school, Academia Cuauhtli here in Texas back in 2013. We are entering our tenth year of existence and know that we are making a dent in Austin, Texas, by encouraging a love of Spanish, beginning with a pedagogy anchored in children loving themselves and the multiple identities that they possess.

As a Mexican American/Latinx/o civil rights community, we have fought long and hard for our right to our bilingualism, and biculturalism. From our perspective, it's less about economic gain, and more about the wealth of our identities and pushing back against the self that so many of our schools reject. It's our God-given right. 

In fact, we should be expanding this agenda to include, as well, Indigenous tongues, especially considering the more recent waves of immigration from the Americas comprised of individuals that speak their natal tongues, many of whom are trilingual but reduced to being "Mexican," "Central American," or "South American" in society with little to no sensitivity to the cultural and linguistic wealth that they bring. Incidentally, this is not just a Texas or U.S. problem, but a hemispheric and global one, as well.

While our work is far from over, the possibilities are plentiful. At least we all cohere on the idea that language and culture are what make us interesting and strong. Indeed, bilingualism, multilingualism, and multiculturalism are our superpowers!

-Angela Valenzuela

Reference

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: US-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. NY: State University of New York Press.

Unspoken fears: S.A.’s decline in Spanish speakers stirs community concerns

The percentage of people who speak Spanish is dropping. That may have real cultural and economic impacts on the city, local leaders say.

By Liz Teitz, Ricardo Delgado, Libby Seline,Staff writersDec 28, 2023

Students at Washington Irving Dual Language Academy cheer for Principal Mayra Gutierrez-Ibarra on Dec. 14, thanking her for implementing a "pajamas day" for students. The school is part of San Antonio Independent School District, which is seeing increased demand for dual language programs that teach students core subjects like math and reading in both English and Spanish. Josie Norris, San Antonio Express-News

Like many bilingual children, Alicia Reyes-Barriéntez lived in two worlds.

At church and at home, she spoke Spanish, her Mexican mother’s native tongue. But the rest of her world in Texas demanded English.

“I knew that I needed to talk like the white kids to be respected by my white teachers,” said Reyes-Barriéntez, who grew up in Laredo. “It’s not that I didn’t want to be Mexican. I just wanted the privilege of being white, the privilege of being in the dominant group.”

But Reyes-Barriéntez always felt pride in being bilingual, saying it was second nature to her and her two siblings. Now raising two kids of her own in San Antonio, she wants them to learn both languages, too. 

“One of the priorities in raising our children has been for them to also be fully bilingual and bicultural,” she said.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey for the political science professor and her husband, who speaks some Spanish but isn’t as fluent. When she speaks to her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son in Spanish, they can understand her, but they have more trouble speaking it themselves, she said. 

“I imagined that my children would be completely fluent by now,” she said. “They’re not, which is disheartening.” 

Reyes-Barriéntez wants to make sure her children aren’t part of a trend in the San Antonio area: A dip in the percentage of residents who speak Spanish. 

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that as the San Antonio metro area grows, the percentage of residents who speak Spanish is going down.

It’s a troubling trend for many in San Antonio, a place where Spanish language and Hispanic culture run deep, tracing back to the city’s roots as part of the Spanish empire, then part of Mexico, as well as its proximity to Latin America. Community leaders and academic experts say the shift raises questions about the region’s culture and future, and also has the potential to be a drag on the region’s economy.

“Not teaching Spanish is always a loss,” said Alfredo Avalos, coordinator for community and culture at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico’s San Antonio branch. “Opportunities can be lost, along with culture.”

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Across all age groups

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of Spanish speakers in the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area is gradually falling, though it remains the highest among similar-sized cities.

Between 2018 and 2022, 30.8% of people in the metro area over the age of 5 spoke Spanish at home. That was down from just over 33% between 2013 and 2017. That’s according to the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the Census Bureau in five-year intervals. The data show the continuation of a decline that’s been observed for the past decade: in 2012, more than 35% of metro area residents spoke Spanish. 

About 13% of people in the United States speak Spanish, while about 29% of Texans speak the language, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. 

San Antonio’s 2.45 percentage point drop in the share of Spanish speakers was the largest among U.S. metro areas with 2.25 million to 2.85 million residents. The next-largest drop was Austin, which saw a 1.59 percentage point decline.

In the San Antonio area, the largest decline was among residents age 18 to 64, where the percentage of Spanish speakers fell from 35.6% in 2017 to 32.8% in 2022. Among children ages 5 to 17, the share that speaks Spanish fell from 23.3% in 2017 to 20.7% in 2022. In the 65 and older age group, the share of Spanish speakers fell by 1.2 percentage points. 

Not everyone trusts the data: Graciela Sánchez, executive director of San Antonio nonprofit Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, questions the census numbers. Spanish speakers might not have wanted to respond or identify themselves, she said, and she said she thinks the coronavirus pandemic had an effect on responses. The Hispanic or Latino population was undercounted by 4.99%, according to the Census Bureau. 

“I’ve never spoken more Spanish in the community,” Sánchez said, especially compared with 20 years ago, when it seemed like fewer people, and young people in particular, were speaking it. She said she’s also seeing more people demand access to Spanish translators in places like San Antonio City Hall and hospitals, so they can communicate in the language they’re most comfortable in, she said.

The census data show the size of the decline has varied around the region. Within San Antonio city limits, the percentage of Spanish speakers fell by about 2.2 percentage points, and in New Braunfels, it declined by about 1.4 percentage points. In some parts of the metro area, however, the percentage increased: in Schertz, for example, the percentage of the population that speaks Spanish at home increased from about 11% in 2017 to more than 17% in 2022, and in Helotes, it increased from about 10% to about 14%. 

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Demographic changes

A Fresh Look at Authentic Caring: Transformative Schooling of Latinx Youth, by Drs. Marnie Curry and Angela Valenzuela

***Free and open to the public. Please circulate widely.***

Please join us at a Freedom School panel discussion on Tuesday, February 15^th, 5 PM CST / 6PM EST to discuss Seguín High School (pseudonym) featured in Subtractive Schooling: U.S. - Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring

 and Molina High School (pseudonym) featured in Dr. Marnie Curry's recently published book, Authentic Cariño: Transformative Schooling for Latinx Youth that I encourage you to buy. To prepare for this conversation, you can also download and read this summary of Subtractive Schooling [pdf] from researchgate.net.

Dr. Curry's ethnography of a school in a northern California school provides a rich counter-narrative to the subtractive schooling experiences observed at Seguín High School in Houston, Texas. She also provides an elegant framework that she terms, "authentic cariño" that provides conceptual, theoretical, and empirical depth to the concept of authentic caring.

 

Click the link to register for the panel discussion: https://rutgers.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fd1JYPnDSmCWSX_jDKOxCA

Thanks to Rutgers University Professor Dr. Charles Payne, Jamelia Harris, and Ahmad Watson for organizing this.

-Angela Valenzuela