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Students Step Up Tucson Walkouts
Protest School District Folly and Mexican American Studies Banishment
As the nation watches the Tucson Unified School District’s spiral into disarray, hundreds of students walked out of their Tucson schools Monday in a coordinated protest against the banishment of the district’s acclaimed Mexican American Studies program.
(Photo: D.A. Morales)
Pouring into the downtown Tucson area from Pueblo, Cholla and Tucson high schools, among other institutions, the students brought their march to the offices of floundering Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) administrators. In recent days, administrators and board members have issued a series of conflicting and inaccurate statements and carried out the extreme actions of confiscating books in front of children. Last week, a recently hired assistant superintendent from Texas made a troubing call for the deeply rooted Tucson students–many of whom trace their ancestors to the town founders– to “go to Mexico” to study their history.
In a district with over 60 percent of the students coming from Mexican American backgrounds, the TUSD board “dismantled its Mexican-American studies program, packed away its offending books, shuttled its students into other classes,” according to an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday, because “it was blackmailed into doing so.”
The New York Times referred to the extremist measures of Arizona state superintendent of public instruction John Huppenthal on January 10th, who threatened to withhold millions of dollars if TUSD didn’t terminate the nationally acclaimed program immediately.
As her Tucson school district prepares to celebrate the 140th anniversary of its founding by Mexican American immigrant Estevan Ochoa, Cholla High School student Ahtziri Iñiguez noted that she was following the march in the footsteps of her brother, a graduate of the Mexican American Studies Program.
“I think it’s very unfair that people here don’t let us learn about our own culture,” she said. “My brother took (Mexican American Studies) classes his junior year and he would go home and discuss with my Mom and interested me in education, so I knew I wanted to take these classes.”
Less than two months away from the anniversary celebration of Arizona native and United Farm Worker leader Cesar Chavez, Iñiguez added: “We did this walk out to prove if you want something you should fight for what you believe in, because if you don’t do anything, nothing will change.”
Known as the “Sheriff Arpaio of Ethnic Studies,” Arizona education chief John Huppenthal defended his campaign slogan to “stop la raza” in an extraordinary Democracy Now debate on TV last week. The Tea Party activist Huppenthal has referred to Mexican American students as “Hitler Jugend,” and raised concerns across the nation about possible criminal behavior last summer when he openly misrepresented the results of an independent audit that praised the Mexican American Studies program and found it in compliance with Arizona’s bizarre Ethnic Studies law.
State Rep. Sally Gonzales introduced a bill to repeal the Ethnic Studies crackdown last week. A similar bill to repeal Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 immigration law was also being introduced.
Instead of surrendering to Huppenthal’s crackdown, many community leaders in Tucson called on the Tucson Unified School District board to join a federal court suit against the state and summon the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice to follow up their investigation of Arpaio and investigate Huppenthal for racial profiling, hate crimes, fraud and even extortion.
Last month, when the DOJ charged Arpaio with “chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations” and a “widespread pattern or practice of…activities that discriminate against Latinos,” Tucson supporters of Ethnic Studies wonder if similar charges could be made for Attorney General Tom Horne and Superintendent Huppenthal, who have invoked violent imagery and pathologically singled out only Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program.
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22 Comments so far
Show All"John Huppenthal on January 10th, who threatened to withhold millions of dollars if TUSD didn’t terminate the nationally acclaimed program immediately."
If Arizona education is anything like California's, budgets are allocated by Average Daily Attendance. If the students aren't in class statewide, enrollment is reduced and his department's budget allocation overall will be reduced. He'll be forced to share the pain. This protest can make a difference.
The students suffer less from the protest than they do his threatened cuts. The protest itself is a valuable practical means of teaching very basic citizen rights under the constitution.
Not surprising from a state that was forced to observe MLK Day. Having lived in Scottsdale, AZ for almost 9 years, I can assure you the state is full of WHITE retirees from the northern U.S. and most of the ones I met did not like Hispanics. I worked in the construction field and it was not uncommon for people to request only white crews come to their homes. Since Mexican American history is unpopular with the white AZ populace, maybe it would be acceptable to provide a detailed curriculum of the European invasion of the Americas. Especially the words of Columbus when he wrote in his logs about how the natives would make perfect slaves and the Declaration of Independence referring to the indigenous as "merciless Indian Savages". That way, students can learn history and the tea party can be proud to be Americans
Rich, Wasp and Jewish retirees find a paradise where the weather is nice, and the people laid back, and then promptly proceed to f*ck everything up, all the while blaming the indolence of the "natives" and driving them out until finally the place is as bad if not worse than where they come from; so they go off searching for a new paradise. I've seen it happen in Florida, and pretty much everywhere else I've been. If they don't like Mexicans, they should go back to Wisconsin--we may have stolen their land, but this isn't the 1900's or Palestine--we aren't going to get away with rounding them up on reservations or behind walls. So get use to it America--brown is the new white--denial won't change a thing.
"...and then promptly proceed to f*ck everything up, all the while blaming the indolence of the "natives" and driving them out until finally the place is as bad if not worse than where they come from;....."
That's only one perspective though it doesn't make sense. Here's another perspective, in my state of NM you could go up behind the mountains or out to the lake with the other "laid back people", of all colors.. Now the mountains and lakes are full of mestizos blasting mariachi out of their parked vehicles while their kids run around strewing candy wrappers all over the woodland and hacking on the trees. Or worse, racing around on ATVs in the national forest; believe me the OHV dealers love it when Mexicans walk into the showroom.
These kids in Tucson are most likely anchor babies of mestizo parents. We have them here in NM; one-third of Albuquerque public School students are from non-English speaking parents. We got the illegal immigrant wave from AZ and it just about overwhelmed our school system. This isn't the big civil rights issue that the pro-amnesty shills portray it to be; it's people who want something for nothing. FYI, Mexican-Americans here in NM have been on equal footing for generations. In many ways they have an advantage and if you knew anything about northern NM, tierra Amarilla or even read "Milagro Beanfield War" you might have a different perspective. I have respect for my fellow Mexican-American Chicanos here in NM, not for these ignorant mestizos streaming across the border using any scam possible to game the system. Believe me, they absolutely work it.
A native American getting death threats on this site! What the hell is going on here? Have I as a mere working class oriented progressive missed something. Why is this allowed? These are the only real Americans as Franklin D Roosevelt once said. The rest of us are foreigners. I know that. "Don't forget where you came from" as that line from "Which Way is Up" put it. I came originally from that cradle of civilzation, sub Saharan Africa.
Time for a little bit of "Share the land/That they'll be giving away!"
It's all in your head, AD. CD would not allow a poster to make death threats nor would anyone here do such a thing, -regardless of our disagreeing. Progs don't seem to be skeptics by nature, they have to believe -almost anything they're told from the left. FYI, tuttifruit shows up here under various usernames at times with the same racist rants, it's just from the brown/red perspective. IMO, it's only fair that racism from the "others" gets published here so the progs can see that every race/culture shares in it equally. I grew up in NM and I can tell what it's like to be on the receiving end of brown racism; it DOES exist. The Native-Americans are a different story and IMO a much more spiritual people with a great sense of community. I don't believe tuttifruit is Native-American.
BTW, the finish to your closing line is "when we all live together" by Guess Who's Burton Cummings, IMO one of the better voices in early rock.
peace
Logitech, you speak the truth.
All the "Native Americans" in America are American.
The Solutreans were here from 36,000 to 11,000 years ago (the clovis point tribes) They were originally from FRANCE. Mexicans are just run of the mill squatters and gate crashers.
Good thing we stole California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona form Mexico. We saved these territories from becoming trashed like Mexico.
And you're right.
"While the nation's population ( ALL OTHER NATIONALITIES) grew by 9.7 percent in the past decade to 308.7 million people, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent to 50.5 million."
All this as Obama does the next lunch with the bankers.
And note how the Right/tea party types conflate those standing up FOR their rights with Hitler-oriented youth, when it's the authoritarians who promote only one narrow so-called "American Way" (or standard) that more closely resembles the totalitarian ranks that supported Hitler. This is the same type of inversion that holds that Affirmative Action programs are unfair to white males. God forbid universities honor quotas to allow in a marginal flow of those who have not had the benefit of, nor enjoyed the privileges attached to being White, middle class, or endowed with access to a family lineage of riches. Sharing is just not possible to those who only think in terms of me first, and mine to the exclusion of any humanitarian or democratic ideal. Not long ago such selfish pride was considered shameful, but Hate Radio has normalized it, and encouraged the disease to spread. Arizona and Alabama are two of is most evident zones of contagion.
Hello again, Siouxrose.
I think you (and others reading your post) might enjoy "The Authoritarians" if you haven't read it already. Look here: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
How can a miscreant as johnny huppenthal ever be considered a staunch pillar of arizona society. Any citizen of arizona should be outraged and calling for his dismissal AND prosecution for disrupting the education of kids in arizona. Totally totally amazing how psychopaths such as huppenthal are basically awarded and encouraged to act the way he misbehaves. Good grief, how the very most wrong people weasel their way into positions of power.
You missed the comment about a goodly number of Arizonans being racist retirees who have brought their bigotry with them and wholly support Huppenthal. These are the same people who see nothing wrong with Israelis killing Palestinians and driving them off their land. Sick people, but proud Americans. What are you going to do with such low-life scum? They already live in gated communities, so putting them behind walls seems redundant.
Downtownwalker is a white racist. Rich, Wasp and Jewish retirees, low-life scum. Haven't you been kicked off this sight before and changed your name? This is the fourth name isn't it? Your seething hate gives you away. Logiteck noticed it first this time.
There is no brown race. White, Black, Mongoloid. That's all that's recognized by science.
You need to get that hate thing under control.
The GOP played with fire, and now we all deal with the blaze. It's a freaking mess, especially in particular states. The important thing longterm, I believe, is to be confident and focused in rejecting racism and homophobia, without falling into pissing matches and name-calling, because all the demographic trends are with us. Younger people are more supportive of gay rights and less likely to be racist, and this trend grows continuously. A significant number of people in every age cohort move left on these questions as their experience and scope of acquaintance grows and deepens. Talk of incipient theocratic fascism is highly counterproductive, and only keeps the "wedge" issues wedgey. These kids deserve support and confidence, not crazy talk from their own side.
True story.
Along a main road in Brisbane Australia two immigrants were walking and talking in Latvian. Boozy Australian growls at them. "Talk Australian ya mugs."
He is tapped on the shoulder by a friend of mine, Elley Bennett the then bantam and feather weight Australian boxing champion, and a full blood Aborigine.who said "Why don't you?".
So Tucson Dan. When did you speak Apache? Being facetious and having just recently traversed California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, I can assure you that the average American doesn't correctly speak English. For that matter neither do the English. Many Europeans have a better understanding of that universal language plus the ability to converse in several others. I will add that Latino/Americans usually speak two whereas most Anglo/Americans have but a paucity of knowledge of just one.
I am so glad to see students standing up for their Constitutional rights! It is outrageous that a school district could censor libraries at all, much less purge literature pertaining to a particular social group. Unfortunately this is part of a larger pattern in American education.
See more at Transition Times: http://bethechange2012.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/censorship-in-academe-21st-century-style/
The reason unions are getting busted is because of all the cheap/crack labor sneaking over the border. Everything we fought and died for like, minimum wage, no child labor, 40 hr week, job safety, bargaining, are slipping away in competition of cheap/crack labor.
If we use the logic that saw West Papua ("Where is that?" the USA cries. "Not gunna tell you", says I, "because otherwise you might bomb it".) get handed over to Indonesia by a USA-directed UN because Indonesia claimed it was part of the former Dutch East Indian Empire, then the USA should hand Arizona back to Mexico as Arizona was once part of the former Spanish Empire. And Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and California, though the last was claimed for QE1 of England by Sir Francis Drake in 1588. Would solve the Hispanic "problem" and the issue of illegal immigrants to Arizona. Think laterally.......?.
We whites are the occupying invaders--or in my case, the great-great-great-great-great grandson of a fundamentalist Christian who was driven out of Europe. How about this solution--Everyone go back to where the majority of their ancestors lived 500 years ago. Many of those "Mexican" Arizonans wouldn't have to move very far, but not one white guy would be left anywhere in the country--I'd be in Germany.
PS It would also be a great solution for the middle east.
Personally, I don't see why you keep coming back for the abuse. Of course, you are quite capable of dishing it out tutti, AKA readbetween/bloodmeridian/pheran.
Do you think there could be a karmic connection?
We're all familiar with your brown/red racist diatribes regardless of your username du jour; leopard can't change her spots.
I'd like to see each and every Latino who's eligible, register and vote the bums out come November. I'd especially like to see any student who's 18 and eligible to vote hit the voting booth. It's the only way.