The Genesis of Chicana/o Studies
Detail, Arizona State commemorative postage stamp, 06/15/08. (photo: USPS)
Reader Supported News | Perspective
Arizona on My Mind
t seems as if the only thing that I can think of these days is Arizona. Events there threaten what the Mexican-American and Chicana/o generations fought so hard to achieve.
Certainly there are more Mexican-Americans in the colleges than in 1968; however, there are many more of us today and proportionately, there are less white students.
One problem that we failed to stem back then was the extraordinarily high dropout problem which today continues in excess of fifty percent. The gains that we made are under attack in Arizona, especially Mexican-American family views and the Chicana/o Civil Rights Legacy.
The first is the concept of the family. My maternal family has been in what is now Arizona for at least 300 years. The line didn't mean much to us, and family was family regardless of on what side of the line you lived. If someone needed help we never asked, "On what side of the border were you born?"
My vocation in life is to teach Chicana/o and Latina/o students. Chicano Studies has been part of this mission. Frankly, I cannot understand what Gov. Jan Brewer is saying when she says, "that public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people."
I believe that Brewer is being mendacious and I would respect her more if she would say, "I want to get elected and I own this issue," or "I hate Mexicans." Even as a kid I hated hypocrisy.
Chicano Studies, or La Raza Studies as they are called in Tucson, were established precisely because the schools were and are failing. They evolved around identity which cried out to be repaired, that cried out to be respected.
A 1966 study titled "The Invisible Minority" by the National Education Association drove this point home - especially an essay by a 13-year-old Mexican student, who I assume came from Tucson, but could have been written by any Mexican-American at the time. It read:
Me
To begin with, I am a Mexican. That sentence has a scent of bitterness as it is written. I feel that if it weren't for my nationality I would accomplish more. My being a Mexican has brought about my lack of initiative. No matter what I attempt to do, my dark skin always makes me feel that I will fail. Another thing that "gripes" me is that I am such a coward. I absolutely will not fight for something even if I know I'm right. I do not have the vocabulary that it would take to express myself strongly enough.
Many people, including most of my teachers, have tried to tell me I'm a leader. Well, I know better! Just because I may get better grades than most of my fellow Mexicans doesn't mean a thing. I could no more get an original idea in my head than be President of the United States. I don't know how to think for myself.
I want to go to college, sure, but what do I want to be? Even worse, where do I want to go? These questions are only a few that trouble me? I'd like to prove to my parents that I can do something. Just because I don't have the gumption to go out and get a job doesn't mean that I can't become something they'll be proud of. But if I find that I can't bring myself to go to college, I'll get married and they'll still get rid of me.
After reading this, you'll probably be surprised. This is the way I feel about myself, and nobody can change me. Believe me many have tried and have failed. If God wants me to reach all my goals, I will. No teachers, parents or priest will change the course that my life is to follow. Don't try.
This essay got to me. I instantly understood that it was not a matter of just teaching children to speak English, but to value themselves. No one had the right to make this young girl ashamed of her color or her nationality. The schools had internalized the idiotic notion that Mexicans were lazy, that they spent their time lounging around cactus.
Common sense told me this wasn't true. Who were the majority of the people waking up at 3 in the morning to pick the crops? Intellectually, I knew this was not so. But I also know that this stereotype is perpetuated by American literature and popular culture, of which American teachers are a product.
Mexican-American students were not and are not cowards. Students of every color are cowed by professors using fancy words. Vocabulary is a product of schooling, and if the child does not develop a vocabulary it is a teacher failure, not a student failure. Why are 14-year-old preparatory students in Mexico so engaging while their cousins in the United States stutter in class?
Evidently, the young lady did not have confidence in her ability and believed that the only way she could be a success in her parents' eyes was to get married and cease to be a financial burden on them. She drowned in despair and believed that only God could help her.
Well, this wasn't and isn't fair!
Governor Brewer and that despicable Arizona Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne are bringing back a 1966 mindset that put the burden on the students. Ironically, the NEA 1966 study focused on Tucson and commended its efforts to do something about the dropout problem by initiating bilingual programs. However, these programs were dismantled by the Brewers and the Hornes in 2000.
Now the xenophobes are attacking La Raza Studies, using the same pretext as it did with bilingual education: That it divides students. Again, this is mendacious. Following the same logic, let's get rid of parochial schools, let's get rid of critical thinking, and let's substitute Brewer's and Horne's "Alice in Wonderland" vision of US history. The truth doesn't matter for them. It doesn't matter to them that children are ashamed of themselves and their parents.
For me, knowing ourselves and others is what Chicana/o Studies is all about. It is not about making Mexicans feel better than others, but making them feel equal, which evidently is what Brewer and Horne do not want.
Professor Julian Nava, the first Mexican-American to graduate with a doctorate in history from Harvard University, told me that when he was on the Los Angeles School Board he attended a statewide meeting of school board members. After an evening of conversation and drink, a school board member from a rural county turned to him and asked, "Dr. Nava, you don't really want to educate Mexicans, do you? Who will pick our crops?"
Evidently, Arizona politicos are thinking along the same line. Their problems will go away if students don't think for themselves and stay in their places. And don't ask them why Arizona ranks last in the nation in per-student expenditures in K-12.
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Comments
Plus, there's the question of divided loyalty...Look at the California professor who basically declared war on the Americans!
And why is it solely the TEACHERS' fault when kids refuse to learn, because their "culture" teaches that they don't need to; that America will adapt for them, coddle them?
162 years SHOULD be long enough to learn which side they belong to, and make up their minds whether to be part of America, or to leave it, and if they want to be part of America, they should learn as all other American kids had to!
Read my lips, most anglo teachers are at fault for Hispanics failures in schools. first of all, the US educational system is full of non-Hispanics teacher who have no idea, no knowledge, no understanding of the complicated interculture that is the Hispanic community. Shucks, you don't understand your own white students! The US educational system has always found (or tried) to find excuses to cover their incompetence when it comes to teaching minorities.
US ignorance is trying to put us all in a melting pot, when Hispanics believe in a salad bowl! The melting pot makes everyone sound, look, dance or act like you, while the salad bowl retain all it's flavor.
It all depend which side of the sticks one is born in.
Last, the education in Arizona stinks!
I can see your expertness in what people learn in chicano studies classes.
I am proudly a Mexican taking a Chicano Studies class, and let me tell you that i haven't learned how to be a victim to hate you... my respected American host. i see is people like you that impose the hate in people and make up inaccurate prejudices against my people.
I find it funny when an uneducated person like you tries to make an argument based on their unfinished elementary school education.
Also, let me tell you that CHICANO STUDIES IS NOT ONLY TAKEN BY US MEXICANS. I see a lot of people who don't look like me in my classroom.
Sorry to disappoint you about this but people have fought in the past for freedom in teaching. I dont think you understand this but maybe you just need to step in a classroom before you open you mouth.
If you make up your mind to fail, that's exactly what will happen!
The talk about "Who will pick our crops?" is just to camouflage that Hispanics have made up THEIR OWN minds to stay ignorant, doom themselves to lifetimes of servitude, then complain that they aren't "equal" to the people who actually TRY to make something of themselves! Americans don't NEED Hispanics to pick our crops, we got along for a couple centuries without them, and farms that "lose" their illegal workers find out that Americans can do the job, IF they're paid enough! So it's more victim-talk!
Why else has every other group learned English and gotten ahead? The ones that hold THEMSELVES back should learn to blame THEMSELVES, not Americans, or "The System" or any other excuse!
All languages are important, even the English one. Ignorant nationalistic right-wing pride sponsered by the English-only coalitions are not valid options.
USA Hispanic and Europeans are capable of speaking two or more language while anglos have a hard time convincing Spanish is a loser language, even as the entire (except the USA, Canada and some islands)Western Hemisphere is Spanish and to a degree, Portuguese! All the "USA citizens" need is to look at the World's MAP, but they can't even name their own states on the map, let alone the rest of the Hemisphere.
The truth is, the USA education system reeks of ignorance and stupidity! The only thing Arizona and those two posts above are just speeding it up!
The Old Brown Guard is threatened when their grandkids don't share the same interests in preserving what is becoming an historical identity. Young Latinos are much more complex than their creaky elders want to allow them to be.
Hispanics should be the ones asking you euro-trash for papers since you are white, European, and gringo thieves who act like foreign racists and mercenaries.
I have taught in Appalachia, and would welcome an opportunity to go to the Southwest or California to work with the Latino people! I also am on the board of an all black inner city charter school where we make a big difference. Most white, middle class teachers fail to learn about those from different cultures, whom they teach. They see only through their lens, and not those of whom they are serving.
I think those who teach Chicanas/Chicagos, need to learn to speak Spanish. Visit their students at home. Get involved in the community. Transformative Learning is about deep change, often brought about through reflection and changing our frames of reference. Let's begin now!
Dr. William Wallace
In a society which depends mostly on short fuse wars to keep capitalism going, regardless of the costs, and because we have now become a nation of xenophobias, the educational system no long works. When the educational system start looking at the worst in students (which, by the way, very much involves the color of skin) or have the ability two speak two languages while their instructors can only speak one, where does an "educational system" measure that kind of intelligence? While the rest of the world measure their understanding of teaching other languages to their student and the US rely on a "nationalistic pride" (English only), the base for cultural understanding the complex nature of our world "has fallen to the cracks!"
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