Nuestra Historia

Of our textbooks 1,192 pages, fewer than 100 pages are dedicated to people of color. That's less than 10% of our history curriculum, in a district where 91% of students are people of color.-Providence student Afaf Akid.

     This quote is a testament that there is an inherent need for students to learn about their culture in academic institutions. Ethnic Studies should not be an elective on a transcript, but embedded in all classes. The film Precious Knowledge begins in Tucson, Arizona, Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). Here, there are 32,500 Latinos, a majority, not minority. The nationwide dropout rate at the time of the documentary for Mexican-Americans was 50%. That means if a Mexican-American looked to their classmates on their left and right, one of those classmates would not see their graduation. This staggering statistic is the reality for many of our students of color. Furthermore, disallowing students to study about their culture as seen in the film, is evidence that structural racism does exist in these institutions, something I myself have witnessed first hand as an Ethnic Studies teacher. To deem classes, like La Raza as being unpatriotic and a socialist indoctrination is completely false, when they are seen as vehicles of critical hope in communities ravaged by poverty. 

As Ethnic an Studies teacher, I came to the realization that Ethnic Studies, La Raza Studies, Africana Studies or Chicana Studies is not just a stand alone practice, but reinforces a cultural connection to your students that should be embedded in the teachings of every class. I never saw myself in my own history textbooks, written mostly by white males. In the pages, I couldn't find myself within the pages, always looking for "Blanca Dominicana," but never finding her. This need to connect with my island roots was revisited in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands. As a history educator, the word mestizo means a person who is mixed race of Spanish and indigenious ancestry. The term was first used as a post product of the Spanish Inquisition and Encomienda System, particularly that of Mexico by the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes who obliterated the Aztec empire with the help of the beautiful Aztec La Malinche. It was through their unexpected union, (she was Cortes translator) that they created the first mestizo child. They are the parents of all Mexicans. Anzaldua further discusses this idea of the "mestiza consciousness" and its ability to challenge patriarchal white conventions. Those same conventions that Tom Horne pushed to end TUSD's La Raza classes. 

In many ways, the Chicano students portrayed in Precious Knowledge were stuck between two worlds, similar to what Anzaldua mentions in that "she learned to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Anglo point of view." Students being indoctrinated into the conventions of those who are not dark in classes that didn't discuss their culture. The reading further discusses this need to teach the immigrant mexicano and recent arrivals. I think about my Ethnic Studies class and realized suburban and rural communities need Ethnic Studies too, we all need "to know the history of their struggle." I recently had a discussion with a fellow EL teacher who expressed that it was unnecessary for her students to speak their native language in her English class because they made more language gains if they didn't. This is a sensitive subject for me, since I was robbed of my Dominican heritage and language by not growing up with my Dominican father. I enjoy speaking Spanish with my students because it allows me to hold on to some sense of the identity that I lost and I am desperately trying to get back. I am proud of that heritage. 

Many of our students as indicated by one of the La Raza teachers expressed that "there is no dysfunctional students, just those with a dysfunctional relationship to school." In many ways there was a lot of pressure for my Ethnic Studies class to succeed, but it was designed to fail. Many of the students were placed in my Ethnic Studies class because of chronic absenteeism and didn't elect the class. As I looked out everyday across the sea of different colored faces, I realized these students were placed in the class to create a cultural mix with no bigger purpose. We need to allow the students to take control of their own educations. Many of them are vocal in learning about what they're interested in. It is in the disallowance to learn about their culture that creates the dysfunctionality with school.

In the documentary, Brazilian educational philosopher Paulo Freire was brought up. His "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" was used as a vehicle of creation for the La Raza courses, but also ammunition against the La Raza courses. It was the basis of Tom Horne's outcry that these classes were "up rooting American values." A topic that is still relevant today, especially post Columbus and the Indigenous People's Day aftermath. I am reminded of a conservative colleague who posted on social media that he would take people seriously abolishing Christopher Columbus Day when those people repatriated their lands that they currently live on back to the Native Americans. In end of the film, we see SB 1069 pass and the La Raza courses end. However, the cultural passion as said so eloquently by La Raza student Gilbert in the film who was full of hope acknowledged that regardless of skin tone we are "one race." However, especially in this political climate, many people do not see it that way. People are living in an existence of fear, fueled by preconceived notions of other races. 

I think of the juxtapose of this weeks readings to that of Green's Coronavirus strikes Latino families. The families mentioned in the article who resided near the once famous Salton Sea, a place where whites would go to vacation now a barren wasteland for Latinos. It is no different than the Borderlands between Nueces and Rio Grande and these Latino communities just trying to survive. It is with Ethnic Studies that these communities will not die, but survive. To learn about oneself opens up a whole other consciousness, it is up to you whether or not you want to embrace it.

https://www.pvdstudentunion.org/ethnic-studies