Chris Crutcher on Matt de la Pena's book being banned: "This is racism, plain and simple."

Tucson Unified School District has a long history of failing its Mexican American students. This is true elsewhere, too, across the country. The PBS documentary "Taking Back the Schools" (below) is primarily about Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles in the 1960s.

In the 1960s, tired of being tracked into vocational classes and feeling shame for being Mexican American, students in East LA decided to go before the school board asking for changes. They did a survey of fellow students asking them what they wanted to present to the school board. They wanted  bilingual instruction, Mexican American history courses, Mexican American teachers, and an end to corporal punishment. They also wanted access to college prep classes so they could go on to college.

Carmen Lomas Garza, author of In My Family/En Mi Familia, was a young child in the schools then. In the video (at the 5:45 mark) she talks of being made fun of when she took out her lunch of tacos with frijoles, meat, and rice. It was so bad that she didn't want to take that lunch to school anymore.

Her book won the Americas Picture Book Award in 1996, and in 1997 it received the Pure Belpre Honor Award, and was listed as a Notable Book by the International Reading Association.

In 1997, her book also won the Tomas Rivera Children's Book Award, which brings us back to the present and the ban of the Mexican American Studies Department in Tucson Unified School District. Tomas Rivera's books are among those that were taught in the MAS program.

Until it was shut down in January, the Tucson MAS program was doing precisely what students wanted in 1968, and it was doing precisely what college students are been taught in teacher education courses. Use multicultural literature and teach critical thinking!

The outcome? Students did better in school, graduated at higher rates, and went on to college at higher rates than students who were not in the MAS classes. They read Matt de la Pena's Mexican WhiteBoy.


Matt de la Pena

Matt de la Pena's Mexican WhiteBoy is amongst the books that were taught in the MAS literature courses, but it is more than that...  His book is mentioned on page 29 of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Kowal's decision about the program, in the section titled "Latino Literature." As such, it is evidence that the MAS program violates the law. Here's the text from that section:

Latino Literature
160. Drafts of the Pacing Guides for the MAS junior and senior Latino Literature courses demonstrate that elements of critical race theory and critical pedagogy encompass a significant portion of the course.
161. Proposed required reading for these classes include "Justice: A Question of Race," by Roberto Rodriguez and "Mexican Whiteboy" by Matt de la Pena.
162. Juniors in Latino Literature appear to study "Our History-Indigenous Roots and the Mexican Revolution Novels."
163. Senior Latino Literature students appear to devote an entire quarter of the semester to "Critical Race Theatre," in which they are required to "critically dissect and identify components of critical race theory through literary works."
164. Student assessments from these courses show that the focus on Latino Literature is the oppression of Mexican Americans by the White European race.
165. As an example, one second semester final exam for a Latino Literature course used in the spring of 2011 tests students with the following essay prompt:

All year long we have read stories where the Mexican Americans were discriminated against, taken advantage of, oppressed, etc. We are destined to repeat history if we don't do something to change it. Reflect on what we have read about this year and in an essay, write about what we can do as a group to change things. What will you do as an individual to change things? Select one of the pieces we have read this year that reflects the point that you are trying to make in your essay.

Throughout the document, some things were underscored (as shown above) by the Department of Education. Apparently, those portions are "the smoking gun", so to speak. From my perspective, however, all of that sounds fine, especially for college prep classes. 

Matt de la Pena has been following and writing about all of this at his blog. He will be in Tucson, at Tucson High School, on March 13. He writes:

Ironically, I'm scheduled to speak at Tucson High School on March 13. A young female student there spearheaded the whole thing. She went to the administration on her own accord and helped raise funds. She's a self-admitted reluctant reader, but she was introduced to my books in a class much like the one above, and something clicked. Because of her effort and passion, this has been the visit I'm most looking forward to this year. I can't wait to meet her. 

He links to the video (below) of Yolanda Sotelo who taught at Pueblo High School and used his book.

Among the comments to his blog post is one from Chris Crutcher. He writes:

Hey Matt, the responders here have said it as well as it can be said. I’ll what I can to bring as much light to this as possible. Let me know if you have ideas. I’ve been able to laugh off book bannings based on irrational right wing Christian fears (and politically correct left-wing fears as well) for years. There were even times I (foolishly) believed those folks wanted the same things for young people that I wanted; just had a different belief about how to get there. But this is racism pure and simple. I’m sick of living in a country in which it’s become more heinous to CALL someone a racist than it is to BE a racist. There will come a time, I hope in my lifetime, when the ethnic scales will tilt and these assholes will be voted out of office. Until then, let’s do what we can to make their lives interesting.

Crutcher is right. This is racism pure and simple. Crutcher's "I'm sick of living in a country in which it's become more heinous to CALL someone racist than it is to BE a racist" is especially powerful.

I'm glad some of the well-established authors like Crutcher are paying attention. Students in TUSD's MAS program read works by Mexican American, and American Indian, and Asian American, and African American authors. They were taught to think critically. They went from being uninterested---and perhaps reluctant readers like Matt was---to being students like Matt who go on to college.

I'm closing this post with part one of a four-part video of Matt de la Pena talking with high school students. His personal story is important, and the opportunity to read his books from a Mexican American perspective in a Mexican American class should never have been taken away from the students in TUSD.

__________
For a chronological list of AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies program, click here.

To participate in the Feb 1, 2011 National Teach-In, go here.

Jan 28 Updates regarding shut-down of Mexican American Studies program at Tucson Unified School District

 [Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

_____________________________

Below is Curtis Acosta's January 26, 2012 update from Tucson. Acosta is a teacher in the now-shuttered Mexican American Studies Department in Tucson Unified School District.

Norma Gonzales

In his letter, Acosta writes about his colleague, Norma Gonzales, and her experiences over the last few days. In addition to teaching literature at the high school level, Gonzales worked with elementary school teachers in TUSD, helping them bring Mexican American content into their teaching. She also did art projects with students at Wakefield Middle School.

On January 24th, students at Wakefield participated in a walkout. They were subsequently suspended. Rather than stay home on Thursday, January 26th, they spent the day attending Mexican American Studies classes at the University of Arizona, including Roberto Rodriguez's class. Among the speakers Rodriguez had lined up for that day was Simon J. Ortiz of Acoma Pueblo. Rodriguez has been writing about the attacks on the MAS at TUSD for some time at his blog. In his post on Thursday, he writes that just as his class ended that day, they learned that the suspension of the students had been lifted.

The Three Sonorans YouTube Channel uploaded a twelve-minute video of interviews with the middle school students. I'm sharing it below and urge you to watch the entire video.

Here is Acosta's letter, titled "Behind the Curtain in Tucson". He concludes with a reference to students in the video.

Thank you all for your patience this morning with the earlier message, and I hope this latest update on what my colleagues and I are experiencing in Tucson find you well.

Unfortunately, there has been little guidance and movement toward how my colleagues and I are to move forward in the development of brand new curriculum and the pedagogical changes that must be made. As I wrote to you all last week, anything from the Mexican American Studies perspective is now illegal for the former MAS teachers. We are being asked to use the district adopted textbooks as the model for how to move forward. We have been told that we can still teach about race and sensitive topics, which is contradiction to earlier direction from our school/site administrators, but we must be balanced and cannot reflect MAS perspectives, although this has yet to be defined.

In fact, Norma Gonzalez (one of my MAS colleagues) was specifically told that she “CANNOT teach or discuss in class anything that is specific towards the culture and background of Mexican American Students.” This is an exact quote from her administrator. She was also asked to leave the middle school site that she is currently teaching and forced to abandon all her current students. Norma's mere presence at her school is seen as unbearable to her administration regardless of her quality work, dedication to her classes and amazing relationships she creates with her students. This is the damage being displayed in our classrooms in order to fall in line with the political motivations behind destroying our program. 

What is troubling for all of us is the fact that we have always been balanced, encouraged students to engage in critical thought, and embraced diverse voices and viewpoints throughout our curriculum and pedagogy. The direction from the district implies the opposite regardless of the many audits and observations that have proven otherwise.

To put this in a more concrete way, my classes were designed in a way that showed multiple perspectives and voices. Here is a short list of authors who are not Mexican that I use: Sherman Alexie, Jane Yolen, Junot Díaz, David Berliner, Angela Davis, Pat Buchanan, Ofelia Zepeda, Malcolm X, Maxine Hong Kingston, Jonathan Kozol, and Martin Luther King Jr. 

This is critical since we see a common theme that administration across the district have told my colleagues and myself - we are all to avoid Mexican work and perspectives at all costs. However, these authors are a part of the same censored, banned, or illegal curriculum and this surely means we must abandon these authors and this curriculum, too. We are also forbidden to use the critical lenses to view the work which challenge students to develop academically credible arguments in order to support their own views.

Thus, when they tell us we may move forward and develop multicultural curriculum it feels like we are being set-up to fail. The district has been caught in so much double speak and contradictory language they have no idea how to move forward, and we have no confidence in trusting them as they give advice. As I have mentioned in other interviews I do not feel safe teaching The Tempest or "Beyond Vietnam" by Dr. King as I normally have for years since it is clear that the district wants us to not only abandon the history and culture of Mexican Americans, but also the curriculum and pedagogy developed by Mexican American teachers. The only safe route appears for us to flee from any history or voices of color, authors that echo the themes that we had used in the past, and embrace curriculum that does not venture down those pathways. In other words, for my colleagues and I we must step back in the time machine to Pleasantville.

We are working without a net and there have been credible claims that two TUSD Governing Board members have told our district superintendent that any violations by teachers should be disciplined harshly and immediately. Thus, my colleagues and I feel that our jobs are very much on the line, and we have not been given any reassurance through specific criteria in curriculum and pedagogy of what is to be avoided and how we can confidently move forward with our students.

Yet our students remain dedicated to the restoration of the program and to have their voices heard. This week many of them participated in walkouts and an Ethnic Studies School was created for a day by the youth of UNIDOS, where many community members and professors from the University of Arizona donated their time to teach the youth. Above all else it is their education that matters, and this massive disruption in their lives and schooling is clear proof of how their futures have been dismissed and marginalized by local and state officials. The good news is that they are resilient and we all will continue to ensure that their future dreams are not compromised by the pettiness and spite of the tragic few that made this deplorable and shameful decision.

In Lak Ech,
Curtis Acosta

   

Nation-wide responses to the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District

 [Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

____________________________

On Tuesday, January 24, 2012, the American Library Association issued a resolution condemning what is happening in Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) and calling for the law that banned Mexican American Studies to be repealed.

However, the harsh reality in Arizona is that the Republicans hold a super majority. They passed the law banning ethnic studies, and the newly introduced bill calling for its repeal is not likely to be passed.

Meanwhile, Tom Horne, the Attorney General for the State of Arizona continued misrepresenting the program in the US and abroad. He gave an interview on BBC in which he said that students in TUSD are divided by race. He said "if you're this race you take this class. If you're that race, you take that class." That is not true. Students from several racial groups have taken classes offered in the program. Last year, John Huppenthal, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction, hired an independent firm to conduct an audit of the program. The audit includes information about the ethnicity of students who have taken MAS courses as follows:

• Hispanic, 90%
• White/Anglo, 5%
• Native American, 2%
• African American, 1.5%
• Asian American and Multi-racial, just under 0.50%

The audit also found improvements in school attendance, grades, and graduation rates of students of all races who were taking classes in MAS.

State level politics in Arizona are driving the shut-down of the program. For background and analysis, I recommend you go to Huffington Post (start with the article dated January 25) and read all the stories Jeff Biggers has written over the last few years. Use the "Mexican American Studies" tag to find them.

Attacks on, and misinformation about, the MAS program in Arizona are not an isolated case. Too many of us express outrage when we learn about this, but, we've got to do more than express outrage! Outrage doesn't stop what is happening. Actions are what is needed. 

A few days ago, CNN ran a story that the United States Congressional Hispanic Caucus is asking for an investigation of the law that banned the MAS program.

The CNN story also includes information about how the program's shut-down is playing out on the lives of students and teachers who were in, or teaching, MAS classes when they were shut down. Imagine being given 48 hours to rewrite your lesson plans and curriculum so that it is stripped of anything that you did from a Mexican American perspective.  Here's two examples:

• Norma Gonzales, a teacher who taught Mexican American History was reassigned to teach American History and given a textbook that says that the Tohono O'odham people mysteriously vanished. She has two Tohono O'odham students in her class. Ironically, students who took the Mexican American Literature courses read Ofelia Zepeda's Ocean Power. She is Tohono O'odham and received the MacArthur Genius Grant for her work. In MAS, curriculum reflected who they are. In the core curriculum, they have "mysteriously disappeared."
• Curtis Acosta, a teacher who taught Mexican American Literature, had a meeting with district administrators. Listen to the audio of Acosta being told how he can and cannot teach The Tempest.

As news spread about the banning of books in TUSD spread across the country, people asked what they could do to help. There are several initiatives in progress.

EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES:

In Tucson, students walked out of classes on Tuesday and held an Ethnic Studies Teach-In off school grounds. Some were suspended for walking out, and rather than stay home yesterday, they attended Mexican American courses at the University of Arizona. Those are localized educational responses to the shut-down of their classes.

A nation-wide educational response in the form of a National Teach-In will take place on February 1st. Some things people can do include the following:

• View excerpts--specially selected for the Teach In--from Precious Knowledge, the documentary about the MAS program that will be aired on PBS in May.
• In elementary classrooms or library read-alouds to elementary-aged children, tead aloud from one of the picture books used in the MAS program. Two suggestions are Pam Mora's The Desert is My Mother, Gary Soto's Snapshots from the Wedding.  
• With older students, introduce them to Matt de la Pena's Mexican WhiteBoy or Sandra Cisnero's House on Mango Street. 
• Share what you know with your family, friends, and colleagues. 
• Purchase a copy of Rethinking Columbus or one of the other books that was boxed up and removed from classrooms, or, one of the books that was used in the program.
• Purchase a copy of Precious Knowledge. To order, write to preciousknowledgedvd@gmail.com. (Individual copy is $28. Public library copy is $40. Rights for university or public performance are $200.)
• Sign the petition set up by Norma Gonzales. She taught in the MAS program.
• Donate to the fund to support the work to fight the ban.

Another option is to watch "A Teach-in on Tucson" that will take place at Georgia State University's College of Education. Portions of it will be streamed online. Initial information is here. The flier for the event is shown below. I'll share more information on the Teach In as I learn more details. 

In addition to the educational teach ins, there are other ways people are pushing back on the shut-down of the program. I will add others as I find them, and I invite you to send me information about other initiatives that you know about.

• Librotraficante is a planned caravan in which carloads of banned books will be driven from Texas to Arizona.
• At Banning History in Arizona, you can submit a video of yourself reading from one of the banned books.

Curtis Acosta's letter

Curtis Acosta

 [Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

___________________ 

Curtis Acosta, one of the teachers who taught in the Mexican American Studies program at Tucson Unified School District, gave me permission to reproduce the following letter. It was published on January 23, 2012 at the Rethinking Schools blog.

As you read his letter, note the duress the teachers are working under, and look at the way his teaching must be stripped of anything that might be construed as "promoting resentment" and therefore a violation of the law.  At the bottom of his letter, I'm reposting an audio recording (presented in video format) of his meeting with administrators regarding how he can and cannot teach The Tempest. 

Acosta's photo is the one used at the Save Ethnic Studies website. At the site are bios of the teachers in the program. This is the group photo used on the site:

I encourage you to visit the site. Read their bios, and if you have time, download and read all the documentation they have compiled there. There are no documents uploaded after November 22, 2011. Prior to that they were uploading a lot of material. I suspect that they are overwhelmed and unable to post anything since then.
 
_________________
Curtis Acosta's letter:


To my friends and all our supporters,

Let me try a few cleansing breaths before all of this.

First, I am deeply moved by the love, commitment and creativity to help honor our plight and support our fight. Thank you all so much and I apologize to all of my friends who I have not responded to as of yet. We all are overwhelmed here in Tucson and I need a new email system for organizing all the love. Muchismas gracias y Tlazocamatli.

This week has provided more challenges. The teachers have still not received specific guidelines for curriculum and pedagogical changes that need to be made in order to be in compliance of the law. TUSD leadership has asked the site administrators on each campus where our classes are taught to lead the process which means that my colleagues and I are all separated from each other, and have not yet come together as a group since the destruction of our program. It also is a way to divide and conquer since we are all struggling at our individual sites for clarity and consistency.

To be more specific, I meet alone with my site administration, with only my union representative as support, but separated from my MAS colleagues who also work at my school. The district leadership has done this move to wash their hands of us and any accountability to us. However, they continue to send out press releases that claim that books that are now boxed in a warehouse are not banned, and that anyone can teach critical issues like race, ethnicity, oppression, and cultura, but do not mention the exception being the censored teachers in the MAS program. The double speak is unseemly and lacks honor. I am so happy that our friends around the nation are holding them accountable since the power structure in Tucson has made sure the local media tows the line. This has been the case for years.

What I can tell you is that TUSD has decreed that anything taught from a Mexican American Studies perspective is illegal and must be eliminated immediately. Of course, they have yet to define what that means, but here’s an example of what happened to an essay prompt that I had distributed prior to January 10th.

{Chicano playwright Luis Valdez once stated that his art was meant to, “…inspire the audience to social action. Illuminate specific points about social problems. Satirize the opposition. Show or hint at a solution. Express what people are feeling.” The novel So Far From God presents many moments of social and political commentary.} Select an issue that you believe Ana Castillo was attempting to illuminate for her audience and write a literary analysis of how that theme is explored in the novel. Remember to use direct citations from the novel to support your ideas and theories.


{Culture can play a significant role within a work of fiction. For generations in this country, the literature studied in English or literature classes rarely represented the lives and history of Mexican-Americans.} In a formal literary analysis, discuss what makes So Far From God a Chican@ novel and how this might influence the experience of the reader. Remember to use direct citations from the novel to support your ideas and theories.

The brackets indicate what I had to edit since the statements were found to be too leading toward a Mexican American Studies perspective. In plainer terms, they are illegal and out of compliance. A quote from a great literary figure, Luis Valdez, is now illegal, and a fact about education in our nation’s history is also illegal.

You can imagine how we are feeling, especially without any clear guidance to what is now legal and what is not, and what makes matters worse is that TUSD expects us to move forward and redesign our entire curriculum and pedagogy to be in compliance.

I cannot speak for all my colleagues but it has become clear to me that I must abandon nearly everything I used to do in the classroom and become “born again” as a teacher. At least for the foreseeable future, since the list of individuals that are waiting to pounce upon us at our first wrong step is long and filled with powerful figures.

However, we have not lost faith that we will overcome all of these atrocious, absurd, and abusive actions to our students and to learning environment centered upon love and academic excellence. Our students have already learned so much this year and this process is teaching them so much more. They are restless, ready to act and eager for their voices to be heard, and our community is equally supportive to their desires. Our lawsuit moves forward and the unconstitutionality of the law will be debated before Judge A. Wallace Tashima. Three of the four men who voted to disband our program will be accountable on November 6th since their seats on the school board are up this election. We are strong in spirit that a better day is ahead.

Lastly, there has been an idea put forward by my good friends, Tara Mack and Keith Catone, that there should be a national day of solidarity where teachers would teach our curriculum all over the nation. I will be discussing this with my colleagues in MAS this weekend and then to Tara and Keith. They have been amazing and fired-up to help, but I have had to navigate the Tempest in our classrooms and schools before more specifics come your way. The first day we are to be officially in compliance is February 1st, so that may be a wonderful, symbolic day to keep our spirit alive through the nation.

Respectfully,
Curtis Acosta
Chican@/Latin@ Literature Teacher (forever in mind and in spirit)
Tucson
_______

Listen to Curtis Acosta's meeting with school administrators as they discuss how he can and cannot teach The Tempest. 

Stegeman's January 22, 2012 letter

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

David Safier, a blogger at Blog for Arizona, posted a letter Mark Stegeman (President of the Governing Board, Tucson Unified School District), sent out yesterday. It raises more questions than it answers about the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program.

To get around the fact that three of the books that were removed actually had approval for use, Stegeman now says that the curriculum itself was never approved. That may, in fact, be the case, but I hope that Stegeman is applying that curriculum approval process in an even-handed manner. Has the curriculum for all their programs been through the curriculum approval process? All along, students have been noting that it is only the MAS program that is being scrutinized. If I walked into the TUSD offices, would I be able to see a document that approved the Native American Studies program? What about the curriculum at the college prep school?

That said, there is research data that demonstrates that students who took MAS classes are succeeding in school (see data on page 44). Their attendance is better. Their grades are better. And they graduate at higher rates than students who have not taken the classes. The independent audit of the program recommended it continue. 

With research that demonstrates the success of the program, it seems to me that an educational leader would say "hey, lets fast track the approval of the curriculum and make it more widely available at all the schools so more students can start doing better in school."

Instead, TUSD voted to end the program rather than fight the political machine in Arizona. As he says in his letter, they're going to revise the social studies core curriculum, making sure that Mexican American history and culture will be covered. This time, he says, they "want to get it right."

Based on everything I've learned about him, I'm doubtful that they will ever "get it right." At the end of his letter, he says developing this core curriculum will be a long process and that he does not expect it to happen any time soon. Again, with research based evidence that demonstrates the success of the program, it seems to me that it would be smart to use the MAS curriculum as the core.

____________________________
MARK STEGEMAN'S LETTER:

January 22, 2012

 

Dear friends and correspondents,

Because of the recent media attention on TUSD’s “book ban,” it seems useful to clarify that situation.  TUSD also issued a press release on this subject several days ago, which is posted on the district website.

Every district in the state approves curriculum according to a process guided by statute and local policy, and approving the books to be used is part of that process.  Through such processes a typical district might approve several hundred books for use in instruction.  This leaves millions of books not approved for instruction; it would be silly to say that all of those books are “banned.”

When the TUSD board voted (4-1) to end the Mexican-American Studies (MAS) curriculum, ending use of the books had to be part of that package.  Staff says that the seven titles removed from classrooms and placed into storage are still available in school libraries, and I expect many of the books in storage to be distributed to libraries where they are not already available. 

Because MAS did not actually have a board-approved curriculum, it was not immediately obvious which books to remove, but the staff took guidance from the evidence presented during the hearing on TUSD’s appeal of Huppenthal’s finding against the district.  Because one motivation for the board’s vote to end the MAS classes was to forestall the substantial financial penalty which the ADE threatened to impose, it made sense to remove the books which helped to provide the basis for that finding.

The seven removed books are: 

    Occupied America: A History of Chicanos - Rodolfo Acuña

    Rethinking Columbus: The next 500 Years - Bill Bigelow

    Critical Race Theory - Richard Delgado

    Pedagogy of the Oppressed - Paulo Freire
   
    Message to AZTLAN - Rodolfo Gonzales

    500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures - Elizabeth Martinez (ed.)

    Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement - Arturo Rosales

I am not aware of any other school district in Arizona which has approved these books for use in instruction.  If anyone knows of such approvals, then I would be interested to hear about them. 

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is not on this list and never was, despite some media accounts to the contrary.  Instructors are free to use it. 

In the resolution which ended the MAS program, the TUSD board also said:

“The district shall revise its social studies core curriculum to increase its coverage of Mexican-American history and culture, including a balanced presentation of diverse viewpoints on controversial issues.  The end result shall be a single common social studies core sequence through which all high school students are exposed to diverse viewpoints.”

When staff brings this new curriculum to the board, it may or may not recommend that some of the seven books be approved for use in that new curriculum.  I do not expect this to happen any time soon, however.  Developing the new curriculum will be a long process, which will include community input.  Obviously, this time, we want to get it right.

Thank you for your continued interest in TUSD.  The MAS issue has been a long-running distraction for the district, far out of proportion to the small number of students in the MAS courses (currently fewer than 300).  Bringing that issue to closure will increase our capacity to focus on the many large reforms necessary to improve education in TUSD, for all students.

Mark

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

ALA Midwinter Discussions of Tucson Ban of Mexican American Studies Covered by CNN

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

Today (Sunday, January 22, 2012), one of CNN's bloggers covered the banning of the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson.  Stephanie Siek (the reporter) talked to Barbara Jones:

Barbara Jones, director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, said the removal of the books was a big topic of discussion at the association’s 2012 midwinter meeting, which began last Thursday in Dallas. Groups including REFORMA, the Latino librarians' group, the American Indian Librarians' Association and the Intellectual Freedom Committee planned to respond and a coalition of civil liberties groups were researching possible legal action and expecting to release a statement this week, Jones said.

Regardless of the words the district used, Jones said, it's actions restricted access to books, which leads to censorship.

"We're gathering facts. Right now it looks like it's just the curriculum that’s affected and not school libraries," Jones said. "But we know from experience this will eventually affect books in the library."

Siek writes:

District leaders said they aren't banning the books, but have removed them from classrooms while their content is evaluated.

While their content is evaluated?! I thought the contents had already been evaluated and found to be guilty of "promoting resentment of a class of people"!

And yet, Siek writes, Stegeman (President of the TUSD governing board) said that the books might be brought back into the classroom after a review, and that the review might be completed by the end of the summer!

Isn't that contradictory? Did the books get reviewed or not? Is someone going to change his or her mind and decide that the content of the books does not "promote resentment of a class of people"???

For a video and more details, see How Tucson Schools Changed after Mexican American Studies Ban.

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

Progressive Libriarian's Guild: Statement on Censorship and the Tucson Unified School District

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

On January 21, 2012, the Progressive Library Guild issued the following statement on Censorship and the Tucson Unified School District. Kudos to the Guild for this outstanding and well-researched statement.

_______________________________________________

PLG Statement on Censorship and the Tucson Unified School District

Recent media reports regarding the mass removal of books from classrooms in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) demand a response from librarians, charged by our professional ethics to oppose censorship and restriction on information.  

After reviewing publicly available materials documenting the process leading up to this TUSD action, the Progressive Librarians Guild believes a challenge should be issued regarding not only the onerous situation, but the politics underlying the decision to cut District’s Mexican American Studies program (MAS) program.

At issue is the supposed violation by TUSD of Arizona state law prohibiting classes in public or charter schools from instructions that:

1.   Promote the overthrow of the United States Government

2.   Promote resentment toward a race or class of people

3.   Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.

4.   Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.

A.R.S. §15-112

The books in question include the following titles used in conjunction with courses taught throughout the TUSD as part of the District’s MAS program:

Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado

500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez

Message to AZTLAN by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow

On December 27, 2011, Lewis D. Kowal, Administrative Law Judge, ruled in favor of Arizona’s Department of Education Superintendent’s allegation that MAS courses violated the law, and on January 10, 2012, the Board of TUSD passed a resolution requiring the immediate suspension of MAS classes.  Had TUSD not suspended the program state funds would have been withdrawn from the District. 

The Board’s resolution did not address the removal of books from classrooms, yet TUSD officials removed and stored books even while one class was in session. News of this mass removal of books from schools traveled, and TUSD found itself confronted with accusations that it had “banned books” from the schools. 

On January 17, 2012, the District issued a statement saying, “Tucson Unified School District has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.”  The press release described the removal as simply a move of the books to storage and further noted that all of the titles removed from classrooms were available to students through TUSD school libraries.  A check of the online catalog verified that at least one copy of each title is, indeed, available.

The fact that these titles are available through the school libraries has minimal bearing, however, on the extreme and censorious behavior of school officials in at least three respects:

1.   Neither A.R.S. §15-112 nor the TUSD Board resolution requires the removal of books in order to set the District into compliance with the law.

2.   The act of removing books from a classroom during a class session clearly has a chilling effect on students and the entire educational community. Further, removal of materials from classrooms impinges on teacher freedom of speech.

3.   TUSD can quibble over whether or not it banned any books, but it certainly cannot state that it did not ban all the courses being taught through the MAS program.  Compliance with the order to suspend the program is in itself an act of censorship and a violation of academic freedom.

Regarding the political aspects of this situation, A.R.S. §15-112 was signed into law in the spring of 2010 on the heels of the state’s anti-immigration law, considered by many to be racist and neocolonial.  The law is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.  PLG considers A.R.S. §15-112 to have arisen from a climate of racist sentiment among lawmakers in the State of Arizona.  This sentiment has been promoted by Judge Kowal in his siding with Department of Education expert witnesses against TUSD and MAS, which placed TUSD “between a rock and a hard place” – either suspend MAS or lose state funding for the entire school district.  Given the budgetary problems facing school districts across the nation, TUSD’s decision to sacrifice MAS over funding is understandable, but unacceptable.

TUSD is aware its MAS program did not teach “racial resentment” but historical literacy. It is also is aware there is absolutely nothing in the MAS curriculum that affronts civic values or clashes with classes that teach “ethnic solidarity.”  In the face of absurd, draconian laws, the only ethical position to take is one of complete opposition.  Today’s capitulation to A.R.S. §15-112 will be tomorrow’s capitulation to the next absurd, racist law enacted by the Arizona legislature.  The law should be abolished.

The Progressive Librarians Guild opposes the actions of all officials in the State of Arizona responsible for the passage, enforcement, and/or compliance with A.R.S. §15-112. 

 

Progressive Librarians Guild, Coordinating Committee (PLG-CC)
January 21, 2012

Bibliography

Attorneys for Defendant John Huppenthal, Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Education. In the Matter of the Hearing of an Appeal by the Tucson Unified School District. No. 11F-002-ADE, Jan. 6, 2012.
http://www.tusd1.org/contents/distinfo/Documents/EthnicStudies-Huppenthaldecision010612.pdf

Biggers, Jeff. Tucson says Banished Books May Return to Classrooms. Salon January 18, 2012. http://www.salon.com/2012/01/18/tucson_says_banished_books_may_return_to_classrooms/

Biggers, Jeff. Who’s afraid of “The Tempest”? Salon, January 13, 2012. http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest

In the Matter of the Hearing of an Appeal by the Tucson Unified School District, No. 1, No. 11F-002-ADE, December 27, 2011.
http://www.tusd1.org/contents/distinfo/Documents/EthnicStudies-ALJdecision122711.pdf

Librarians and Human Rights [blog]. Background on Tucson School District Actions. January 20, 2012. http://hrlibs.blogspot.com/2012/01/background-on-tucson-school-district.html

Mackey, Robert. Arizona Law Curbs Ethnic Studies Classes New York Times, May 13, 2010.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/arizona-law-curbs-ethnic-studies-classes/

Rene, Cara. Reports of Reports of TUSD Book Ban Completely False and Misleading. Tucson Unified School District, January 17, 2012.
http://www.tusd1.org/contents/news/press1112/01-17-12.html

Safier, David. Sigh . . . Yes, it really is a ban. Blog for Arizona. January 20, 2012. http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2012/01/sigh-yes-it-really-is-a-ban.html

Save Ethnic Studies.org, n.d. http://saveethnicstudies.org/index.shtml

Tucson Unified School District No. 1 Governing Board Special Meeting. Resolution to Implement Ethnic Studies in Tucson Unified School District in Accordance with All Applicable Laws.December 30, 2010. http://www.tusd.k12.az.us/CONTENTS/govboard/gbminutes/12-30-10Special.pdf

Tucson Unified School District. Resolution on Mexican-American Studies. January 10, 2012. http://www.tusd1.org/contents/govboard/Documents/ResolutionMAS011012.pdf

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

A Sampling of Children's Books used in the Mexican American Studies Program

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

The Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) was found in violation of a newly passed state law in Arizona. If TUSD did not shut down the program, John Huppenthal, the Arizona Superindent of Public Instruction, said he would withhold millions of dollars from TUSD. The law was one that prohibited instruction that "promoted resentment toward a class of people", and/or "promoted the overthrow of the United States government."

For decades, people who work in education and literature have asked publishers to publish books that reflect African American, American Indian, Asian American, and Latino/a American children, families and communities. We've seen some growth in those books, and a lot of those books were used in the MAS program that was declared in violation of that "promote resentment" law.

Research data shows that students in the program did better in school than students who were not in the program. Their attendance was better, their grades were better, and their graduation rates were better, too. Seems to me the program was doing wonderful things!

I wondered about the picture books and novels children who were in MAS courses have been reading since the program has been in TUSD, which is about ten years.  I've been looking over the list of books that the MAS program made available to students through the Learning Materials Center (LMC).

The books are housed in the Learning Materials Center, so I think they escaped being boxed up and taken away, but I wish for the well-being of students in TUSD who were in MAS courses, or who were receiving MAS instruction from MAS teachers (elementary students were served by MAS teachers who worked with classroom teachers who were infusing their lesson plans with Latino/a content), that the program had not been shut down. 

This is just a sampling of the books on the LMC list. There are over 400 books in this collection. As I studied it, I noticed the publication years are through the 1990s, but none in the 2000s, which leads me to think it is an incomplete list and that there are probably more than 400 at this point.

• Ada, Alma Flor. The Christmas Tree/El Arbol de Navidad, Gathering the Sun
• Anzaldua, Gloria. Friends from the Other Side/Amigos del Otro Lado
• Cisneros, Sandra. Hair/Pelitos
• Martinez, Victor. Parrot in the Oven
• Mora, Pat. Confetti Poems for Children, The Desert is My Mother/El Desierto es Mi Madre, Tomas Y La Senora de la Biblioteca
• Ortiz-Cofer, Judith. Una Isla Como Tu
• Rohmer, Harriet. How We Came to the Fifth World/Como Vinimos Al Quinto Mundo, Just Like Me
• Soto, Gary. Baseball in April and Other Stories, Chato's Kitchen, Snapshots from the Wedding, Too Many Tamales

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

Dear Editors at the New York Times

Dear Editors at the New York Times,

Several days have passed since books were banned in Tucson. Why have you not covered that news? Maybe I've missed it?

I searched your site, and I see that you've covered the Jaipur Literature Festival in India where people are reading from Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. That is an important story to bring to your readers, but what about the censorship of books written by citizens of the United States?!

WHERE IS YOUR COVERAGE OF THAT?

______________________________________
Update: Saturday, January 21, 1:45 PM CST

Tomorrow's New York Times will carry an editorial titled "Rejected in Tucson." It is available online here. Why is it an editorial, and not a front page news item? Why is it on the opinion piece instead of a news report on the front page?

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

National Association of Multicultural Education responds to closing of Mexican American Studies program

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

On Wednesday, January 18th, Christine Sleeter, President of the National Association of Multicultural Education, posted the following letter to the Save Ethnic Studies page on Facebook. She prefaces the letter by saying she submitted it to the Arizona Daily Star but it had not yet been published.

Dear Editors:

As a long-time educator, I am outraged that the Arizona Department of Education closed a program that has been highly successful in graduating Mexican American students, and is now censoring what can be taught about Mexican American history.

Mexican American students completing Tucson’s ethnic studies program had been graduating at a rate of over 90%, and entering college at a rate of about 80%. This is a remarkable record of closing a huge achievement gap. Its success is supported by social psychology research documenting that Black and Latino students who have a strong, positive ethnic identity and an understanding of racism and how it can be challenged tend to take education more seriously than those who do not.

Banning texts means censoring knowledge that resonates with and explains conditions of life Mexican American students experience everyday. Censorship flies in the face of education in a democracy. Ethnic Studies must be restored.

Christine Sleeter
President, National Association for Multicultural Education

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

What Mark Stegeman said...

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

Earlier today (January 19, 2012), Tucson Citizen uploaded a screen shot of a Facebook page that includes a remark made by Tucson Unified School District president, Mark Stegeman. Stegeman was asked about other "non-approved" books that have to be removed. He said:

This is the first example I know of, because external circumstances made this case urgent. But I suspect that TUSD is using many books which were never legally approved, in many different courses, and we have to track those books down and either remove them or go through proper curriculum approvals. Staff has already begun that search process.

I read that and sat back a minute, stunned at the idea that (presumably) some unfortunate staff person in TUSD is going to (presumably) visit every classroom and every teacher, carrying a list of books the board has approved.

I'm guessing that the staff person is going to need a great big trailer to put those unapproved books onto!

What is the search strategy? Where did the search start? With English teachers? What grade level? What school did they start with? I sure wouldn't want to be that staff person.

And can you imagine being a teacher in the Tucson Unified School District, learning that someone was going to come into your classroom to see what you've got on your shelves?!

When I taught elementary school, I had hundreds of children's books in my classroom. Most elementary school teachers have a lot of books in their classrooms. Did they have each one "legally approved" first? Did they, for example, get last year's winner of the Caldecott Medal approved before taking it into the classroom? (For those who don't know, last year's winner was A Sick Day for Amos McGee, written by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead.)

And can you imagine being a first grader with A Sick Day for Amos McGee on your lap when that staff person comes into the room? What will be said to that first grader? Will the child be able to finish reading it? Or will it be taken out of the classroom immediately, as was done with the books that were removed from the Mexican American Studies classrooms?

Stegeman is either very smart or very stupid. His words put the entire district at risk. When he finds a bunch of unapproved books in classrooms, what is he going to do? He can't, of course, shut down a first grade classroom, but I wonder if there are pull-out programs that offer classes for specific reasons. Will those programs be shut down? Could the enforcement of this "legally approved" policy work in favor of the Mexican American Studies program?

Here's my screen shot of the Tucson Citizen screen shot:

Hang on, teachers. It's going to be a rough semester in the Tucson Unified School District.

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

What Huppenthal said...

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

On January 18, 2012, the guest on Michel Martin's NPR "Tell Me More" program was Superintendent of Public Instruction in Arizona, John Huppenthal.

Democracy Now had him on its program, too, but they also had Richard Martinez on the program. Martinez is the lawyer for the teachers and students in Tucson.

On both programs, Huppenthal said pretty much the same things. As you might guess, he was pushed harder by Richard Martinez than he was by Michel Martin.

I wish that we (the public) had access to those lesson plans Huppenthal says teach students to resent white people.

And, I wish Huppenthal would provide his analysis of student performance. In their report, the auditors he hired to examine the Mexican American Studies (MAS) program included evidence that shows that students in the program outperformed students who were not in the program. (Note: Students in the classes reflect the demographics of the school district, which means students in the classes are Mexican American, white, American Indian....). Huppenthal rejected the findings of that audit. He did his own analysis. I want to see what he did!

Huppenthal apparently believes the auditors didn't know how to do their job in analyzing student performance. He said they were comparing oranges to apples, and that in his analysis he compared apples to apples. I want to see his analysis.

Huppenthal then goes on to say that students in Tucson Unified School District (not clear if it is the MAS program or the entire school) were not performing as well as students in other districts. That, he says is another of the reasons he had to shut down the MAS program. That seems to me like HE is comparing apples to oranges!  Is he comparing, for example, a district with a lower SES to one with a higher SES? If so, that's not fair.

In both interviews (NPR and Democracy Now), Huppenthal talks about Che Guevara's poster being on the wall in the classroom he visited. From what he says, the lesson he observed was not about Guevara, but had something to do with Benjamin Franklin. Huppenthal says that the teacher called Franklin racist. I wish that teacher was also on the show. I'd like to know more about what Huppenthal observed.

I'm wondering if the class Huppenthal was observing was studying Franklin's "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind"? (Note: I found it by searching on "Was Benjamin Franklin racist?" The link I got was to "Did Benjamin Franklin have ulterior motives" which is a pdf housed at Fairfield University in Connecticut. I think the pdf was developed by Professor Dennis G. Hodgson.)

At the end of "Observations...", Franklin was talking about people coming to America. He wrote:

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. 
24.  Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Compexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.

In that passage, Franklin was trying to keep America for the English and American Indians. He didn't want Africans or Germans, Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians or Swedes here! Huppenthal is right in saying that Franklin was president of the Abolitionist Society in Pennsylvania, but that was later in life. Shouldn't students learn that, at one time, he owned slaves, and isn't it accurate to call that racist? Like I said, I wish we could hear from the teacher. Did he drop it at that? Or did he go on to talk more about Franklin's later life?

Huppenthal says a lot that I want to push back on, but I'll finish with this. Talking about Paolo Freire, Huppenthal said:

I mean, he says, explicitly—he says, explicitly, in his book that his—literally, the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that word "oppressed" is taken right out of—he says it right in the book—that word "oppressed" is taken right out of The Communist Manifesto, where he talks about—Karl Marx talks about the struggle of the history of man—the entire history of mankind being the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors.

I've got a copy of it, and I can't find the place where Freire says that he got the word oppressed right out of The Communist Manifesto.  A small point, maybe, but Huppenthal did say he read the book. He accuses the teachers in the MAS program of teaching "to inflame feelings".  By linking Freire and the Mexican American Studies program with The Communist Manifesto, I think Huppenthal is trying to inflame feelings.

Maybe Huppenthal can tell us where he read Freire referencing The Communist Manifesto when he gives us access to the lesson plans and his analysis of student performance.

Update: Friday, January 20, 2012, 6:15 AM CST:
Kelly Howe, President of the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, Inc, (PTO) posted a letter to NPR at the PTO website.  She did so to provide a more accurate description of Freire's ideas. Here's two excerpts.

Huppenthal also cast suspicion on the term "oppression." The word is a key term for Freire, who believed that as students hone their critical thinking skills they become savvier at recognizing oppressions. As a result, students seek to transform oppressions into more equitable power relationships. But Freire does not advocate "resentment" or demonization. Instead he values processes in which students gain tools to challenge oppressive systems and work lovingly but relentlessly toward new systems that recognize the full humanity of all. "The pursuit of full humanity," Freire writes, must be carried out "in fellowship and solidarity; therefore it cannot unfold in the antagonistic relationship between oppressors and oppressed" (85). Freire hoped for classrooms where everyone-oppressors and oppressed-might become more fully human.



Despite Huppenthal's claims that he has studied Freire, the interview revealed the Superintendent's embarrassing lack of knowledge about one of the core thinkers of contemporary education theory and practice.  

At the end of her letter, she invites Huppenthal to the PTO conference in May and offers to pay all his expenses so that he can deepen his knowledge of Freire.

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

TUSD vs The Tempest: To teach or not to teach

[Note: A chronological list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District is here. Information about the national Mexican American Studies Teach-in is here. The best source for daily updates out of Tucson is blogger David Abie Morales at Three Sonorans.]

______________________________________

Yesterday afternoon, the Tucson Unified School District issued a press release that says reports of book banning are misleading. They specifically say that teachers can teach The Tempest. As this audio demonstrates, teachers who taught in the Mexican American Studies program can teach it if they can do it without talking about race or oppression. [Source for video: Three Sonorans YouTube channel]

"Once you begin to describe the Natives, and once you begin to delve into issues that are going to be from a critical race theory perspective, that's when you're not in that safe harbor, so to speak."


________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books

Mexican American Studies Department Reading List

[Note: For a chronological and comprehensive list of links to AICL's coverage of the shut-down of the Mexican American Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District, go here. To go right to information about the National Mexican American Studies Teach-in, go here.]

______________________________________

Book list below; author responses to their books being banned is here:
Authors banned in Tucson respond

_________________________________________

Cambium Learning, Inc. conducted an audit of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson. The findings were published in May 2, 2011. The audit took place between March 7, 2011 and May 2, 2011. [Update, Jan 16, 7:35 PM: Cambium was hired by Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction, John Huppenthal, district to do the audit. Cambium recommended the Mexican American Studies program be continued. The superintendent disagreed with the audit findings, and shut the program down.]

The following books are listed on Appendix Item Mexican American Studies Department Reading List of the audit of the Mexican American Studies program. I am presenting the lists here, replicating the lists as shown on the audit. News stories indicate that book in the Mexican American Studies classrooms were boxed up and removed from classrooms last week. At this point is is not known if all the books listed below were boxed and removed. They were placed in storage.

For critical discussion, see "Teaching Critical Thinking in Arizona: NOT ALLOWED".
The report (in pdf) is available here: Curriculum Audit of the Mexican American Studies Department, Tucson Unified School District, May 2, 2011.

High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 - Texts and Reading Lists

• Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
• The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
• Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000), by P. Freire
• United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007), by R. C. Remy
• Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
• Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990), by H. Zinn

Table 21: American History/Mexican American Perspectives, 1, 2 - Texts and Reading Lists

• Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004), by R. Acuna
• The Anaya Reader (1995), by R. Anaya
• The American Vision (2008), by J. Appleby et el.
• Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
• Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A. Burciaga
• Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (1997), by C. Jiminez
• De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998), by E. S. Martinez
• 500 Anos Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990), by E. S. Martinez
• Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998), by R. Rodriguez
• The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
• Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
• A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003), by H. Zinn

Course: English/Latino Literature 7, 8

• Ten Little Indians (2004), by S. Alexie
• The Fire Next Time (1990), by J. Baldwin
• Loverboys (2008), by A. Castillo
• Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
• Mexican WhiteBoy (2008), by M. de la Pena
• Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
• Woodcuts of Women (2000), by D. Gilb
• At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965), by E. Guevara
• Color Lines: "Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?" (2003), by E. Martinez
• Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998), by R. Montoya et al.
• Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte
• Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997), by M. Ruiz
• The Tempest (1994), by W. Shakespeare
• A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), by R. Takaki
• The Devil's Highway (2004), by L. A. Urrea
• Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999), by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
• Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997), by J. Yolen
• Voices of a People's History of the United States (2004), by H. Zinn

Course: English/Latino Literature 5, 6

• Live from Death Row (1996), by J. Abu-Jamal
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994), by S. Alexie
• Zorro (2005), by I. Allende
• Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999), by G. Anzaldua
• A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca
• C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca
• Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001), by J. S. Baca
• Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990), by J. S. Baca
• Black Mesa Poems (1989), by J. S. Baca
• Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987), by J. S. Baca
• The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools (19950, by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle
• Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A Burciaga
• Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
• Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
• So Far From God (1993), by A. Castillo
• Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985), by C. E. Chavez
• Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
• House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros
• Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
• Suffer Smoke (2001), by E. Diaz Bjorkquist
• Zapata's Discipline: Essays (1998), by M. Espada
• Like Water for Chocolate (1995), by L. Esquievel
• When Living was a Labor Camp (2000), by D. Garcia
• La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia
• Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003), by C. Garcia-Camarilo, et al.
• The Magic of Blood (1994), by D. Gilb
• Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001), by Rudolfo "Corky" Gonzales
• Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to "No Child Left Behind" (2004) by Goodman, et al.
• Feminism is for Everybody (2000), by b hooks
• The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999), by F. Jimenez
• Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991), by J. Kozol
• Zigzagger (2003), by M. Munoz
• Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993), by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero
• ...y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995), by T. Rivera
• Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005), by L. Rodriguez
• Justice: A Question of Race (1997), by R. Rodriguez
• The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
• Crisis in American Institutions (2006), by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie
• Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986), by T. Sheridan
• Curandera (1993), by Carmen Tafolla
• Mexican American Literature (1990), by C. M. Tatum
• New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993), by C. M. Tatum
• Civil Disobedience (1993), by H. D. Thoreau
• By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996), by L. A. Urrea
• Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002), by L. A. Urrea
• Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992), by L. Valdez
• Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995), by O. Zepeda

UPDATE, Monday, January 16, 2012
The list above is not complete. As I learn of other titles that have been boxed, I will add them to the list.

• Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
• Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin, by Rodolfo Gonzales
• Into the Beautiful North, by Luis Alberto Urrea
• The Devil's Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea

UPDATE, Tuesday, February 21, 2012
I'm inserting a list of items taught by Curtis Acosta in his Social Justice course.

Non-Fiction - Personal Reflections

• My Dungeon Shook by James Baldwin
• La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness by Gloria Anzaldua
  

Short Stories

• Selections from Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie
• Eleven by Sandra Cisneros
• Vatolandia by Ana Castillo
• Love in L.A. by Dagoberto Gilb
• Lindo y Querido by Manuel Munoz
• Brisa by Dagoberto Gilb
• Aurora by Juno Diaz
• Lost Girls by Jane Yolen
• Selection from Tuff by Paul Beatty

Counter Story Telling and Cultura Through Teatro 

• And Where Was Pancho Villa When You Really Needed Him? by Silviana Wood 
• Culture Clash in America and Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy by Culture Clash

Shakespeare, Colonization, and Critical Race Theory

• The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Immigration - La Lucha Sigue

• The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

Resistance Through Rhetoric

• The Puerto Rican Dummy and the Merciful Son by Martin Espada
• Jesse Jackson's speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention
• Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
• Speech at the Afro-Asian Conference by Ernesto "Che" Guevara
• "Women, Power, and Revolution" by Kathleen Cleaver
• "Political Prisoners, Prisons, and Black Liberation" by Angela Davis
• Message to Aztlan by Corky Gonzales
• Message to the Grass Roots by Malcom X
• "Beyond Vietnam" and Where We Go From Here by Martin Luther King Jr.
• "Does 'Anti-War' Have to be 'Anti-Racist', too? by Elizabeth "Betita" Martinez

Resistance/Revolution in Spoken Word, Slam Poetry, and Hip Hop
Poetry

• Selections from William Carlos Williams, Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Ana Castillo, Tracy Morris, Paul Beatty

Hip Hop

Selections from Olmeca, Sihuatl-De, Dead Prez, Common, Kanye West, KRS-1, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Rage Against the Machine, etc.

_______________________
In the video below, teacher Yolanda Sotelo (she taught in the Mexican American Studies program that was shut down last week) discusses novels she can no longer teach. They were boxed and removed. Teachers have been told that they will be monitored to make sure they do not teach those novels. Ironically, if Sotelo was teaching at Tucson's college prep school, she'd be able to teach Rudolfo Anaya's Bless Me Ultima. [Video source: ThreeSonorans channel on YouTube]

Update: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, 7:00 AM CST

Brenda Norrell of Censored News has video interviews of three students at her site. Interviews were recorded at an MLK event yesterday.

In the first one, the student describes how shelves were cleared of books during class.  In the second, the student points to a double standard. It is only the Mexican American Studies class and books in those classrooms that are being targeted. Those books include more than just ones by Latino/a authors. Amongst the curriculum are books by African American, Asian American, American Indian, feminist, and progressive writers. Other ethnic studies programs are being left alone.  In the third video, the student talks about the importance for all Americans of knowing the histories of all Americans.

Update: Tuesday, January 17, 6:40 PM CST

There are conflicting reports on how many books were removed. Cara Rene, spokesperson for the Tucson Unified School District says:

"The books... have been moved to the district storage facility because the classes have been suspended as per the ruling by Arizona Superintendent (of) Public Instruction John Huppenthal," 

The Tempest was not removed. According to the news story at Arizona Central (Update, 1/29/2012: Listen to an audio discussion between Curtis Acosta, MAS teacher, and TUSD administrators, discussing how he can and can not teach Tempest),

Rene said the seven books removed from the classrooms were: "Critical Race Theory" by Richard Delgado; "500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures" edited by Elizabeth Martinez; "Message to AZTLAN" by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales; "Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement" by Arturo Rosales; "Occupied America: A History of Chicanos" by Rodolfo Acuña; "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire; and "Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years" by Bill Bigelow.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/01/17/20120117tucson-district-denies-ban-mexican-american-books.html#ixzz1jlXj62RR

UPDATE, TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 9:20 PM, CST:

The Tucson Unified School District website has a statement with contradictory statements about the books they boxed up.  Below, I'm reproducing the statement in its entirety, and I am placing the contradictory statements in red. You can find the statement here. The copy below is accompanied with "Last updated: 01/17/2012 14:32:39".

Reports of TUSD book ban completely false and misleading

Posted on: January 17, 2012
Contact: Cara Rene, Communication Director, (520) 225-6101, Cara.Rene@tusd1.org

Tucson Unified School District has not banned any books as has been widely and incorrectly reported.

Seven books that were used as supporting materials for curriculum in Mexcian American Studies classes have been moved to the district storage facility because the classes have been suspended as per the ruling by Arizona Superintendent for Public Instruction John Huppenthal. Superintendent Huppenthal upheld an Office of Adminstriation Hearings’ ruling that the classes were in violation of state law ARS 15-112.

The books are:

• Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado
• 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez
• Message to AZTLAN by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
• Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales
• Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
• Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow

NONE of the above books have been banned by TUSD. Each book has been boxed and stored as part of the process of suspending the classes. The books listed above were cited in the ruling that found the classes out of compliance with state law.

Every one of the books listed above is still available to students through several school libraries. Many of the schools where Mexican American Studies classes were taught have the books available in their libraries. Also, all students throughout the district may reserve the books through the library system.

Other books have also been falsely reported as being banned by TUSD. It has been incorrectly reported that William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” is not allowed for instruction. Teachers may continue to use materials in their classrooms as appropriate for the course curriculum. “The Tempest” and other books approved for curriculum are still viable options for instructors.

The suspended Mexican American Studies classes were converted last week to standard grade-level courses with a general curriculum featuring multiple perspectives, as per the directive by the state superintendent. Students remained in classes with their teachers, who are now teaching general curriculum.

As the district has taken action to comply with the order from the state, the goal of the district has continued to be to prevent disruption to student learning. Books used as instructional materials in the former Mexican American Studies classes were collected only from classrooms in schools where the courses were taught. Again, all the books are still available to students through the TUSD library system.

In one instance, at Tucson High Magnet School, materials were collected from a filing cabinet while students were in class though teaching did not stop during the process.

Tucson High Magnet School Principal Dr. Abel Morado acknowledges that the gathering of materials could have been accomplished outside of class time in all instances.

“We had a directive to be in compliance with the law and acted quickly to meet that need,” says Morado. “Part of that directive is communicating with teachers, students and parents, and collecting materials. We regret that in one instance materials were collected during class time.”

________________________________________________________
FOR A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF AICL'S COVERAGE, CLICK ON:
AICL Coverage of Arizona Law that resulted in shut down of Mexican American Studies Program and Banning of Books