* Dolores Huerta will speak (Fri eve.Dec 3) at the Tucson conference that will address hate, censorship and forbidden curriculms. See schedule after this column.
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
Mexican oral tradition hands us the following narrative, a narrative that is arguably related to the ongoing battle over Raza Studies in the state of Arizona.
Soon after the Spanish invaded Mexico and laid siege to Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the Supreme Senate of the Confederation of Anahuac, sent out a decree. In Spanish, it is known as El Ultimo Mandato de Cuauhtémoc or Cuauhtémoc’s Final Decree. Cuauhtémoc – Eagle that Descends from the Sky – is considered the last Tlatoani (great speaker) and the last defender of the Aztec-Mexica peoples.
The decree speaks of their sun concealing itself, directing the Mexica to destroy all that which they hold dear: “Let us destroy our temples, our places of study, our schools, our ballgame fields, and our houses of song.” The people are directed, not to destroy their culture, but to preserve it and to take it inside their homes and to bury it deep within their hearts.
One could argue that the Raza Studies timeline begins at this point… with the call to both resist and preserve the history, knowledge and ancient culture. But in reality, this cultural timeline goes back some seven thousand years to when maiz was created on this continent. But the timeline that we’re interested at this time is, when Raza Studies became controversial in Arizona. In 2006, farm labor leader, Dolores Huerta, addressed students at Tucson High School, telling them: “Republicans hate Latinos.” Enraged, state schools superintendent Tom Horne dispatched his deputy superintendent, Margaret Dugan-Garcia, to THS to counter that idea, arguing she was proof that “Republicans don’t hate Latinos.” The students, according to Leilani Clark, who is Pueblo and African American and who was present at the speech, were directed not to ask questions, except in written form, two weeks in advance. To protest this form of censorship, the students put duct tape over their mouths and as Dugan-Garcia spoke, the students turned their back on her and then proceeded to walk out of the auditorium.
Since then and with a vengeance, Huerta’s pronouncement has proven to be completely on the mark, particularly in Arizona.
The events of 2006 and the subsequent attempts to destroy Ethnic/Raza Studies are arguably related to Cuauhtemoc’s decree, a decree that many Mexicans hold to be sacred.
Unbeknownst to themselves, Russell Pearce, author of most of the state’s anti-Mexican, anti-Indigenous and anti-immigrant bills, along with Tom Horne, the intellectual author of the state’s anti K-12 Ethnic/Raza Studies bill, are players in a cosmic drama that they have no knowledge of. John Huppenthal, Horne’s successor, is also implicated as he intends to wage this campaign at the university level.
Despite their constant and disingenuous mischaracterizations of TUSD’s highly successful Raza Studies program, these state officials have not actually publicly opposed the teaching of Raza Studies; they are Ok with students being taught their culture and history at home, just not in public schools.
This private/ public debate regarding culture is not new. Motivated by hate, self-hate, fear, shame and subservience, it has been infamously advanced by reactionaries in regards to language and culture: keep it at home, not in public, not in the schools. And yet, to preserve the culture, this is precisely what Cuauhtémoc’s decree instructed.
However, the decree also instructed that one day, the need to hide the culture would cease and that there would come a time when there would no longer be a need to conceal the ancient culture and knowledge.
Some will call this private/public dynamic and allusion to Cuauhtémoc’s decree a metaphor and yet, this is precisely what Arizona state officials are again insisting upon, seemingly unaware that the era of shame, that the era of keeping one’s culture within the home has long passed.
The battle over Ethnic/Raza Studies represents this epic struggle. Speaking to Clark, she agreed. She said that the problem with Horne and Pearce “is that what they don’t realize is the size of our home; it is the entire continent.” This comports with another decree, proclaimed this September at a continental Indigenous encounter in Peru: “No somos inmigrantes en nuestro propio continente” – We can not be immigrants on our own continent.”
The other problem Arizona state officials don’t realize is that the idea of remanding culture to the home is no longer acceptable. Perhaps that sufficed for nearly 500 years, but as the students at Tucson High proclaimed in 2006 when they walked out on Dugan-Garcia: “You can silence our voices, but never our spirit.”
This is why students and community have walked out, have run, marched, protested, rallied, gotten arrested, held vigils, long walks, sit-ins and teach-ins for the past few years. The sense of shame lifted long ago. The idea of concealing their culture – the idea of acquiescing to their own ethnic cleansing, to their own cultural genocide, is no longer an option. Their/our sun will never again be concealed.
* In response to these issues, a national conference will be held in Tucson, at the University of Arizona, the YWCA and El Rio Community Center on Dec 2-4. For info, go to: http://drcintli.blogspot.com/. If you are not attending conference but would like to support Ethnic Studies, go to their website: http://www.saveethnicstudies.org/
Rodriguez, a professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com
* The conference is just but a few days away. We still need assistance in housing, drivers, registration, donations, etc. If you can assist, write to Lorena Howard at: xicanita_2000@yahoo.com. If you can donate, go to: http://drcintli.blogspot.com/ The conference schedule is also posted there.
If you are in Arizona, also, please consider running on Saturday as we will conduct a ceremonial run in support, not just of Raza/Indigenous/Ethnic Studies, but also in support of ourselves, affirming our humanity. We will run at 7am from the base of A Mountain (on Mission by pottery store) to El Rio Community Center. We may also create a walk from same location for same purpose. For info, write to: teoxicalli@yahoo.com
Column of the Americas
PO BOX 3812
Tucson, AZ 85722
* There is no charge for this conference. However, donations are greatly needed and appreciated. Click the donate button at top of page. Money will assist in covering costs of the conference.
* Dolores Huerta has confirmed and will address conference on Dec 3.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
THURSDAY DEC 2 - UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
7:30 –8:am Opening Ceremony-Outside Old Main – CALPOLLI TEOXICALLI
8– 9:45 am Opening Platica CALPOLLI TEOXICALLI- Old Main Auditorium
Chucho Ruiz, Maria Molina, Norma Gonzalez, Jose Gonzalez and Zotero Citlacoatl
An Indigenous Education
10 am TOUR OF EXHIBIT - Main Library
10-10-50am Community Organizing Panel Cesar Chavez Bldg #205 Corazón de Tucson
Tucson Childcare Collective
Tierra y Libertad
Yo Soy Testigo
Fred Highton, MoveOn.Org
11-4 pm Sessions at The KIVA-UA Student Union
11-11:50 am - SESSION - The KIVA-UA Student Union
Raza Studies K-6 Immigration/Education Dialogue Opening: In Lak Ech: 4-5 year olds - Ms Paula's Dreams Room, Ochoa Elem.
Raza Studies K-6 Dialogue Ochoa and Van Buskirk Elementary Schools
Moderated by Norma Gonzalez
NOON-12:50 pm - SESSION
LESSONS OF TLATELOLCO (1968) and THE 1970 NATIONAL CHICANO MORATORIUM
Celeste Bustamante, UA-School of Journalism - Tlatelolco in the Curriculum Ramses Noriega, Co-founder, National Chicano Moratrorium Ashley Bustamante, Tucson HS student, Ruben Salazar and The Moratorium Carmen Orozco, Tucson HS student, Ruben Salazar and The Moratorium
1-1:50 pm -SESSIONMAS GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS Lizette Opio, Courtney Lower, Adrian Mendoza, Arlene Provencio, Aaron Enrique Almada
Moderator: Rosario Carrillo, PhD, MAS-University of Arizona
2-2:50 pm ANALYSIS OF ANTI-ETHNIC/RAZA STUDIES HB2281-KIVA Student Union
Anna Ochoa O'Leary, Andrea Romero, Randall Amster and Auggie Romero
3-3:50 pm GRADUATE STUDENT SESSION
FREIRE-TUHIWAI SMITH-ACUNA DIALOGUE Courtney Waters, Erin MacKinney, Cash Conner, Yousseff Toure Moderated by Jose Gonzalez, Raza Studies Teacher, TUSD
OLD MAIN AUDITORIUM (GROUND FLOOR)
3-4:45 pm MECHA-YOUTH CITYWIDE/REGIONAL DIALOGUE EVENING PROGRAM
YWCA 5-10pm EVE RECEPTION - 525 N. Bonita Ave TUCSON AZ 85745
Like public enemy before them, El Vuh uses hip hop to move minds as well as bodies. Unleashing a blistering attack against the two headed beast of ignorance and bigotry, they reminds us that, among other things, xican@s were there long before Los Angeles was home to Hollywood or Arizona was patrolled by minute-men. Along the way in touring the US and Canada performing at student conferences and Universities, they challenge us to live up to our responsibilities to education, family and community.
2:35 – 2:40pm (5mins) Setup/Intro
2:40 – 3:15pm (35mins) Cui Cui
Who is Irma Delia Pimienta Rangel.
She is also known as Cuicani (singer in Nahuatl) However, many people know her as Cui Cui. Cuicani comes to Tucson with the desire and sincerity to support the importance of this Summit with her love passion and healing energy through the use of her
music,song and dance. Cuicani hales from Los Angeles, California. She is a graduate of D.Q.University in Davis,CA. She has a Degree in Ethnic Studies (SacramentoState)
She was a member of the Royal Chicano Air Force, El Teatro Campesino and Danza Azteca. She has been teaching voice development and sharing her floricanto also as a peacemaker/lightworker for over 30 years. She continues on her journey in support of maintaining the balance for all humanity and our precious universe in the spirit
of love and peace...for all my relations!
3:15 – 3:20pm (5mins) Setup/Intro
3:20 – 3:35 (15mins) DJ Alias
3:35 – 3:40pm (5mins) Setup/Intro
3:40 – 4:05pm (25mins) Student poetry/Open Mic.
4:05 – 4:10pm (5mins) Setup/intro
*4:10 – 4:40pm (30mins)
Xilan and CozmoBrown as Metate with DJ Lingos
4:40 – 4:45 (5mins) setup/intro
4:45 – 5:00pm (15mins) DJ Alias
5:00 – 5:30pm (30mins) Fe
Felicia Montes is a Xicana Indigenous artist, activist, academic, community/event organizer, and poet/performer/MC from the Los Angeles area. She is co-founder and coordinating member of the groundbreaking creative’s collectives, Mujeres de Maiz and In Lak Ech and is a graduate of UCLA, CSUN soon OtisCollege of Art & Design.
5:30 – 5:35 (5mins) setup/intro
5:35 – 6:05pm (30mins) Cihualt-Ce
Cihuatl Ce (Xela, formerly of Cihuatl Tonali) Once a runway now a youth advocate/outreach worker. Her passion for social change is felt within the energy and urgency of her lyrics using music to reach people specifically inner city, ghetto youth. Xela brings it smart, raw, uncensored and unstoppable. Educating while empowering and uplifting, fusing hip hop with indigenous sounds in an effort to share some of the ancient teachings that remain after 515 years of colonization so that they may continue to be passed on, never to be forgotten.
DONATE TO SUPPORT CONFERENCE Understanding that not all who wish to participate will be able to make the trip to this political desert, this here is a call to support this conference.
ELECTRONIC DONATIONS:
We are accepting gifts from $50 to $100 or more, or whatever amount you wish. The estimated budget that still needs to be raised for the conference is $4,000 and we hope to reach that through generous contributions like yours. This includes a special issue of El Coraje, a publication that has been revived by UA Students (496 students: History of Red-Brown Journalism), which will serve to document much of the themes within the conference. The donation is tax-deductible. Send electronically or by check via mail.
ELECTRONICALLY: To make your contribution with a credit card (Visa, Mastercard,
American Express, Discover), please follow these directions:
Prof Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
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Arizona/The United States & The Subterfuge of the 2010 Elections
By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
Uttering the word Arizona anywhere in the world nowadays creates a visceral reaction. For some, it evokes the specter of Nazi Germany; for others, a totalitarian regime. For some, legalized and mandatory racial profiling represents a return to the Jim Crow south, and for still others, it conjures up apartheid South Africa.
The 2010 elections have inflamed passions even further. For instance, Jan Brewer was elected governor, riding primarily on the wave of anti-Mexican sentiment prevalent in Arizona. Actually, with her hysterical statements about beheadings in the Arizona desert, she was actually creating that sentiment. State Sen. Russell Pearce – the author of Arizona’s new racial profiling measure, SB 1070 and a host of most of the state’s anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican bills – is now majority leader of the state Senate. State school superintendent Tom Horne – the architect of HB 2281, which seeks to ban ethnic studies in Arizona’s K -12 schools – was elected the state’s attorney general, where he can do worse damage there. His successor, state senator John Huppenthal, has one-upped him, vowing to carry on Horne’s fight at the university level. Ward Connerly, who isn’t from Arizona, brought his anti-affirmative action initiative to Arizona – Proposition 107 – and successfully packaged it as a civil rights initiative.
Couple all this with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and well, he’s not going anywhere except national; next to Sarah Palin, he is the darling of the extreme right wing.
For the above politicos, these initiatives and movements represent greatness (Pearce’s words) for other states to emulate. And emulating they are.
Hyperbole aside, does all this equal a literal doomsday for people of color and progressives in Arizona when the new legislative session begins in 2011? On Nov. 3, the answer seemed to be a resounding yes! But this answer is actually illusory. This steady backwards march into pre-human rights history is not new… and it is not limited to Arizona. It is national in scope.
Despite the national turn inward – toward the border and a fear and loathing of Mexicans – all this has served to keep our eyes away – through misdirection and subterfuge – the even more onerous picture.
As is well-known, the nation is up in arms over the massive economic disaster (caused by the previous administration), which has translated into both high unemployment and underemployment. All this has fueled the hate and fear that Arizona signifies. Here, blaming all the problems of the world on Mexicans isn’t just a thought, slogan or movement; the local police and the federal government and its myriad of law enforcement agencies, plus the military, have been teaming up to go after our friends, neighbors and students and their families – on the border, on Arizona streets and in the courtroom (Operation Streamline).
This economic disaster and the fear-exploiting politicians have made it easy to scapegoat “illegal aliens.” In these parts [all of the United States] that’s a dehumanizing term and code word for red-brown peoples. As has been noted, what does English-Only and forcing a Greco-Roman curriculum into the classroom have to do with legalities?
They want us out, and for those of us that remain, they want our spirits. Of course, they can’t have them.
So what’s the subterfuge? War. Since 2001, this nation has normalized the “right” of the United States to wage permanent war anywhere and at anytime in the world, i.e., Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Iran and North Korea seem to be next. The president no longer uses the Bush-era “War on Terror” rhetoric, but the Bush doctrine survives. It permits the United States to wage war and launch missiles anywhere, manned or unmanned, on anyone deemed to be an enemy. War makes trials unnecessary. With drone technology, no one gets their hands dirty anymore, notwithstanding civilian casualties. This is the Obama doctrine.
This is what has bankrupted the nation in a bipartisan manner, financially, but even more importantly, morally as well. But rather than debate the morality of permanent war, of waging illegal wars that lay waste to entire nations and wars we can’t also either afford, instead, we are all directed to focus our anger or energies 24/7 around issues related to economic despair.
So blame the Mexicans. It always works. Just don’t call them that. Illegal aliens will suffice. The question remains: Are we living in an apartheid state? Not just yet. The red-brown populations of the state are not in the majority. But make no mistake; the repressive legislation is predicated on that fear and thus can be considered pre-apartheid. Whatever this system is called, those who believe in social justice are not sitting idly by.
What’s most impressive about Arizona is the response to this repressive legislation, though even more impressive is the response by the youths. The attacks have been relentless, but the youths do not back down. People everywhere are invited to a conference to combat hate, censorship and forbidden curriculums, to be held at the University of Arizona on Dec 2-4. Much of it will be in dialogue form… and much of it will be led by youths, teachers and community. For info, go to: http://drcintli.blogspot.com/
Rodriguez, a professor at the University of Arizona, can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com
