·
The
primary elements of this essay were delivered to a special UN hearing (conference and consultation) on the
rights of Indigenous Peoples on April 27, 2012, and submitted on May 1, 2012.
Raza
Studies: Inside or Outside of Western Civilization?
by Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
Read this and discussion in Truthout: http://truth-out.org/news/item/8943-raza-studies-inside-or-outside-of-western-civilization
The
struggle to defend Raza Studies in Tucson, Arizona isn’t simply an epic
struggle; it is civilizational in scope. While it may sound hyperbolic, such a characterization
actually comes from its opponents, such as former state schools’
superintendent, Tom Horne, who has long contended that Raza or Mexican American
Studies (MAS) does not emanate from Greco-Roman culture, and therefore lies
outside of Western Civilization. His central thesis appears to be that Western
Civilization teaches respect for individualism and that other cultures, such as
Mexican culture, as taught in Raza Studies, preaches collectivism.
To debate
Mr. Horne’s assertions first entails entering a completely fictional world,
including his first contention that his effort to eliminate Tucson’s highly
successful MAS Department is motivated by Martin Luther King’s famous 1963 “I
have a dream” speech. He cited this on Jan. 3, 2011, in his 10-page document in
which he found MAS-TUSD out of compliance with HB 2281, the state measure that
in effect, banned the teaching of MAS.
His
entire thesis presupposes that he has the capacity to judge what is inside, or
outside of Western Civilization, and that even if he had that capacity, that it
somehow is grounds for excluding an entire discipline – Raza Studies – from
Arizona schools. As the intellectual author of HB 2281, he presupposes
that individualism and collectivism are mutually exclusive and that somehow,
individualism is both superior, and embedded in the U.S. Constitution. That
aside, a complication ensues when one comes to understand that the
philosophical foundation for Raza Studies is rooted in maize – a crop
completely Indigenous to Abya Yalla or the Americas. In geographic terms, this
continent is firmly rooted in “the West.” While it is understood that Raza
Studies does not trace its intellectual roots to the Greeks or the Romans,
Indigenous peoples of this continent have never ceded the direction of the West
to peoples from Europe or other parts of the world. At the same time, Raza
Studies has never rejected Greco-Roman culture; on the contrary, it is Mr.
Horne that has made that claim.
Opposition
to Chicano Studies Dejavu
The
discipline of Chicano/Chicana Studies was the intellectual companion of the
Chicano Movement of the civil rights era. Akin to the political movement, it had
naysayers since its inception and it continues to be opposed today by those
that abhor “multiculturalism.” Today, few serious scholars at the university
level publicly question the validity of the discipline. The Chicano Movement
was a generational struggle as it broke from the past, relegating the
submissive hat-in-hand Mexican into the trash bin of history. But the
effort to destroy MAS-TUSD, without question, is indeed civilizational. It
involves a debate over whether MAS knowledge, and whether Chicanos/Chicanas lie
inside or outside of Western civilization. In effect, it even involves whether
Chicanos/Chicanas are Indigenous peoples at all.
This
clash, which appears to be a struggle over academic freedom, actually has all
the elements of a cosmic drama; it is about what it means to be human and about
what is permissible knowledge. While it may sound like a debate from the era of
the Inquisition, it is actually taking place today, in the year 2012.
It
has involved a carefully crafted plot, which includes the passage of HB 2281,
designed specifically by Horne, to find MAS-TUSD outside of the law. It charges
the department with promoting the overthrow of the U.S. government, with
anti-Americanism and with promoting segregation and the resentment of Whites.
It has also involved ignoring an independent study (The Cambium report), which
debunked those charges, instead praising MAS-TUSD and calling for its
expansion. Not liking the conclusions, Horne’s successor, John Huppenthal, handpicked
an administrative law judge, which gave him the pre-ordained verdict he
desired. As a result of this 6-year ordeal, the [Lewis] Kowall decision
prompted TUSD, under threat of crippling economic sanctions (a tactic used in
war against enemies), to shut down the highly successful department. In doing so,
it banished the curriculum and its books. More than anything, it prohibited the
teaching of an Indigenous worldview, with an emphasis on social justice.
Counter-intuitively,
this action, rather than unique, now places TUSD in the same company as the
rest of the nation’s public school districts where none of them teach Raza Studies
(the Indigenous history and culture of Mexican Americans) district-wide at the
K-12 levels. In effect, this can be seen as contributing to the
de-Indigenization of the nation’s schools. It can also be viewed as a form of
denial [of Indigenous roots] that has long been in effect throughout the
continent, including the United States. This is the meaning of civilizational
war; it has been an ongoing process since 1492.
Since
MAS-TUSD was dismantled in January 2012, things have taken a turn for the worse,
involving the outlawing of the curriculum and book banning (involving some 50
books), including the confiscation of several titles and other teaching
materials while school has been in session. It also includes the
reassignment of all the MAS teachers, the firing of several of them and the
firing of its long-time director, Sean Arce.
 |
| Citywide walkouts in response to Closure of MAS-TUSD Department |
Perhaps
what happened to MAS teacher Norma Gonzalez is most symbolic of this
civilizational clash: While she was teaching, a school official walked in and
upon seeing the Aztec Calendar on the screen, instructed Gonzalez to take it
down, informing her that anything having to do with Mexican history and culture
was prohibited. As an icon, there are few things more Mexican than the Aztec
calendar. As Gonzalez states: “Virtually every Mexican home has one.” Teaching
it has now become illegal and the calendar itself apparently now constitutes
illegal knowledge. She recently lost her job at TUSD, though she has gained it
again, though reassigned.
The irony
is that the same knowledge – The Aztec Calendar – can and is being taught by
the Native American Studies component of TUSD. Apparently, things prior to 1492
are considered to be outside of Mexican culture and history and it is the state
that nowadays determines what constitutes Mexican history and culture. By the
stroke of a pen, it also appears that it is the state that determines the
indigeneity of peoples, in this case, the indigeneity, or lack thereof, of Mexican
peoples.
The
students and the community have not ever been passive about these matters,
beginning in 2006 when students walked out of an auditorium in which they were
prohibited from asking a conservative speaker any questions. This speaker had
been brought in to counter Dolores Huerta who had proclaimed to students at
Tucson High School that “Republicans hate Latinos.” In this case in Jan. 2012,
upon learning of the suspension of the department and its classes, citywide
walkouts ensued. Students were suspended and in one case, a student was yanked
from a classroom two days after testifying before the school board. A few days
later, MAS teachers were served a Jan. 18, 2012 memo with nine directives,
titled: “Guiding principles for MAS teachers.”
The
first directive states: “Assignments can not direct students to apply MAS
perspectives.” That alone would need to be litigated in court, as no legal
definition exists for such a perspective. If permitted to stand, and if
replicated nationwide, such and similar directives would destroy the very
concept of education as we know it. It does precisely what it purportedly
opposes; it ascribes perspectives to particular groups and creates a state
mechanism, the state superintendent, which determines the parameters of a
[Mexican American] perspective. Theoretically, any perspective.
The Jan
18 memo further informs the teachers that school administrators will frequently
visit them and, that student work will be frequently collected by said administrators
to ensure compliance with HB 2281. This in fact is happening and is
establishing what appears to be an unheard of precedent in U.S. schools.
Part
of the context of this struggle includes the action of UNIDOS, which
illustrates resistance as opposed to acceptance. Tired of being ignored, nine
members of the citywide coalition of high school students chained themselves to
the school board chairs on April 26, 2011. The following week, TUSD officers and
the Tucson Police Department responded with maximum force. It is
estimated that some 150-200 law enforcement personnel were deployed that night,
surrounding both the TUSD headquarters and the neighborhood. This included a
bomb squad, a canine unit, sharpshooters, SWAT and riot equipped officers and
the use of metal detectors. That night, seven women were arrested for speaking.
One 69-year-old elder was arrested for attempting to read: “A Letter from
Birmingham,” by Martin Luther King Jr. Outside, several students were beaten.
A
year after that direct action, heavy security persists; regular meetings
average nine armed security, which includes the use of metal detectors.
While
the local media has been hostile to MAS, it is the national media that has
turned the tide in favor of MAS. National education organizations have united
in a universal condemnation of this development. While book banning is not a new
phenomenon or one limited to repressive nations, the one in Tucson perhaps is
unique because aside from confiscating and boxing books and sending them off to
the district’s book depository, the district and the state deny that there has
been a book banning. Some of the books can now be found in the school
libraries, but they can not be taught by the former MAS teachers, nor can MAS books
or related teaching materials be inside their classrooms.
A March
2012 photograph of a small child being subjected to a metal detector went
viral, with CNN following up with a not-so-flattering picture of TUSD (http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/29/stiff-security-at-tucson-arizona-school-board-meetings-angers-latinos/). It was a public relations disaster for
TUSD and the state. The photo and the CNN story leaves the
impression that TUSD somehow fears its own constituents, including children,
the disabled and even great-grandparents. To this day, only one person has
attempted to bring in a weapon, a knife, by an ardent opponent of MAS. In the
same week of the CNN story, a satirical piece by the Jon Stewart show revealed
the ridiculousness of the case against MAS ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-2-2012/tucson-s-mexican-american-studies-ban). In this
segment, board member Michael Hicks single-handedly convinced perhaps a
skeptical nation that Arizona and TUSD school officials have contrived their
case against MAS on the basis of hearsay and apparent ignorance. In the piece,
he refers to Rosa Parks as Rosa Clark, insinuates that the students carry
weapons into the board room and also claims that MAS teachers feed burritos to
their students to ensure loyalty.
The
battle for MAS appears to have been won in the court of public opinion
nationwide. Not so locally; the TUSD governing board continues to impose its
will on the primarily Mexican American community and school district
(approximately 62 % of district students are Mexican American/Latino, a
percentage which is growing yearly). While Arizona may be different, it is also
likely that the ideologies that have sprung forth from this state, including
the fear of the “browning” of the nation, may result in other states and
districts creating similar legislation that would also ban Mexican American
Studies. We of course have already seen this effect in the realm of SB 1070
copycat legislation nationwide.
Arizona
indeed may be different because, on this issue, the politicians are brazen. For
example, while running for superintendent, Mr. Huppenthal campaigned to “stop
La Raza,” promising he would eliminate MAS at the K-12 and university levels.
In March, 2012, he began musings about going after the MAS program at the
University of Arizona. Interestingly, state statistics reveal that as of 2012, White
students are no longer the majority of K-12 students in the state of Arizona.
This of course may be the reason for the discomfort with the teaching of Ethnic
Studies, the sense that Arizona has been “lost” to Mexico.
Currently,
there is a federal lawsuit (Acosta) challenging the constitutionality of HB
2281, arguing vagueness and overreach. Despite overwhelming evidence that it is
discriminatory and contrived, the final outcome is uncertain due to a
politicized U.S. Supreme Court. However, the prospects of Huppenthal succeeding
at the university level does not look promising because even opponents of
MAS-TUSD argue that its curriculum would be acceptable at universities because
students there are capable of making up their own minds, etc. The actual
reason, many people suspect, is the tradition of academic freedom at colleges
and universities nationwide; to go after MAS at the university level would
invite a condemnation even more widespread than exists now.
But
Tucson is in Arizona, a state that has been arguably in the lead of a decade-long
anti-Mexican movement. What SB 1070 has shown the nation is that cultural
conservatives will do whatever they want, even if it bankrupts the state.
However, in 2011, the moneyed interests of the Republican Party convinced them
to back off of their onslaught of anti-Mexican-anti-immigrant legislation,
which included an effort to overturn the 14th Amendment (birthright
citizenship).
It
is uncertain whether such pressure would discourage Horne and Huppenthal in
their efforts to, in effect, do away with a worldview – represented by the MAS
discipline. It was Horne after all, who in the face of overwhelming evidence
that MAS-TUSD graduates nearly 100% of its students and sends upwards of 80% of
them to college, declared that he does not care how the students do in school;
what matters to him is that they are not learning Greco-Roman knowledge and
values.
Horne
is correct on this matter; the philosophical foundation of MAS-TUSD lies in the
maiz-based philosophies of In Lak Ech
(You are my other me) and Panche Be
(To seek the root of the Truth), as expounded upon by Maya scholar, Domingo
Martinez Paredez in his classic work: Un
Continente y Una Cultura (Orion, 1960) not in Western
Civilization. The question is, can the state prevent students from learning a
part of their own culture, which is maiz-based and Indigenous to this
continent, but one that he considers anti-American? (The question really is,
can a district, a state or even a federal government, outlaw the teaching of a
perspective and the teaching of a peoples’ culture?)
This is
where history appears to be repeating itself; what appears to be happening is
another campaign of reducciones or forced assimilation (Spanish colonial
era campaigns) and the equivalent of another auto de fe; a 1500-s era
book burning, as occurred in Mani, Yucatan in 1562 (Relacion de las Cosas de
Yucatan, 1938, original 1500s). In that era, the Church, specifically the
bishop, Diego de Landa, declared that the knowledge of Indigenous peoples was
“godless, pagan and demonic.” In this era, Horne continues to make parallel
declarations. The 1500s represent the “Dark Ages.” MAS students know this and
that’s why they fight for what they consider to be their inherent, universal
and inalienable rights – rights protected by virtually every human rights
treaty since 1948, including the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. It is the same declaration that UNIDOS invoked when they
took over the school board in 2011.
Regardless
of what happens in U.S. courts, MAS supporters are also intent on taking their
concerns before international human rights forums. The following are
international treaties and conventions that HB 2281 violates:
1948: UN Declaration of Human
Rights
1948: American Declaration of the Rights
of Man
1960: Convention against
Discrimination in Education
1966 & 1976: International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
1969 American Convention on Human
Rights (Organization of American States)
1989: The UN Convention on Rights
of the Child
1990: The International Convention
on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their
Families
1994: The International Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
2007: UN Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples
In fact,
a close inspection of them also leads many to believe that SB 1070 also violates
every one of them also.
Those who
support the MAS struggle in Tucson are certain that they will prevail as all
human rights treaties and conventions protect the right to culture, history,
identity, language and education.
What is
also important to remember is that the attacks against MAS – relative to
Western Civilization – are not limited to its philosophical foundation;
Mexicans and Chicanos/Chicanas in Arizona today are being treated as peoples
less than full human beings and peoples deserving of something other than full
human rights. Because the students and community of Tucson understand this, it
guarantees that the battle over MAS – with its accompanying search for the
truth and social justice, regardless of court decisions – will not be over
anytime soon.
* Five of Roberto Dr. Cintli
Rodriguez's books and one video are on the banned curriculum list. The video
is: “Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan.” The books are: “Justice: A Question of
Race,” “Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut and Uncensored,” “The X in La Raza,”
“Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human,” and “Cantos Al Sexto Sol.” This last
book is a collection of more than 100 Raza/Indigenous writers, writing on the
topic of Mexican/Indigenous origins and migrations. The ban highlights that
virtually the entire cultural production of the past generation of
Raza/Indigenous writers/artists has been criminalized.
Rodriguez, a communications scholar and an assistant
professor in Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona, can be
reached at: XColumn@gmail.com.
