By Ian Jobling • 6/18/08
According to Tom Horne, Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD) “Raza Studies” department is teaching students that the United States is a racist state, that Hispanic students should rebel against white rule, and that Mexican activists who threaten to kill whites are heroes. As Superintendent Horne says in a letter requesting that the citizens of Tucson abolish the program:
As I will describe, the evidence is overwhelming that ethnic studies in the Tucson Unified School District teaches a kind of destructive ethnic chauvinism that the citizens of Tucson should no longer tolerate.
The very name “Raza” is translated as “the race.” On the TUSD website, it says the basic text for this program is “the pedagogy of oppression.” Most of these students’ parents and grandparents came to this country, legally, because this is the land of opportunity. They trust the public schools with their children. Those students should be taught that this is the land of opportunity, and that if they work hard they can achieve their goals. They should not be taught that they are oppressed.
One of the textbooks is Occupied America (5th ed.). One of the leaders it talks about is described as follows: “José Angel Gutiérrez was one of the leaders, and he expressed the frustrations of the MAYO generation. His contribution was indispensable; it influenced Chicanos throughout the country.”
One of Gutiérrez’s speeches is described as follows:
“We are fed up. We are going to move to do away with the injustices to the Chicano and if the ‘gringo’ doesn’t get out of our way, we will stampede over him.” Gutiérrez attacked the gringo establishment angrily at a press conference and called upon Chicanos to ‘kill the gringo,’ which meant to end white control over Mexicans.”
The textbook’s translation of what Gutiérrez meant contradicts his clear language. In describing the atmosphere in Texas where Gutiérrez spoke, the textbook states: “Texans had never come to grips with the fact that Mexicans had won at the Alamo.” (P. 323.) It is certainly strange to find a textbook in an American public school taking the Mexican side of the battle at the Alamo.
Another textbook is The Mexican American Heritage (2nd ed.). One of the chapters is “The Loss of Aztlan.” Aztlan refers to the states taken from Mexico in 1848: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Colorado. This chapter states: “Apparently the U.S. is having as little success in keeping the Mexicans out of Aztlan as Mexico had when they tried to keep the North Americans out of Texas in 1830.” (P. 107.) In other words, books paid for by American taxpayers used in American public schools are gloating over the difficulty we are having in controlling the border. This page goes on to state: “…the Latinos are now realizing that the power to control Aztlan may once again be in their hands.”
As Horne notes, the term of Aztlan invokes the Hispanic nationalist ideology of the group M.E.Ch.A:
When I was at Tucson high school, the librarian was wearing a M.E.Ch.A. tee shirt. If you Google M.E.Ch.A., you will find its goals and constitution. In the introductory paragraph, M.E.Ch.A. states:
“We are Chicanos and Chicanas of Aztlán reclaiming the land of out [sic] birth (Chicano and Chicana Nation); 2) Aztlán belongs to indigenous people, who are sovereign and not subject to a foreign culture…”
In section 2 of the M.E.Ch.A. Constitution it states:
“Aztlán belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent.”
One former TUSD teacher, John Ward, who taught in the Raza Studies program has described the general tone of instruction:
But the whole inference and tone was anger. (They taught students) that the United States was and still is a fundamentally racist country to those of Mexican-American kids.
Individuals in this (Ethnic Studies) department are vehemently anti-Western culture. They are vehemently opposed to the United States and its power. They are telling students they are victims and that they should be angry and rise up…
By the time I left that class, I saw a change (in the students), he said. An angry tone. They taught them not to trust their teachers, not to trust the system. They taught them the system wasn’t worth trusting.
According to Horne, the director of the Raza Studies program hates the white man:
Hector Ayala was born in Mexico, and is an excellent English teacher at Cholla High School in TUSD. He reports that the Director of Raza Studies accused him of being the “white man’s agent,” and that when this director was a teacher, he taught a separatist political agenda, and his students told Hector that they were taught in Raza Studies to “not fall for the white man’s traps.”
Tucson teachers who oppose the Hispanic nationalism of the school system are afraid to speak out. Journalist Doug MacEachern writes in the Arizona Republic:
I have interviewed several other employees of TUSD in recent weeks, all of whom have witnessed the program firsthand or who have discussed the Ethnic Studies program with students taking it. None of them would speak on the record. All asked that their names not be used and that any chronicle of their experiences not include details that could be traced back to them.
They are fearful. And for good reason.
“There’s a lot of people who know this problem is occurring,” one TUSD employee said. “They won’t do anything for two reasons. One, they know (the program) is so much bigger than they are. And, two, you’re going to be called a racist.”
I will post an action alert on this matter tomorrow.