Why is THIS program Anti-American?

I like the change in format for this week’s post from reading an article to watching the documentary, Precious Knowledge. The film followed three students, Crystal Enriques, Priscilla Rodriguez, and Gilbert Esparza who were apart of Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) Mexican-American Studies program.



Their story has been faced with a large issue highlighted by Tom Horne who at the time, was Arizona state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. Horne wanted to eliminate this program because “learning about ethnicity is anti-American and these courses are illegal.” I can’t imagine teaching anything about a student’s identity could be considered illegal. The fact that a bill was pass to eliminate such a course feels like a step back in education.

Each student tells the background of their relationship with education in their lives. For most, believed education did not have a place for them. Esparza says, “I’m not gonna lie, I’ve hated education”. He felt like the school hated him and they wanted him to drop out. There seems to be a disconnect with the administration to their students. In the readings from last week “Smoking Guns or Smoke & Mirrors?” and “Messy, Butch and Queer” this is also seen. Stereotyping their students or assuming nothing but trouble is associated with them. If this is what faculty believes, of course, their students will believe that as well.

Esparza also said, “When you grow in a poor neighborhood you don’t get the same chances as other people do” (Precious Knowledge 4:46) which made me think of the article “Social Class and the hidden curriculum of work” by Jean Anyon and how economic status of communities affected the type of education the student received.

During a faculty meeting, one member of the faculty goes on to say how students have a dysfunctional relationship with learning, they are lazy, unengaged, and culturally damaged. Ethnic Studies advocate Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade follows by saying we need to identify the problem “The same narrative about the deficiencies of our children has run the history of the public school in the United States. We just change the way we explain our inability to engage our kids.” (Precious Knowledge 6:40) Duncan-Andrade continues his statement saying he never met a student with a dysfunctional relationship with learning just a lot of kids with a dysfunctional relationship to school. The students needed to be heard and learning in a way where they will feel successful. “School work helps one achieve, to excel, to prepare for life” (Anyon, 83.)

The Mexican American / Raza studies classes opened to all students at six schools TUSD. In these classes, like the class of teacher, José Gonzalez’s, traditions were preserved. Learning about their culture gave students a positive reflection for themselves, the idea of love for ourselves and others. Students like, Gilbert Esparza, who hated school was learning to love learning and when he left school for the day, he wanted to do more research. He wanted to learn. Many other students said their Razza teachers expected more from them. These teachers challenged their students, allowing them to write about topics they cared about making them independent individuals in control of their learning. The graduation rate during the time of the documentary for students enrolled in Ethnic studies had an average of 93%.

Students recited a portion from the longer poem “Pensamiento Serpentino” in class each day, as a way to start class. Arizona legislature banned this in schools because they felt they were promoting ethnicity.

In Lak'Ech
Tú eres mi otro yo.
You are my other me.
Si te hago daño a ti,
If I do harm to you,
Me hago daño a mi mismo.
I do harm to myself.
Si te amo y respeto,
If I love and respect you,
Me amo y respeto yo.
I love and respect myself.


Their classroom was a community of support. Teachers made the attempt to make their students feel comfortable and connected with them. From Education: The Great Obsession author Grace Lee Boggs states, “The creation of communities in classrooms may be one of the most difficult and yet the most essential undertakings in the schools of the future.”

Social-emotional learning is my school’s professional growth goal for this school year and this poem to me seems to align with those ideals. How can those words be banned to be said in a classroom?

After viewing the bill, HB 2281 be put into law, the canceling of the Razza studies and the resigning of those teachers raised many questions. Did law markers really invest enough time in these classrooms to see the positive or even negative outcomes for society these classes had? Was it truly anti-American if the ideals for these courses was to be understanding, respectful, and learn appreciation?

Esparza says at the end, “people are not treating people like people. They are treating others likes animals, like they shouldn’t be a part of society. We created this dystopia were we oppress each other we don’t appreciate each other.“ It’s disappointing that courses such as these were eliminated from the curriculum because many concerns in our society could have been addressed and corrected.

A positive thing from the outcome of this documentary was TUSD’s Mexican-American Studies program was seen as a model for other schools across the country for developing and ongoing ethnic programs. I hope to see more of these programs stay in school districts in the future.

What do you identify as? Is that ok in schools?

Whatever the answers maybe to my title question should lead to the acceptance of all no matter how you identify as but unfortunately it is not the case in all schools.



This picture above is from the article “33 states don't protect LGBT students in anti-bullying laws” by German Lopez. The article is from 2014 but the image is still pretty shocking. So often I hear the phrase “It’s 2018, everything is good now” or something along those lines but then I see graphs like this and think it’s not OK.


In, Messy, Butch and Queer: LGBTQ Youth and the school-to-prison pipeline, authors Shannon D. Snapp, Jennifer M. Hoenig, Amanda Fields and Stephen T. Russell discuss issues such as behavioral accusations, bullying, and negatively being stereotype LGBTQ Youth face in school today.


“When students are bullied based on sexual orientation teachers seldom intervene” (Snapp, Hoenig, Fields & Russell 59). It’s a sad idea knowing that some teachers will not step in and help their LBGTQ students. Students look to adults, family, and teachers for support and guidance. In some instances teachers may be culprit when it comes to the bullying. As told by a youth from California, “In my school, some of my security guards are coaches, so when they do see like a more feminine male, they do kind of tease them and they’re like, ‘oh, he’s a fairy.’” (Snapp, Hoenig, Fields & Russell 64). If an adult is essentially bullying or making fun of the student for "being a fairy" how can that student ever feel safe? Who will he go to for guidance? Who can he trust? Who are his allies? LGBTQ students just like any student want to feel safe in school and not have to worried if their classmates and teachers are going to turn on them.



“LGBTQ youth are being either chastised or disciplined for their gender expression, for their appearance, for their behavior, for their mannerisms, or for some sort of affection towards same gender youth. We don’t necessarily see that with students who are straight or are assumed to be straight.” (Snapp, Hoenig, Fields & Russell 65) With all these negative attention many of these youths being force towards this pathway of school-to-prison. If they are seen as delinquent by adults without examining their actual character, it’ll harder for them to feel apart of society. These youths are given detention and are being suspended for things that all students could be doing but are not noticed. Another student interviewed said a heterosexual couple was making out in the hallway unnoticed negatively by administration but the homosexual couple just holding hands gets in trouble. If there is a no PDA rule it needs to be enforced to all not some. It should not be the “favorable” exempted from this. If one doesn’t have that support that they are worth something then who will guide them from going down a path where it doesn’t matter if you have support or not.

The following clip is a scene from the 2018 movie Love, Simon. Where Simon (a white male who identifies as gay) wonders why straight is the “default” and why you only have to come out if you are gay. He wonders what it would look like if his straight friends were the ones who had to come out to their families. I thought about this scene as I thought about support from adults. Some LBGTQ Youth do not have the support. In this film Simon does seem to have a supportive family but how would that support look to a LBGTQ teen, for example from a Hispanic home? I wonder how different the movie would be if the main character was a Hispanic female coming out or any other race that may already have negative attention in the social hierarchy, the theme that appears again and again in our articles.




A similar situation is happening to Latino youths. Being pointed out for unfavorable behavior because they might look that the part of a criminal or a delinquent. In the beginning of Smoking Guns or Smoke & Mirrors?: Schools and the Policing of Latino Boys author Mario Galicia was on his way to a high school when a lock-down was being conducted to due the sighting of a gun used by a group of 4 Latinos boys. Galicia witness and overheard parents calling the boys “Gangsters”, glad they were being taken away and that they should “rot in jail”. After everything settled no guns were involved just a group of boys trying to scare away someone bothering them. This story was twisted and changed by the grape vine. No one in this community knew what was going on but they felt as if they had enough of the story to spread it around and each time the story was told another factor was added or changed. Second author of this article, Victor Rios makes this statement, “misinformation and hysteria delivered by parents to other parents, the school, media, and social media exemplifies how, in an era of mass incarceration, schools, law enforcement, and community members perceive and interact with young Black and Latino boys as culprits and suspects, even before any concrete evidence arises against them”. (Galicia & Rios 55). The boys couldn’t tell their story because someone else has already made it up.

It is this mentally that forces these students to think they are a criminal because of the negative portrayal they have on media or of people who just don’t know them. Having that reputation in the community keeps making them a target for police to stop them. “Some police officers would even go as far as handcuffing the youths in order to search them. The boys said they were embarrassed and humiliated by the cops and by the people from the community center.” Of course they were humiliated, their freedom to walk safely was taken away from them. The police are usually people you go to for safety but these youths probably think of them as the enemy. Who do they go to for help? How will they avoid the path that will lead them to jail or prison time if they do not trust authority? So many questions that should be answered.

As I said above about the LGBTQ youth, how will these Latino boy feel safe if they are considered the threat? Who are their allies? Who can they trust?

Why learn the language of your culture?

Wherever you live it’s assumed you learn the native or main language of that country. In America, those native languages maybe Navajo, Pawnee, Mohawk, or Hawaiian just to name a few from the very long list of native languages of the land that is United States of America. The U.S. was founded by English speakers therefore that became the main language the people living in this country are expected to learn, speak, read and write.


But what about the other native languages or the people who were here first?


In article “How Hawaiian Came Back From the Dead”, author, Alexandria Neason discusses how the U.S. government wanted the Hawaiian language not to be a part of the curriculum in schools and to have teachers just focus on their students learning and speaking English. As stated in her article, English had long been the official language of government in the islands, mandated in schools and other public spaces. With the lessen exposure of the language, a major part of their culture was disappearing. Many families preferred speaking their native language at home but when teachers insisted on students to only use English, students were losing their want to learn, leading some families to speak less or not speak Hawaiian at all in hopes to keep their children in school. If they are not communicating in Hawaiian they must communicate in English. After many decades of silencing the Hawaiian language, Immersion schools started up to revitalize the language and bring it back to the community.


There were fears with this because families worried that their children’s education would be limited, how can they help them with homework, and when it was time to learn English would they able to succeed? A women who expressed this worry blamed her “Western-world thinking.” I think that meant that if you not speaking English or doing the “American thing” it's wrong. Why is it that English is believed to superior than Hawaiian. Obviously, if you live in America, English needs to learn to communicate with Non-Hawaiian speakers. In the case of the Hawaii families, their language connects them with their heritage. Learning English will make Hawaiian students successful in the economy but learning Hawaiian will make them rich in their culture and bring life to their community. Neason also points out that students who learn in a language other than English experience no long term setbacks in developing language and literacy skills in English.


Taking away one's native language or making the people feel their culture doesn’t have a place in America can really bring down their self-esteem and have little self determination as Tsianina Lomawaima and Teresa McCarty argue in their Article, “When Tribal Sovereignty Challenges Democracy: American Indian Education Democratic Ideal”.


Similar to what had happened in Neason’s article the American Indians were being belittled that they need to assimilate the now American culture and leave their culture behind a “glass window” at a science museum. “In the last century-and-a-half schools have purposely and systematically work to eradicate native languages religions beliefs and practices.” (Lomawaima & McCarty 282) Having the culture of a group basically erased from society lead American Indians to feel they can not coexist with their non-native neighbors, not welcomed. They were here first! They were looking for sovereignty. How are the American Indians going to find their place within the U.S democracy? “American Indians have had further opportunities to implement what has been there will and wish for more than 200 years to take leadership roles in education systems and institutions, to guide and design policy, and to implement Innovative and locally responsive curricula and pedagogies.” (Lomawaima &McCarty 289).


Reading about Rock Point Community School was an example of a community embracing their culture and having it be apart of their curricula really help with their self achievement. Navajo students who learned the to read in Navajo first actually scored better in reading on the Stanford Achievement Test than Navajos students who were in a schools just teaching English. A benefit when learning in your native language, a sense of pride leading to success, you feel good about yourself and your learning.


Sometimes a students' language may not be considered “correct” in the terms of Standard English so Lisa Delpit brings up the question, what should teachers do? Delpit says over correcting could discourage a student from reading at all. “Forcing speakers to monitor their language typically produces silence” (Delpit 32) I believe it is important to allow students to express language their own way but still be able to understand meaning of what you are saying, writing or reading. It’s about comprehending ideas. Delpit suggests that we as teachers need to provide students with access to other language forms. We should not be put all our focus on language form so that academic and moral content does not become an unimportant factor. A standard language is needed but does not define what intelligence is, they are still competent to learn.