Arizona and the role of the intellectual: When history beckoned, what did you do?

W<img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-18648" title="brown skin poster" src="/sites/default/files/2012/08/brown-skin-poster-300x162.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="162">hen historians examine Arizona’s early 21st century, including the anti-immigrant SB 1070 and the anti-Ethnic Studies HB 2281, the question they will ask of intellectuals is not what side they were on? Instead, they will ask, what did you do? 
I am often asked this question; they also ask me this about my colleagues.
Often, I am generous. I usually respond, that we, that they are all doing something. Perhaps not enough, but we are doing something.
The students, youths and community are often not quite as generous as me.
Since the turn-of-the-century, and especially since September 11, 2001, Arizona has been at the epicenter of a nationwide battle, centered on the meaning of the U.S. Constitution, and even more specifically, over what it means to be human. In the name of national security, the right wing has been quick to surrender privacy and human rights. In Arizona this has translated into a heightened militarized border, and the normalization of racial profiling directed at red-brown peoples. This has come at a time of thousands of deaths along the border, as a result of peoples fleeing their homes, desperately attempting to make a better life for themselves and their families. These acts of survival, much of them precipitated by NAFTA, have created unprecedented racial and cultural resentment, resulting in many draconian measures, culminating with the now infamous SB 1070, a would-be law that essentially codifies and requires law enforcement officers to racially profile.
Not content with attacking peoples whom these pols consider to be outside of the law, they have also passed another measure, which dictates what is permissible knowledge and what is permissible thinking; it dictates what can be taught and what can be learned. This is HB 2281.
These have resulted in historic and monumental struggles. In Tucson, aside from law enforcement repression relative to immigration related issues, this has also resulted in a concerted assault against Tucson’s Mexican American Studies (MAS) department under the Orwellian rationale, that it teaches hate and resentment and the overthrow of the US government.
Specifically, its indigenous knowledge component has been attacked, purportedly because its philosophical foundation is derived from maiz-based knowledge, as opposed to Greco-Roman knowledge, and thus purportedly outside of Western civilization.
Even the name of the department has been under assault; it was formerly called La Raza Studies. Due to extreme right wing pressure, which is essentially illiterate about these matters, the department was forced to change its name. La Raza is derived from a broader concept called La Raza Cosmica, developed by Mexican educator, Jose Vasconcelos in 1925. It is the antithesis of purity; it alludes to the mixture of all the peoples and cultures of the world.
These struggles harken back to the 1500s because the very same questions and determinations being asked and made then, are the very same ones being made now. Europeans could not understand or comprehend our existence. They debated whether we were human and had souls. The side that believed that we indeed were human, officially won the debate. But they did not do so because they believed in our equality and our full humanity; they did so for the purpose of mass conversions. They believed that we had souls, but that they were in need of saving and they self-righteously assigned themselves this task. Despite that, this in no way entitled us to be treated as full human beings, with corresponding full human rights.
Amazingly, these were the ones on our side. It is mind-boggling what the other ones had in mind. Actually, those that lost the intellectual and spiritual debate, in the end, won the political debate, thus, the legacy of 300 years of violent colonialism, which included land theft, slavery and other forms of forced labor, and codified exploitation, segregation and discrimination.
The reason they believed that we needed our souls saved is because they also believed that we were uncivilized. And that’s being kind; they actually believed we were demonic. That is essentially, the same language of former state schools’ superintendent, Tom Horne. When he began his crusade against Raza Studies in 2006, it was he who invoked the idea that the department was outside of Western civilization. Perhaps to this day he does not comprehend the ramifications of such a characterization.
Purportedly, we were not human, we were not Christians, therefore those that came from the other side of the ocean, via the so-called doctrine of discovery, were entitled ownership of the land; and our bodies and our souls were simply part of the spoils.
To this day, that is what establishes their “legality,” and their “legal” claim to the land. This is how people from across the oceans became legal and those of us from here, from maiz-based cultures, spanning many thousands of years, became sub human or at best, foreigners and illegitimate human beings. In today’s lingo, “illegal” on our own lands. After more than 500 years, not content with owning the land, these pols are seemingly still laying claim to our bodies, our minds and our spirits… and apparently, also our souls.
Little wonder why MAS teachers are not supposed to teach these things to our students.
That’s why the struggle is of epic proportions. That’s why it involves both SB 1070 and HB 2281. For those who are not sure about what motivates Arizona’s politicians, it is incumbent upon everyone to read former State Senate President Russell Pearce’s recently uncovered e-mails by the ACLU (http://www.phoe nixnewtimes.com/2012-07-26/news/to-come/).
My colleagues, professors at colleges and universities nationwide, and even more specifically, professors that teach ethnic studies and Chicana/Chicano studies, what did we do?
Truthfully, this has not been an attack simply on Raza Studies, but instead, it has been an attack on the very idea of education. Restrict and prohibit classes and curriculums and you wind up with Swiss cheese education. Students are free to learn everything that is not prohibited. Many people believe that this is about banned books. The reality is that it is much bigger; even beyond censorship, it is about the banning of a worldview.
This is why the question of what we should do, has to be asked of every educator. It is not somebody else’s issue; at the very core of this struggle is the battle over what it means to be human. Shall we permit government to pass laws reminiscent of the 1500s, when most people on this continent were considered less than human, less than equal and less deserving of their full human rights?
<figure id="attachment_18651" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18651" style="width: 205px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-18651" title="AlienPilgrim" src="http://laprensa-sandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/AlienPilgrim.jp…; alt="" width="205" height="246"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18651" class="wp-caption-text">Banned Poster</figcaption></figure>
One part of history that is unknown to most people through-out the country, even Tucson itself, is that when the student group UNIDOS took over the school board in April of 2011 –in defense of Mexican American Studies – they invoked the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This was historic; it was their answer to both Mr. Horne and his successor, Mr. John Hup-penthal. Outside of Western civilization indeed!
How did the school board respond? How did TUSD superintendent, Dr. John Pedi-cone respond? Shamefully is the best word that can be used. The following week, they responded with a massive police presence. They responded with police dogs, with sharpshooters, with a bomb squad, with a helicopter, with more than 100 police, including fully equipped riot police. Inside seven women were arrested for attempting to speak, and outside students and community members were harassed, physically abused and beaten. To this day there has never been an investigation and to this day, the school board has not provided an explanation, nor have they been held accountable.
Instead, supporters of MAS continue to be demonized, and of course, now MAS has been dismantled.
And so we return to the question to my colleagues? What have they done? What have we done?
It is not too late to answer the question; it is not too late to step forward in this struggle of epic proportions. Yes, we’ve done some, but we can do a lot more. The students notice. Many national organizations have denounced Arizona’s state legislature and the governor for these backward state measures. Also recently, a conference was convened to lay the groundwork for expanding Raza Studies at the pre-K-12 level nationwide (RazaStudies Now.com).
And what of those from the community? They’ve been there, sometimes, but not always. Not like the students, not like the youths. When it has been time to defend the department and to defend the discipline, it has been the students that have stepped forward with their bodies, their minds and their spirits – the very essence of who they are – that is under attack.
With my own eyes, I have seen the definition of courage in the eyes of students who have been beaten down, who have been told that their history is not worthy of being studied, that their culture is deficient, and that they are less than full human beings.
I have seen the students literally beaten, I’ve seen them arrested and I have seen them at all-night vigils, march across the city, protest in front of the school board and inside the state building. I’ve seen them rally and I’ve seen them walkout. I’ve seen them at community forums; I’ve seen them step forward, when others stepped back or when others were conspicuously MIA. I’ve seen them run through the desert in 115-degree heat to deliver messages to the state superintendent, the state legislature and to the governor, and I’ve seen them eloquently address the Tucson school board.
Through all this, I’ve seen them face hate and condescension and I’ve seen them ridiculed and demeaned. I’ve seen this in person and also in the media. I have seen the faces of dehumanization, but more importantly, in the students, I have seen the faces of courage.
These students have taught our Tucson community, and the world, the meaning not simply of resistance, but of creation-resistance. Their reality is not dependent upon reacting to the forces of hate, bigotry and ignorance. They’ve organized themselves. They’ve created their own school. They’ve trained themselves and they’ve secured their own organizing space. These several generations of students battle because they believe in their right to a relevant education. Many of them have long graduated from MAS and yet they continue to battle. Many say it is no longer for them, but for their younger brothers and sisters.
What has always been incredulous is the way Dr. Pedicone and the school board have always treated them. Noting that they have already dismantled MAS, they often wonder and ask why the students and community keep coming back? 
Cesar Chavez once said that once you educate a person, you cannot un-educate them.
This is why the students keep coming back. They know their history and they are fully aware of their human rights. That is why they invoked the 2007 UN declaration. They know who they are.
When Tom Horne said that MAS was outside of Western civilization, what did you do? When the school board shut down the department, what did you do? When the curriculum and the books were banned, what did you do? When MAS teacher, Norma Gonzalez was forced to take down the Aztec Calendar, what did you do? When the teachers were fired, what did you do? When they were sued, what did you do?
* There are several ways you can do. There is still time to attend Tucson’s Freedom Summer. For info, go to: tucson freedomsummer.com. To learn more about and to assist the educatorrs being sued, go to: http://tinyurl.com/RazaDe fenseFund
* UNIDOS can be reached at: unidostucson.wordpress. com and facebook!

Arizona and the role of the intellectual: When history beckoned, what did you do?

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