"Raza Studies" Defy American Values

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Liam Julian.

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The name of the nation's most visible, self-defined Latino civil-rights organization, the National Council of La Raza, translates as the National Council of The Race. The official website denies it, of course, but we have dictionaries. That controversial term - La Raza - is gaining currency: Some K-12 public schools now teach something called "Raza Studies."

Like those in Tucson, for example. The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) has, in fact, welcomed Raza Studies in its classrooms for about a decade, but it's been mighty secretive about the association.

What, exactly, is Raza Studies? Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne asked that question in November 2007 when he inquired if it wouldn't be too much trouble for TUSD to send to him the Raza curricula it was teaching and the textbooks from which it taught them. Actually, TUSD replied to Horne, meeting his request would be a heckuva lot of trouble.

Then the local papers piled on Arizona's superintendent. The first sentence of a November 26th editorial in the Tucson Citizen read, "Memo to Tom Horne: Butt out." Another editorial, titled "Horne meddling in TUSD's ethnic studies efforts," this one in Tucson's Arizona Daily Star, noted that "Students enroll in these classes because they cover information that is not offered in other classes. While U.S. history classes and textbooks do a better job than those of the past of including more about our shared history, much is left out."

What is left out of traditional syllabi, of course, is the grievance and distortion. When Horne finally acquired the program materials he requested, they included texts with titles such as Occupied America and The Pedagogy of Oppression. And according to John Ward, a Tucson teacher who saw his U.S. history course coopted by the Raza Studies department, the Raza curriculum's focus is "that Mexican-Americans were and continue to be victims of a racist American society driven by the interests of middle and upper-class whites."

When Ward raised concerns about Raza Studies (which is part of TUSD's larger Ethnic Studies department) he was, despite being Hispanic himself, called a racist and eventually reassigned to another course. Ward told a reporter from the Arizona Republic that by the time he left the Raza Studies class, he had observed a definite change in the students: "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."

A persuasive case can and should be made that teaching students history and literature (not to mention science and math) through some concocted ethnic perspective that the pupils supposedly possess is balderdash. It does Hispanic youngsters a profound disservice to predicate their educations on ethnic identity, to have them skip the great works of literature and read only tracts by, say, Mexican authors, and to teach them only the history that involves Latin America(ns).

But when an ethnically based education, which is bad enough, transmogrifies into an ethnically based education of grievance and oppression that vilifies the United States and anyone with white skin - well, this is simply untenable. And yet this product is exactly that which goes by the name Raza Studies and that Tucson blithely pushes.

Moreover, the city is intransigent about the whole thing. To valid concerns about its Raza Studies department, the school board responded last month, according to the Arizona Republic, "by announcing plans to hugely expand the [entire Ethnic Studies] program, making it a required course of studies for freshmen. And, eventually, expanding it into elementary schools." Within a year, it seems, all of Tucson's children will be taught based on their ethnicities distinctive curricula that will share no common denominator as strong as the condemnation of whites and of the United States.

The school district is also sponsoring in two weeks, in partnership with the University of Arizona School of Education, the 10th Annual Institute for Transformative Education seminar, at which "Classroom teachers will have the opportunity to learn … the areas of Latino critical race theory, critical race theory, critical multicultural education, Chicana/o studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, and critical race pedagogy." Ugh.

To defend and then expand an educational program that reveres Che Guevara, that paints American history as a series of lamentable and dishonorable events, that divides students by their ethnicities and then attempts to instill in them a defiant stance toward authority and country is a form of noxious educational malpractice. But beyond that, it's a direct challenge to the values that millions of Americans hold dear and will this Friday, on the Fourth of July, celebrate. One hopes that the citizens of Tucson have had their fill of this nonsense in their schools, and that they'll stand up and say so.

Liam Julian is a writer at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.

By Liam Julian
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online

[TbunnyTucson]

The sad thing is that while this isn't anything new, it's happening again: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fsygy/mexican_americanraza_studies_and_hb2281_should/

[skashn]

I''m a liberal and proud of it - but if we as a movement are going to make the changes that we desire, we''re going to have to put aside our "isms". We must come together as young and old, white, Latino, Asian & black and stop over-identifying with our race. Race has always been used by the powers-that-be to distract and divide the masses. It''s always worked. If we, as a movement are smart we''ll stop identifying ourselves by virtue of our race and insist that we be recognized as a legitimate American movement. Otherwise, until we get rid of our "isms" we ain''t gonna change nuthin'' folks.

[bluejava]

Wake up America!

So now you are telling me that our tax dollars are being used to fund the education of young people in Arizona that teaches them racisism, hatred and intolerence.

I want to stop being forced to fund this type of absurdity. Get these Raza racists out of the country. These type of immigrants need to pack up and leave instead of disseminating hated of American values, culture and way of life. To shroud this type of education in secrecy would mean that they have something to hide.

This is ridiculous. They come here and then try to dictate policy and complain about the oppressors.

[bot_feeder]

Our educational system is not supposed to be for indoctrination.

I have no objection to ethnic studies classes that present the views of leftist radicals. Those programs need to expose the students to a diversity of viewpoints, however. They should not be propaganda mills for the production of mindless leftist zombies.

[tammytyler]

Davetaxguy,

This is what you wrote: "Decades ago, I was taught that the Mexican-American War was fought to "liberate California". Of course, it was really about liberating Mexico from almost 2/3 of its territory, and driving most of its inhabitants south to the then worthless desert that we didn''''''''t want."

You wrote the U.S. took your territory (WE didn''t want) or did you forget??? I assumed you consider yourself Mexican.
Also according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
people who considered themselves Mexican citizens were given the choice of becoming American citizens or moving to Mexico. They had a choice. No one forced them back to Mexico the stupid ones moved back.

And why don''t you admit it? The southwest was not a Mexican homeland like illegals like to state in their rally signs. This was not Mexico it was originally American Indian territory and that includes Texas!
Mexicans scalped Apaches for silver bet you didn''t know that that''s why Apaches were willing to help American soldiers get Mexicans out of the southwest. And Mexicans have the nerve to attack whites for this same type of crime.
Mexico was merely run out of territory they took by force from Spain. Why does the truth hurt you so badly?

[tammytyler]

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Davetaxguy,

This is what you wrote: "Decades ago, I was taught that the Mexican-American War was fought to "liberate California". Of course, it was really about liberating Mexico from almost 2/3 of its territory, and driving most of its inhabitants south to the then worthless desert that we didn''''''''t want."

You wrote the U.S. took your territory (WE didn''t want) or did you forget??? I assumed you consider yourself Mexican.
Also according to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
people who considered themselves Mexican citizens were given the choice of becoming American citizens or moving to Mexico. They had a choice. No one forced them back to Mexico the stupid ones moved back.

And why don''t you admit it? The southwest was not a Mexican homeland like illegals like to state in their rally signs. This was not Mexico it was originally American Indian territory and that includes Texas!
Mexicans scalped Apaches for silver bet you didn''t know that that''s why Apaches were willing to help American soldiers get Mexicans out of the southwest. And Mexicans have the nerve to attack whites for this same type of crime.
Mexico was merely run out of territory they took by force from Spain. Why does the truth hurt you so badly?

[brianbwb-2009]

"AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: the illegal, unconstitutional, collective punishment of white males, without the right to confront their accusers, without the right to a trial by a jury of their peers, and without the right to equal protection under the law." Posted by juwboy

And given the opportunity for the confrontation, your peers would be whom, and your defense would be...?

[brianbwb-2009]

"And those "values" would be...?"
I would start with the Bill of Rights, freedoms not enjoyed by many south of the border." Posted by ausus

And there it would end, as the bill of rights has never been fully enjoyed by large segments of the US, and with Bush''s recent abrogations of the constitution, soon all will lose most of the few rights remaining.

[jmurrieta1]

"AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: the illegal, unconstitutional, collective punishment of white males, without the right to confront their accusers, without the right to a trial by a jury of their peers, and without the right to equal protection under the law. "--Posted by juwboy


When you consider the long history of murder and oppression of Jewish people by the power elite of the White European Christians, is it really that surprising that the same group of White European Christians (WASPs) have behaved at least equally badly towards people of other ethnic groups; Native Americans (and many Mexican-Americans have Native ancestry) included.

Any reason that schoolkids shouldn''t learn about the Sand Creek Massacre of treaty-protected non-combatants (Indians) by ambitious power hungry WASPs (Whites) just like they should learn about the Holocaust?

[andor3]

so people seem to like to post some parts of the course here... sounds like a good course in alternative views... nobody has explained why anyone would object to students taking this course... looks like a good thing. Unless maybe you are so clueless you think that anyone who is exposed to a point of view has to adopt it... that is really stupid and fortunately these students are a lot smarter than that.