scholarly journals “Warriors, Not Victims”: Precious Knowledge, the Fight for Ethnic Studies, and Accountability to the #MeToo Movement

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vani Kannan ◽  
Shyrlene Hernandez ◽  
Alexis Martinez
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Writing Classroom ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
Sexually Assaulted

This article shares an upper-division writing course's struggle to be accountable to both the #MeToo movement and the fight for Ethnic Studies in Tucson. These movements collided in our class after we planned a campus screening of the film PRECIOUS KNOWLEDGE, which chronicles the student-led movement to save the Tucson High School Mexican American studies program, and then received news that the director had sexually assaulted one of the student-activists in the film. In this article, collaboratively-written by the professor teaching the course and two students in it, we share our accountability process, and concrete methods for social-movement-accountability in the writing classroom.

scholarly journals Cinco Dedos: A Mexican American Studies Framework

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-103
Author(s):  
Nicolas García ◽  
Anthony Gonzales
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
American History ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
San Antonio ◽  
Grade Levels ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
Mexican American Culture

Mexican American Studies (MAS) courses have been criticized for many years. Legislation in Arizona and Texas have attempted to ban the content. This article pushes back on this attempt of oppression and offers MAS teachers a framework to apply when teaching the content. Using a timeline to depict the years of attempts for Mexican American Studies to be approved, we offer practitioners and researchers an Ethnic Studies framework particularly with MAS courses. Using cultural art, poetry, and literature, MAS teachers can benefit from using the Cinco Dedos framework especially at the secondary (6-12) grade levels. This framework prepares MAS teachers to utilize various Chicanx histories to tell the stories of Mexican American heroes not talked about in traditional American history courses. This article also provides tools to use in secondary MAS classrooms that highlight Mexican American culture for students provided by a MAS teacher. One of the founders of the framework uses this in his MAS course at a high school located in San Antonio, TX. 

scholarly journals Historias Americanas: Implementing Mexican American Studies in K-12 Social Studies Curriculum in the Rio Grande Valley

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-63
Author(s):  
Maritza De La Trinidad ◽  
Stephanie Alvarez ◽  
Joy Esquierdo ◽  
Francisco Guajardo
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Rio Grande Valley ◽  
Rio Grande ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
K 12 ◽  
The Impact

This essay contributes to the growing literature on Mexican American Studies in K-12 within the broader field of Ethnic Studies. While most of the literature on the movement for Ethnic Studies within Texas and across the nation mainly focuses on the impact of Ethnic Studies courses on students’ academic success, this essay highlights a professional development program for K-12 social studies teachers in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas entitled Historias Americanas: Engaging History and Citizenship in the Rio Grande Valley, funded by a federal grant. This essay provides an overview of Historias Americanas, the objectives and structure of the program, and the ways in which the program contributes to the discourse on Mexican American Studies in K-12. It also describes the frameworks that form the crux of the professional development process: place-based education and culturally relevant pedagogical frameworks.

Gonzalez v. Douglas

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-130
Author(s):  
Christina Acosta
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Knowledge Networks ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Protections

The Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, Arizona, was eliminated in 2011. Shortly afterward, a group of teachers organized to challenge the ban on Ethnic Studies, claiming it was enacted with racial animus and violated constitutional protections. While much scholarship has been written analyzing the bill that contributed to the elimination of the program, a lacunae in the literature has been a focus on the litigation. This article utilizes twenty-one interviews with individuals who were involved in the Gonzalez v. Douglas litigation and successfully overturned the ban in the summer of 2017. Their narratives reveal the importance of what the author terms transformative historical capital, which refers to the transformation that occurs internally when one learns of the tools, knowledge, networks, and determination extant in the Chicana/o community (as well as other communities of color) due to a long history of social movements that sought civil rights and self-determination.

Strategic Leadership

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-229
Author(s):  
Lawrence Scott ◽  
Marisa Perez-Diaz
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
High Schools ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
African American Studies ◽  
Board Of Education ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
State Board Of Education ◽  
State Board

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the process of building and developing ethnic studies courses, particularly the Mexican American and African American Studies Curriculum for Texas high schools. Dr. Lawrence Scott and the Honorable Marisa Perez-Diaz will discuss their contributions in the passage and implementation of Ethnic Studies courses, particularly as it relates to the African American Studies and Mexican American Studies Courses now offered for high schools around the State of Texas. This chapter explores the inception of both courses, the development, and the process of gaining consensus and concessions for both courses. Both courses were unanimously passed by the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE), but did see some challenges throughout the process. Dr. Lawrence Scott and Texas State Board of Education Member Marisa Perez-Diaz will also discuss how they employed varying leadership styles, in collaboration with stakeholders from around Texas to help establish, pass, and implement the Mexican American and African American Studies Courses in Texas.

scholarly journals Stats, Social Justice, and the Limits of Interest Convergence: The Story of Tucson Unified’s Mexican American Studies Litigation

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Nolan L. Cabrera ◽  
Robert S. Chang
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Ethnic Studies ◽  
Interest Convergence ◽  
Mexican American Studies ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
The Law

In 2011, the state of Arizona banned the highly successful Tucson Unified School District Mexican American Studies program through the law ARS § 15-112. This article is a Critical Race Theory counternarrative regarding the role of statistics in the constitutional challenge to this state law. Through firsthand accounts of this process, we demonstrate how multivariate empirical analyses served as an important component for the overturning of the law ARS § 15-112 in the highest-profile Ethnic Studies legal case in the country’s history (Arce v. Douglas, 2015). We also use this article to explore the limitations of interest convergence (Bell, 1980) using this litigation as a case study.

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