I’m married to a very intelligent and aware woman who alerts me to many of the injustices in our society. She prevents me from sliding into apathy. Last night I went with her to see a film that will be shown on PBS early next year called Precious Knowledge. Prior to the film there was a panel of Latino academics and activists discussing the current state of being in their community. I was saddened to hear about the alarming rate of poverty and high school drop-outs. These men and women discussed what can be done to make their communities stronger.
Then we saw the film. It is about a legal fight that is currently taking place in the State of Arizona over whether or not classes should be offered on the history and culture of particular minority groups. Those in Arizona who oppose these classes say they foster racial divides and that it prevents people from gaining an identity as an American.
This is the official blurb:
Arizonalawmakers believe TucsonHigh Schoolteachers are teaching victimization, racism, and revolution in their Ethnic Studies classes. Meanwhile Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Department have data showing that almost 93% of their students, on average, graduate from high school and 82% attend college.
Why is studying Mexican culture and history controversial? What is Ethnic Studies? Why is the national dropout rate so high for Mexican American youth 50%?
The Dos Vatos Productions team filmed a year in the classroom to find out why the Mexican American Studies program is so popular with students, so misunderstood by the public, and discover what actually happens in the classroom.
Precious Knowledge illustrates an epic civil rights battle as brave students and teachers battle with lawmakers and public opinion in an effort to keep their classes alive.
One of the teachers that is participating in the legal fight is Curtis Acosta. He was present after the film along with the Producer, Eren Isabel McGinnis. I was very impressed with his presentation, his argument, and his passion for teaching young adults. One thing that smacked me in the face was how quickly the graduation rate rose in minority communities when they had a class that explored their heritage, history, and values.
Often I have heard people say that it doesn’t make sense to have months dedicated to Black or Latino history and culture or classes on these subjects. They’ve said, “We don’t have classes on white history.”
Actually, yes, you do. To be frank, almost every damn class taught is on white history. We know this. Our history classes in high school assume that almost nothing happened anywhere in the world save what happened in western civilization. It is as if the Aztecs and Incas didn’t exist or have thriving civilizations. It is American for people who came here (or were already here!!!) from other places to know about how their history brought them to where they are now. We like to know our story. Why would other people groups be different?
Enough of what I have to say on the matter though. If you have a chance to purchase the video about forty percent goes to the current legal cause. Otherwise, check your TV listings for Precious Knowledge sometime early next year.
You can learn more about the film here.
You can sign the petition showing your support for this civil rights issue here.
the archives near Emmaus 
“Borders, language, and culture?” -” whose rationality which justice” NCLR’s or CAIR’s maybe. My ‘forefathers’ were and my ‘race’ still is discriminated against. For the time being, I like a land of ‘Law and Order’ not Chavez’ variety nor Putin’s. I don’t know Arizona but I have seen the hatred cultivated by what often passes for social justice that the anti-Brewer’s fulminate. When I was a ‘vreemdling’ in socialist Europe, I abided by their incredibly tight and clearly discriminating rules. I was a guest, it was their law, I lived by it, and respected it though I didn’t agree with it. The alternative chaos has more body parts and gravestones than I care to mention. Perhaps there is a more transcendent way than the ‘social justice’ that seems to be an often overused Velvet Hammer of Bernstein Marxist revisionism. Ethnic studies yes, a building up of the human person yes, but a mask for European Marxist social justice well, prepare to pick up or be on the other end of live Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev’s prophecy and shovel. Working and waiting for a better epoch where this discussion will never have to happen.
@Jerome: I think the film needs to be seen. I am convinced Brewer is a racist liar who used “…that ain’t American” (insert drawn out slur here) to squash free thought. If these kids were becoming anarchist, fine. But that isn’t happening. Actually, they’re going to state universities. Instead of being drop-outs who think they have no place, they have found a place, and a voice, and a history.
Also, the analogy doesn’t compute because, well, they’re not visiting…they’re citizens.
I concur with the first about seeing the movie – for clarification and if indeed they are citizens then concur with second – if they aren’t visitors. As far as Brewer being a racist liar, hmmm. I don’t know her but think that is a bit strong. I don’t know the kids but doubt they are fulminating anarchism; just from the clip it appears (the rhetoric and occasional ‘revolutionary dress) that they are being used and have become useful to a type of socialist that has brought oppression, sorrow, and death around the globe (the once in a blue moon benevolent Ernesto Che’ Guevara sorts). Also, the depiction, camera angles, and excerpts of old white fat suited balding males not wanting their tax dollars spent on Marxist leaning teaching comes right out of the Pravda propaganda books depicting the evil white greedy capitalist. Further, going to a state university today may not be such a mind opening thing but rather more of the same social inbreeding and engineering that the race-baiters inculcate now at the elementary-middle-high school level. I think Dennis Pager ( http://www.prageruniversity.com/ ) speaks intelligently over such intellectual educational poverty. Many students come out simulating parrots of their favorite leftist faculty member instead of equilibrated thinkers who weigh what they hear and read, then speak or remain silent depending on what edifies, what divides, and what promotes agapeic mindfulness. I detect hints of that in the trailer but will see the flick and hopefully will be persuaded otherwise. Thanks for the post…always stimulating.
Yet the central question remains: Is it wrong for someone of Mexican heritage or Native American heritage to take classes that allow them to realize their own ethnic and cultural identity. No. It is not. Is it wrong to demand that everyone conform to Eurocentric history that is actually foreign to their own history while demanding that they accept it as their own history. Yes, it is.
This is empire at its best and Brewer and her dwarfs know that it has nothing to do with the content of the classes. It has everything to do with their racist ideals, their white supremacy, and their Eurocentric arrogance. Marx may not be Adam Smith, but Smith has done his fair share of damage as well….we Americans like to turn our head from the negatives of his system while highlighting the negatives of other views. The Cold War is over, but these creeps won’t move past the 80’s.
Again, see the film. I have no doubt that this is racist, Eurocentric, and wrong. I have not sympathy or tolerance for people who lie for their Aryan bigotry.
This is a good example of the non-violent, civil rights agenda that the teachers in Arizona embody in spite of the racism of that state: http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=3622 . This author is from Fresno, CA.