Ethnic Studies and the Lockers of Our Minds

Julie Hempel, Ph.D.
Director of Southwestern and Mexican Studies Austin College

Recent rulings and actions by the Arizona state Superintendent have resulted in the cancellation of the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District.

While these events may seem remote and are of no direct legal impact on Texas schools, the implications of eliminating ethnic studies programs like the one in Tucson should be of concern to communities across the country. These programs are not just the result of Civil Rights activism in the 1960s and an attempt to level educational playing fields and engage previously disenfranchised groups.

Ethnic studies has at its core the value of considering multiple perspectives and broadening the historical and cultural record with previously disregarded concepts and texts. Such programs have made great strides in recent years.

As analyses of the Tucson program in Mexican American Studies have shown, students who took courses in the program consistently achieved higher graduation rates and standardized testing scores, when compared to students who did not enroll in these courses (for a comprehensive review of many ethnic studies programs, including the one in Tucson, see “The Academic and Social Value of Ethnic Studies: A Research Review” by Christine E. Sleeter, National Education Association).

Sleeter concludes her study by positing that:

Both students of color and White students have been found to benefit academically as well as socially from ethnic studies. Indeed, rather than being non-academic, well-planned ethnic studies curricula are often very academically rigorous. Rather than being divisive, ethnic studies helps students to bridge differences that already exist in experiences and perspectives. In these ways, ethnic studies plays an important role in building a truly inclusive multicultural democracy and system of education.

Carmen Tafolla, author of banned books in TUSD.

One of the repercussions of the suspension of Mexican American Studies program in Tucson is that the texts previously taught in these courses have been removed from the curriculum and the classroom.

One such text, by Austin College alumna Carmen Tafolla, is especially poignant in evoking the relationship between a curriculum which does not foster free speech and consideration of one’s heritage, and the dreams of many which are left behind.

In her poem “and when i dream dreams…” Tafolla begins by proclaiming:

when I dream dreams
I dream of YOU,
Rhodes Jr. School
and the lockers of our minds
that were always jammed stuck
or that always hung open
and would never close.

The poem then describes the disappointments, low expectations, and poor results of “the toughest Jr. High in town” and references classmates who ended up in Vietnam, prison, or pregnant and working at the café.

The poetic voice, in a defiant yet bitter tone, concludes thus:

I keep my honorary
junior school diploma
from you
right next to the B.A., M.A.,
etcetera to a Ph.D.
because it means
I graduated
from you
and when I dream dreams,
–how I wish my dreams
had graduated too.

How sadly ironic that in one of the most successful Latino education programs in the country (one with a 95% graduation rate), one which had transcended the isolation of curricula like that of Rhodes Jr. High, books like Carmen Tafolla’s Curandera have been closed and the prospect of minds “jammed stuck” or “always hung open” once again looms large.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Headline news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.