Earlier today we brought you the story of how students chained themselves together at a local Tucson school board chamber to protest administrators who wanted to change the Mexican-American studies curriculum. Currently, a class that teaches history from a Mexican-American perspective is allowed to substitute for the required U.S. history class. But the school superintendent also wants to reevaluate the entire program (and possibly get rid of the class),* in part because it advocates the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Below are excerpts from the controversial curriculum, which (among other things) calls for abolishing Thanksgiving for a National Day of Atonement and includes the headline “Death to the Invader!”
But first, we‘ve also uncovered the superintendent’s findings, which he presented after he reviewed the curriculum. According to him, the Mexican-American Studies Program was found to include all of the below elements that are banned by state law:
Here are the words taken directly from the superintendent’s findings:
So what is so egregious about this program? We’ll let the documents (which were distributed as handouts) speak for themselves (courtesy of Tucsonans United for Sound Districts):
You can see more excerpts, including those from the class “Social Justice, Resistance, and Latino Literature,” here.
Included in the superintendent’s findings was a startling testimonial from a former Hispanic teacher in the district:
Considering the excerpts, it’s not hard to understand how that happened.
(H/T: Mike Shaw)
*According to an editorial in the Arizona Republic, the school board’s plan is not that radical (and some might argue not radical enough). The board only wants to make the classes true electives, instead of allowing them to substitute for core classes. So that means the disturbing handouts in this story would still theoretically remain in the classroom, just not as prevalent in the overall curriculum.
UPDATE:
This is video featuring the full version of the above song, “Decolonize:”
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