Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

January 31, 2012

Elias Serna: Strange Rumblings: The Battle for Raza Studies



Strange Rumblings in Arizona:
A Battle to Defend the K-12 Raza Studies Department at Tucson Unified School District from Racist Republicans


Editorial by Elias Serna
Posted with permission at Censored News
Elias Serna is an English PhD candidate at UC Riverside, President of AMAE Santa Monica-West LA Chapter, and co-founder of the comedy teatro Chicano Secret Service.


A tempest of epic proportions stirs darkly over the Southwest United States, reviving ancestral Indian spirits, splashing sand in shocked faces, and generally raining down onto our forehead and seeping into our eyes. While it may precipitate massive floods of students onto major metropolitan thoroughfares throughout the vast region of Aztlan, the eye of the storm hovers menacingly over the old Indian- Chicano town of Tucson, Arizona.
Presently, Tucson's amazing K-12 Mexican American Studies Program (MAS) is fighting a heroic battle, with students, community and teachers playing a decisive role. This educational war now has national implications-the Tucson 13 Case has gone to the 9th Circuit court, which includes California and the Southwest. Against the secessionist, visibly racist and evasive Republican state government (which denies that SB 1070 is racial profiling), MAS activists are fighting impressively on a legal, student activist, and cultural front.
On April 26, amidst an ongoing federal legal battle (Tucson 13), and constant State government attacks by Republicans, the middle-of-the-road Tucson school board decided to turn the MAS classes into vulnerable electives (which would slash enrollment), basically "taking the program outside and killing it" (in MAS director Sean Arce's words). Inside the overcrowded boardroom, minutes before the meeting started, UNIDOS (a group of MAS students and alumni) marched past security guards and chained themselves to the school board chairs in front of a screaming crowd, beginning their now anthemic chant: "When our education is under attack, what do you do?" The response resounded across the Southwest: "FIGHT BACK!!!"
The sit-in set off another wave of activism that calls attention to the struggle for Raza/Ethnic Studies and a brewing civil war over what education is supposed to do, how (and which version of) history should be taught, and who is an "American." This summer will witness a major chapter in the history and future of Chicano Studies. Raza Studies (MAS' former name) activists are calling on Californians (especially educators and artists) to participate actively, and support the cause by attending meetings and events in Tucson and Arizona. One can simultaneously support the economic boycott by staying over people's homes or on Indian Reservation hotels nearby, and patronizing mom-and-pop eateries and cultural centers.
Much like the 1960s Freedom Summers in Mississippi, this struggle may be decided by pressure from neighboring masses of liberation-minded fighters from the coastal states.
The subtitle of this article doesn't mean to be inflammatory. It is bases on my familiarity with the Chican@ Studies discipline (over 10 years college-level teaching), four years of studying Tucson's MAS Department, attending their Summer Institute, using their curriculum and methodology for West LA schools, and seeing how and why Republican state officials have attacked them. Below, I outline the history of this battle that is now in Federal courts, detail the Raza Studies program's many significant accomplishments, and emphasize student activism while covering some unique aspects of this discipline.
A CONCISE HISTORY ON THE ORIGINS OF THE RAZA STUDIES BATTLE
The first Raza Studies courses were weekend cultural instruction for at-risk community youth. In the mid 1990s a small group including Sean Arce, Agustin Flores and a few others leveraged a proposal for the first Raza Studies classes on a Desegregation Order from the Federal Courts; Tucson schools had been found in violation of civil rights laws. The program brought together dedicated and talented teachers. It also fused the ideas of Chican@ Studies scholars with groundbreaking theories on society and critical pedagogy by Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Critical Race Theory scholars among others. An important, yet often overlooked factor here was love.
The teachers genuinely cared about the students, the community, and their profession. Although this isn't measured on any state test, the department flourished, spread to K-12, offered an impressive summer institute, and boasted amazing educational outcomes, especially for Latino students, that contrasted sharply with dismal national figures. According to an audit of the program, MAS program students were 5% more likely to graduate than their peers in 2005 and a whopping 11% more likely to complete high school in 2010. These outcomes and the struggle are captured eloquently in the recently released documentary film "Precious Knowledge," which will air on PBS nationally next spring.
In 2006, MAS invited national civil rights figure Dolores Huerta to speak. She had worked closely with Cesar Chavez (who was raised in Tucson and passed away there in 1994), and has stated that the iconic "Si Se Puede" chant had its origins in Tucson. Her response to a local who pessimistically rejected her ideas saying "No, Dolores, aqui no se puede"-it can't be done-was, "No! Si se puede!" Huerta's rhetoric again set off a political battle. During her speech, she called attention to the fact that "Republicans hate Latinos." In response, the State Superintendent of Schools at the time, Tom Horne (a native of Canada), sent a fellow Republican, to speak at a Tucson school. MAS students requested permission to ask her questions. They were rejected by school administrators. In protest, they taped their mouths and walked out. An infuriated Horne vowed to dismantle the Mexican American Studies Department in political retaliation. He attempted to pass a bill to destroy the program. It was challenged and defeated.


Why Do AZ Republicans Want to Keep Latino Kids From Graduating?
Raza Studies students in Tucson were 5% more likely to graduate than their peers in 2005 and 11% more likely in 2010. Some have suggested that perhaps the private, for profit prison lobby is sending rabid mad dog Tea Partiers after the successful Mexican American Studies program to keep a study supply of bodies for their tax payer funded prison beds. Educated Chicanos are less likely to end up in penal system.


In 2010, HB 2281, the Anti-Ethic Studies bill, passed and was signed into law by Republican governor Jan Brewer (originally from Orange County, California). Teachers countered with a lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of the racist law (it only targets the Mexican American Department). Students held protests and walkouts to raise awareness and challenge state and district decisions. Later MAS alumni, teachers, community and Indigenous groups ran from Tucson to Phoenix, over 100 miles in 113 degree heat to protest the passage of the law.
This unique protest demonstrated the activists' conviction and brought national attention to Raza Studies. Throughout 2011, MAS teachers and students have been fighting incessantly against State attacks, countersuits, right leaning media, a flip-flopping school board, and a hegemonic conservative voting bloc.


The Anti-American History of Chicano Raza Studies
While most college grads move out of their old neighborhoods in exchange for careerist gain, Chicano Studies activism offered alternative viewpoints on education. To be precise, it was historians and other social scientists that broke ground in the university by challenging a one-sided version of history. The early years and historical context (Third World revolutions and a growing Civil Rights movement) influenced the idealism and some original tenets of Chicano and Ethnic Studies.
The first generation of Chicano and Ethnic students-influenced by the Third World Liberation Front in San Francisco and Berkeley-emphasized self-determination in staffing and defining of Chicano/Ethnic Studies epistemology, the necessity of "bridging" the university with the community. essentially, a major principal of Chicano/Ethnic Studies was to analyze and produce solutions to the oppressive conditions in the barrio enclaves. As a result, early agenda items created barrio centers and field studies (now called ethnography).
Tucson's MAS Department-from its humble beginnings to the outsanding academic statistics it has achieved in a short period-is a phenomena that inadvertently stands at the threshold of the entire discipline of Chicano Studies itself. MAS began when several former MEChA students and University of Arizona grads began offering supplementary Chicano Studies courses in the community on weekends.
They leveraged a federal desegregation order to implement Raza Studies classes in the schools that would take on the achievement gap that is the hidden shame of the nation. Raza Studies grew over a decade into a full-on academic department that offered over 60 courses throughout the school district at numerous schools.
MAS also boasted a high-powered summer conference to train teachers featuring prominent education professionals such as Peter McLaren and Pedro Noguera. Even more impressive were the transformations and practices happening in MAS classrooms.
Teachers innovated the classroom, profoundly impacting students and engaging them in school. Students initiated artistic and cultural events and programs themselves and went on to higher education. They practiced the early tenet, "taking the school/university back to the community, " in a dynamic fashion.
During the protests to defend Raza Studies against Horne's early attacks, students were articulate, once even conducting research on wealth disparities between school districts and how this reproduces privilege and inequality, attacking Horne's own unexamined white male privileges. They also began joining the "Barrio Runs" led by the Tucson Caluplli (an "indigenous school" in Nahuatl) as a way to come together spiritually and protest the Republican attacks.
In the process, they discovered that running strengthened their minds as well as their bodies, and that running in this way was itself another way of learning. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education explained running's role in generating new ideas. The more in depth journal articles of Dr. Roberto "Cintli" Rodriguez, explain how these ancient ceremonies contribute to a Chicano Studies epistemology (an established field of knowledge). It is important to emphasize that under the radar tracking the political storm, Tucson's Raza Studies program-its teachers, students and alumni--is making critical contributions to and generation unique innova-
tions within the entire discipline of Chicano Studies.
While Raza Studies at present has mobilized wide support in Tucson and beyond, their accomplishments are currently countered by malicious unfair edicts handed down by Republicans in the seats of power.
When Horne's successor, State School Superintendent Huppenthal (who vowed to "stop La Raza") forced an audit (at an expense to taxpayers of $170,000) of MAS by a Florida consulting firm of his choice, the results came back unexpectedly favorable to MAS. The Cambrium Report lauded MAS's achievements and suggested dialogue between parties and that the program be expanded. Huppenthal irrationally ignored his own report and concluded on his own that MAS was still in violation of HB2281 (ie. It still "taught oppression," was "revolutionary" and "promoted the violent overthrow of the government").
Community called for his immediate resignation. An order to quash the whole bill-which would be a godsend victory for Raza Studies-sits on the desk of a Japanese-American federal judge. Otherwise, proceedings begin in September; the Tucson 13 will likely continue fundraising to pay fees and education experts. The Bush-appointed conservative federal judge who sat on the 9th Circuit, was ironically killed by a right-winger during the shooting of Senator Giffords in January 2011. That same day, The New York Times ran a front-page article on Raza Studies. The Times failed to make a connection to it, and subsequently overshadowed the topic.
Three other state and federal cases revolve around Raza Studies. In recent days, district administrators have caved into State Republicans, cutting enrollment and courses in half, restricting teachers from advertising their classes, moving teachers to different schools, cutting their courseload, and often personally attacking the director of MAS, Sean Arce. Many have received anonymous death threats and threats to their families.
Regardless, MAS and the field of Chicano Studies remains a unique approach to instruction, which recognizes Chicano culture and Latino students as important sources of knowledge. Raza Studies will continue to produce new insights, alternative, effective ways of learning. Tomorrow's Chicano Studies will continue to matriculate scholars that will shed light a darkness that today looms dangerously over us all. But many in Tucson and here in LA proudly proclaim "Hasta la Victoria Siempre," and if past actions are any indication these Tucson Xicanos and their allies know the true path to victory.


Elias Serna is an English PhD candidate at UC Riverside, President of AMAE Santa Monica-West LA Chapter, and co-founder of the comedy teatro Chicano Secret Service.

O'odham Ofelia Rivas: URGENT Halt Gold Mining in Sacred Quitovac



URGENT: PROTECT SACRED QUITOVAC FROM GOLD MINING
O'ODHAM LANDS -- (Jan. 30, 2012) Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, speaks on the urgent need to protect Quitovac from gold mining. Quitovac is the sacred ceremonial community of O'odham south of the border in Sonora, Mexico.
Funds are needed now for travel in Sonora, and meetings with Sonoran officials, to halt this gold mining by Silver Scott Mines, Inc. Video by Censored News.

READ MORE on genocidal gold mining planned for Quitovac:
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/12/traditional-oodham-halt-mining-genocide.html
Donate to O'odham Solidarity Project:http://www.solidarity-project.org/
Direct cash donations are also essential! Please remember that every little bit helps! Donate to the O'odham Voice Against the Wall
Mail well concealed cash or money order to:Ofelia Rivas
PO. Box 1835
Sells, Arizona 85634

Ofelia Rivas e-mail: oodhamrights@gmail.com
O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
            
oodhamrights@gmail.com   
December 2, 2011
Lic. Rafael Carlos Quiroz Narváez
Delegado Regional de PROFEPA
Hermosillo, Sonora
Lic. Abigail Galvez
PROFEPA

Greetings,
On behalf of the O’odham (peoples) Sonora, Mexico and O’odham from Ali Jegk community of the Tohono O’odham Nation, I am writing to request your assistance to defend and protect our cultural significant and sacred ceremonial site located in Quitovac, Sonora, Mexico. The Silver Scott Mines Inc. proposed open pit mine operations will detrimentally impact not only the health of the O’odham but will also destruct the sensitive ecological environment within the area.
Quitovac is an ancient O’odham village and is the location of a profoundly sacred ceremonial site continually inhabited by our people for thousands of years. This site is also biologically sensitive significance, as it is a precious fresh water spring-fed lagoon in the middle of the Sonoran desert. 
The impact of the water and air of this ceremonial site by an open pit mine and contamination from its operations would devastate the spiritual well-being of the O’odham and be a cultural and environmental disaster is an act of genocide.
As the PROFEPA is charged with the responsibility to upholding environmental justice and is entrusted by legal mandate to exercise its commitment to the natural environment and the Indigenous peoples are of the natural environment, we respectfully request that you do everything possible to stop this proposed open pit mine operations by Silver Scott Mines, Inc. and protect the traditional O’odham lands and sacred ceremony site.
Respectfully, 
Ofelia Rivas, Cu:Wi I-gersk Community and Ali Jegk Community                             
O’odham Rights-Cultural and Environmental Justice Coalition
Bradley Angel, Executive Director
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice      
Traditional O’odham Leaders, Governors of O’odham communities in Sonora, Mexico
Ali Jegk community of Gu-Vo District of the Tohono O’odham Nation                     
                                                            
cc.
C.P. Leonel Coronado Mendoza
Director de CCDI Caborca
Sonora, Mexico
L.C.I. Griselda Veronica Leyva Egurrola
Regidora Etnica Tohono O´otham
H. Caborca, Sonora
Attachments; 
Traditional O’odham Governors Resolution
Ali Jegk Community Resolution
Articles of Silver Scott Mines, Inc


Mohawk Nation News 'White Famine Relief'

WHITE FAMINE RELIEF
Mohawk Nation News

 MNN.  JAN. 30, 2012.  Is white privilege ending - lower infant morality, easier bank loans, a white house, ivy league education, running the USA corporation, lolling in WASP culture!!  Will they continue the lifestyle of injustice and racial categorization?
According to current stats, whites are becoming extinct.  They will soon be the pissed off minority culture.  They will not be colonized.  They will be colorized? 
Whites are declining in every city, becoming more infertile.  In 13 years they will be a minority.  In 20 states most babies under 2 years old are Indigenous.
12 states have white populations below 50%:  Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Mississippi. Soon to join are Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina and Delaware.
US Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, promises a colony on the moon.  They better take all their junk with them, like those falsies for creating round bottoms, tanning salons, implants, toupees, injection machines to make fuller lips and cheekbones.  [Love our looks, but hate our guts!] 
US is sandwiched between Canada and Mexico.  Canada will soon have a white minority population and Mexico already has an Indigenous majority. 
Panic is pushing them to make up fake history, while living on the land whose history they’re faking.
Arizona wiped out the study of Indigenous culture and history, to be replaced by “white trash studies 101”.  They’re trying to spark a white power movement. [Over there, COINTELPRO!]
The whites have caused a lot of confusion.  Their religion justified slavery and genocide.  They think they got away with it by saying “sorry’.
Advertising and marketing will change from a vessel of whiteness to a brown/black market. 
Melanin gives skin, hair and eyes their color.  Whites have low melanin content.  The darker skinned have more and are less likely to be damaged from the sun’s rays.  It gives the human being the connection to plants, animals and other people.  The lessmelinated seem prone to destroy all these without remorse.
Nothing is more painful than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking, oh! oh! robbery, then turn around and see a white guy with dreadlocks!
It was wrong to beat us to death, starve us, rape us.  They’re scared that we’re going to take all their jobs, food and treat them like they did us.  They won’t be the boss anymore.
Whites make up 80% of older Americans over 65 years of age. Who’s going to take care of them?   
We might have to play God and start missions to feed the hungry whites:  “One dollar a day to save these poor starving people who have no food, no home, no one to love or understand them”.
Didn’t Charlie Brown once say something like, “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited fake-American-Dream-kind-of love. 
MNN Mohawk Nation News.  Watch World Banker, James D. Wolfensohn, make stunning confession to back this up.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOwZwkhFemQ&feature=player_embedded#!
MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, to donate to maintain the website [PayPal] and to sign up for MNN newsletters go towww.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Categories “COLONIALISM/ART/CULTURE”.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0
Store:  Indigenous authors – Kahnawake books – Mohawk Warriors Three – Warriors Hand Book – Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy.
Category:  World – Colonialism - Great Turtle Island – History – New World Order – courts/police Economics/trade/commerce – Land/environment – art/culture. 
Tags:  North American Indians – Turtle Island – Indian holocaust/genocide – NAU North American Union – History Canada/US – United Nations – Cointelpro - colonialism.

January 30, 2012

Sherman Alexie: Banned books are sacred documents now


By Sherman Alexie
The Progressive
http://progressive.org/sherman-alexie

Let's get one thing out of the way: Mexican immigration is an oxymoron. Mexicans are indigenous. So, in a strange way, I'm pleased that the racist folks of Arizona have officially declared, in banning me alongside Urrea, Baca, and Castillo, that their anti-immigration laws are also anti-Indian. I'm also strangely pleased that the folks of Arizona have officially announced their fear of an educated underclass. You give those brown kids some books about brown folks and what happens? Those brown kids change the world. In the effort to vanish our books, Arizona has actually given them enormous power. Arizona has made our books sacred documents now.
Sherman Alexie is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and filmmaker. His book "The Lone Ranger and Tonto's Fist Fight in Heaven," was on the banned curriculum of the Mexican American Studies Program.
Banned Authors Respond
http://progressive.org/sherman-alexie

Urrea, banned by Tucson schools, to be featured at Tucson Festival of Books in March
http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/item/show/325474

Banned at Tucson Schools: Cesar Chavez, Sherman Alexie, Ofelia Zepeda

Cesar Chavez
UPDATED
TUSD BANNED BOOKS LIST
By Roberto Rodriguez
Censored News

Also see: Sherman Alexie: Banned books are sacred documents now:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2012/01/sherman-alexie-banned-books-are-sacred.html


In checking to see how many books of mine have been banned, I stumbled upon more than I bargained for.

At the moment, here is what is banned by TUSD and the state:

Justice: A Question of Race.

The X in La Raza

Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human

and

Cantos al Sexto Sol... this was co-edited by Patrisia Gonzales, Cecilio Camarillo, and me, Roberto Rodriguez.

But wait...

Cantos al Sexto Sol, akin to Rethinking Columbus, with the top native writers in the country, is a collection of some of the biggest names in Chicano/Chicana literature. It contains a who's who of Raza/Indigenous writers and literature.

Cantos is a book on origins/migrations.

But I also found that Amoxtli San Ce Tojuan -- a documentary also on origins and migrations -- by myself and Patrisia Gonzales -- is part of the MAS curriculum, thus banned.

And again, just the tip of the curriculum.

What is actually being banned is not 7 or 50 books, but hundreds of books and videos, etc.

But the story gets even bigger.

The MAS teachers have been issued directives on how to teach... and what they can teach... literally, the directives are right out of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

The story here --as the architect of HB 2281 (Tom Horne) has long stated -- is that this is a civilizational war. The objective is to deny Mexican/Chicano/a peoples - the right to their Indigeneity... because it is not derived from Greco-Roman culture and according to Horne, lies outside of Western Civilization. Ironically, Mexican Indigenous culture can be taught through the native curriculum, but not through Mexican American Studies.

TUSD and the State: see you at the UN and the OAS. What is being violated by TUSD and HB 2281 is the right to culture, history, identity, language and education (CHILE). All of this is protected by at least 9 international treaties.

They want our souls... but akin to the line in La Otra Conquista -- they can never have them... and besides... they know not where to look.

Btw... Amoxtli X - The X Codex -- which explains In Lak Ech - Panche Be and Hunab Ku -- got under the radar, thus not banned (I hope).

I can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com

Patrisia Gonzales can be reached at: patzin@gmail.com


Thanks & Sincerely
Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
PO BOX 3812
Tucson, AZ 85722
520-626-0824

COLUMN: http://drcintli.blogspot.com/


Cintli don't tweet, text, facebook and is not linked... neither do I own a TV... but you can still email or call me.


TUSD BANNED BOOKS LIST(s)

O'odham professor
Ofelia Zepeda
The lists of banned books comes from the Cambium report, which was gathered from MAS-TUSD. Searn Arce, director of MAS-TUSD affirms that all the books on the lists below have been banned.
In this format, they were compiled (the firt ones) by Manuel Hernandez at U of A, and the next part, by librarian and scholar, Debbie Reese. The story in Tucson is much bigger than banned books. This week, two more huge shoes will drop, as early as Tuesday... Stay tuned

These are the Arizonan Chican@ authors suppressed in TUSD:  Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales, Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. RodrĂ­guez, The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. RodrĂ­guez, Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte,  Mexican American Literature (1990) by C. M. Tatum,  and New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993) by C. M. Tatum.

Other suppressed authors are: Gloria AnzaldĂşa, CĂ©sar Chávez, Rodolfo Acuña, Tomás Rivera, Luis Valdez, and, believe it or not, many others. 

Ironically, all banned authors from Mexican American Studies in TUSD write in English. Many have national and international prizes.

Please find below the list of books prohibited for students in MAS, an academically advanced program that successfully channeled 85% of its high school participants into college or the university:

Debbie Reese has compiled this list from the May 2, 2011 Cambium Report.

High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 - Texts and Reading Lists
    Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
    The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
    Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001) by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
    Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000) by P. Freire
    United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007) by R. C. Remy
    Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales
    Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990) by H. Zinn

Table 21: American History/Mexican American Perspectives, 1, 2 - Texts and Reading Lists
    Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004) by R. Acuña
    The Anaya Reader (1995) by R. Anaya
    The American Vision (2008) by J. Appleby et el.
    Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998) by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
    Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A. Burciaga
    Message to Aztlán: Selected Writings (1997) by R.  Gonzales
    De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998) by E. S. MartĂ­nez
    500 Años Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990) by E. S. MartĂ­nez
    Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. RodrĂ­guez
    The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. RodrĂ­guez
    Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006) by F. A. Rosales
    A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003) by H. Zinn

Course: English/Latino Literature 7, 8
    Ten Little Indians (2004) by S. Alexie
    The Fire Next Time (1990) by J. Baldwin
    Loverboys (2008) by A. Castillo
    Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros
    Mexican White Boy (2008) by M. de la Pena
    Drown (1997) by J. DĂ­az
    Woodcuts of Women (2000) by D. Gilb
    At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965) by E. Guevara
    Color Lines: "Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?" (2003) by E. MartĂ­nez
    Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998) by R. Montoya et al.
    Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte
Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997) by M. Ruiz
    The Tempest (1994) by W. Shakespeare
    A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) by R. Takaki
    The Devil's Highway (2004) by L. A. Urrea
    Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999) by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
    Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997) by J. Yolen
    Voices of a People's History of the United States (2004) by H. Zinn

Course: English/Latino Literature 5, 6
    Live from Death Row (1996) by J. Abu-Jamal
    The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994) by S. Alexie
    Zorro (2005) by I. Allende
    Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999) by G. Anzaldua
    A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca
    C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca
    Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001) by J. S. Baca
    Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990) by J. S. Baca
    Black Mesa Poems (1989) by J. S. Baca
    Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987) by J. S. Baca
    The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools (1995) by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle
    Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992) by J. A Burciaga
    Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
    Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995) by L. Carlson & O. Hijuelos
    So Far From God (1993) by A. Castillo
    Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985) by C. E. Chávez
    Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros
    House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros
    Drown (1997) by J. DĂ­az
    Suffer Smoke (2001) by E. Diaz Bjorkquist
    Zapata's Discipline: Essays (1998) by M. Espada
    Like Water for Chocolate (1995) by L. Esquievel
    When Living was a Labor Camp (2000) by D. GarcĂ­a
    La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia
    Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003) by C. GarcĂ­a-Camarilo et al.
    The Magic of Blood (1994) by D. Gilb
    Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001) by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
    Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to "No Child Left Behind" (2004) by Goodman et al.
    Feminism is for Everybody (2000) by b hooks
    The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999) by F. JimĂ©nez
    Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools (1991) by J. Kozol
    Zigzagger (2003) by M. Muñoz
    Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993) by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero
    ...y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995) by T. Rivera
    Always Running - La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005) by L. Rodriguez
    Justice: A Question of Race (1997) by R. RodrĂ­guez
    The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. RodrĂ­guez
    Crisis in American Institutions (2006) by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie
    Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986) by T. Sheridan
    Curandera (1993) by Carmen Tafolla
    Mexican American Literature (1990) by C. M. Tatum
    New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993) by C. M. Tatum
    Civil Disobedience (1993) by H. D. Thoreau
    By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996) by L. A. Urrea
    Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (2002) by L. A. Urrea
    Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992) by L. Valdez
    Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995) by O. Zepeda

UPDATE, Monday, January 16, 2012
The list above is not complete. As I learn of other titles that have been boxed, I will add them to the list.
    Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
    Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales
    Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
    The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
--
Thanks & Sincerely
Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez
PO BOX 3812
Tucson, AZ 85722
520-626-0824
ARCHIVED COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS
Cintli don't tweet, text, facebook and is not linked... neither do I own a TV... but you can still email or call me.

Gila River against Loop 202: Pangea corporation exposed!

Pangea Exposed!

The Pecos Landowners Association (PLA) has had longstanding ties to Pangea, but under a recent cloud of suspicion about business practices Pangea has used to get D6 landowners to sign away their lands for a 202 right of way, the PLA announced that they have broken ties with Pangea. A complaint was brought to D6 officals that Pangea went to the home of an elder with dementia, and acquired her signature on a contract authorizing Pangea to develop her lands for a 202 right of way.
The PLA and Pangea’s relationship has been under suspicion since its very beginning, not just from just GRAL202 but also from Community members who have received letters from Pangea they only have 30 days to sign a Pangea contract signing away their lands. When landowners need help understanding what that letter means to their land rights, the PLA is where they are directed. However, Community member Nathan Percharo was the PLA Chairman in 2011, when the 202 planning was almost all that the PLA worked on, and Percharo still provides consulting services to Pangea, as is stated on their website. Is that legal, for Percharo to be on Pangea’s payroll for consulting services, as he advises D6 landowners on zoning and land use issues?
Why is Pangea operating in the dark, and how did they become such a player in the issue, when we don’t know anything about them? Joey Perez is a Community member who says he owns Pangea, but he is not listed as the owner on the Pangea website. He is, however, listed as the owner of Initial Impressions, a casino marketing agency that has the same business address as Pangea. Initial Impressions boasts that they can “organize a covert invasion of a small or large country”. http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joseph-perez/19/3b2/42
Off Pangea's own website
Are those Pangea’s plans, to literally pave and bulldoze the way for yet another casino takeover in Gila River? When will our leadership move beyond casinos, and casino hotels to give us sustainable development and meaningful skills to pass down to our families? Joey Perez is from Blackwater, where he may not have learned much about the balance between Muhadag Do’ag and the Estrella mountain range in our west end. Do we want his money and power influencing the 202 issue? Do we Community members really believe we are just one casino away from solving all our economic problems?
We are a grassroots campaign against the freeway, and all of our flyers, pamphlets, zines etc are printed out of our own pockets, in black and white on plain paper, donated by Community members at times, other times paid for by us. We don’t have the money to do more than that. Where did the Pecos Landowners Association, a non-profit organization, get the money to print out full color handouts on thick cardstock? Those cost a lot of money. Where does the non-profit PLA get the money to offer rides to the polls on February 7th? Pangea has money.

Hopi Vernon Masayesva: Coal fired power plants days are numbered

Vernon Masayesva: Days are numbered for Navajo Generating Station's use of Black Mesa coal and water

Black Mesa Trust Calls on EPA to Help Put Navajo Generating Station on Sound Environmental Footing

By Black Mesa Trust
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

KYKOTSOMOVI, Ariz., Jan. 30--Black Mesa Trust, an indigenous grassroots Hopi environmental, education and advocacy group serving the Native peoples of Black Mesa in northern Arizona, has called on Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 to support its efforts to require that the coal-based 2250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, and the Central Arizona Project that carries water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson, operate in an environmentally sound and culturally equitable manner.

Black Mesa Trust Executive Director Vernon Masayesva said, "The good old days when NGS produced cheap electricity to pump water to Central and Southern Arizona, using coal from Black Mesa obtained at discounted prices from the Hopi and Navajo people, are numbered.  Along with NGS, Peabody Coal is facing multiple problems, including growing opposition from Hopi and Navajo people to the world's largest strip-mining operation 

"We feel NGS can be saved as a base-load generating station, using a mix of solar, natural gas, and hydro-electricity."

The coal, water and land leases that allow Navajo Generating Station to run are up for renewal in the next few years. As the leases are renegotiated, Black Mesa Trust has requested that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar consider these issues: the historic and long-term health, water and economic harms the Hopi and Navajo peoples have suffered from the generating station and the coal mines that fuel it; the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement actions that have allowed mining operations to contaminate and degrade surface and ground water in the region, diminish water flows from springs and washes to traditional Hopi farms and destroyed hundreds of ancient burial sites; and the development of a regional energy plan focused on developing clean energy resources to provide baseload power to operation the 336-mile Central Arizona Project, which since its inception has been totally reliant on power from the Navajo Generating Station.

Masayesva and Marshall Johnson, founder of To'Nizhoni Ani, a Navajo grassroots organization dealing with water issues, have enlisted experts from Black Mesa Trust's Circle of Advisors, the Grand Canyon Trust and the Center for Applied Research to assist with the effort, and will seek support from the governors of Arizona, New Mexico and California, Hopi and Navajo government leaders and other environmental organizations to develop a plan to safeguard, honor and preserve the land, waters and cultures of Black Mesa.

Black Mesa Trust is a grassroots Hopi environmental, education and advocacy group serving the Native peoples of Black Mesa in northern Arizona, has called on Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 to support its efforts to require that the coal-based 2250-megawatt Navajo Generating Station in Page, Arizona, and the Central Arizona Project that carries water from the Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson, operate in an environmentally sound and culturally equitable manner.



Arizona School Censorship Hit with Protest from Organizations, Educators

Joan BertinExecutive Director
National Coalition Against Censorship
bertin@ncac.org
212-807-6222 x 101
 Michael O’Neil
Communications Coordinator
National Coalition Against Censorship
michael@ncac.org
212-807-6222 x 107
Chris Finan
President
American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression
Chris@abffe.org
212-587-4025 x 301
 Amy Long
Communications Coordinator
American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression
amyl@abffe.org
212-587-4025 x 302

Arizona School Censorship Hit By Salvo of Protest
From Free Speech Orgs and Educators

Censored News

TUCSON, AZ­—Dozens of national organizations have joined together to protest the banning of books used for the Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).“This is censorship at its most brazen,” said Joan Bertin, Executive Director at the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). “Officials at the state and local level are responsible for this unacceptable restriction on the educational opportunities of students and their ability to have discussion in school about historical and contemporary events touching on race and ethnicity.

“We call on them to restore the books and the topics for discussion in the district’s classrooms.”

The TUSD board ordered the books removed after State Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal threatened to withhold state funding pursuant to a recently-enacted Arizona law. That law is being challenged in court.

“We do not think the students of Tucson should have to wait for a federal court order to get the education they deserve,” said Chris Finan, President of American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). “Regardless of the outcome of legal proceedings, this is harming students, whose education should be the primary concern of elected officials.  Instead they are putting politics and ideology ahead of the well-being of young people.”

NCAC and ABFFE have jointly created the Kids’ Right to Read Project (KRRP), which offers support,education, and advocacy to promote the right of young people to read widely and to receive a high quality education that is challenging and relevant.  KRRP provides direct assistance to students, teachers, librarians and others opposing book-banning in schools and communities nationwide, while engaging local activists to promote the freedom to read.

In the shocking case of Tucson, many national organizations dedicated to education and constitutional right shave organized to speak in one voice, calling on the appropriate authorities to correct what they see as an egregious abuse of power.

The joint statement to Arizona officials, with signatories including representatives from publishers, teachers, civil libertarians, and booksellers from the region, may be viewed at http://www.ncac.org and http://abffe.org.