The Importance of Mexican American Studies- Acuña

Mexican American Studies : A Pedagogy

Not Sociology

By

Rodolfo F. Acuña

We have allowed the uninformed and ignorant to define what Mexican American Studies is. Every time I discuss the subject I feel as frustrated as a scientist trying to explain science to a creationist. No matter how well you know the field those who do not want to believe will distort your words to fit their preconceptions and belief system.

As I have explained, MAS or Chicana/o Studies is not sociology. MAS has courses in sociology that examine the MAS corpus of knowledge but MAS does not belong to the field of sociology.  If it were just sociology, it could be reduced to one or two courses on race.

MAS is a strategy that incorporates multi-disciplines. The truth be told, if the academy had cared about Latinos, which are the second largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world, it would have hired specialists to explore the role of Mexican Americans and other Latinos in the United States.

If this had happened Latino courses would be integrated organically within departments. But consequent to the racism in higher education this field of study has been ignored. Even today, most academic departments do not offer a single MAS or Latino course or employ a single Latino faculty member.

Incredible but most schools of education have not developed courses on how to teach or counsel Latino students. This is criminal since I would not expect, no matter how good she is, an optometrist to perform open heart surgery.

(Editors note: Apply the above to the elimination of Bilingual Multicultural Education at CSU Sacramento. Including support of the elimination by "Latino" faculty.)

Tucson - Mexican American Studies

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Tucson Arizona bans Mexican American Studies

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NYT editorial.
Rejected in Tucson. Published. Jan. 21, 2012,
The Tucson Unified School District has dismantled its Mexican-American studies program, packed away its offending books, shuttled its students into other classes. It was blackmailed into doing so: keeping the program would have meant losing more than $14 million in state funding. It was a blunt-force victory for the Arizona school superintendent, John Huppenthal, who has spent years crusading against ethnic-studies programs he claims are “brainwashing” children into thinking that Latinos have been victims of white oppression.
As a state legislator, he co-wrote a law cracking down on ethnic studies, and as superintendent he decided that Tucson’s district was violating it. School officials in Tucson and elsewhere strenuously disagree, saying he misunderstood and mischaracterized a program that brought much-needed attention to a neglected part of America’s history and culture. They say it engaged students, pushed them to excel, and led to better grades and attendance.
But their interpretation collided with that of Mr. Huppenthal, whose law prohibits programs that “promote the overthrow of the United States government,” “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” and “advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Unless two students win a federal lawsuit arguing that the loss of the program violates their First Amendment rights, Tucson school officials and students are going to have to enrich their curriculum another way.

Who’s afraid of “The Tempest”?

Who’s afraid of “The Tempest”?

Book Banning in Arizona as a part of the assault on Mexican American Studies