[News] Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors

Tue Jan 17 10:45:54 EST 2012

Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native American authors

January 17, 2012 | Filed under: 
<http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/category/indigenous>Indigenous,<http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/category/education>Matauranga 
| Posted by: 
<http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/author/potaua>DigitalMaori
http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/15318

Outrage was the response to the news that Tucson 
schools has banned books, including “Rethinking 
Columbus,” with an essay by award-winning Pueblo 
author Leslie Marmon Silko, who lives in Tucson, 
and works by Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke, 
Leonard Peltier and Rigoberta Menchu.

The decision to ban Chicano and Native American 
books follows the 4 to 1 vote on Tuesday by the 
Tucson Unified School District board to succumb 
to the State of Arizona, and forbid Mexican 
American Studies, rather than fight the state decision.

Students said the banned books were seized from 
their classrooms and out of their hands, after 
Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, 
including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, 
students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they 
were unable to sleep since it happened.

The banned book, “Rethinking Columbus,” includes 
work by many Native Americans, as Debbie Reese reports, the book includes:

Suzan Shown Harjo’s “We Have No Reason to Celebrate”
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “My Country, ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying”
Joseph Bruchac’s “A Friend of the Indians”
Cornel Pewewardy’s “A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas”
N. Scott Momaday’s “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”
Michael Dorris’s “Why I’m Not Thankful for Thanksgiving”
Leslie Marmon’s “Ceremony”
Wendy Rose’s “Three Thousand Dollar Death Song”
Winona LaDuke’s “To the Women of the World: Our Future, Our Responsibility”
The now banned reading list of the Tucson 
schools’ Mexican American Studies includes two 
books by Native American author Sherman Alexie 
and a book of poetry by O’odham poet Ofelia Zepeda.

Jeff Biggers writes in Salon:

The list of removed books includes the 
20-year-old textbook “Rethinking Columbus: The 
Next 500 Years,” which features an essay by 
Tucson author Leslie Silko. Recipient of a Native 
Writers’ Circle of the Americas Lifetime 
Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation 
genius grant, Silko has been an outspoken 
supporter of the ethnic studies program.

Biggers said Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest,” 
was also banned during the meeting this week. 
Administrators told Mexican-American studies 
teachers to stay away from any class units where 
“race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.”

Other banned books include “Pedagogy of the 
Oppressed” by famed Brazilian educator Paulo 
Freire and “Occupied America: A History of 
Chicanos” by Rodolfo Acuña, two books often 
singled out by Arizona state superintendent of 
public instruction John Huppenthal, who 
campaigned in 2010 on the promise to “stop la 
raza.” Huppenthal, who once lectured state 
educators that he based his own school principles 
for children on corporate management schemes of 
the Fortune 500, compared Mexican-American 
studies to Hitler Jugend indoctrination last fall.
<http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/singleton/>http://www.salon.com/2012/01/13/whos_afraid_of_the_tempest/singleton/

Bill Bigelow, co-author of Rethinking Columbus, writes:

Imagine our surprise.
Rethinking Schools learned today that for the 
first time in its more-than-20-year history, our 
book Rethinking Columbus was banned by a school district: Tucson, Arizona 

As I mentioned to Biggers when we spoke, the last 
time a book of mine was outlawed was during the 
state of emergency in apartheid South Africa in 
1986, when the regime there banned the curriculum 
I’d written, Strangers in Their Own Country, 
likely because it included excerpts from a speech 
by then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela. Confronting 
massive opposition at home and abroad, the white 
minority government feared for its life in 1986. 
It’s worth asking what the school authorities in Arizona fear today.
<http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/rethinking-columbus-banned-in-tucson>http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/rethinking-columbus-banned-in-tucson
Roberto Rodriguez, professor at University of 
Arizona, is also among the nation’s top Chicano 
and Latino authors on the Mexican American 
Studies reading list. Rodriguez’ column about 
this week’s school board decision, posted at 
Censored News, is titled: “Tucson school 
officials caught on tape ‘urinating’ on Mexican 
students.”<http://drcintli.blogspot.com/>http://drcintli.blogspot.com/

Rodriguez responded to Narco New about the ban on Sunday.

“The attacks in Arizona are mind-boggling. To ban 
the teaching of a discipline is draconian in and 
of itself. However, there is also now a banned 
books list that accompanies the ban. I believe 2 
of my books are on the list, which includes: 
Justice: A Question of Race and The X in La Raza. 
Two others may also be on the list,” Rodriguez said.

“That in itself is jarring, but we need to 
remember the proper context. This is not simply a 
book-banning; according to Tom Horne, the former 
state schools’ superintendent who designed HB 
2281, this is part of a civilizational war. He 
determined that Mexican American Studies is not 
based on Greco-Roman knowledge and thus, lies outside of Western Civilization.

“In a sense, he is correct. The philosophical 
foundation for MAS is a maiz-based philosophy 
that is both, thousands of years old  and 
Indigenous to this continent. What has just 
happened is akin to an Auto de Fe  akin to the 
1562 book-burning of Maya books in 1562 at Mani, 
Yucatan. At TUSD, the list of banned books will 
total perhaps 50 books, including artwork and posters.

“For us here in Tucson, this is not over. If 
anything, the banning of books will let the world 
know precisely what kind of mindset is operating 
here; in that previous era, this would be 
referred to as a reduccion (cultural genocide) of 
all things Indigenous. In this era, it can too also be see as a reduccion.”

The reading list includes world acclaimed Chicano 
and Latino authors, along with Native American 
authors. The list includes books by Corky 
Gonzales, along with Sandra Cisneros’ “The House 
on Mango Street;” Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Black 
Mesa Poems,“ and L.A. Urreas’ “The Devil’s 
Highway.“ The authors include Henry David Thoreau 
and the popular book “Like Water for Chocolate.”

On the reading list are Native American author 
Sherman Alexie’s books, “Ten Little Indians,“ and 
“The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven.“ 
O’odham poet and professor Ofelia Zepeda’s “Ocean 
Power, Poems from the Desert” is also on the list.
DA Morales writes in Three Sonorans, at Tucson 
Citizen, about the role of state schools chief 
John Huppenthal. “Big Brother Huppenthal has 
taken his TEA Party vows to take back Arizona

take it back a few centuries with official book bans that include Shakespeare!”

<http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/13/did-you-know-even-shakespeare-got-banned-from-tusd-with-mas-ruling/>http://tucsoncitizen.com/three-sonorans/2012/01/13/did-you-know-even-shakespeare-got-banned-from-tusd-with-mas-ruling/

Updates at <http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/>www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

<mailto:brendanorrell at gmail.com>brendanorrell at gmail.com

Also see: Debbie Reese’s blog, American Indian 
Children’s 
Literature: 
<http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/teaching-critical-thinking-in-arizona.html>http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/teaching-critical-thinking-in-arizona.html

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