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<h1><font size=4><b>Tucson schools bans books by Chicano and Native
American authors</b></font></h1><font size=3>January 17, 2012 | Filed
under:
<a href="http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/category/indigenous">
Indigenous</a>
,<a href="http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/category/education">
Matauranga</a> | Posted by:
<a href="http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/author/potaua">
DigitalMaori</a> <br>
<a href="http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/15318" eudora="autourl">
http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/15318<br><br>
<br>
</a><b><i>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.<br><br>
</i></b>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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
The banned book, “Rethinking Columbus,” includes work by many Native
Americans, as Debbie Reese reports, the book includes:<br><br>
Suzan Shown Harjo’s “We Have No Reason to Celebrate”<br>
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “My Country, ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying”<br>
Joseph Bruchac’s “A Friend of the Indians”<br>
Cornel Pewewardy’s “A Barbie-Doll Pocahontas”<br>
N. Scott Momaday’s “The Delight Song of Tsoai-Talee”<br>
Michael Dorris’s “Why I’m Not Thankful for Thanksgiving”<br>
Leslie Marmon’s “Ceremony”<br>
Wendy Rose’s “Three Thousand Dollar Death Song”<br>
Winona LaDuke’s “To the Women of the World: Our Future, Our
Responsibility”<br>
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.<br><br>
Jeff Biggers writes in Salon:<br><br>
<i>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.<br><br>
</i>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.”<br><br>
<i>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.<br>
</i>
<a href="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/</a>
<br><br>
Bill Bigelow, co-author of Rethinking Columbus, writes:<br><br>
<i>Imagine our surprise.<br>
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 …<br><br>
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.<br>
</i>
<a href="http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/rethinking-columbus-banned-in-tucson">
http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/rethinking-columbus-banned-in-tucso</a>
n<br>
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.”<a href="http://drcintli.blogspot.com/">
http://drcintli.blogspot.com/</a> <br><br>
Rodriguez responded to Narco New about the ban on Sunday.<br><br>
“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.<br><br>
“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.<br><br>
“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.<br><br>
“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.”<br><br>
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.”<br><br>
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.<br>
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!”<br><br>
<a href="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/</a>
<br><br>
Updates at
<a href="http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/">
www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com</a><br><br>
<a href="mailto:brendanorrell@gmail.com">brendanorrell@gmail.com</a><br>
<br>
<b><i>Also see: Debbie Reese’s blog, American Indian Children’s
Literature:
</i></b>
<a href="http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/teaching-critical-thinking-in-arizona.html">
http://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/2012/01/teaching-critical-thinking-in-arizona.html</a>
<br><br>
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