Kerouac.

I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just don't know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes, let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky way soft cloud innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect. We were never really born, we will never really die. It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea of a personal self, other selves, many selves everywhere: Self is only an idea, a mortal idea. That which passes into everything is one thing. It's a dream already ended. There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about. I know this from staring at mountains months on end. They never show any expression, they are like empty space. Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away? Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space, which is the one universal essence of mind, the vast awakenerhood, empty and awake, will never crumble away because it was never born. 

― Jack Kerouac

Arizona The Ruling

by Rodolfo F. Acuña

U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima has made his decision to uphold disparate treatment of Mexican Americans, and the constitutionality of HB 2281. The purpose of this law was to destroy Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American Studies Program.  In doing so, Tashima returned us to the times of Joseph McCarty.  

The Arizona law broadly banned courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, foster racial resentment, were designed for students of a particular ethnic group or that advocated ethnic solidarity.

The penalty if Tucson did not comply was that the district would lose 10 percent of its annual funding -- some $14 million over a fiscal year.

Tashima ruled that the plaintiffs “failed to show the law was too vague, broad or discriminatory, or that it violated students’ first amendment rights.” On the positive side, he held that courses made-to-serve students of a particular ethnic group were not unconstitutional, which seems to imply that it is alright to ban ethnic studies programs.

The ruling raised more questions than it answered. The judge’s legal reasoning and wording was not consistent with his previous decisions, and it left me with the feeling that it had been written by law clerks and that the decision was not properly vetted by Tashima who has been more precise in previous rulings. A survivor of the Japanese internment camps, he had been expected to be sensitive to the rampant racism in Arizona.

Tashima noted that Attorney General Tom Horne’s anti-Mexican American Studies ardor bordered on discriminatory conduct, saying that Horne’s “single-minded focus on terminating the MAS (Mexican-American Studies) program” raised concerns.

Then Tashima engaged in mental gymnastics: "Although some aspects of the record may be viewed to spark suspicion that the Latino population has been improperly targeted, on the whole, the evidence indicates that Defendants targeted the MAS program, not Latino students, teachers or community members who participated in the program." This conclusion is mind boggling.

This wrongheaded logic would condone the bombing of a village as long as the villagers were not targeted.  

The truth be told, HB 2281 targeted Mexican students in particular restricting their right to learn about the history and culture of their parents. It deprived Anglo-Americans and others of the right to learn a broader history that includes Mexican Americans and other minorities.     

The state also sanctioned the banning of books because Attorney General Horne and Superintendent John Huppenthal did not approve of them. It is clear from the record that the reason for banning the books was political and had nothing to do with fact. It is also clear that reputable education evaluators found the books were not unpatriotic, did not promote racial divisions or that they were written for a particular ethnic group. The fact that they are about Mexican Americans or other minorities does not prove that they fall within the objections of the defendants.

In sum, the court held “a student’s First Amendment rights are infringed when books that have been determined by the school district to have legitimate educational value are removed from a mandatory reading list because of threats of damages, lawsuits, or other forms of retaliation.” And may I add the whim of public elected officials.

Many of the books in Tucson were banned because they were written by Native and Mexican American authors. They have not been proven to distort history.

Tashima’s state authority was not that of a professional educator, not that of a legal scholar, but an administrative Law Judge who listens to liquor license and insurance claims. The ALJ was someone that the superintendent of instruction for all intents and purposes dragged off the street, and to make things worse was appointed by the state.

Tashima repeats that it would have been illegal if HB 2281 or the banning of the books would have been motivated by a discriminatory purpose. He admits that Tom Horne made repeated attempts to ban MAS in TUSD; that Huppenthal promised to “Stop La Raza.” Despite this Tashima ignores discriminatory purpose. He accepts the argument that people are rounded up and put into internment camps for their own protection.

Disparate treatment in job discrimination is when an individual of a protected group is singled out and treated “less favorably than others similarly situated on the basis of an impermissible criterion under Title VII.” When proven that the employer's actions were motivated by discriminatory intent it is a violation. Women cannot be treated differently than men and so on.

The preponderance of evidence shows that Horne has singled out Mexican Americans for the enforcement of 2281. Despite this Tashima has ruled that he believes what the ALJ found and that is okay to enforce the 2281 against Mexican Americans and not whites, African-Americans, Asian Americans or Native Americans.

The ruling concerns most civil rights minded people. It says that the First Amendment does not protect student or teacher rights to receive information restricting access and that political officials can forbid the classroom use of a book based solely on “ideological content.” The ruling legalizes censorship. None of the books banned have been reviewed by experts in the field or publicly vetted.

The Tashima ruling is frightening because there is no restraint on the power of the states, which was what the 14^th Amendment was all about. Taken to its logical conclusion it nullifies Brown v. the Board of Education.

Tashima improperly grants the State absolute discretion in devising its curriculum. This is frightening in a state like Arizona where the Koch brothers, ALEC and other special interests have seized control of government and are benefiting from the privatization of education, the prisons and public institutions. Arizona is a state where elected officials are attempting to nullify the U.S. Constitution.

What bothers me is that Tashima’s law clerks were not even clever in their reasoning. They cite the Plaintiffs’ use of the verb “promote” as impermissibly broadening the statute. Tashima’s clerks cite as their authority Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 1815 (2002). I would have expected this from a freshman but not a legal scholar.

The bottom line is that it all comes down to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s remark that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

This statement pertains to Tashima. I would have hoped that a judge with his life experiences would have examined the context in which Horne, Huppenthal and the gaggle white politicos made the decisions to ban Mexican American studies and ban the books. The political motivations of the Arizona Attorney General and the state superintendent of schools are obvious – just read their public statements.

Reasonable people can also raise other questions. Does American education, for example, promote racial solidarity among whites? A reading of the history of American Education shows that public education was and is designed for white students. The content, the books and its standards are to promote Americanization. Neither Mexican American Studies nor any other  other ethnic studies program has those objectives.  They are taught within the context of the American experience.

I will not speak to Tashima’s claim that the facial vagueness of the plaintiffs’ challenge must fail for many of the same reasons.  Again, I go back to Sotomayor’s statement that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” I would have expected someone with Tashima’s life experiences to have understood what is happening in Arizona. However, I cannot speak for his clerks.

What did Horne mean when he vowed that he would eliminate Mexican American Studies? When he made the statement that Mexican American Studies was trying to retake the Southwest? What did Tashima make of the fact that Arizona has avoided a federal court order to desegregate since the 1970s?  What did he think about Huppenthal’s dismissal of the $112,000 Cambium study which refuted all of his claims about Mexican American studies? Does this not speak to motivation?

Look at the public record and consider the assassination of 9 year old Brisenia Flores in 2009. Does this not speak to discrimination?

As I have said on numerous occasions this culture war is being directed against Mexican Americans and the state and federal courts don’t care. I entered this case, not because I was fighting for individuals, but because of the 2281. Tashima has opened the door to a singling out of brown people throughout this nation. The ruling is a threat that rises above our petty differences and jealousies.

Nora Espinoza, New Mexico Legislator: Keep Mexican-American Studies Books Out Of Schools

A New Mexico state representative wants to keep Hispanic history books out of public schools, following in the footsteps of some of her conservative colleagues in Arizona.

New Mexico state Rep. Antonio Maestas (D-Albuquerque) proposed a memorial on Monday praising diversity in the state’s curricula and slammed Tucson’s decision to ban seven ethnic studies books from classroom use.

That didn’t go over well with Republican state Rep. Nora Espinoza (Roswell).

click link for full story on Huffington Post

Nora Espinoza, New Mexico Legislator: Keep Mexican-American Studies Books Out Of Schools

A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness writings 2000 – 2010.”

BUY THIS BOOK!

"In Gloria Anzaldua’s imaginings, her “nepantleras” would reside as (meta)physical “mestizas” within the matrix of a “new tribalism” a “borderland” free of that wounding “edge of barb[ed] wire” separation. This is a beautiful vision, but should not be mistaken as a strategy for resolving the disparities between economic classes, ethnic communities and women and men within a capitalist patriarchy. From my observation of sectors of the academic, and (even self-ascribed radical_ white queer and feminist communities, many are more than happy to subscribe to a politic like “new tribalism”, for it rejoins them with women of color and native peoples purely by virtue of their shared experience of “otherness” In it there is little explicit requirements for them to look at personal politics (that is, their own life) in relation to the historical and institutional exclusion by privileged whites of lower economic classes and people of color." Cherie Moraga, “A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness  writings 2000 – 2010.”

"I often wish that Gloria had examined more thoroughly in print the political implications and consequences of the philosophical tenets she forwarded as foundational for a new social activism. Her “new tribalism” is especially problematic in this sense. In 1997, Gloria stated that the first stage of her apprenticeship as a writer required “detribalization.” Knowing a bit of Gloria’s life, I understand this to mean that she had to leave home because its cultural restraints would have killed her – body and spirit. Freedom resided elsewhere. Her autobiographical writings remind us that, as Xicanos and Xicanas, our home tribes are so infected by colonialism – the Indian woman raped, our lands pillaged, our self-governance dissolved – that we are forced into psychic and physical displacement. These acts of colonialism were al sites of visceral knowing for Gloria and are a daily occurrence for tribal indigenous peoples all over this planet. Why then would she write of a “new” culturally inclusive tribalism when the culturally genocidal detribalization of Xicanas and Xicanos and other Indigenous peoples has occurred in part because Indigenous sovereignty has been virtually eliminated from the national discourse on both sides of the border? Perhaps, in this sense Gloria and I walk different roads as Xicana scribes; especially in the way in which such political contradictions, for me, often circumvent utopian imaginings. What I have come to believe through my own political and spiritual practice is that as marginalized peoples, we all have to make our way back to the home sites that have rejected and deformed us in order to reform them." Cherie Moraga, “A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness writings 2000 – 2010.”

Groundbreaking Gay Mystery Series Finally Comes to eBook

The following is an excerpt from an interview with author Michael Nava. For the complete interview, please visit KerganEdwards-Stout.com.

In 1986 the United States looked very different than it does today. Ronald Reagan was president. It was the year of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and the blockbuster film Top Gun. LGBT people were largely marginalized. Latinos hadn't yet become a surging political force. And while AIDS had begun claiming countless lives in the gay community, it was only in 1985 that the larger public became more fully aware, due to the sensationalized death of star Rock Hudson.

It was in this era of the so-called "Moral Majority," a largely white, conservative, Christian view of America, that author Michael Nava crafted one of the most unlikely of literary heroes: Henry Rios, a gay, Latino criminal attorney with a passion for justice. Himself an outsider, Rios acts on behalf of those without a voice, often people who are wrongly accused of crimes. Introduced in The Little Death, Rios would go on to solve mysteries in a series of seven books, culminating with Rag and Bone in 2001.

Follow link below for complete article.

Kergan Edwards-Stout: Groundbreaking Gay Mystery Series Finally Comes to eBook

New report from KGUN 9 In Tucson

Statement from Save Ethnic Studies Teachers on Tashima Ruling

The plaintiffs’ motion sought to invalidate HB 2281 (A.R.S. § 15-111 and 112) as unconstitutional because it is impermissibly vague and overbroad, precluding speech and infringing students’ “right to receive” under the First Amendment.

Although Judge Tashima recognized that the students’ First Amendment rights in the classroom were at stake, and found one provision of the statute unconstitutional, A.R.S. § 15-112(a)(3) – “classes designed primarily for pupils of a particular group ethnic group”, the decision left intact the remainder of the law that was used to prohibit the teaching of Mexican American Studies in the Tucson Unified School District.

The Acosta/Arce case is not over. The immediate task is to decide what is the next step: seek reconsideration of the decision or file an appeal to the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision will be made within the next few days. It was always understood that this case would end up before the Ninth Circuit, and we have been preparing for this inevitable step for the past year. We have assembled a legal team that includes professors from the Seattle University Law School and the Bingham McCutchen law firm. Their contributions to the appellate process will be invaluable.

Once an appeal is filed, briefing will be submitted by both sides and a hearing will occur. This step will likely take about 18 to 24 months. The legal process is never as quick as we all hope for. This is especially true when important constitutional rights are at stake.

The effort to invalidate HB 2281 will continue. Too much is at stake. The right of every student to learn and teacher to teach the history, literature and culture of Latinos in Arizona is currently prohibited. Mexican American Studies proved to be a valuable educational program that instilled students with a positive academic identity. Much better academic skills, grades, graduation rates along with increased matriculation to college consistently occurred in every year the program was offered.

The mandate to successfully educate every student irrespective color, gender, culture or economic status is in crisis. As a nation we have failed miserably to reach this goal. We can and must do better. Ethnic studies provide a critical curricular option that must be available to every school district to consider, implement and maintain.

HB 2281 is the product of fear and a profound misunderstanding of the role of culture, language and history. These are areas of learning that do not divide us as a nation but provide a vehicle to promote understanding, respect and success. We cannot allow this fear to spread to other jurisdictions and eliminate important programs that already exist or the development of new programs.

The American dream has always included the universal hope that our children do better than we did. Irrespective of color, gender, culture or language every student must have the right to know who she is and how she fits into our complex and challenging society.

The path to obtain and maintain our civil liberties is continuous. In this lucha we all move forward. Your support is vital. Stand with us united in our common effort to be make our nation “a more perfect union”.

The educators, students and community of Save Ethnic Studies.

Rumors of the Death of Chicano Studies are Greatly Exaggerated by Public Radio - Orange County - News - Navel Gazing

Rumors of the Death of Chicano Studies are Greatly Exaggerated by Public Radio - Orange County - News - Navel Gazing