The View from Tucson, Arizona

I've been in Tucson for a week and temperatures have reached over 100 degrees every day this week in late June. It brought to mind Luis Urrea's The Devil's Highway and the disastrous trek over the Sonoran desert chronicled in that book. When the temperature outside the air-conditioned casita feels like the inside of a wood-fired bread-baking oven, the thought of crossing a desert without enough water in similar heat is mind-boggling. But most Tucsonians take the weather in stride, as well as the divisive politics, and air-conditioning.

On January 16, 2012 I posted on this blog about the forced dismantling of the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican American Studies program. This week, I was able to follow up on the controversy at a local independent bookstore, where a clerk directed me back to the internet to find out about SaveEthnicStudies.org, a group of teachers who have compiled statistics on the success of this ethnic studies program in helping the academic achievement of Mexican American and African American males in particular. To meet these teachers, visit the website. Tucson suspended the highly successful program this year because of the controversy, and some of its dedicated teachers are trying to explain the program over the din of well-funded, right wing extremists, led by Arizona's attorney-general.

The website says that the ethnic studies courses are mistakenly thought to be about immigration. In fact, they are about helping minority students connect with the curriculum and understand why they are in school. In the words of SaveEthnicStudies.org, it helps Mexican American students in particular "to see themselves in the world around them, to compare that to the world their parents and grandparents lived in and to seek solutions for the problems of the future." In theoretical terms, this program helps student to develop critical consciousness, a goal of education--especially for disenfranchised minorities--made famous by Paulo Friere, a Brazilian educator who worked with illiterate adults amongst Brazil's poorest class.

This summer I'm involved in studying two of my Goshen College classes to investigate how students can develop critical consciousness in college-level ethnic literature classes. We're studying the blogs that students in these courses created to respond to course materials and key questions. The controversy around the TUSD ethnic studies program has never seemed more relevant, and I've deepened my awareness of the issues by reading a variety of blogs--a tool for personal expression and social action.

This image appears on Pocho: News y Satire

Another great blog for keeping up with developments in the Arizona controversy is Three Sonorans: Progressive and Activist News in Tucson and Arizona.