Defend the Honor

May 17, 2010

Dear Defenders of the Honor,

Insanity abounds in Arizona... and in Texas.... See below. But there is a silver lining: there are many good people who will not stand idly by and let this nonsense prevail. Not so long ago, many good, hardworking, people thought it was enough to work hard and pay their taxes -- that they could just live their lives and not get involved. But it is as if a gigantic light bulb just went off and many of us get it: by not being involved, by being passive, our rights will be swept away by people who think that Americans with a last name like Lopez or Rodriguez or Martinez (or who somewhere along the line had a grandparent with a name like that) are not Americans at all. Today, in 2010, we may disagree about many things. But the Arizona state government and the Texas State Board of Education have unified us. And we have allies: have you noticed how many cities and organizations are boycotting Arizona? Have you noticed how many times Arizona, in particular, has been the butt of late night television jokes? And how many of the great opinion writers have attacked it? Juan Gonzalez (New York Daily News); Leonard Pitts Jr. (Miami Herald), Frank Rich (New York Times), Eugene Robinson (Washington Post) have attacked it for what it is: a mean-spirited, cynical, xenophobic attack on Latinos specifically, and people of color generally. And celebrities of all hues have denounced it. (MORE BELOW)

But in other news: there are a few bright spots in education: two schools, one in Los Angeles, Ca., and one in Corpus Christi, Texas, will be named after two great contemporary heroes. One is Sal Castro, a teacher who is unafraid to stir things up and who motivates young people like few else. The other is Mary Helen Berlanga, an attorney who has served on the Texas State Board of Education for 27 years, fighting the good fight always. The Corpus Christi Independent School District this month voted to name an elementary school after Berlanga. Defend the Honor thanks Sal and Mary Helen for their service to our community.

In Arizona
Since the Arizona Senate didn't look foolish enough passing a law that mandates racial profiling -- which Gov. Jan Brewer promptly signed into law on April 23 -- then the state's state superintendent of public instruction used the moment to attack ethnic studies at public schools in Tucson. And Gov. Brewer signed that law, too.

Tom Horne, the state's superintendent of public instruction, says -- to anyone who will listen -- that the Mexican American Studies, African American Studies, Pan-Asian studies classes promote racial hatred. Proponents of ethnic studies reject Horne's position -- saying that the classes merely address gaps in other classes, classes that don't include, or minimize the contributions of, people of color. Horne is running for Attorney General -- and certainly has a certain segment of the population excited. Actually, he has two segments pretty excited.

Legal experts seem to agree that both of the new Arizona laws will not stand up in the courts-- they are too broad, based on faulty logic. Which raises the question: so what is the purpose?

See these sites for more information (and thank you Karen D. for passing along the urls).

www.Altoarizona.com

Padresunidos.org/node/515

Additional sites of interest:

www.borderaction.org

www.reformimmigration.com

www.maldef.com

www.hispana.com

In Texas
People are gearing up for Wednesday, May 19th, for the State Board of Education's social studies curriculum hearing...

Our Teach-In on May 2, in which 11 speakers took on separate revisions by the SBOE, was a great success -- Defend the Honor's position, and that of thousands of others, is that our children must learn a more inclusive and accurate history, and that if the SBOE wants to proselytize, they should head to their churches -- not to our children's classrooms.

There will be a rally Wednesday afternoon outside the Austin building where the SBOE is meeting.

For more information, see the TEKSwatch website at the University of Texas at El Paso: http://organizations.utep.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=64604

Or the Texas Freedom Network, at
http://www.tfn.org/site/PageServer

"Don't White-Out Our History" Rally

Wednesday, May 19 at 1:00 p.m.
William B. Travis building (where the state board meets).

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Gus Chavez & Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Co-Founders, Defend the Honor
Defend the Honor