Outlawing Latinos’ Heritage-By Eugene Robinson (+ a pic of my abuelita)

Outlawing Latinos’ Heritage

Posted on May 14, 2010

By Eugene Robinson

At least we don’t have to pretend anymore. Arizona’s passing of that mean-spirited new immigration law wasn’t about high-minded principle or the need to maintain public order. Apparently, it was all about putting Latinos in their place.

It’s hard to reach any other conclusion following the state’s latest swipe at Latinos. On Tuesday, Gov. Jan Brewer signed a measure making it illegal for any course in the public schools to “advocate ethnic solidarity.” Arizona’s top education official, Tom Horne, fought for the new law as a weapon against a program in Tucson that teaches Mexican-American students about their history and culture.

...................

The new education law is gratuitous and absurd. Arizona can’t be picked up and moved to the Midwest; it’s next to Mexico. There have always been families and traditions that straddle the two societies, and there always will be. Mexican-Americans are inevitably going to feel proud of who they are and where they came from—even if acknowledging and encouraging such pride in the classroom are against the law.

You know kids. They’ll just learn it in the street.

more:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/outlawing_latinos_heritage_20100513/

...............

kpete/proud Latina

My abuelita taught me about life and lived to be 103 in EAST LA!
When she crossed the border, she was considered to be her husband's property. My grandfather died in a fire in El Paso, TX. She moved her kids to So Cal and supported them by working as a seamstress.

She never spoke English, my parents rarely spoke of our heritage.

She taught me to be proud, to love the earth, all creatures large and small, the ground, the mountains, flowers and especially, the walnut tree in her back yard. She shared pictures and stories and wonderful hat pins.

I miss her always,

the stuff happening in Arizona scares me .

I think Arizona has crossed the line, and most people know it.

They keep saying that they want more federal 'reform'. What do they mean by that? If they wanted real reform, they'd go after the employers, go after Walmart, go after the FLDS in Arizone, for that matter. They'd modify the drug laws. But they don't really want that. I have yet to hear any Arizona official articulate exactly what they want federal reform to comprise.

I live in AZ and they don't scare me. Nothing but a bunch of racist bullies.
Have you read Rain Of Gold by Victor Villasenor. If not, I highly recommend it.

i will check it out, and yes my AZ friend, the sun is meant to be enjoyed,
by everyone!
peace, kp

I don't know how people can look at her and say that it was ever wrong for her to be in this country and make the contributions to this society that she made. Political boundaries are artificial. Most of my people were wiped out for feeling this way, but I still say that nobody owns the land. Certainly not anyone whose family hasn't been here for more than 500 years. Thanks for sharing the photo of your Abuelita. I can almost smell the Christmas tamales steaming! Wish I could have been there to help and to share, but most of all to know your grandma.

Wonderful abuelita had all her time, 103 years. QEPD.

I, too, had a Mexican grandmother. She lived in Michoacan, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, before settling in California where she spent her life never learning much English, but became a Citizen and would have been immune to suspicious Arizona kops.

As the final lines of "Yo Soy Joaquin" remind us, "We will endure. We will endure." So it will come to pass for Arizona's people, all of them. It's the last gasp for effete unitedstatesian hate. I hoped the 1964 Civil Rights Act had sounded the death knell for this type of xenophobic hatred, but it seems the South has risen again, this time in Phoenix AZ.

Reading Arizona. I recommend two.

RJ Pineiro's Meltdown. It opens with the failure of Palo Verde nuclear power plant outside Phoenix. The radiation immigrates east to Phoenix where, without so much as asking for papers, devastates the city brown and anglo alike.

Then there's Tom Miller's Revenge of the Saguaro. A redneck immigrates West after time in Attica prison to settle in Arizona. One day the pendejo takes some beer and assault weapons into the saguaro forest and shoots down cactus after cactus. Yee haw! But one saguaro, 150 years old, refuses to topple until the redneck stands under it. Finally the saguaro lets go a 3 ton branch and "fwook!" One dead asshole.

I plan to invite the Tucson schools to attend the Chicana Chicano literary festival Festival de Flor y Canto. Yesterday • Today • Tomorrow, scheduled for September 15-17 2010 at the University of Southern California. It's a revival of a literary movement that began in 1973 at USC. Just in case the kids believe the crap coming out of Phoenix politicians' mouthholes about exclusion and cultural isolation.
http://labloga.blogspot.com/2010/04/2010-festival-de-flor-y-canto-launch.html

mvs

The State of Arizona must stop this vile practice of sheltering abuelitas from the full force of the law. :sarcasm:

We will get through this awful period.