slamlander | Mexican American studies about to be outlawed! (Reply)

I commented on yet another LA Times article today. The main article is here.

"These kids got it," he said. "They understood the framework that was being laid out — that Hispanics are the oppressed and Caucasians are the oppressors. That’s very troubling." — Supt. John Huppenthal, Tucson Unified School District

The thing is that, this is nothing less than the truth. The entire Southwest was conquered by the US in the late 1800’s as a part of the Monroe Doctrine. Before then it was a part, a very valuable part, of Mexico. It was conquered through mass illegal immigration by US settlers, which gave the pretext for the Cavalry to invade in order to ‘protect’ those illegal settlers. It was exactly the same strategy used to conquer Texas and later on, Hawaii. After the conquest, the US engaged in systematic denigration and suppression of the native population that carries on to the present day, as evidenced by the Tucson law. A very large part of that was the systematic genocide of native Americans, the American Indian (Indians), by the US Cavalry. Former Mexican Nationals were not treated much better as they were largely of mixed Spanish and Indian blood.

This summer, Huppenthal drew fire after suggesting similarities between the program and the Hitler Youth. Huppenthal said the remarks were made on "an academic basis" and misunderstood.

He no longer draws the comparison, he said, because it is too inflammatory. But in an interview, he said, "The thing that Hitler did was he used perceptions of historical injustice, he cast them in racial terms, and then he also referred to the Sudetenland as a stolen land — that’s the parallel."

The Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican American studies program does nothing other than to teach the truth. To outlaw the truth is yet another case of repression and since they are now fourth and fifth generation Americans, they are also US citizens. Must they be continuously conquered?

Huppenthal replied that curriculum must reach a standard that all Arizonans can be proud of. "I’d ask those people who have challenged me, have they really met that standard over the last couple years?"

The thing is that there are things in US history that no American should be proud of and remembering those things might prevent their re-occurrence. The US has done many shameful things and a part of the healing is to admit to doing them and at least to try and make some reparation. Teaching the true history is one of them.

Land of the free and the home of the brave? This really makes me, and everyone else wonder. I am not that proud of being an American with this crap going on.

Mirrored from The Slamlander.

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