TUSD flagrantly violates Constitution and International Human Rights Treaties | The Progressive

6.2.12

TUSD flagrantly violates Constitution and International Human Rights Treaties | The Progressive: By Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, PhD

"Instead of seeing Hispanics as outsiders who do not belong here, we need to start seeing them as ancestors of the original inhabitants of these lands. They are the living fulfillment of the Ghost Dance prophecy." - Chief Billy Redwing Tayac, Piscataway Nation

The above quote best contextualizes the battle in Tucson. Mexican American Studies, also known as Chicano/a Studies or Raza Studies, in effect, is the study of peoples who trace their lineage to this very continent, many thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus. Their roots are Indigenous and part of daily, living maiz-based cultures. A primary objective of MAS has always been the recovery of those cultural roots that in the past have been denied. In Tucson, the teaching of these studies, of these roots, has not just been outlawed, but, in effect, criminalized.