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Cinco de Mayo reminds us that La Raza’s struggles continue as we strive to maintain our place in this world, walking with honor and dignity.
“To be or not to be,” a famous line written in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is no longer the question. It has been overshadowed by a more recent cliché, “To ban or not to ban.” Arizona House Bill 2281 prohibits curriculum that promotes the overthrow of the United States government; promotes resentment toward a race or class of people; is designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group and advocates ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals. John Huppenthal, Superintendent of Public Instruction and his chums have decided La Raza Studies, a specialized curriculum proven to be very successful approach to Chicana/o retention and graduation from high schools in a recent independent audit goes against the grain of this pernicious law. The edict mandates punishment to school districts utilizing this curriculum, confiscated books from classrooms and essentially places an invisible mantle over La Raza by banning textbooks used in La Raza Studies curriculum; many which are classics such as Bless Me, Última written by Rodolfo Anaya, prolific literature giant. Failure to comply can result in loss of revenue by any school district that supports what has been characterized as seditious curriculum.
In an Amicus Brief written by the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, it states, “Arizona state actions are not based on empirical research or the findings made by the state’s own audit, and indeed post the opposite results. It is the prohibition of Ethnic Studies that will create or exacerbate existing racial resentments [accentuate] the often hostile or ‘chilling’ environment in many of the District’s other classrooms, and encourage the ideological opponents of diversity to typecast teachers, students, and their intellectual work as objects to be treated as the stereotyped anti-American characters and qualities erroneously imagined and projected by the legislators…Stereotyping and resentment will result from enforcement of this statute, denying students an opportunity to learn and appreciate, indeed celebrate, our amazing cultural and ethnic differences that deeply and profoundly define the multiracial American mosaic of identity.”
What seems to be paradoxical is that the tyranny of the majority that has used it powers to discriminate against Latino/as in education as determined by a consent decree ordering desegregation in Arizonian schools in 1978 is fearful of the tyranny of the minority, absurdity ad infinitum. This law was written to single out a group whose only wish is to become educated.
I thought I would share a piece of poetry with readers I had written and was published in “Cantos Al Sexto Sol: Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing” edited by Cecilio García-Camarillo, Dr. Roberto “Cintli” Rodríguez, and Patrisia Gonzales. This book has been banned; as my colleague Dr. Roberto, a leader in this movement, stated to me, “So now you are banned.”
Flowers from the Same Garden
Two flowers from the same garden
we are.
separated from space and time,
neither one of us
with a contemporary nursery rhyme
to share with our children
whose raices are withering away
by a history, whose cup runs over
with lies, causing division between the two of us
ultimately trying to destroy our wills.
Two flowers from the same garden
we are.
half wilted, dried to the bone
one dying from cultural thirst
brought upon by philosophical poverty
scribbled on amerika’s chalkboards
in english only
teaching pedagogical nonsense
that we all have to the same;
la otra ready to visit the graveyard prematurely
dying from a sick amerikan attitude that says
“you are nothing but a dumb Mexican.”
Both thrust into toiling sun
ready to drown
from the polluted waters
of linguistic and cultural imperialism.
Two flowers from the same garden
we are.
suffering the same indignities.
Yet, we cast spells upon each other
like brujos with mixed potions
even though we are sisters and brothers
suffering from the same mixed emotions.
You exist on one side.
I live on the other.
When we see each other, we become
like strangers who have been told
that we come from different molds.
They call me pocho, bien mocho.
They call you mojado, bien maltratado.
They tell us we cannot
be flowers from the same garden
because you speak english and I spanish?
Yet, when the layers of the onion have been peeled off
you and I lay there, con raices mismas
tied to the same umbilical chord
that makes us who we are.
Two flowers from the same garden
we are.
one grown on our indigenous mother earth
the other on occupied land
unwilling to take a stand
both dying on barrio calles
filling cemeteries needlessly.
In reality, we are the conquered
whose destiny needs los remedios
de la curandera to heal las pesares de la vida.
Wake up brothers and sisters
and drink from the same cup of brotherhood
so that our garden may grow
and reach its true destiny.
Two flowers from the same garden
we are.
Ramón Del Castillo ©4/2000
Ramón Del Castillo is an independent journalist.
©2012 The Weekly Issue/El Semanario, Inc.
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