A textbook proposed to help teach the cultural history of Mexican-Americans in Texas public schools is under scrutiny by scholars, some of whom decry the effort as racist and not a reflection of serious academic study.
The textbook, titled “Mexican American Heritage,” describes Mexican-Americans as people who “adopted a revolutionary narrative that opposed Western civilization and wanted to destroy this society.” It also links Mexican-Americans to undocumented immigrants, saying illegal immigration has “caused a number of economic and security problems” in the U.S. that include “poverty, drugs, crime, non-assimilation, and exploitation.”
The State Board of Education voted to include textbooks on Mexican-American studies after activists last year demanded the subject be formally included in state curriculum. “Mexican American Heritage” is the first textbook on the subject included in a list of proposed instructional materials.
“Paradoxically, we pressed for the board to include texts on Mexican-American studies, and we achieved it, but not in the way we were expecting,” Tony Diaz, host of Nuestra Palabra (Our Word) radio program in Houston and director of Intercultural Initiatives at Lone Star College-North Harris, told the Houston Chronicle. “Instead of a text that is respectful of the Mexican-American history, we have a book poorly written, racist, and prepared by non-experts.”
The Texas Education Agency says it followed standard procedure for the call to submit instructional materials for Mexican-American curriculums for the 2017-2018 school year.
Texans have until September to submit comments on the proposed instructional materials, said TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson. She also said the proposed textbooks will undergo review by a committee that includes teachers and administrators and that committee will make recommendations to the board.
Ultimately, books adopted by the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education in November become part of the recommended instructional materials for statewide curriculums, but school districts aren’t required to embrace them. Individual districts can use their state money to buy whatever textbooks they wish.
The book “is not a text that we have recommended nor we will be recommending,” says Douglas Torres-Edwards, coordinator of a TEA-approved Mexican-American studies course that has been implemented in some Houston Independent School District schools. “Frankly, that author is not recognized as someone who is part of the Mexican-American studies scholarship and most individuals engaged in scholarship will not recognize her as an author.”
The book is produced by Momentum Instruction, a company that appears to be owned or operated by Cynthia Dunbar, a member of the Texas State Board of Education from 2007 to 2011. Dunbar, a right-wing Christian activist who questioned the constitutionality of public schools in 2008, labeled the education system “tyrannical” when she published her book, “One Nation Under God,” while serving on the board.
The Chronicle was unable to reach Dunbar or any of the books other authors. A phone message and email to Momentum Instruction from The Associated Press were not immediately returned Monday.
The Texas Board of Education’s members sanction textbooks for use statewide in a process that has for years been marred by ideological fights over lessons on subjects including evolution, climate change and the influence of biblical figures such as Moses on America’s Founding Fathers.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.Â
if it tell the truth they don’t want it
Bravo-William !
So right, They can’t handle the truth. You can’t change history.
The truth may hurt but it is still the truth and needs to be told that way!! And what I read is very true!!!
Agree! I’m sure the resistance in the first place was caused by not being able to come up with a favorable TRUE account. Therefore, when it was forcefully urged, they had to tell the truth!
Be careful what you wish for!
History bears this out. It’s just like the black attitude about the Civil War, right or wrong, good or bad, it’s history. You can’t pick and choose what you want history to be. It is what it was.
So very true. Excellent example. Thank you!
Guess Mexicans don’t like the truth. Incidentally, there is no such animal as Mexican Americans . You are either Mexican or American. If you want to be Mexican , crawl back to the slime pit you oozed out of.
In our History, ( a am a degreed Historian with a field minor in Historical Research and did my Clinician’s work in the basement of the archives and documents dept of the Alamo. There were great Mexicans against Santa Ana, whose life in Texas they felt would be better than life in Mexico. Instead, we are not concentrating on making it MANDATORY for all High School Seniors to learn the Constitution, for if they do not, they will be indoctrinated as soon as they hit their dorms, I know, I was a Student Democrat for a Free Society. But we had a reason, boys I knew from High School not even hit their 19th birthdays were coming back in body bags due to Nixon’s illegal and unconstitutional invasion into Cambodia. Then Kent State Massacre happened as as Nixon himself said,”Our schools of higher learning are hotbeds of radicals and anarchists. I do not know about anarchists, but I knew many a school teacher who were Communists to “the few” and to everyone else they were Left wing voting Democrat Progressives. I was more of an Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin hippie than a black panthers one. Even Angela Davis–Black panthers and Bill Ayers now have lucrative professorships teaching our kids to undermine America at ever turn. So if we do not and begin yesterday to have out students grounded in the Constitution and the founders, They will be indoctrinated before they step out of their parent’s car and into their new colleges. I saw this first hand. But we stood for something, against a corrupt govt who was engaged in an illegal war that was killing our kids. And NO ONE has ever been held accountable for the 4 murders and the many injuries inflicted by David Rockefeller (the then Gov of Ohio) calling in the National guard and shooting kids who were the furthest away, from a range of 250 feet, the more non vocal ones.They will rule us if we do not do this and do this yesterday. As it is no one can tell me the difference between the Republican/Conservative and the Left Wing voting Democrat Progressive party, and I do not mean anti this or pro that’s, for those are social issues but the fundamental differences, not the 250 cap subjects that has burgeoned into over 350+people. THAT IS THE MOST FRIGHTENING. For these uninformed “citizens” are going to the polls and just because they may believe in same sex marriage does not mean they have to agree with Obama & Company’s failed policies. Although we do not believe in it, we do not send them on their way. if they knew that the Democrats want the society you are born into give you, or not your rights, and that your rights come from Government, there would be very few Democrats out there. We believe that God gave us those rights and the individual comes before Society. Even if you do not believe in a God, then by the reason of Natural law and as an individual you have certain rights that cannot be taken and we send reps to DC to secure these rights for us. Democrats believe, as Hillary parroted Hitler both saying that SOCIETY MUST COME BEFORE THE INDIVIDUAL! If more people who claim to be Democrats knew this, there would be fewer of them.
I agree with Kathy. As an American of Mexican decent; I will never forget my first Political Science class at UCSB. It was ‘taught’ by a Eastern European, full blown, un-apologetic Communist Professor. I remember thinking – what’s up with this? So, the problem begins the first day at University. The Constitution is anathema to the NWO. For those who think that affirmative is a ‘bad thing’ – I’m here to tell you that the largest deposit of Latino professionals in to Society at large is a direct result of these programs. If you don’t believe me: send your kids to High School in the barrios and ghettos of any major city and see if they can compete with kids from the Westside or San Fernando Valley come SAT time. Most Latinos…like everyone else just want a brighter future for their kids, and are Not interested in a ‘Reconquista’ – which is a lot of garbage pushed by Soros and others. The Constitution of the United States are the Most hallowed words, outside of Holy Scripture, Ever committed to paper.
The only way universities could stop this crap is to monitor classes, fact check what professors are teaching and censor those that have an obvious agenda. However most universities are controlled by people that are so far to the left they make Stalin and Mao look downright conservative, so that will never happen unless parents decide to send their little darlings to colleges that actually do this. Money talks. I don’t see that happening either so we just continue to seek our own demise. The other problem is the fact that we have been told over and over unless one has a college degree they will go no where so we end up with a lot of dumb-ass kids that shouldn’t be there anyway taking Bull-shit courses because that’s all they can pass that are being taught by these subverses and they are too stupid to realize they are being hoo-dooed.
The liberal progressives are hell bent on ‘Revisionist History’, not the way history transpired and was written, but the way THEY want it to be, to suit THEIR philosophy.
If one were to listen to the racist diatribe of Al Sharpton, the black race ENGINEERED Egypts pyramids. Really (Rev.???) Sharpdum.
1984 is here. The leftist riots in New Mexico prove they will be willing to kill to get their way. Breaking windows and throwing things that they lit on fire are just the warning shots. There’s no stopping them because they have the support of those who could stop them. The left and the super elite are on the same side – the ultimate irony.
Check out pictures in Denver Airport. That is just the beginning.