Misremember the Alamo!
Amselle, Jorge
MlSREMEMBER THE ALAMO! by Jorge Amselle Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15, independence day for most of Central America, to October 15. This year, the Hispanic press is portraying two...
...Pre-invasion Mexico "was a land of ancient cultures that prohibited anyone going hungry or homeless...
...Students are taught that, "for poor Chicanos and Indian people, the land is our mother—not private property...
...Today, by contrast, Mexico's wealth "goes to U.S...
...Jorge Amselle is communications director of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C...
...Yet it was in tiny Vaughn—with just 700 residents, almost all of them Hispanic—that the school board and superintendent objected to the teaching of racist Chicano history in the town's single school...
...Indeed, "like any police force, [the Rangers] exist to protect the property of the rich and to keep down the oppressed," says the book...
...In fact, the textbook they were using—500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez—teaches, above all, racial, ethnic, and class antagonism through relentless attacks on whites, Europeans, capitalism, and, of course, America...
...The United States is accused of "legalized murder" when it created the Texas Rangers, who act like a "terrorist force...
...The Immigration and Naturalization Service becomes "the Gestapo of Mexicans," responsible for "massive raids, detentions, and deportations, racist pursuit and even murder at the border...
...Conquest and Betrayal, We Are Now a U.S...
...When Patsy and Nadine Cordova refused to heed repeated warnings to stop using non-approved materials in their classes, they were fired, bringing down the wrath of the nationally organized radical-Hispanic establishment and its liberal allies...
...Written in Spanish and "Spanglish" and consisting mostly of pictures, this widely used book is in its third printing...
...The 1846 "War on Mexico" was an unprovoked U.S...
...Its propaganda message is pervasive...
...capitalists, whose domination of Mexico's economy is part of el imperialismo yankee" (the book spells Yankee both the English and the Spanish way...
...immigration authorities] has tracked down mexicanos at the border and killed them with guns or INS vehicles...
...Unfortunately, over 300 schools, colleges, and universities around the country are using 500 Years of Chi-cano History in Pictures as a classroom text...
...Colony, In Occupied America, and They Stole the Land...
...It is a means of survival, of production, that we both lost to the capitalist system and its values...
...This year, the Hispanic press is portraying two sisters, Nadine and Patsy Cordova, as martyrs for the Chicano-history movement...
...The two were junior-high and high-school teachers in Vaughn, New Mexico, until they were fired for teaching their students about Cesar Chavez and racial tolerance, or so they claim...
...Davey Crockett was a cannibal...
...Supporters of the sisters include the South West Organizing Project (the book's publisher), the University of New Mexico's Chicano-studies department, the Southwest Workers Union in San Antonio, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in Albuquerque, and the United Farm Workers union in California...
...Like hunters pursuing animal prey, La Migra [derogatory slang for U.S...
...invasion, and the "yanquis desgraciados" massacred innocent civilians...
...According to the book, the defenders of the Alamo were nothing but "slave owners, land speculators, and Indian killers...
...It's only these outside groups that are giving us a hard time," he said...
...The idea of private property did not exist...
...Herman Garcia, of the curriculum and instruction department at New Mexico State University, gave the Fresno Bee the inevitable explanation: "The racism of this region in New Mexico is such that many people of Mexican or IndoHispano origin proclaim that they have Spanish rather than Mexican blood...
...Thus, it recounts that Chicanos are not white but mestizo, "a people born from an act of destruction, a people born from an act of rape, a new people of America born to revolt...
...Its purpose is to "celebrate our resistance to being colonized and absorbed by racist empire builders...
...Andy Cordova, Vaughn's school board president and a cousin of the fired teachers, says that the vast majority of the people in Vaughn support the school board's actions...
...These practices have gone on for years...
...And Cordova added, "People here know who they are and where they come from, but this curriculum is not the way to go...
...How could it be that Hispanics would oppose the teaching of radical Chicano history...
...The chapter headings include Death to the Invader, U.S...
...The community does not agree with what the sisters were teaching...
...These groups led protests against the school board, accusing the Hispanic residents of Vaughn of being ashamed of their roots...
...It appears to be particularly popular in California...
...Predictably, with the assistance of the New Mexico Civil Liberties Union, the two fired teachers are suing the school for, among other things, violating their First Amendment rights...
...The introduction tells students that the book was published in response to the "Bicentennial celebration of the 1776 American Revolution, and its lies...
...Today they still serve the rich by repressing farm workers...
...We are all Americans and we need to come together, not alienate the Anglo students and residents...
Vol. 3 • October 1997 • No. 6
