Project Plan - Mexican American History

Mexican American/Chicano history is substantially absent from public school textbooks and curriculum in California- and it has been since 1986. Latino student political non participation and disconnectedness is significantly caused by Latino absence from the K-12 textbooks and curriculum.

http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2015/03/scholars-teachers-activists-join-in-our.html

Update: Jan 3, 2016.

Mexican American Digital History Project

Campaign to change the California History Framework. Jan. 2016.

By Duane Campbell

The Mexican American Digital History Project and a broad group of allies have been working for over a year to add Chicano history to the California History/Social Science Framework, the document that determines what goes into textbooks in California.

For example see here. http://choosingdemocracy.blogspot.com/2015/04/teachers-we-need-your-letters-on.html and numerous posts on this site.

The Quality Instructional Materials Commission of the California State Board of Education have posted their proposed revised framework and it includes most of what we proposed.

Comments from teachers and community members is welcome.

The IQC approved the draft History–Social Science Framework for California Public Schools for its second review on November 20, 2015. The approved draft is posted on the History–Social Science Curriculum Frameworks Web page at

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/hssfw2ndreview.asp.

Going forward, any new public comments will be submitted as part of the second review process.

Members of the public are invited to submit comments on the draft History–Social Science Framework through February 29, 2016, via e-mail to HSSframework@cde.ca.gov. Comments may be submitted in any format, but if a commenter is seeking revisions to the draft it is recommended that the comment include the chapter, page, and line number(s), the text as it is currently written in the draft, and the exact language of the suggested change.

Comments received after February 29, 2016 will be forwarded to the State Board of Education (SBE), but will not be considered by the History–Social Science Subject Matter Committee of the Instructional Quality Commission when it prepares its advisory report to the SBE on the second field review.

For information follow: www.antiracismdsa.blogspot.com

Contact us at www.MexicanAmericanDigitalHistory.org

Or, campd22702@gmail.com

See original timeline for this project. 2014; Updated on May 7, 2015

What you can do.

1. Look over the draft History/Social Science Framework for California Schools.

(or take my suggestions and guides to specific pages https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/Home/latino-students-and-civic-engagement/project-plan---mexican-american-history/draft--framework)

2. Let me know that you plan to write a letter.

3. Write a letter to the Framework Committee encouraging the inclusion of Mexican American/Latino history in

the framework.

4 Send your letter to hssframework@cde.ca.gov before July 1, 2015.

5. Send a copy to Mexican American Digital History Project at campd22702@gmail.com

This background information is available for your use.

Write Chicano History Into the California State Textbooks.

http://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2015/03/write-chicano-history-into-california.html

The proposed draft framework is here.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/hssfwforfieldreview.asp

Sources of more information include:

https://sites.google.com/site/chicanodigital/

The most likely place to add information is in the U.S. History 11^th grade course. The draft only mentions of Mexican American and Latinos in this course are on pages 340- 351.

Lines, 1665, Line 1776, Line 1881, Line 1882, Line 1959, line 2041. The excerpts from these pages are on the following pages.

6. Sample letter: please rewrite in your own words. Feel free to add your own ideas and comments.

Sample 1.

To: History/Social Science Committee.

re: Need for Latino history included in the draft Framework for History/Social Science.

[ Write a sentence or two about yourself. Are you a teacher, a scholar ? Why do you care?

Then,

Option 1.

On Line 2014, Page 351 Amend the description to include:

From 1994 on, political campaigns in California and other states pass a series of anti-immigrant propositions and laws ( Prop.187. Prop.227). All but one provision of Prop.187 was blocked by the federal courts citing U.S. constitutional protections. In 1996 the Immigration Reform Act passed by U.S. Congress provides for increased border enforcement and benefit cuts.

From 2003 political conflict and controversy become national issues along with low quality public schools and lack of employment opportunities. In response the Latino community becomes increasingly politically active, increasing their voter registration and participation, changing the political make up of first the California legislature, then the federal congress. Latinos become the largest ethnic group in California 2010, a plurality of all residents, and Latino children become more than 51% of the public school students.

I propose that you include the above in a revised framework.

Sample 2.

For example, a massive high school student strike in 1968 against racism in the barrio schools of East Los Angeles, California, ignited the emergence of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement throughout the Southwest. Thirteen Chicano civil rights activists were indicted for conspiracy to organize those student strikes and faced 66 years in prison. The charges were dropped 2 years later based on the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The book "Racism on Trial:The Chicano Fight for Justice" by Ian F. Haney Lopez is a study of that trial. In 1969, the Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado, hosted the "Chicano Liberation Youth Conference" that issued a radical manifesto, "El Plan de Azlan", that called for the decolonization of the Mexican American people from the values of the dominant white culture and promote indigenous culture as the corner stone of Chicano and Chicana identityThe same year another confere.nce of largely student activists held in Santa Barbara, California, issued a document, "El Plan de Santa Barbara", calling for the establishment of Chicano Studies at colleges and universities in California. In 1970, another high school strike in Crystal City, Texas, gave gave birth to the independent Chicano La Raza Unida Party to challenge the dominant Republican and Democratic parties throughout the United States. "Youth, Identity,Power:The Chicano Movement" by Carlos Muñoz, Jr. is a history of the Chicano Movement.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dr. Carlos Muños,

Sample 3.

From: Lorena V. Márquez, Lecturer, Department of Chicana/o Studies at UCD

To: History Social Science Framework committee hssframework@cde.ca.gov

RE: Recommendation for amendments:

I strongly urge you to revise the current draft of the History/Social Science Framework to include a more adequate recording of the history of California and the nation by including the significant contributions of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to this history. You really can’t have a fair and balanced history without including more information on this topic. Latinos comprise nearly 39% of the state population, and descendants of Mexican Americans and Latinos now constitute over 52% of the students in our schools. These students deserve to learn their own history.

I recommend extension of the description of the Chicano movement to more adequately address this issue. Recommended additions: Line 1959. Page 348.

The Chicano Movement emerged as an instance in the historical trajectory of Mexican American political activism. Like its immediate antecedent, the Black Power Movement, it was constructed in opposition to the pacifist and integrationist rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s and 1950s. By the mid-1960s Chicano youth challenged the old, integrationist orientations of their predecessors. The Chicano Movement, however, was not a unified entity. It was multi-stranded and broadly diverse, with many internal fissures and local correlations. In its idealized form, the Chicano Movement, hoped to link people through goals, culture, and perceived notions of community. Chicanos across the Southwest and beyond, demanded change to their subordinate standing in the U.S. They argued, that like African Americans, they had suffered discrimination and systematic oppression. Today, it remains unmatched in its ability to reach an ethnic population across a vast geographic region.

The Chicano Movement began in 1965 in Delano, California when Dolores Huerta and Cesar E. Chávez, founders of the National Farm Workers Association (later it became the United Farm Workers union), led a national boycott against table grape growers in the region because they failed to recognize their collective bargaining rights. Chávez, the president of the farm workers union, and the farm worker struggle, became the face of Chicano protest and struggles. While the United Farm Workers union brought national and even international recognition to the plight of Chicanos for labor rights, it had overarching consequences. Many young Chicanas and Chicanos felt connected to the farm worker struggle even though the majority resided in urban areas and had never themselves worked in the California agricultural industry.

An entire generation of mostly young Chicanas and Chicanos identified as an oppressed racial group and unlike their predecessors saw themselves as an “ethnic minority,” like African Americans. Although they were legally “white,” Mexican Americans had been subjected to generations of institutional and social discrimination and racism. They self-identified as Chicanas/os and claimed to be brown, not white. Copying from the African American slogans, they espoused “Brown is Beautiful!” This new generation wanted to know why, despite the wealth and power of the U.S., there was so much poverty, inequality, racism, and sexism? By 1968, the Chicano Movement had evolved from the countryside to the cities.

The first to demonstrate in mass were Chicana and Chicano high school students who walked out of their schools in protest of poor and inadequate educational conditions. On March 1, 1968, students from Wilson, Lincoln, Garfield, Belmont, and Roosevelt High Schools in East Los Angeles walked out of their high school as they grew frustrated with the administration’s inability to understand their cultural and educational needs. These were largely segregated Mexican high schools and had been neglected by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for some time. By week’s end, 10,000 high school and even middle school students had joined the Walkouts. The students outlined a list of 36 demands which they presented to the LAUSD Board of Directors. Some of these demands included: the hiring of Chicana/o teachers and administrators, formation of Chicano Studies courses, culturally sensitive teachers, and bilingual education. Unfortunately, these students were met by a brutal police backlash. When the parents of these students saw that the Los Angeles Police Department began beating and arresting peaceful demonstrators it spurred them to action and they began to add pressure to the LAUSD as well. Up until this point, few young Chicanas/os had engaged in this type of demonstration. They believed in change and hoped for a better tomorrow for those themselves and those that followed.

Send via e mail to hssframework@cde.ca.gov. Urgent. It must arrive prior to May 1,2015.

The proposed framework. http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/hssfwforfieldreview.asp You are encouraged to comment on any part of the Framework that interests you.

Thank you for the work that you do.

The Mexican American Digital History project encourages analysis. Please send your analysis and letters you have sent to campd22702@gmail.com