Mexican American Education Project

The Mexican American Education Project at Sacramento State- CSU-Sacramento. Project Co-directors Steve Arvizu and Duane Campbell, along with Ricardo Torres, Cesar Chavez, Fr. Keith Kenny and others during a training visit in Sacramento. ca. 1972. Photo courtesy of Hector Gonzalez.

Mexican American Education Project. By Duane Campbell.

The Mexican American Education Project was established in 1968 directed by Clark Taylor, in the Department ofAnthropology on the campus (1968–1973). The project was an attempt to prepare educational change agents to overcome the decades of educational neglect suffered by Mexican American students in schools. The U.S. Office of Education first funded the program as an Experienced Teacher Fellowship Program. We recruited Mexican American Teachers and others to prepare them as change agents. Some of the students in this program include Olivia Castellano, Jose Montoya, Steve Arvizu, Rene Merino, Dolores Delgado (Campbell), and Armando Ayala.

The program was originally located in the Department of Anthropology. The degree granted was an MA in Social Science with an emphasis in Anthropology. The project produced significant funds for the university ($5 million in five years) and led to the hiring of many new Chicano and Mexicano faculty. At the founding of the program in 1968, the CSU system only had 30 Mexican American graduate students in the entire system. The effort at Sacramento produced 25 graduate students each year in Sacramento alone. The mission of this project was to improve the educationalopportunities of Mexican, Chicano and migrant students in California. The author (Duane Campbell )was hired in 1969 by the project to develop a curriculum intervention system. We began to work with Dos Rios Elementary School in North Sacramento as a laboratory school site and he was later appointed as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education.

Dr. Campbell became the co-director of the MAEP in 1970 for one year. After three years of focus on school change, the Mexican American EducationProject began to place increased emphasis on the School of Education. Courses were developed in the School on Teaching English as a Second Language and a reform of the existing course, "Teaching the Culturally Disadvantaged" was insisted upon. The School of Education also had a Teacher Corp program from 1972–1974, which brought many ethnic minority students to the School.

During 1970- 1974 period, federal funds were designed for capacity building. A goal of the MAEP was to develop enough faculty to sustain the program with state funds. In the 1971–1973 period, student activism on the campus, often including the students in the Mexican American Education Project (MAEP), helped to establish the Ethnic Studies and Chicano Studies programs on campus.

Dr. Tom Carter, an established authority on education of Mexican Americans became Dean of the School of Education in 1972. In 1973–74, the MAEP completed its funding. In 1974, Dr. Robert Segura, in Education received a grant for an Experienced Teacher Fellowship Program (Title VII) and later a future teachers program. Rene Merino transferred from Anthropology to become the Assistant Director of this program. Adela Fernandez was the office manager. These federal projects became one of the sources for the development of the Department of Bilingual/Multicultural Education.

The new program prepared Experienced Teachers in Education to work with Mexican American children. Teachers received up to $5,000 per year to take a year off and to work on their Masters Degree in Education. By 1976, the funding Title VII programs were transferred to local school districts and to doctoral programs at other universities. Doctoral programs are far more expensive, and therefore most funds were used up and few funds remained available for our students. We could usually pay only tuition and fees. We had developed a graduate program in multicultural education during the period of Title VII funding.

[The following narrative is a transcription of a conversation between Dr. Duane Campbell and Dr. Ella Diaz regarding the Mexican American Education Project, which was implemented between 1968 and 1975 at CSU Sacramento. Dr. Diaz asked questions to which Dr. Campbell responded.

October 4^th 2010, 11 a.m. at the University Union]

Dr. Ella Diaz: What in a nutshell was the MAEP?

The Mexican American Education Project began in 1968 and ’69. That first year, under Clark Taylor, there were 15 Anglo students and 5 Chicanos. It was an Experienced Teacher Fellowship Program. The Anglo students were teachers who wanted to work with Chicanos. This was the year in which Frank Bautista, Steve Arvizu and Senon Valadez entered the program. They took issue with the ratio and demanded that more Chicano students be part of MAEP.

The next year, 1969 and ’70, there were 15 Chicanos and 5 Anglos. At this time, Steve Arvizu became co-director of the MAEP—in 1970. I came on as a Curriculum Director. I had completed my Doctorate in History from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh and am originally from Iowa. The 15 Chicano students for the 1969 – ’70 year included Armando Ayala, José Montoya, Olivia Castellano, Petra Valadez, Juan Carrillo and others. Ayala was important; he developed the VIP, or the Valle Inter-Cultural Program, a culture and language program that impacted this entire region of Northern California. In the 1970-’71 year of MAEP, we reached out to students from Texas. Dolores Delgado [Campbell] , Ambrosio Melendez, Josue Gonzalez entered this year, among others.

Essentially the funding for the MAEP was huge for the time period—about $5.5 million dollars. With this funding, we were attempting to immediately staff several departments at CSU Sacramento. Our argument was that the demographics of the state made it important for them to hire a Chicano studies professor to meet the needs of these students. For example, we approached music, art, sociology, English, government, history, and theater, among others. Their frequent response was to agree with us on the need, but to say that they just did not have the faculty position available. We would then respond that we would hire this professor this year for your department and next year, you should get a position and fill it. We did this during a 3 to 4 year period.

Olivia Castellano was a graduate student in MAEP. She instructed in English and Chicano/a Literature for many years at CSU Sacramento. Henry Trueba was also a former professor in Anthropology at CSUS and very important to MAEP. He was an ex-Dominican Priest from Mexico and a renowned Anthropologist. He came onto MAEP in 1971- ’72. He also published a long list of books. One was Latinos Unidos. Basically, a lot of people travelled through here [CSUS]. MAEP was a portal for opportunity and advancement. Sue Herreria, for example, is department chair for BMED at CSU Sacramento. Richard Torres is a counselor for EOP. Both were a part of MAEP. Torres was MAEP secretary from 1970 to 1974. He was instrumental in planning the Northern California group participating in the Chicano Moratorium rallies in 1970. Senon Valadez was a professor of Anthropology and a teacher for the MAEP. The anthropology department here hired him. They were initially reluctant because his doctorate was in education rather than anthropology. He completed his career here and retired from CSUS about 4 years ago.

Dr. Ella Diaz: Tell me about Eugene Morris?

Eugene Morris was one of the original CSU Sacramento Foundation accountants who kept the budget for the MAEP. I met him in 1969-’70. I recall that he was intimidated by the price tags for various equipment. For example, the MAEP tended to film a lot of our activities and this required film equipment, which is typically expensive. He was suspicious of these purchases. To be fair, the MAEP had some growing pains and in the beginning did some sloppy record keeping. But Morris’s issues with the MAEP were deeper than financial record keeping. He may have had a problem with Clark Taylor’s sexuality as well as Mexican Americans.

Another crisis for Morris was the MAEP trips to Mexico. In 1969-’70, the directors of MAEP, beginning with Taylor, designed these extended trips to Mexico, specifically to rural pueblos and in places like Southern Mexico—Oaxaca. The rationale was that our Mexican American students needed to experience culture shock; see, many of the MAEP students identified as Mexican or Mexican American. By experiencing Mexico in a non-filtered way, they began to realize that their identities and cultures were very different than those of Mexico. So we aimed to produce an identity conflict in order for the students to clarify their Chicano/a identities. In 1971, Trueba changed aspects of the trip, bringing more archeological knowledge to the student experience by having them also tour the historical sites of pre-Colombian civilizations.

But Morris had a problem with the financing of these trips; and he especially did not like it when Arvizu would travel before the student trips to make arrangements. See, Arvizu would be gone for up to 6 weeks, making arrangements—accommodations, etc.—for our students. Morris did not understand that we were placing the students in remote and rural areas, and not at destination sites for tourism. Arrangements had to be made.

Another problem occurred when our MAEP undergrads began to participate, especially the young women. One undergrad for MAEP, Marta Pineda Bustamante (1971 or ’72 year) was not a young woman. She was the Chairman for the advisory committee for the MAEP and about 45 years of age. She was a community-based person and a major organizer for the Alkali Flat. Anyway, she heard about inappropriate behavior in Oaxaca and filed complaints upon her return.

After 1972, the new dean of education was Tom Carter, who was an expert on Mexican American education and formerly a scholar at the U.S Commission of Civil Rights. Carter began to provide normal, institutional supervision of the program. In 1976, when bilingualism becomes law in California, many of the MAEP efforts move to the School of Education. Between 1972 to ’75, bilingualism and bilingual education in the MAEP was nebulous. After 1976, Bilingual Education is established. Bilingual Education becomes a department in 1994 at CSU Sacramento, one of three in the state at that time. I was the first Chair. The point is the historical pattern—from the MAEP to the Bilingual Education Department—the latter would not have happened without the former.

End.

October 4, 2010

11 a.m. at the CSU Sacramento University Union

[The following narrative is a transcription of a second conversation between Dr. Duane Campbell and Dr. Ella Diaz regarding the Mexican American Education Project, which was implemented between 1968 and 1975 at CSU Sacramento. Dr. Diaz asked questions to which Dr. Campbell responded. November 11, 2010 at Java City, downtown Sacramento, CA.]

Dr. Ella Diaz: Did the MAEP come out of funds from President Johnson’s War on Poverty legislation?

Not directly. MAEP developed out of the Experienced Teachers Fellowship Program [ETFP], funded through the National Defense Education Act. The NDEA became law in 1958 and was conceived to upgrade national education on every level—elementary, secondary and university. The Department of Education oversaw several sections for this NDEA and Special Education was one of them. The funding for the Experienced Teachers Fellowship Program [ETFP] came from Special Education and eventually funded the MAEP. The legislation called the War on Poverty, and the legislation called ESEA were distinct. They certainly had the same advocate in Lyndon B. Johnson and came from the same perspective. Johnson saw education as a way to lessen poverty.

Dr. Ella Diaz: Why was the ETFP and the MAEP funded through special education?

There was an overrepresentation of Mexican Americans in Special Education at the time of the creation of the ESEA program and funding. The overrepresentation of Mexican Americans in Special Education was obviously because of language barriers, but as young educators, we also tried to explain that there were cultural barriers that couldn’t be solved solely with bilingual education. This was the point of the ETFP—to create a teaching force that was skilled in Mexican American identity, experience and culture. But yes, while the MAEP did not originate through War on Poverty Funds, the ETFP was connected. In fact, Johnson introduced and Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act [ESEA] in 1965, which is now known as the ‘No Child Left Behind Act.’

Title 7 came of out the ESEA—and, again title 7 is the bilingual education program. But one of the titles of Johnson’s ESEA would also have been the Experienced Teacher Fellowship Program. I had participated in an ESEA program while I was at Carnegie Mellon, doing my graduate work in history, prior to coming to CSU Sacramento and working through the special education section. We realized that we needed to add a Prospective Teachers Program to the Experienced Teachers Program in order to effect change in the Mexican American communities—that we had to set up a recruitment system that would help get people their degrees and their teaching training. Essentially, we needed to start earlier in the educational process of elementary and secondary teachers that worked with Mexican American students. It was a four and half year program and these were the ‘felitos.’ (i.e. Little fellows) If you would like to see a list / roster of all the students who participated, you should look at an M.A. thesis on the MAEP by Arturo Cardosa and Steve Aguilar. It should be in the CSUS library.

I would also like to add that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the culture wars materialized and a national campaign against programs like Bilingual Education and multicultural education was set in motion. For example, somewhere in North Sacramento California, a teacher who had not matriculated through the MAEP or ETFP? created a “Mayan Math” class for secondary students. Now this course, of course was informed by romanticized notions of culture and neo-indigenous rhetoric; but it was only one failure amongst hundreds of courses that had proven effective and deeply impacted Mexican American school children performance. Nevertheless, the Mayan Math Class became the example around which rich educators like Diane Ravitch framed their attack on multicultural platforms in education as well as neoliberal agendas to recall the measures of inclusivity and diversity that we had made in the curriculum. The case Ravitch uses in probably in “Education Still Matters,” (1978). [i]Raviitch went on to write the History/Social Science Framework which continues to shape California history textbooks to this day. Now it’s interesting that in 2010, it’s almost certain that Bilingual Education will be abolished at CSU Sacramento; the administration is blaming the economic crisis.

[i] Ravitch, “Education Still Matters,” Phi Delta Kappan and The Revisionists Revised: A Critique of the Radical Attack on the Schools. Basic Books. 1978.