Transcript of Paulo Freire Centennial Film Series - ¡Lucha Sí!, Precious Knowledge

[Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] good evening and welcome my name is marguerite horberg i'm the founder and director of hot house it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to our second program in our year-long series celebrating paulo fieri the renowned educator and philosopher we started the series in september and we have many programs to come running through april of 2022 so please check out our schedule and come back for all the programs tonight we are celebrating and recognizing the extraordinary accomplishments of educators who championed popular education in the latin and hispanic heritage showing two movies precious knowledge and lucha see and joined by wonderful speakers camille geronimo lopez and jose lopez the purpose of our series is really to lift up and call to action and celebrate many of the people who've worked in the the intersection of popular education literacy activism and social justice and each month we highlight struggles from those campaigns which have been victorious and successful i'm going to turn over tonight's program to our host rita sakay who will introduce the speakers and talk a little bit about the film if if you're so inclined we'd really appreciate your support you can donate to hot house at hothouse.net in the chats we'll put the links and paypal uh also in on twitch if you scroll below the image there's a link to donate there your support helps keep these programs free and we really appreciate that so without further ado i'd like to turn over tonight's program to rita thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next month next month i should say november 17th we are exploring some of the campaigns that took place in alaska in the elute bay with indigenous peoples month and we'll be joined by judy hoffman dwarin reese and sandy grande so please tell your friends and come back and without further ado please welcome rita sakay thank you hi i am rita sakai and we are here today for the second program of the year of education in honor of uh paulo freitas centennial we are here today with jose lopez and a camille geronimo now jose lopez was born in 1950s in san sebastian puerto rico and he moved with his family in 1959 to chicago as part of the massive puerto rican migration to the united states for over 40 years he has been a leading member of the puerto rican independence movement and he is also the editor of the puerto rico nationalism reader now camille geronimo is a doctoral student of lifelong learning and adult education at the penn state university she has a master degree in social work from the university of puerto rico camille has contributed to social justice movements as a popular educator accompanying organizing processes of communities cooperatives social and political organizations in 2017 she founded the pueblo critical a non-profit organization led by social workers focused on the design of popular education experiences methodologies board games and planning tools now i would like to introduce the films that we are going to be watching today uh those are two important films that reflect social movements to empower the communities in demand and demand a better education both films take place in two u.s geographical locations the first being in tucson arizona and the second in puerto rico the first short film lucha c portrays the mobilization of teachers led by the teacher union parents and the students when the secretary of education threatened to close the school after a climb disaster in this film when the community understood the impact of a privatization of the schools and who would end up suffering from that they started mobilizing together in one strong movement the second film of precious knowledge portrays high school teachers teaching students about their history their ancestors through american government and the spanish literature to value their history and heritage both adopt the social justice perspective to their pedagogy which is the teaching the facts that are not taught in the textbook for that they use the word truth teaching the truth now these teachers adopt the paulo phrase principles and we are about to witness the students embodiment of freitas principles as they demand demanded not to remove ethnic studies on the high school curriculum and i would like to um so to ask jose and camille um what were your impressions of both movies and uh what is it that caught what was the most important piece of the movies for you we can start we can start with anyone yeah um well i'll i'll go ahead then um and then um we you can go um jose um so i i like the movies i actually hadn't seen them before so it was the first time um it was interesting because i did recognize the organizing in puerto rico logically i was born and raised there and i only just recently came to the to the us to pursue doctoral studies so part of the mobilizations of the international workers day i have been in those so it felt um it filled my heart basically to see those things on the screen and i think the two movies present good opportunities to discuss um some of paulo freitas principles for example the defense of public education a critique of schooling that paolo freire engages in with and problem-based education or emancipatory pedagogy and and we can't discuss that but from the get-go that was like my first strong reaction to these films yes yes um that's that's true participatory education engagement and uh yes uh those these are one of the tenants of paolo freitas in his education for some people called education for liberation education for autonomy and also but they are all like a fall in under the same category i would say now how about you jose um what do you think about the movies well let me just clarify something and that is that um at the beginning you said that it takes place in two parts of the united states puerto rico's colonial situation with the united states and that came out very clear in the film is a real problem because most people know very little about puerto rico and puerto rico has been ruled since 1898 under the doctrine of separate and unequal in 1901 the supreme court of the united states made that decision and in 1922 it was upheld uh under belsic versus the people of puerto rico that puerto rico belongs to but it's not a part of the united states puerto rico is a piece of property of the united states and in addition to that i think it's really important that you have in this film the articulation of this oversight board that is a total um colonial um classical colonial practice um in which you have these men and women who are named by the president and the congress and can make all the decisions about puerto rico in terms of the purse string whoever controls the first string has the power so that tells you but it's really important to understand that puerto rico is this is a decision the supreme court begins in 1901 puerto rico was taken over in 1898 and by um 1896 we know that the jim crow laws are instituted in the u.s and that doctrine that shaped the um the jim crow laws was separate and equal in the case of puerto rico is separate but unequal and that is because the puerto rican people were framed as a mangrove race that could never ever hope to be equal to american citizens even though american citizenship was imposed on puerto ricans in 1917 but that that citizenship gave puerto ricans two rights the right to leave puerto rico without papers like happened to my family and to millions of puerto ricans who now live in the united states 5.5 million of us residing here and the right to die for the united states because then you can serve in its armed forces and puerto ricans have been in the u.s armed forces dying for the united states since 1917. so i want to make sure that at least the context and and i think to speak about paulo freide is to speak about a concept which was so important to him the concept of consciention and for him all education had to be framed around education for what and for him that was the basic question and it had to be education to be able to address from people who are experiencing because i understand that some people have in many ways um sort of put paolo freide in the context of class and i definitely understand that but plato paolo freide has to be put in the context of colonialism and what he was talking about was informed a great deal by what was happening in brazil itself and when we look at brazil brazil is an epitome of a neo-colonial reality and when we speak about brazil is who are the people that have been left out of brazilian history and so one of pablo's freya's first book was not a pedagogy of the oppressed his first book which very few people cite is vivir et lutar which means to live is to struggle and that little book he really focuses on the idea of how education must lead to liberation so for him education had to be guided for people who are in a colonial situation who had to rediscover themselves because they had been taken out of history they had to it had to be informed by the right of self-determination the right of self-actualization and the right to self-reliance so i want for us to frame this discussion also in that context and when i see the film about tucson it's pretty much about a practice of colonial rule in which you take the natives and the colonized people out of history and what paolo freitas said cabral said even earlier that the colonialists take us out of history by saying that we have no history says they lie they took us out of history and through the process of decolonization we mean to place ourselves into history so education has to be a process of liberation [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'll leave it up [Music] me [Music] after the hurricane the devastation was catastrophic in our country [Music] my name is mercedes martinez and i'm the president of the fmpr the teachers federation from puerto rico as julia kelleher was appointed by affaf which is a new office that works directly with the oversight fiscal control board it's composed of seven members that were not elected by the people of puerto rico and as a result of the promesa law that was approved by president barack obama so julia kelleher is working for the oversight fiscal control board that wants to save millions of dollars in education creating severe austerity measures in the public education systems [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a be a [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] and bill gates foundation the bose foundation the dalton family all this one percent of the world you know the ones that domain the the wealth want more they just want more and they want to destroy everything they have in their way to do it in this case they want to destroy public education in order to privatize to make schools for profit for their friends and the friends of their friends and eliminate public education as they did in new orleans after the hurricane katrina and that's a plan not only for new orleans as a plan for all the states and that's a plan for puerto rico we have no charter schools in puerto rico we've never had them they've tried and we fought back and we have been able to to stop them but now they approve law 85 which permits charter implementation in 10 of our schools and voucher programs so they can fund private schools with public money puerto rico is right now facing the biggest attack on public education that it has ever faced and is the the attack is so big the response of the people has to be at the same amount very powerful so that's what make first was all about and the other steps that we need to take from now on [Music] on international workers day about a dozen organizations including activist groups and workers unions rallied at puerto rico's financial district to protest the new austerity measures proposed by the federally appointed fiscal control board the organizations marched from different points in san juan [Music] [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] then all of a sudden the police started throwing the gas thousands joined the annual mayday march to add their voice of protest over tough new austerity measures cuts to pensions hurricane recovery efforts in school okay their children students from the university of puerto rico that all that they are doing is fighting for public education and higher education for all but when they started throwing the tear gas they ran after them till they're to their houses and they arrested the students got hurt students got beaten down they it was a show an obsessive show of fours and they want to silence us you know they want us to be scared and students are brave and students are not scared students are not going to back down a in order for you to face that in order for you to fight that back you have to organize [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] i know [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] personally i've been here 20 years not only i'm the t-shirt and i feel like grandma because some of the first kids that i that i teach i had the kids now so i feel like grandma this is family here i had sisters sister from life how many schools are there right now there are 1100 schools on the whole island on entire line yeah they wanted to shut down like 33 percent of the schools wow [Music] 16 schools were removed from the list the day after may 1st obviously they are feeling the pressure [Music] on [Music] [Music] schools have started to do occupations there so this is parents who are doing occupations of the schools yeah parents and and teachers and community leaders everybody has joined together to defend you know their schools [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] that is illegal that we can't pay that 72 billion dollar debt that it needs to be abolished that we want the jones act to be abolished so we can commerce with countries that want to help puerto rico that have been denied the right to do so that we don't want any more sturdy measures against our children [Music] puerto rico has been a colony first by spain and the spanish really attempted to eradicate our original puerto ricans which were the taino indians and fortunately you know we're incredible the taino indians merged with our black african slaves that were bought to work beyond the island by the spanish and created the cimarrones and so simarons were the first urban guerrillas here in puerto rico then of course the united states invaded us if you look at latin america or any any nations of struggle you come to a puerto rico says oh my puerto rico's a paradise it's paradise invaded embedded by u.s imperialism you know i really believe that my nation is a people of resistance you know for a country 35 by 100 miles to be able to get the united states navy out of vieques to be able to bring home 11 my co-continents and oscar lopez who was my co-defendant out of federal prisons i think we have a lot of power a puerto rico has been long enough being a colony first from spain for almost 400 years and from the us for more than 100 years i think what i think that independence itself would not do it has to be independence with socialism you know this is a class struggle where the workers are the ones that ruled our country so that's what i i hope for and that's why we are fighting and that's what we want to build for for our children [Applause] [Music] we know what the agenda is it is to go in there and build their hotels and build their condos and bring more white rich folks there to create their own little islands where they can sip martinis and do whatever they want in those spaces and have the very brown people that that was their history and their culture be the servants we know what it looks like we see it in detroit where they close hundreds of schools and parents and students are dealing with the aftermath of that we are clear what their agenda is and it is not it is not about giving black and brown parents choice we have a governor and governor cuomo who has done everything in his eight years to dismantle what public education looks like and ensure that his rich hedge fund billionaires the same ones that that have bankrupted puerto rico let's be clear are over here getting what they want here too which is more charter schools the dismantling of public and parent voice and youth voice and what happens in public education and the sabotage of our public schools here by not funding our public schools of which 4.2 billion dollars is old so we're here in solidarity where else would we be it's absolutely make six since we are black and brown people we see across this country that we are clearly under attack on all levels we will not we will not allow one of the last public bastions that we have right now to be dismantled and so just like every every other time in history when people come for us we come right back at them and we stand in solidarity as parents as educators as young people as people just care about children to say no more no more [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] when i when i think about protecting your history and in the u.s it would be the indigeneity of our like latino community of course not all latinos are indigenous but um most of the students that are left out are um what we call brown people and black people black and brown people and in our countries in latin america we do have this mix we have the indigenous people we have the black people and that brazil is an example of that so um this is an important point and uh um so i was not familiar with that book that you mentioned i'm going to look for it yes yeah and then you may should mentioned conscientiousness so which we you know we sometimes hear as critical consciousness and so this phenomenon of bring consciousness but not only circumciente right it's not only be conscious about what's going on it's a very target consciousness so you need to be aware of and in the movie they say institutions right the power of this power play between institution and everybody else the people the students so i think um i want to add that um i think paulo freida in later in his later books he talked about he was able to come up with some methodology to teach right um so and uh this teacher i think that his name is jose the american government teacher he mentioned that he mentioned reading the world which is being able to see what happened what this power play who is benefiting from that who is getting rich and who is losing from that who is suffering so um i think um this is part of his methodology which um uh i i call critical literacy and uh you may have heard camille you may have heard it too but it's in terms of literacy it so he to me he's one of his greatest greatest contributions is to create this methodology of read the world and yet you read the word which is the discipline it american government or spanish literature to give an example or even the um privatization schools right so this is and then you have to take action so powerful was great about saying practices practices practices so i think those are two great points and i um i really appreciated that you brought the idea of a consciousness conscientious song now and uh i think maybe if you could um speak a little bit and both of you right about uh the process of a consciousness and uh how do we i know it's all about la lucha and hopefully these will change it will bring change and so maybe you can speak a little if you could talk a little bit more about um what how would you see the change happening or is this action enough is take an action always a hopeful message please tell me a little bit about this action piece that uh we saw in the movies and it's uh proposed by freddie to taking an action is actually extremely important for things to change i'm not sure who wants to start but yes what do you think i'll say are you ready or do i start oh you start okay well first of all gracias i do want to appreciate um what you the point you made about um puerto rico's colony colonial status it's something um that we puerto ricans um find trouble explaining mainly because we are living in times where other countries are talking about coloniality and are talking about the colonial subjectivity and how to decolonize from there but for all it said it's a present uh legal circumstance beyond a historical that it's not just a historical past and a page that we flipped um along the way so thanks for that because yeah it's hard to explain that that we are that we don't acknowledge ourselves either as as um part of the of the us um i think that we can all say with certainty that pablo freire would defend schools even when he had to criticize them mainly because schools are spaces for social relationships for humans to study to engage in conversation to even confront each other and discuss and make politics and i think the covet circumstance has tested our limits when it comes to that because through the screen there are only so many things we can do but then there are others that we are suspended from which is the the continuing face-to-face relationship where we can see um difference in equality and we can find uh more things to fight for um but because of what we learned in schools we are also able to teach today regardless of the circumstances in which in which that happens so in that sense he defended public schools and the access to education because it represented that place for encountering but also organizing resistance against depression and we can see that in lucia sea right um when in the aftermath of the two hurricanes that hit the island it took in 2017 students and teachers and parents gathered to prevent the closing of the 179 schools um and also to fight back against the neoliberal agenda to privatize the school system through charter schools but we can also see that in precious knowledge as well like when students um mobilize to define their ethnic studies curriculum against senators associating um student cultural dialogues and and ways of conducting these classes and and their critical thinking with anti-american indoctrination so in both cases the school represented um a place from where to challenge the status quo a place for permanent resistance and in pedagogy which in english has been published as pedagogy of indignation he argues that for those who stop resisting it is easier to accommodate and believe in the impossibility to fight for justice because nothing will ever change so his notion of resistance is pretty permanent and it's totally related to the possibility of changing the world understanding that it is dynamic rejecting that idea that change will come on its own so that we kind of give up to spontaneity because it will happen when it happened and in the meantime i will have fun and only and the yolo type of slogan of living your life once and not using the life or to sweat the troubles and the struggles that we're going through so he would defend schooling but also have a critique of that schooling because yes it could be helpful to transform reality but it can also maintain the status quo so he came with this concept of banking education to describe how students were like presumed as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge and critique that type of education because it was like anesthetizing students in a way to be submissive to believe that the world is unchangeable to believe that knowledge is somehow static and that their formation will be completed when degrees are finished so you end up your elemental middle like high school education when you get the diploma and if you don't get the diploma you're actually not educated yet um so he challenged that perspective of the places even you learn in in this the school was not the only one um but in in precious knowledge the students you see give accounts of this type of schooling that does not serve their interest that does not take make them passionate about learning um as a lifelong activity that reproduces an understanding of history where like their contributions as culture are not present and we as puerto ricans are very familiar with this phenomenon of not seeing ourselves in in books and in having an interpretation of our history that it's very limited and very stigmatized um and pushes forth further um racism as a narrative um yeah it gave me goosebumps when those senators in the movie were saying that that by not including that in the books they were promoting like a more equal culture and i want proof of that uh i found that very hard to to believe and in that case and in those books the story that is presented second-placed other narratives because what should be revered and admired is the so-called founding fathers and their vision for for america in this in the schools in puerto rico we learn english is imposed as a language and has been one of our cultural affirmation trenches but the history that we learn is very it has the the [Music] it's very interpreted and written by the colonial forces so you learn from in your third grade that um puerto rico lives in an in an amicable relationship with the us um and and to learn to challenge that it will take a lifetime because the whole system is filled about that and it's prioritizing um the history of the us and indigeneity being even like a passive type of culture that received and welcomed um colonial forces the spanish rule first and then um the u.s so i have another thing some conscientization but since this is a conversation i would like to to pivot this and give us a chance to or you read it right and uh camille i think um you you made a great point right you said that on in that pedagogy of indignation he says you critique your school and you love your school right so there is this relationship i mean or you are helping increase improve the school so it's never being conformed with the way things are so i think that's a good super that's extremely important point um because when my research is about the literacy campaign in cuba in 1961. so i i went back a little bit in the historical context of cuba and i i do not want to spend a lot of time talking about that because we are going to have a a conversation december so our topic in december is the literacy campaign cuba but the only one the one thing i want to mention is that cubans are very critical about their education but yet they are very fond that they are they always love i mean their country right so it's genuine and i interviewed them 60 years later but they still go back and say you know that uh campaign was all about love and uh so i have been reading a little bit about love and not forget our histories right no history is perfect but you have to be always critical about your own country your own education your country's education and so forth so i truly i think you bring an important point and uh so and i have a a quick question for you about the puerto rican history not being being omitted in the textbook i mean do you know any teachers and these are this is a question for both of you but you know teachers that might include you know some people call hidden curriculum but you talk about the history maybe you know in any part of your teaching do you know folks or teachers that do that i mean you've got to right you're in puerto rica not talk about puerto rican history it's like a okay what maybe we do not know the whole story but um what do you think let me just say several things one is your uh obviously your point on critical literacy and then um uh camille's point about um puerto rico so i i just want you to understand that um this coming year uh we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of a school that we founded in chicago the school is named after the puerto rican peter pedro albiso campos who is one of the people that in puerto rican history you must ignore hate and think he's crazy um and by the way if you read carefully and analyze the teachings of federal visu campos they anticipated a lot of the thoughts that would drive paulo freitas paulo freddy's informed a great deal by the theology of liberation in latin america and i think that's something we cannot leave out there was a theology that was based on reflection and action it was truly a proxies and i think paolo freda was informed so paolo frey was not this genius who invented these ideas he was literally taking on from other ideas that were being discussed at that moment and i think that's really important to situate that when we founded our school in 1972 by the way i met paulo freddy in 1974 not for a very long time but he came here to address a group that we founded as a result of our school we started our school in 1972 1974 we held a gathering of that led to the creation of something called the alternative school network in chicago which by the way still exists and paolo freire was invited to give the keynote to the founding process but our school obviously is important but what had happened to puerto ricans in chicago and so we always talk about the idea and to me um the film on tucson was very important in the sense that mexicans and native people have been denied their history in arizona one of the centers if you go a little bit up north perhaps the founding place of the great civilizations of of of of mexico because the mexican people migrated from that region southward and created tenochtitlan the greatest city on earth in 1519 when hernan cortes arrived but what i want to say is there's a wonderful book by the way that i want to cite by this amazing um anthropologist uh intellectual who died a few years ago ralph through joe he wrote a book silencing the past silencing the past that's what colonialism has done to all people of color throughout the world throughout the darker nations of the world and so i i that's why i want to place this in a colonial context and so in 1968 i graduated from an inner city high school here in chicago i had gone through an apartheid literally an apartheid educational system when i arrived in chicago in 1959 i was in my third grade i was immediately demoted to second grade um at that time they used to have grace that were every gray had a b c designation the sea were the kids who were supposed to be the worst all the puerto rican kids that i was demoted with were placed in 2 c now we were in third grade now i'm in 2c what happened in 2c well you went to the classroom and the first thing they do they did was the teacher put you on a table to sit on a table literally almost the entire day in a space called the courtroom at that time they did not have um uh lockers and so your coat was placed in the suggestion room next to your classroom in that space all the puerto rican kids in that class were kept and only when the teacher had time she would come and spend some time with you in 1916 i was selected i i i was at loyola university i was selected to become a research assistant to the first study that was conducted on puerto rican education in chicago it was published in 1970 title puerto rican dropouts dropouts that's a really interesting word numbers and motivation and what we concluded in that study is that 73 72.9 of the puerto rican kids that entered the chicago public high school dropped out but what was worse than the numbers was the theme that i picked up as a research assistant and the thing was teachers hear me they don't listen to me teachers hear me they don't listen to me so i decided i was going to go into teaching i finished i i started i started teaching in 1971 i came back to my high school to teach and at that moment i was able to enter a space which i had been denied the right to enter as a student that was the teacher's lounge and i went into the teacher's lounge and i opened the door and they're on a sofa on a sofa in the teacher's lungs it's my ex-english teacher she says sleep and she had put up a sign which read do not disturb puerto ricans at work do not disturb puerto ricans at work now think about it think about what i just said about teachers hear me they don't listen to me now there was my wake-up call why because this white teacher had been my teacher she had treated me very very nicely she had been exceptionally good to me and then i realized i'm a light-skinned puerto rican who because i was a nerdy kid became the exceptional native the exceptional puerto rican so that opened the doors for them to open the doors for me this is what is the horror of education even today in public schools so i would be you know i i'm a strong supporter of teachers and teachers union but i asked the teachers union when will you have a plank in your program that will say sometimes teachers have to be uncomfortable in order for the students and the community and their parents to be comfortable that's the day i will support a union 200 percent because to me the problem is in a lot of the school systems in the united states is that you have most of them still the teachers are white they come with a white perspective a euro-centric concept of knowledge and what i'm coming back to is what you raise about critical literacy what freidy was challenged us to do is to engage not in egocentric critical thinking he was challenging us to engage in collective critical thinking and so for him the world what was a good school a school and a teacher for him at least that's my interpretation the only thing that they did they did not schools do not create knowledge they do not produce knowledge teachers do not create knowledge they do not produce knowledge universities do not produce knowledge they do not create knowledge instead a good teacher helps and sort of indulges his or her students in a process in which a student can critically analyze the world by understanding critically the world acting upon that world and most importantly transforming that world to me that's what um that's what conscientization really meant understanding the world about me obviously acting upon that world responsibly and most importantly transforming so for me that is a decolonizing model of education and that's what led us to create an alternative high school here in chicago in 1972 which by the way will celebrate 50 years this coming year well that's congratulations in the uh anniversary jose that yes okay yes um yeah and uh i would like to i have heard about it i would like to read a little bit more about it um in fact um i tried to visit once but i think it was during vacation but i heard about the alternative school work that he has been done there um you know i still have so many questions right you are a sort of person of wealth but camille would you like yeah i wanted to to get back to you um and also shout out in doing so to um the many professors that i had along the way i had different sides of this coin in terms of problematizing reality uh but i did have um professors that later when i went to the university where like comrades and student movement organizing and supporters of students movement too that find their ways to communicate ideas to engaging students in discussions but also it wasn't like a propaganda type of education for the left which is a risk here and i'll i want to get back to that because it is one thing to receive a message in which you're not listening or you're not reading into um and try to challenge that with a counter narrative of rebellion and what has been our history in puerto rico and it is another thing uh which is not always present in in this case that i was bringing of professors that are valuing each students where they come from and what they have to contribute to the present and future which is a non-dogmatic way of presenting history so i had this professor ali um so alita is a musician um and and it's a teacher too and i remember a particular assignment he gave us to go back to her families and interview like do this auto history project to interview um our grandfathers or grandmothers if they were alive and in doing that i was able to re like restate restating my head the history of my paternal family which is dominican and in ways that other students could knew hey like puerto ricans we are very proud we're very proud people like we we um but we're also constituted of this caribbean history um and in in doing that that was elevated in a way uh the relevance of of our of immigration patterns in the caribbean and our history so in by doing that he provided the room for us to to question um our history uh from the left and from the right for example um so i think that also um to the point that that jose was bringing like banking education has that way of subordinating students suffocating rebelliousness repressed curiosity too and kind of de-stimulates the capacity that we can have to defy to take risks to to basically become these space passive subjects right um and as a response problem posing education um came to be your education program um where we developed that critical consciousness about topics to challenge situations and concrete problems that are confronted by by learners and in his writings from my interpretation it is a method of knowledge and learning but also an attitude towards reality so we see that in precious knowledge the students are kind of exploring concrete problems in that community they language discrimination military recruitment segregation within the schools or how security is treating students so these are like generating topics right so the students are reflecting on this situation understanding what their place in that reality as subjects trying to find solutions and the teacher it's accompanying that process and helping them find solutions and that um process of of being exposed but also developing their own say about it along with the actions that are needed to confront the way things are this for me resumes the process of concentration so it's not just being aware or if or it's not understanding a message or like we have this um say a phrase in spanish which is baharelinia or which means like transmit a message and when we often mobilize under this this uh slogan right um what the moment we understand the analysis of reality and the actions we can do um to confront these situations as a connected process of action and reflection there is the pla praxis that in itself enables and speaks of concentration as a process and not just now being articulated on this particular topic or the other but having a commitment um towards it and we can also see that in lucia c you we can see that the film i don't know uh jose you told me your input but the film kind of starts with the school's been closed and community is responding to it and that is like the first feeling that we have and then it goes as the film goes deeper and deeper it dives into their roots of the problem so it started to mention promesa like the financial oversight and management board um and it is said that it was passed by obama and that its mere goal is to collect or to resolve the national debt crisis by collecting debt um regardless of social welfare workers union pensions school education budgets and whatever and then there are other teachers and organizers connecting promesa to the colonial situation of puerto rico and to a bigger global context of capitalism and neoliberal projects so it is my hope to participate in process of of concentration and decolonization in which students and teachers can get to these analyses and not just one sector because in that articulation of the problem are part of the things to be solved but not all people organizing or participating in movements are there long enough or deep enough to engage in the conversations that would get us to a better understanding of what's happening in the island so it kind of brought many things to me regarding the agenda that it's spending and possible with social movements back home so um very interesting community so you're saying that um because that lucha c is a more recent film yeah uh so you um i'm not familiar with la promesa did you say promesa that's the the law that was passed um that imposed the oversight uh board okay so um so um you what do you just mention is something that we go through in the present day so can let me just uh um make sure that i'm understand what you said you said that everybody that's part of the social movement parents teachers teachers union students need to be part take part in the problematization and the process of understanding and the process of transforming action in order to transform to make the chain is that uh what you just yeah yeah yeah um yeah those are complex problems right when you talk about financial the management of the money they go through a different route that we know that in the government is so is you know they try to go through different doors in order to uh cover right what the real issue is or to distract them and we saw in in the past administration we saw a lot with the uh president um trump doing that right he he is bringing attention to social like uh issues and gossips and then on the back they are doing other things that you know we don't see so i think it's so important and it's so complex but not impossible for our workers right our parents working family parents to see that to understand that but it's also a long process right i mean because literacy and that you work with adult literacy and that human what the the literacy campaign in cuba was about literacy but it's possible it's possible but it has to be um very much collective right and we mentioned just in this hour many times the importance of collective and the cuban leaders campaign involved everybody right so it was it worked out because everybody was part of it so participatory education was in place what i do not know is if everybody was in the same process of constant consciousness right consistency but they had different groups right they so this is a different conversation but um it's a great point i think it it's something that um i think you kind of answer the question that i i had for the education for today because it's going to be almost like us um i think we're going to be i mean unless we want to continue conversation but i think we're going to be ending uh this would be the last question right what can we do for education today so we have a cases of opening alternative schools we have cases of teachers union working with the parents and families and uh resist right resisting resisting so they don't privatize the schools so anything else that you would like to bring to our conversation as how we can uh change our schools and make our schools that address our students that are indigenous that are latinos that are maybe you know um [Music] and specifically latinos right we are today we are discussing puerto rico and maybe a little bit of latinos but uh anything else that you would like to add for today's education so so rita and camille i i definitely want to invite you and i will get an invitation to you next year in june we will be hosting a conference on the foundations of our school uh it will be held here in chicago it's it'll our 50th anniversary and some of the questions i mean the question you're asking is you know where do we go from here i think that's part of the question we want to be able to answer in terms of the next 50 years but i said several things one is the theology of liberation in latin america was informed about the idea that you create parallel institutions it doesn't mean you left the schools and you don't struggle to improve the schools it means that there are some real immediate needs that our young people have that's based a great deal on generational and historical trauma that somebody has to take responsibility for and that is why we develop an alternative high school and we develop alternative high school that right now in chicago we have a public school charter school in one charter that is not profit it is uh 23 small schools in the chicago public schools that are informed to serve the most marginalized kids we have 4 000 students mostly latino and african americans in those 23 schools and our school is or sort of the beginning of that process so i want to invite you to it second i think the other point that i think is very important is the idea of knowledge itself i said that knowledge schools do not create nor produce knowledge there is um in paulo's freighter he he cites mouth there's a wonderful uh quote from mao zedong that he sent to the communist party in the 1930s because obviously it was a party of cadres and they thought they knew it all and he writes to them give back to the people your role is to give back to the people with precision what they have given you in confusion imagine what is the role of schools to help to organize and systematize knowledge with critical literacy that's it it's not to memorize it's not um to create a banking system of education it is to trends ultimately the people are giving you the knowledge they know their oppression they know what they live ours is to help them organize and systematize give them gift to them back with precision what they have given you in confusion and i think that's a wonderful quote about uh education and the third point i want to make is that we can talk about education generally without really talking about a decolonizing model of education and without mentioning one of paolo's freighters great um companions in many ways who was um franz fanon and franz fanon writes a wonderful book which i consider one of my bibles and that is the wretched of the earth and he says that the whole system of knowledge of the white supremacist colonial system is to reduce the colonized to the quintessence of evil and that's why we criminalize black and brown youth that is why we create a discussion about gang violence and why as it was rooted in people's genetic and we've got to get away from that and many teachers even learn to believe that and that is why we propose so much the idea that we have to have police in the schools because we got to control the natives we've got to get rid of that garbage and so for me those are three points that i wanted to make um in this discussion before we leave [Music] most of the books you pick up a history book and you don't really see any other cultures in there but you know mostly caucasian white people ethnic studies is the knowledge of other than your own ethnicity not only learning about the past of the us but also learning and having the opportunity to learn about cultura my grandpa my grandma taught me to be proud that i'm mexican and these classes help me because i actually know my history now for someone that's also out of place it feels good to have a home the way things were going i probably just would have just left school like this space saved me in a way i'm calling on tucson unified school district to shut down the ethnic studies program raza studies african american studies asian studies it's about their race and that is contrary to american ideals the program is administered by vehemently anti-american and anti-western civilization zealots it's hard to tell if the criticism is based upon full knowledge that they're lying or they just have been totally misguided in what they've heard it's people like you that come over here and ruin everything that we have settled i'm a mexican very very proud of it our students are graduating at a much higher rate our kids are going to college at a much higher rate that is giving our students greater opportunities in life the superintendent of schools can himself declare these courses to be illegal and so today i'm announcing that decision they can't take it away they can't [Music] hello [Music] hi i want to go to college because i need to set that example for my sisters but it's a struggle [Music] i was the oldest so i always had to you know same way as crystal staying home and you know having to take care of the kids at so young you know age when she actually could do something better [Music] said you buy all the toys i'd rather her you know get her education and everything and keep on going but it's been hard it's been very very hard you know for us especially her high school years trying to get through and everything [Music] just to be together in one room with like my whole family that'd be great my dad went to the dmv and as time went back you know we started to get worried because he was only going to the dmv and he hadn't called us and he wasn't picking up his cell phone and then bob ended up calling us and he told us that our dad got picked up and that he was in a holding cell he is arrested and now he's in jail because they found out that he was undocumented you know it's a heart you know the first time you see him and he's like behind the glass and he's wearing like the orange jumpsuit and you can't even have physical contact it just hurt that like you could only talk to mobile phone if he doesn't get to come back here illegally then he might not come back at all [Music] school freshman year wasn't what i wanted so i stayed home my dad was like you need to go to school you need to get your education and i was like i don't feel like going to school today when you grow up in a poor area you don't have the same chances as other people [Music] we all grew up in my nana's house it was my mom and her other seven siblings and their kids all in like a five-bedroom house this was really crazy my dad was never around because he like totally just booked on us [Music] i've pretty much been around everything drugs gangs where i originally grew up those people most of them are locked up or dead i'm not gonna lie i've hated education you know sometimes i feel like this school the education system is just so against me that they don't want me here that they want me to just drop out [Music] what i notice especially in regular history classes is students who really just don't give a [ __ ] about about what they're studying historically i mean their relationship to learning is just kind of dysfunctional in general and it's not just it's not of a particular ethnicity but they are lazy they are unengaged they really are learning has just become irrelevant to their lives completely they're just damaged they're culturally damaged so step one is to identify the problem now i think the way that you've cast kids is is so funny because if you read the literature historically it's exactly the way it talked about you when you were a kid right it's exactly the way they talked about me when i was a kid right we were apathetic we were disengaged the same narrative about the deficiency of our children has run the history of public schooling in the united states right and we just change the way we explain our inability to engage kids right there's nothing wrong with kids i've never met a kid with a dysfunctional relationship to learning i've met a lot of kids with a functional relationship to school approximately 50 of hispanics drop out of school year after year and the numbers are not improving they're getting worse we continue to perpetuate an educational experience that has been inadequate at best for the majority of latino children without that diploma you're walking on this world with limited opportunities limited chances you are the one that's going to be out there being exploited for eight bucks an hour they're using second grade children of color data to determine what number of prisons they're going to need in the future so the idea that we are still losing these huge number of kids is appalling and this problem has aggravated over four generations [Music] chicano teachers counselors chicanas in the classroom you didn't see them now some schools couldn't speak spanish even at lunch or when you're out hanging out on campus later on a civil rights study found that corporal punishment and punishment in general was meted out to minorities at a four to one ratio and those kids knew that inside the school many chicanos and chicanas were being relegated to vocational classes secretarial classes in fact i had four years of air conditioning at tucson high and not enough was done to get us into college we knew that we had a school board and a superintendent that basically ignored and at the best benign neglect to this community and to this population and so it's just a question of time [Music] the practice here has been one of domination the anglos dominating the latins but the mexican americans say that day has ended that they are on the move that they will have a piece of the action it was like a chicano movement nationwide it was kind of a renaissance period for us there was an urgency for us to make a statement here in tucson and the statement was the walkouts we don't know how many are going to come out or if any and then they just kept coming and they kept coming and then we had something bigger than we anticipated on our hands that was the watershed like any group of young people our expectations were high in these next four or five years we're going to fundamentally change the way this world is and how we're treated obviously we're still at that [Music] it was really about how how can we turn this around how can we really affect change more than just one person at each school i believe in my heart that you know there's an indigenous concept called chinachili you plant the seed and that seed will grow [Music] [Music] [Music] there's different staffs that come from different pueblos and different nations and different communities from the entire continent the entire hemisphere and this one represents tucson despite everything that has happened everything that has changed everything that has evolved we continue to hold our ceremonial staffs to try to maintain and preserve our traditional ways of life of the mexicano you hear a lot of talk about la ponquista de mexico well guess what it never happened right this is proof of that they try to teach you that our peoples were ignorant illiterate savages cannibals sacrifice all this stuff they teach you to think that we're somehow we don't belong here or that where maybe we're part of a new culture or something that we're brand new that we just got here well i'm here to tell you that your culture is at least 7 000 years old ah let's go [Applause] if i do harm to you i do harm to myself if i love and respect you i love and respect myself there's so many rules at a school there's rules of classroom rules there's code of conduct that is school rules there's district rules so those are my rules they're not really rules self-reflections we must vigorously search within ourselves by silencing the distractions and obstacles in our lives in order to be warriors for our gente and justice get our precious and beautiful knowledge gaining perspective on events and experiences our ancestors endured allows us to become more fully realized human beings at first i really didn't accept it i didn't accept like just the posters up on the wall i didn't know what most of them meant now this is the fortescalipocas or the now william the four movements of being a good human being it comes from central mesoamerica the aztecs the mayans the toltecs that's calipoca is critical reflection anytime something happens to you you have to ask yourself how am i at fault only through reflection and reconciliation forgiveness if you hate your dad you are hating yourself but by forgiving your father who do you well so you forgive yourself yourself and now you become whole now we can create positive change what they show us how they teach us it's really different from regular classes means knowing where you came from who you are inside it really got to my emotions too from there you have this precious knowledge what do you need to do take action positive action when someone's being made fun of don't sit there and be quiet take positive action raul that was messed up man you shouldn't be saying that i'm not cool with that through reflection reconciliation stability is a human action a new world a new person if you can narrow down what we advocate for it's the idea of love it's not simply a love for myself the love for those around me how can i change the world for the better and what this idea of social justice pedagogy asks us to do is to seek the root of the truth and in that truth there is greater justice european americans make up 70 of the u.s population right what percentage do you think they're they're doing time 30 31 i teach the american government with a social justice perspective this class is based on critical thinking students are often taught to read the word and paulo freda said you have to teach students to read the world and in order to make change you have to look at the structure the institution african americans make up twelve percent of the population right yet they make up four percent of the jail population 40 41 wow there is a bias in this system now can we create change with the system yes we can what they started teaching us was so interesting i just could not stop thinking about it i would go home with articles and i would just read them over and over again so now that i'm learning more you know it's becoming more important to me i started getting a's and b's they passed a rule they raised the standards what did this african-american coach do he walked off the court no pass no play it doesn't only affect minorities it affects poor white kids who can explain how that happens that policy is not asking you to like have a name it's just asking you to pass and like everyone should pass their classes i still think the whole line i think like every athlete pushes would be should be able to push themselves like if you're white black mexican anybody if you're rich or poor it's not classes at all this is exactly what he said it's like it depends how dedicated you are because it's not about i mean you keep saying if you're dedicated you can do it if you're dedicated you can do it if it's all on the individual you don't have a 4.0 then are you not dedicated it's kind of like saying if i run fast enough i can fly it's not it's not going to happen there's something in place that's stopping them from from achieving their goals it's not to say that some people won't break past that and somehow do it but what's what's the likelihood of that monitor the way you think when you start looking and blaming the person that's a naive consciousness everybody take out so far from god because we're going to read a little bit today my class is a is the literature component um and it's called latino literature why do we think this is a church why do you think this is a catholic church just from the cover because it looks like it's like in mexico a church in mexico southwest even better this looks like home right this looks like where are you from it's a chicago novel right i just want to give you a little taste of what you're in you are in a world called magical realism okay and it is a little bit different than fantasy because you know when you go to lord of the rings everything's magical when you go to wizard of oz everything's magical but in here it's like i got dumped by my novio and now my sister is flying to the top of the route now why does that make sense for argentina why did it make sense that latin america was the place where this happened i think it's something really big for me because i i had the opportunity with rasa studies to understand my cultura you have a big reading to do i was always the quiet girl in the back that like i don't want to talk i don't know what this is about i'm scared to talk one of the mexicans sitting in the back just sitting there but he tends to teach us how to like express ourselves so we could have that confidence the topics are environment economic and dehumanization analyze it as a group and see why we put it in that ever since she studied these rasa study classes oh my god it's made such big of a change her junior year when she started those classes it just completely changed she was not an empowered chicana of the 21st century she walked in here um and she certainly is now cool does that make some sense what's this oh is that for their thing oh that's cool with the tough kids the ones with the thicker shells you honor that they come to your classroom and i know a lot of teachers are hesitant to use the word fun or entertaining but i'm sorry i'm going to use the gifts that i have and if i can make them laugh i'm going to make them laugh i'm sorry the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice that's the darker the flesh the deeper the roots juice and roots juice and roots are not true it's not true right the slant line allows you to have more freedom because back in the day when hip hop was starting it was all true right right it's like you know like we be cool we go to school we're gonna go swim in the pool i mean really how many teachers do you meet like that so then so then uh yeah it's like tricky and stuff right just to have him like down and like dancing in class and like throwing jokes and making fun of you you you start getting used to it you're like okay this is this is him this is his personality you know he does this so he can connect with you on the level that way you guys can just i just feel comfortable here you know it's like a second like a second home i guess you could say i mean i hate it when i can't be here [Music] i fell in love with the classes because we learned so much in every other class i mean you're just thinking about oh let's get this work done by the book by the book by the book by the book but in this class like there's meaning to that word let's get to work roll up your sleeves and it's time to work jobs they expect more from me they challenge us more they challenge me more i've never pulled an all-nighter for any other class because now i'm writing about something that i actually care about i get to choose the subject i want to write about who should i say we should you should have to say absolutely exactly it's something i need to do for my hampton my ancestors and me our school's part of the community or is the community part of the school we choose the latter our communities need to be part of the my school and i we're like a family and then our students as they come through are very much like a family so their family then obviously your family hey what's up how are you doing good good good good i'm glad you made is everyone else here my mom yeah sure love to meet your mommy you're his favorite teacher oh is that right well i appreciate that i appreciate that very good things to say about you well thank you you know non-stop is that right my parent told me she said doc you know what in the previous 11 years of my son's education never did he come and come home and talk to me about what he was learning in school i can't get him to shut up about this stuff [Music] [Applause] [Music] live this is news 4 tucson at 10. state school superintendent tom horn wants to end ethnic studies programs in the tucson unified school district he's taking his push to state lawmakers next week a bill that would ban schools from grouping or teaching students based on their ethnic background when i was in high school in 1963 i participated in the march on washington where martin luther king said he wanted his son to be judged by the quality of his character and not the color of his skin and i'm still fighting for that now against what i believe to be something that is very wrong which is dividing students up by ethnicity and treating them separately by ethnicity [Music] i'm calling on tucson unified school district to shut down the ethnic studies program and start teaching kids to treat each other as in individuals and not on the basis of what race they were born in and excuse me the chanting behind us i think illustrates the rudeness that they teach to their kids with ethnic studies there's a desire to develop ethnic uh solidarity uh you know this group we're the where the latinos that other group they're the african americans that other groups they're the asian americans the other group there the anglos and so on in the human being there is uh there is a primitive part that is tribal and that will say you know i want to be with members of my own tribe my members of my own race and that sort of thing and the whole the function of civilization and the function of our public school system is to get people to transcend that and there are better ways to get students to perform academically and to want to go into college than to try to infuse them with racial ideas so do you think that you don't think they're doing anything right then i really don't i know i think they should be abolished how are you doing good how you doing i'm good thank you hey hey y'all let's get it let's get the room into it la toca and please shine light on the cockroaches and watch them scatter la rasa of the race studies teaching tusd tucson students to hate america what a great use of our tax dollars this man should be fired and then tarred and feathered i pay taxes to tsd and i'm outraged in the light that we're in this political life we are accused ironically of being racist and that's the total antithesis of what we believe do we talk about race in this class do we talk about class do we talk about sexism we talk about all systems of oppression but that doesn't necessarily make a sexist does it or classes but they like to throw racist at us okay now there's no there's two two phrases that kind of get people all excited in this town one's that i just do mamas and the other one's rasa studies so just always carry yourself very respectfully and don't engage okay don't engage with them if they if they say they say they say ugly things and they try to incite you to engage with them just stay current walk in get your education on and walk out proudly okay let's get to work how do we fix societal problems now specifically how do we fix societal problems in our school from this are going to come your research projects right finding the causes and then offering solutions let's roll how can we improve the language discrimination situations which impact foreign individuals my group is working on language discrimination military recruitment segregation within the school how security treats students how can ths stop making [Music] the students feel intimidated feel intimidated by police and security on campus all right we need to work on that i know i'm trying to find out you know what can be changed and what does the average person think what do you guys think because you guys you came from washington but you were from korea yeah in kindergarten the third they would let us speak spanish another thing that we discovered is that the further west that you are where there's like less trees and like less places to sit is where like african-american mexican-american chicanos like that's where they all hang out they all kind of congregate in their own groups there so it's kind of like we kind of resorted back to our old ways like we had we had like the segregation and the race riots and everything then we had this moment of 70 hippie weed peace and then we went to 2009 and we're back to segregation again so one of our main solutions is our unity festival which was kind of it's just a big party where there's like there's food there's different um there's mcs there's rappers there's a whole bunch of stuff going on where everyone's just uniting [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] when i i hear her speak i'm not a vine with negative intentions i am the son creating divine intervention [Music] [Applause] but leadership of tusdu well what i've been critical of is the ethnic studies program i think it's it's immoral i think it's wrong it's ethically wrong divide kids up by their ethnicity and teach them separately according to their ethnicity so you are trying to shut this program down for the reasons you just outlined now proponents of these programs say this helps to energize kids because they are learning through the eyes of people who they see as themselves if you you mean we you know as as a white man you perhaps cannot understand the experiences that these kids are feeling um in their hearts as a hispanic or an african american well that's the exact opposite of my philosophy we don't see ourselves through what race we were born into or what gender we are we see ourselves as individuals we're proud americans a lot better ways to energize students academically other than dividing them up by rate mr chairman members of the committee senate bill 1108 authorizes superintendent of public instruction to withhold public monies and take regulatory action if a public school is found to include curriculum that is in conflict with the values of american citizenship there's no reason for people from other countries to have to come here to this country and learn about their own cultures where they came from if you want a different culture then fine go back to that culture but this is america we find hate and revolution is being taught in their books it's a very anti-american hateful hate speech mexico i believe is orchestrating this and they have an agenda known as la reconquista the reconquest or aslan many of our chicano elected officials i believe are working directly for mexico and the takeover i am offended by the tone of the rhetoric and i disagree with the underlying uh premise of this proposal uh i vote no i vote no and therefore i don't know i do uh vote yes on this book and so for that reason i will vote yes um i vote i so i will just agree with them about it you're ready to buy your vote of 9i6 and age 2 absolutely pass senate bill 1108 as amended [Music] we have another bill on the agenda that will be uh senate bill 1069. mr chairman what's being done down here in tucson university school district is teaching of hate speech sedition anti-american if people want to pay for that on their own dime in their homes they can be as anti-american as they want but they won't use my tax dollars to do it to answer your question it doesn't teach us to be anti-american it teaches us to embrace america all of its flaws and all but certain things like racism and certain things like oppression they do exist and we go for these classes first off from hearsay because people that have graduated and gone to these classes have said nothing but positive things they figured out who they really are as human beings they figure out how to handle situations to their best abilities so it doesn't the word anti-american isn't even relevant in our classes thank you you're very um articulate and eloquent thank you is it true that dave this program has actually invited you to go to the classes and you have not gone yet uh they have not invited me i just find it uh very hard to um to believe you mr horn because actually i've heard that they did and we'll have testimony on that there was a teacher who invited me actually now that i think about it yeah mr chairman mr you know you're trying to eliminate ethnic studies without actually going to the classrooms it's i mean i you know i'm just astounded that we would do something like this thank you very much let's hear from the program itself augustine romero would you please come forward and tell us a little bit about the program in terms of how we interact with with students and parents and community it's about understanding respect and appreciation that has led to the place where our students perform academically much better than the students not in our courses that's something that should be applauded well the textbook that you use pedagogy of the oppressed my understanding is that if you go and look at the citations you see marx lenin mal che guevara fidel castro and so our suspicion is inside these classes these students are being indoctrinated by people who are in power to have a certain mindset of us versus them but the essence of that book is about humanity about creating stronger humanity greater humanity well that's our suspicion we really think we know what's going on in behind those doors the people in power are doing something distasteful members by your vote uh four eyes three and a zero not voting you have given senate bill 1069 a do pass recommendation [Music] my sense of it is that they were bringing these kids in and saying okay founding fathers are racists these social systems are stacked up against you you know look at these statistics look at all these odds were against you you can't plant evil ideas in kids minds and expect healthy outcomes do i indoctrinate my students i can be accused of doing that as can others but i i do not and i i firmly believe that have i ruffled feathers absolutely in this class we were taught to read the word as well as what read the world paulo frede wrote about that read the world read it and you're going to see that it's not a pretty place since 1991 school districts throughout the united states have been going back to neighborhood schools segregated schools because if you live in a poor side of town you're going to go to that poor that school and that school isn't going to get the funding due to the property taxes if you live on the rich side of town you're going to go to a well-funded school what kind of cultural seeds are we planting here that these systems aren't aren't fair that these american systems aren't fair and let me tell you i know from personal experience that there are systems that we have set up that aren't perfect but what you have in the united states is more opportunity more prosperity than you could ever dream of our department is the thorn in people's side because we say you know what the things you're saying about the the trajectory of this country about where we're at the idea that race is no longer an issue what we're saying is bs it's about the freedom to ask the the questions that are the most pertinent in the way they view the world that's what we're doing that's freedom some people are claiming because of obama being the president now that we have reached what martin luther king died for and that's the idea that people be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin have we reached that have we yeah yes we have right have we [Music] [Applause] i believe that regardless of political party mainline republicans mainline democrats uh independents all people would be outraged if they knew what was happening in this tusd ethnic studies department the schools are turning these kids into angry young radicals schools are supposed to teach the kids to think for themselves not to indoctrinate them into left-leaning views of futures and i'm speaking out because i think if the people get the facts i think they will they will be outraged at this they feel that they are so entrenched within tusc that they are untouchable i mean this is outrageous stuff i mean we would never support hate groups such as the kkk in our school system we would never tolerate that kind a garbage [Music] [Applause] [Music] we want to talk about the stuff that nobody talks about they never cover our classes they know they don't go inside him they don't investigate you know and all all we get is this john justice tom horn you know blit media blitz that says we're racist we're hateful and we're all the things we're not we're getting jacked on the message the the narrative if you will has been hijacked he's saying that this is americans american culture and ethnic studies is not part of it i mean that's a radical thing for him to say although our argument is no actually you know we're part of that and he's forced us out him and the resident society has forced us out so we're talking about what message are we putting together i mean that's the message that we can say you know we are being told that we're not part of this culture and so they were being banished and we're saying no yeah put us back in include us you know we're supposed to be on the offensive here but not direct not in people's faces because if we get in their faces republicans or whoever our opposition then they will attack us harder and stronger and rally their base and we cannot win that fight that's why we need to take the high route right now community service and advocacy service serving each other being there for one another in la cash all right and advocacy that idea we see la bush the idea of the will to get out there and do things not just complain about them not just vote get your puppies on the ground and get your body in some spaces to help people on the daily it started getting me into that way of like i gotta do more community events and see what's really going out there these are the people who were recovered this last year there were 183 we walked in memory of the deaths that there was in the desert from mexico and salvador and guatemala from last september 183 of them did not make it so we walk in memory of them since it's dia de los muertos jose santos rodriguez sanchez jose angel alfaro salon olivier hernandez jesus [Music] i can't be another latina woman just like sitting down at home i want my voice to be heard [Music] [Music] running has always been a part of the ceremonial way of life of indigenous people it requires that physical discipline and allows you to become focused and be connected to the earth and this staff here represents tucson and it represents each and every one of you it serves as a testigo to those things that are taking place we're running from tucson to phoenix to bring our prayer and our message to save the education of future children the education of our children our own education almost a meditation you listen and you hear rhythms you know your heart you know the sweat coming down your face your feet touching the ground when we got to the atlanta reservation and we had to ask their permission if we were allowed to run on their land and they accepted and they ran with us we want to thank you creator for giving us this opportunity to express ourselves it is important creator what you have taught us so that our children will be knowledgeable about all the things that are around them and it is important that they should learn them in their own culture in their own ways [Music] yes [Music] i want to thank everybody that ran because it shows that no matter how far this bill goes we're here together in the lucha and it will never end because we will always be united as one [Music] [Music] do you know had law enforcement enforced immigration laws we would have reverted 911 we have seen parts of our neighborhoods nuclear bomb by the effects of illegal immigration [Music] this is hate speech this is anti-american seditious revolutionary talk in a high school [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] hey make sure you don't end up dead in a desert because you are trying to steal another man's country are you threatening us once we are awakened to our danger we are very very skilled at warfare you say you're going to kill us here you see the line there you stay on the outside of that line you get away from my border i'll beat you both get everything from from physical threats um death threats on the email on her telephones we looked at all the negative comments that were being posted up in at the arizona daily star and the tucson citizen and like at the radio station and it was just so much hate and you had to keep you know being positive and it was it's very tough sometimes because we try to live life and in a positive way and why why is all this negativity from you know i'll bring this to a person [Music] i cannot operate with any kind of degree of hate or animosity towards tom horne because then i would be exactly what he says we are we are not truly about love we're about something else these classes teach about forgiveness and understanding but it's so hard to take it to a personal level they talked about my classroom on in the national review which is a conservative very reputable conservative magazine it was the online edition so i'm sure there's people that that you know don't like us don't are critical of us all over the country there's plenty of things said about me playing hurtful things some of you antoine i have this whole beautiful monologue i don't have the name of whoever you interviewed was it your theo yeah yeah ain't no name there there were days where a coaster would come into smiles when it's bright or you know all those cliches he's kind of just in here and you know let's do what we got to do guys you know thesis is what the main idea of what made i do what your topic uh main idea what oh i could see his frustration you know it's affecting my teacher who's you know being told by some guy that you're teaching and you're not teaching this right it's not important you shouldn't be teaching it because you you turn to something with herb spelled you are b so i know that's not me i really feel like i have to catch you up if i have you 11 and 12. i have to catch you up in those two years for all the mistakes that were made from k to 10. so it's a tremendous amount of pressure for me that i personally put on myself what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be reviewing 8th grade american government information that you as an educated citizen should know what was our first constitution call [Applause] we must vigorously search within ourselves by silencing the distractions and obstacles in our lives in order to be warriors for our hemp and justice we're honored that you're here and uh it means a lot to us we've uh we've been rarely had any any folks from the legislature um come into our our space and we we're very honored that you uh you've taken it upon yourself to do so the fear is that when people look at the la raza program they're very concerned that you're breaking away from those traditions that we know resulted in freedom that we know resulted in prosperity there's a real fear when we see books like the pedagogy of the oppressed that we're going you know that's marxist leninist collectivist and that's part of the fear that people have about these the kind of studies but the civil rights movement was something that everybody was afraid of right well somewhere somewhat other other people were afraid of that yeah there was a there were there was i think there was concern it's legitimate to say there was a lot yeah that's it now you know when i was growing up we were we were short on food but we never felt that that was that we were oppressed because when you say the word oppressed means somewhere there's an oppressor what it's about is the american culture has an outline for every single one of us and that is an oppression it is an impression on all of us just stereotypes and people that you know see me the way i dress the way i look and i started believing that you know i started thinking you know i'm a chica and i ain't gonna be able to graduate i'm gonna have kids young i'm a you know like that and then i started coming to these classes and i started seeing like why am i believing all this instead of believing it i should change it but when i look up at the wall and i see a poster of che guevara who many of us think was a thug and i don't see anything on benjamin franklin i have a problem i have a problem it's the decor of the classroom well it's [Music] he's not a disregard of those founding fathers but we try to encourage our students and facilitate a process where we have the courage to examine our history for what it is i just want to thank you for coming to classes and seeing what they're about well i appreciate your comments too and for you it takes a little bit of courage to speak when the tv camera's rolling and so i want to thank you for talking and uh speaking your mind that was uh when thanks for coming you know like a lot of people are against don't really come and see what they're about and i think that was cool know okay that was good thank you you have a good day i didn't think that my visit there that day was a typical day i think it was more a discussion that took place i wasn't seeing anything that represented a typical day whatsoever i thought the teacher himself he is you know i might disagree with him on the on the cultural aspect but he comes in there he's perfectly groomed he's wearing a long long-sleeve white shirt he's wearing a tie so from that standpoint the way he presented himself his obvious passion for educating kids he's presenting classic american values now again that was was that on show for me that's that's a question that remains to be answered tom horn has expressed an interest in the attorney general's job i myself have opened up an exploratory committee for superintendent of public instruction superintendent of public instruction oversees all the schools in arizona it has the number one leadership rule role for education policy and educational leadership mr chairman members house bill 2281 prohibits public schools from offering courses or classes which promote overthrowing the us government or resentment towards a raise or class of people additionally it allows the superintendent in public instruction to determine if a public school is in violation relating to the prohibited courses i personally do not feel that students should be taught victimization have you been in the classroom and you witnessed this or is this yours um i have not been in the class i represent tucson unified school district you're insinuating that the schools teaching the overthrow of the government and the evidence that i've seen textbooks that they're using overwhelmingly show that that is the case have not witnessed any of these on here i think i can perhaps provide some guidance on this issue the students asked me to come down to the classroom while i was in the classroom the founder of la raza started talking about benjamin franklin being a racist and i think it's completely inappropriate to trash our founding fathers who put their lives on the line for our freedom and prosperity my vote i i voted and so because of that i vote i by your vote foreign voting you've returned house bill 2281 to the full senate with a do pass recommendations [Music] [Music] [Applause] we gotta fight for what we know is right and right now this is what is beautiful to all of us [Music] with and for our community in peaceful protest to the most hateful legislative session in our state's history and we stand here today for the stories and history of our families who have walked this continent freely for thousands of years have given their strength of their backs and hands to build this united states and sacrifice their own blood in defending this country regardless of what anybody else says we have taught you love and i would like to ask my current and former students to join me in reciting the part of luis valdez's poem in la cash that we say each day before our classes begin [Applause] [Music] [Music] and respect myself we will win [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this picture right here says a thousand words the class itself is just one piece but when you have students demonstrating wearing brown shirts bandanas and sunglasses this is serious to me this is very serious we are teaching kids to hate the very country that they're living in students are being taught a revolutionary curriculum you mentioned the group in the uniform there and i spoke to one of them last week and it's movement in the barrio isn't something like that if they're saying it's not militant but more a matter of unity together to stay in school and to succeed is that a threat i mean we're lucky we're learning about people that are dressed up in masks over their face sunglasses over their eyes berets so that you can't see anything on their face brown shirts clearly revolutionary costumes and anybody who says that kids can't learn unless they're subject to that kind of militancy is is uh the clearest example of racism that i could think of our education's under attack what do we do stay on the sidewalk we have an empty water bottle we're trying to get trash bags right now we don't want to make a mess right now united you'll never teach about it united we'll never be after a while people just got sick and tired because we always did like protests and rallies but nothing has happened like they haven't listened to us they haven't done anything the bill got passed so we decided to go past what what we usually do you know something new is always unexpected we just got word that tom horn is holding a press conference in a downtown state building um so we're thinking about moving this over there is everybody down with that yeah [Applause] [Music] across for so long before they rise from the shadows if these demands are not met organized direct action and community organizing will continue [Applause] this is not a way that hispanic parents want their children to act in a militant way to get ahead in this country and to be angry and to feel oppressed and to think that this country is looking at ways to make them feel downtrodden but to lift them up and to make them feel empowered i have three younger sisters i want them to have these classes we've been at the 10-10 we've been running to phoenix we've been protesting walking and it's something that arizona is becoming just a racist state period i take it as a no you don't want to leave who state who states our state who state our state whose classes are classes it's my view that if i were to come into the class that it would affect what was taught there and i would not get a true picture and then if i was asked what went on the class i'd have to say well it was just this benign class you would get a dog and pony show i would not get what they would see every day i'd have to do a drop in unannounced and then still they could change their pedagogy that quickly and the methodology i think this picture depicts what these kids are learning um thank you all for coming i have a state police representative okay this isn't about beliefs for him to come into our classes and talk to us and and he was in this office invited and uh and still would not speak to the students so we have no other option here education [Applause] education's [Music] so we were there to make a stand uh that we do not support that bill that is a racist bill against some ethnic studies classes four underage high school students and 11 adults arrested in all again 15 people arrested in total four juveniles 11 adults they were cited as well and they have a court date coming up on june 7th meanwhile they all tell me they say it was worth it to make this strong statement we need to be heard we have a message we're we have a purpose here we have an objective and we're going to do what we need to do in the struggle to achieve that [Music] i think your struggle as a human being to be a good human being uh has begun and i will always hold you to that always look in the mirror look at your heart know your heart have quetzalcoat that precious knowledge of who you are as a human being so today's kind of hard but it's beautiful thing too because i'm so proud of you so that's like a lot of emotions it's just a ton of pride to this day we have to endure hateful comments i've been attacked and hated hated and as well as you [Music] and you were the ones that made it all worth it [Music] thank you for being you know the mystical in this class like mentoring us and just being you know that that father figure to some of us and you know i do have a father and mother you know i have my parents but they don't understand me like the way you do or any of these people do for someone that's also out of place for the majority of their life it's it feels good to to have a home you guys are the people who inspire me to try to be better thank you guys for everything this struggle hasn't ended and it will never end but it will continue because of us our generation when they try to take these classes away it's something impossible i want my little sisters to be able to come to this class and feel like i felt they can't take it away they can't [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there were profound inequalities in our country based on race and gender these issues still exist today although together we've made great strides [Music] [Applause] priscilla rodriguez gilbert [Music] crystal palace [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] congratulations you have earned admissions to the university of arizona for fall 2009 as an undecided major in the university college you have been chosen because your academic and personal achievements qualify you for the u of a you know when i was little i mean college was always like something that i wanted to do but it never really seemed like a possibility for my dad like for him to actually know that i'm in college i know that he's very proud and that he feels accomplished inside [Music] i got a hummingbird i'm representing with the will to act and it's connected to a flower where i saw that morse as being the movement and i'm just the hummingbird slurping that the power of the rose so i could have the will to act in my community and i just put my last name on top of it so [Music] think about it i mean we're all human we all got hearts that beat we all got you know minds that think and people don't treat each other like we're humans they treat others like they're animals like like they shouldn't be a part of this society but you know we create a society a dystopia where we oppress each other and we don't really appreciate one another but you know we're all human i mean what's the big deal whether it be our color you know i just believe in one race the human race [Music] allows us [Music] [Music] to act with a revolutionary spirit that is [Music] [Applause] [Music] i will follow up with you jose about the next june because i'm a pink i'm curious i mean i'm a tickled pink as people say um i'm very curious to go and visit and i'll learn more about uh how we can i will invite you okay yeah replicate and uh create um schools that um following schools that were a great motto right and and thank you also for the uh the uh quote from mao um yes that's a very important uh piece and a french zeno two that those uh uh references are uh historically not being important those thinkers uh intellectuals yeah so thank you and thank you for both of you for being with us today i think i i still want to continue the conversation but uh you know for today's purpose um i'm going to stop and uh i know camille i'm going to i i will be in contact with you um through the paulo friday student special interest group and jose i really hope i can um be in touch with you more often and uh just to learn more from you on about the uh puerto rican independence movement you know this and uh the betterment of the schools here in chicago or um and also i do thank you both for all your contributions today okay goodbye thank you [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] oh