Ethnic studies can unite us

Ethnic studies can unite us
By Clarence Page
Copyright © 2010, Chicago Tribune
May 16, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-clarence-page-100316-column,0,6783724.column


Before being accused of racism for opposing his state's ethnic studies classes, Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of public instruction, quickly gives credit to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Or, if you prefer, the blame.

In interviews he lovingly recalls the summer after he graduated from high school in 1963. He witnessed King's historic March on Washington. He heard King say that he hoped his four little children would one day be judged "not by the color of their skin but the content of their character."

Inspired by King's words, Horne says, he has become the main booster of a bill that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewersigned into law last week that's aimed at banning ethnic studies in Arizona schools.

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I appreciate Horne's equality-based sentiment, but I think he got the wrong message from Dr. King.

Of course, there would be no need for ethnic studies if, as Horne recommends, history classes offered a balanced account of everyone's history. Unfortunately, I learned in my well-integrated southern Ohio district many decades ago that balance is in the eye of often-unbalanced beholders.

In short, I was in college before I learned about any notable historic pioneers-of-color besides George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington.

But Horne said he is alarmed by the divisiveness he has seen in ethnic studies. He was understandably infuriated in 2006 when Hispanic civil rights and farm workers activist Dolores Huerta told Tucson high school students that " Republicans hate Latinos."

Of course, Republicans don't hate Latinos. But Horne, who happens to now be a Republican candidate in Arizona's primary race for attorney general, does not like the way some Latinos talk about Latino history, either.

After Huerta's Tucson appearance, for example, Horne arranged for Margaret Garcia Dugan, Arizona's deputy superintendent of schools, a child of an immigrant family and a Republican candidate for Horne's current job, to give an alternative message: Don't fall for stereotypes.

That's a valuable lesson.

Unfortunately her speech was disrupted by a group of student protesters who didn't like her perspective. "These kids, I believe, did not learn this rude behavior from home," Horne said on Greta Van Susteren's Fox News program. "They were taught at home to be polite. They learned this rude behavior from the La Raza studies teachers."

La Raza, Spanish for "the race," describes a movement of Chicano nationalism that sometimes fosters resentment about America's stormy history with Mexico.

Yet Horne said he did not object to controversial speakers. "Kids learn from controversial speakers," he said, "but they need to hear both sides."

Fair enough. Horne's branding ethnic studies as "divisive" carries a lot of political weight with conservative non-Hispanic whites in Arizona. The state recently made international news with this country's most draconian immigration law. But Horne's opposition to ethnic studies ironically increases the very ethnic divide it supposedly is intended to close.

In fact, school officials who oppose the new law say their classes already are in compliance with the new law's criteria. If so, the measure may never have any actual impact, except to provide a teachable moment for students and a campaign issue for Horne.

The law specifically prohibits classes that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government," promote "resentment toward a race" or class of people, "appear to be designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group" or advocate "ethnic solidarity instead of treating pupils as individuals."

Violating schools or districts could lose up to 10 percent of their state funds.

But those criteria are not too much to ask, even for opponents of the law like Sean Arce, director of Mexican-American studies for the Tucson district. His district's ethnic studies classes are open to all, he has pointed out, and don't promote the "ethnic chauvinism" that Horne charges.

I am not unsympathetic to Horne's view. Ethnic studies should never wall students into academic or cultural ghettos. "Let us be divinely dissatisfied," Dr. King once said, "until integration is not seen as a problem, but as an opportunity for us to participate in the beauty of diversity."

In that spirit, ethnic studies can serve as a cultural comfort zone, if only as a bridge to their studies of mainstream America and a greater appreciation of constitutional law and values. From there, all students can engage more fully in the beauty of diversity.

Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/pagespage

cpage@tribune.com