Posts Tagged: mexican american studies

Arizona Update: HB2281 and beyond – four documents

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Break the wall of impunity. No more silence!
Moderator’s Note: As my readers and followers are aware, Judge Tashima’s ruling on March 8 was a temporary setback for the continuing movement to defend Ethnic Studies in Arizona. All social movements suffer setbacks, challenges, and – often – internalized friction and conflicts. This is part of the history of social movements and not at all unusual. This is also the case with the movement to defend Mexican American Studies (MAS) in Arizona and I am presenting four documents to illustrate what some of the current challenges involve. This is done in the spirit of journalistic reporting. These statements do not at the time reflect the official policies or positions of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) or any other organizations with which I am affiliated. NACCS is not responsible or aware that I am making this series of documents available to the public in one place. The three documents that follow my statement are already available to the public at other sites.

The first document – a statement I have prepared on events that are already largely matters of public knowledge and newsworthy coverage – is simply my personal views and recollection surrounding events associated with the matters described and discussed in the other three subsequent documents: (1) The text of the plenary address presented by Roberto ‘Dr. Cintli’ Rodríguez at the 2013 NACCS Conference and entitled, “In Tucson, the sky has not fallen,” (2) A declaration issued on International Women’s Day entitled “A Collective Statement: Todos somos Leilani,” which was read to a group of 150 persons gathered in Tucson about a week ago; and (3) A blog entry from Malintzine.com entitled “Girl Code, Responsibility, Accountability and In Lak Ech.” As an academic scholar and teacher I have a right to express my views on matters of existing public interest and indeed under the law I am required as an educator to share and report on my knowledge of any incident of sexual abuse or violence.
Sexual violence, toxic masculinities, and el movimiento
THE HIDDEN INJURIES AND FEARS THAT SUFFOCATE US

Devon G. Peña | San Antonio, TX | March 24, 2013
In December of 2011, while I was serving as immediate Past-Chair of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), our organization’s Board of Directors received very disturbing reports out of Arizona alleging that the director of the documentary, “Precious Knowledge,” Ari Palos, had raped one of the students featured in the film. The reports also alleged that he had sexually harassed another three young women student activists. NACCS has long been a leader combating sexism, sexual harassment, sexual violence, and all forms of heteronormative privilege and so we of course took these reports very seriously. I worked with another member of the NACCS Board, Michelle Tellez, to prepare a letter on behalf of NACCS asking for an investigation of these allegations – which at the time had not yet been reported to the police.  We expressed our disgust with the acts of sexual violence that continue to plague our communities and social movements. I will be posting the full text of that letter in a subsequent post on this matter.

Victims of sexual assault are traumatized by the violation of their bodies and personhood – this is a lifelong trauma. They also fear being put on trial by insensitive courts and the spiteful phallocentrism of defense attorneys. Thus, victims of rape and other sexual assaults too often do not file police reports or lodge formal complaints against assailants; a significant portion of sexual assaults therefore remains unreported.

This was the case with this matter and the lack of a police report limited the range of actions we could take. As a side note, I want to make clear my understanding of the structural causes of this problem: The lack of police reports is the result of a juridical order, including the police and courts, that fails to operate as a system focusing on effective and swift prosecution of violators and instead further advances the sustained and abject humiliation of victims in the courtroom. This is institutional violence and it adds trauma to a victim’s sense of desperation, confusion, depression, and fear. We need a system of restorative justice – one that helps rape victims heal; makes rapists accountable not to the state, but to the victim and the victim’s family. Reparations should include monetary support for the victim’s care, recovery, and livelihood losses as well as community-based therapeutic and direct action interventions to address the root causes of violence – all issues that I will have to take up later.

The lack of a police report, and the threats meant we were obligated to keep our letter asking for an investigation a matter of private correspondence. We delivered the letter to three persons, all of them with very close connections to the film and the community organization leading the defense of Ethnic Studies in Arizona. We also sent the letter to the Foco representatives and Caucus chairs, which are officers of our organization. Someone in the Arizona group leaked the letter to a much larger group of persons, including Mr. Palos, and then accused us of making the letter public. I assure you we did not; at least not until they released the letter and it went viral.

The ugly, reactionary, brutal, and thoroughly machistaresponse to the NACCS letter of inquiry set in motion a wave of other vicious attacks and threats against NACCS– including personal hate mail directed at me, and a threat to sue our organization for libel and slander. Such a lawsuit, had it gone through and regardless of the outcome, would have pushed NACCS into turmoil and could have been the end of the organization as we know it. We were advised by volunteer legal counsel not to pursue the matter any further until and only if the young woman who was raped made the this violence public and filed a police report and complaint. We were effectively silenced by the threats posed by this system of institutional violence. The legal apparatus had shackled us. I am still enraged by this course of events.

Among these attacks were letters from some San Antonio NACCS members who accused us of engaging in libelous, reckless, and scandalous behavior and another group wrote letters from Arizona accusing NACCS of silencing the young women featured in the film by not endorsing or encouraging the use or presentation of “Precious Knowledge”. We actually did show the film at the 2011 NACCS meeting in Pasadena well before these allegations surfaced. Once the rape was brought to our attention, we felt it was our duty to call for an investigation and quietly withdrew support for the film. This did not mean NACCS was withdrawing support for the students, teachers, and parents behind the lawsuit against HB 2281.  We not only produced the lengthy amici curiae brief for the plaintiffs and organized the substantial list of national and state organizations that signed the brief we also continued to raise funds at numerous events while many individual NACCS members made significant personal donations to the cause.

Shortly after the NACCS letter was leaked, the lawyer for Ari Palos sent us a letter threatening a lawsuit for libel, slander, and actual and compensatory damages. He alleged that we were jeopardizing his client’s prospects and profits. In that letter Mr. Palos showed absolutely no concern for the women in his film. He appeared completely dedicated to his own self-interest and pecuniary advantages. Our view was that he had usurped the voices and experiences of the Arizona youth at the heart of our movement and then simply abandoned them to the turmoil you will read about in the following passages and posts. Sinvergüenzas.

My colleague, Michelle Tellez, who co-signed the NACCS letter, was another “hidden” casualty of this toxic masculinity. She suffered endless verbal abuses from colleagues and professional consequences as a result of the extraordinary stress she was subjected to by the events unleashed by our letter. Michelle is a resilient and powerful woman: She gave refuge to the young women who were being derided by other young women and members of the Tucson community.

I personally have felt a lingering deep sense of frustration and disgust at how we were all targeted by abuse and threats; we were silenced for so long. I am very disappointed by the Arizona-based men – activists and professionals who have done a lot to advance the movement for social justice and civil rights but when it comes to sexual violence against women retreat into a retrograde old-school posture that threatens our movement. I want to be clear to them: You accused NACCS, Michelle, and myself of betrayal and endangering the movement. It is you, with your reckless and feckless macho attitude and failure to stand in solidarity with the very students you purport to support and defend; you are responsible for undermining the movement and allowing hate-filled right wingers to use this rape and the response to it as a weapon against a legitimate campaign to save ethnic studies in Arizona and elsewhere across these states of exception and institutionalized violence.

Over the course of 2011-12, the attacks on the target of this rape became so horrific and shameful – including vicious degradation and rejection by her own women friends – she had to leave the country. But now, as must ultimately happen with this sort of violence, the young woman, despite being deeply traumatized by the rape and subsequent events, has courageously made these allegations public. So, I am initiating a series of posts to address what all this means for us as a community and social movement. My sense is that our communities and movement organizations still face an enduring crisis wrought of toxic masculinity that wreaks violence on women, children, men, and trans* persons.

Rape, sexual abuse and harassment, and other forms of intimate partner and domestic violence remain rampant in our society.  This is not about political correctness and is most certainly not about men-hating femi-nazi [sic] fantasies. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004), one in six females ages 13 and older are victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. Based on the U.S. Census, projections for the Hispanic [sic] female population in the future, and the one-in-six victimization calculation, by the year 2050, the number of females of Hispanic origin who will have experienced some form of sexual violence could reach 10.8 million. ¡Ni una mas, mi gente!

A los hombres, les digo, ¡Ya Basta! I say this not to the rapists as much as to the rest of us, who are silenced or silent in the face of this cultural and heteropatriarchal violence. We – all men – are complicit in this intimate [sic] form of structural violence if we fail to teach young men and boys that the culture of rape must end and that toxic masculinity is NOT okay. There are other ways of being male involving the refusal of violence and the embrace of respect and nurture. Let us recognize that this toxic masculinity, and the violent acts of rape that it spawns, is not simply a legal issue and is instead structural and cultural. Women and men alike in our communities reproduce this toxic masculinity by being silent and using the fear of lawsuits to avoid getting involved as advocates of justice for all our personhoods and the integrity of our bodies – this is true for all women, men, children, and trans* persons.

As the first a series of posts, I now present important words from my colleague Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez, which provide further context and history. Dr. Cintli’s NACCS plenary address is followed by the statement released by Leilani and her colleagues, as part of an event convened on March 7, International Women’s Day from a group of women in Arizona working to end sexual violence and address the contradictions in the movement to save Ethnic Studies. Finally, we are posting a profound and deeply felt statement from Malintzine.com. All these declarations are for Ethnic Studies and against sexual violence, sexism, and all form of patriarchal violence are unacceptable and must be purged from our social movements. We must create learning circles to transform masculinity and create genuinely peaceful and equitable communities in every place on and off the map as a next step.
In Tucson, the sky has not fallen
Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez | Tucson, AZ | March 20, 2013
Some have taken to moping around claiming that the battle to defend Mexican American Studies (MAS) in Tucson is lost, or worse, dead. That is nonsense. Neither a school board, a state or the U.S. judicial system can terminate a movement. Raza Studies is part of a historic movement, as opposed to simply a program, thus it dies only if we as a community say it dies.

In Tucson, we have become part of a resistance/creation culture; our opposition does not define us. As a community, we create, while we resist. That’s why we run in 115-degree heat through the desert… for Raza Studies/ for an Indigenous education. We also run to bring awareness to issues such as domestic/sexual violence, obesity, diabetes, and alcoholism. We do this to cleanse ourselves and it requires permission from no one.

We need to always remember that our movements, including the UFW, for example, were never dependent upon the courts for validation. Francisca Flores, Betita Martinez, and Enriqueta Vasquez did not wait for permission from the courts to start publishing the early Movimiento’s Regeneracion and El Grito del Norte.

If anything, the MAS struggle, has been waged through the wrong lenses. All human beings have the right to education. In fact, we all have the right to culture, history, identity, language and education (CHILE).

Nine international treaties and conventions guarantee these rights, including the 2007 UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is how this battle should be waged, not as Hispanics, but rather as Indigenous peoples. If this is too controversial for some, then at minimum, we should always demand our rights as full human beings, not as minorities.

When the Tucson student group UNIDOS took over the school board in April of 2011, they did just that. Led by a young Pueblo/African American young woman, Leilani, an MAS alumni, they invoked that 2007 UN Declaration. And this is what is key; the rights that we have as human beings are not bequeathed to us by treaties or governments. We posess them, by the simple fact of our birth. Yet never in the history of humanity have people been freely given their rights. They have always had to fight for them, as we have consistently done so in Tucson.

Judge A. Wallace Tashima, ruled against the anti-ethnic studies HB 2281 on March 13, upholding three of its four draconian and contrived provisions, essentially charging that MAS preaches hate. This is not the first miscarriage of justice when it comes to people of color, and thus, cannot deter us.

It is not up to the state or for a federal judge to determine the curriculum of local school districts. That prerogative belongs to the school districts. Up until November, the problem was that the TUSD school board was complicit with the state in dismantling MAS.
What a difference an election makes. What was a 4 to 1 hostile majority, is now 3-2 pro MAS. And the superintendent that has repeatedly opposed our community, resigned just yesterday, which is great news.

Equally important is the desegregation ruling earlier this year by Judge David Bury, which ordered TUSD to create culturally relevant classes for both, Latinos and African-Americans in all of Tucson’s high schools. A great victory, but not enough.

It is incumbent upon the school board to permit the creation of those classes – under the direction of our community – to ensure that they are not in violation of any trumped-up law. We should never forget that the history of the judicial system in this country; was never meant to protect the rights of non-Europeans.

We protested seven long years for the purpose of ensuring that the governing  school board represent the will of the majority of our community. And it is now their responsibility to carry out our wishes.

The board has the right not simply to create that culturally relevant curriculum – which should be built upon the success of MAS – but to create, with legal counsel, its own unambiguous measures by which to judge whether they are in violation of HB 2281 or not. The state cannot be permitted to invoke arbitrary standards.

HB 2281, every bit of it, is contrived. It is demonstrable. Our rejection of it does not require judge Tashima’s blessing. 

Every one of us knows that right wing ideologue and ex-state school’s chief, Tom Horne, created HB 2281, out of spite. To be sure, our community will never recognize it as a law. It is not grounded in truth or fact. MAS is a legitimate discipline. It is taught at hundreds of colleges and universities, and many high schools, throughout the country.

The mind-boggling Tashima decision – against all evidence and logic, because we know HB 2281 was designed precisely to destroy MAS – can be picked apart easily and perhaps it will be reversed on appeal. But we should be prepared to act independent of any decision.

Truly this is the context: it is a classic civilizational struggle, not of our choosing, but rather, that of Mr. Horne, who considers us “outside of [Western] civilization.” The solution is not to cower, or give in, but to confront this colonial mentality.

This movement we are engaged in, is 520 years old. That is why HB 2281 has already been argued before UN forums. And we will continue to do so. In 2010, a special UN rapporteur denounced both HB 2281 and the anti-immigrant SB1070. So too several international human rights organizations. And it will be one of the focuses of the conference on the Doctrine of Discovery at ASU on April 19-20. We know where their so-called “laws” and legitimacy comes from.

The fact is, the philosophical foundation for the MAS curriculum, as Mr. Horne has aptly noted, does not emanate from Greco-Roman culture. It emanates from maíz  culture, from this continent, long before the arrival of the Grecos and the Romans.

We don’t give that up. It is our ours. All peoples have the right to their cultures and have the right to study their histories. And all students should have access to that knowledge.  Only in Arizona could that be construed as illegal. Actually, we can now throw in New Mexico, and Texas, where Ethnic Studies is also being attacked at the University level. Actually, if we examine the curriculum of schools throughout the nation, we can see that what is happening in Arizona has already happened everywhere else. In most K-12 schools, there is nothing to ban. Which school district anywhere in this country offers a maíz–based curriculum? Who teaches native languages, culture, history and philosophy of this continent? De-Indigenization is the history of this country. More so, dehumanization is also the history of this country and continent. This is but the latest phase of Westernization, Americanization and forced assimilation. That’s why the battle in Tucson has been of epic proportions. Students were being taught the maíz-based concepts of In Lak Ech and Panche – Tu eres mi otro yo – buscar la raiz de la verdad – You are my other self – to seek the root of the truth.

Everyone has heard that books were banned, all of them, all those that were part of the curriculum, but also artwork, posters, etc. what many do not know is that even the Aztec calendar was deemed to be illegal.

Per the way forward, during the recent federal hearings regarding the desegregation lawsuit, our community agreed upon, and several student groups drafted the Declaration of Intellectual Warriors document
(http://drcintli.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-call-for-mexican-american-indigenous.html). That document should be the basis of how our community and the school board should proceed.

As in any movement, there is external and internal struggle. The MAS struggle is no different. Several fissures have arisen during the past several years. Much of it has to do with gender relations, including issues of gender/sexual violence. It is nothing that can’t be fixed. But the only way these issues can be fixed is by addressing, as opposed to silencing them.

One place where these issues are being addressed at the moment is Malintzine.com – a Tucson collective of mostly young women who write anonymously, who not simply have had enough, but are demanding accountability. People may not agree with every one of their posts, but regardless, its very existence, is evidence that something is amiss. And their purposeful anonymity speaks volumes.

The Intellectual Warrior document shows us a way forward. It is not good enough to win what previously existed. The document calls for MAIS or Mexican American Indigenous Studies, African-American, Native American, Middle Eastern, LGBT and Women studies.
Most of us in Tucson do not feel like going back. It has to be a new program that stresses equality for everyone. The old MAS was worthy of being defended; that’s why many of us got arrested and or/received death threats in the process. Yet, after protesting all these years, our community now wants more.

The silencing of voices, is no longer acceptable. Most people outside of Tucson are perhaps unaware that the defense of MAS has been waged primarily by youths/young women, especially in the arrests department. What this means is that hereafter, they need to be given that proper respect, within the curriculum. But it also means understanding relations between the generations; elders do have something to teach.

All these topics are issues that need to be addressed by our own community. It does not require the approval of judges, legislators or governors.

Perhaps a long-term example of not waiting for permission is SEMILLAS in Los Angeles. It is an indigenous-based K-12 school, serving the L.A. community. The difference in Tucson is that it is not simply about one class or one school but an entire district. That’s the example for the rest of the nation. The Bury desegregation decision allows for that possibility.

The notion that fighting against dehumanization is somehow illegal, if anything, is an indication of what that law represents: an effort to continue with 520 years of dehumanization. The point is, we have not lost. We cannot lose because defeat is not in our vocabulary. MAS is not dead, we are MAS, and MAS can never be killed.

In this platíca, there are several elephants in the room. There is the case of one young woman, Leilani, mentioned previously, who went public this past international women’s day in Tucson, charging that she was a victim of sexual violence two years ago. She sent me her statement just this morning. Why did it take her two years to step forward? It has to say something about our culture – and this within our movement – that she would be afraid and intimidated to step forward. Why do we whisper about this – and similar matters – even here? Where is the appropriate forum to discuss such matters? It has to do with the belief that it is she who would be put on trial… and it has to do with legal threats, which contributes to that culture of silence.

Where have we come to when we cannot openly speak about these issues without fearing retribution? Since 1994, we already have the Zapatista’s Revolutionary Law of Women. No one should ever be afraid or intimidated to invoke that declaration.  What we seem to be lacking as a national community, are protocols for how and when to discuss these issues of gender/sexual violence.

A Cheyenne saying is appropriate here: “A people is not defeated until the hearts of its women are on the ground.”

And in Tucson, the hearts of the women, young or otherwise, are anywhere, but on the ground. If anything, they are afire. And a final quote regarding Arizona: “They came for our souls, but they did not know where to look.” La Otra Conquista (1999).

A Collective Statement: Todas Somos Leilani
March 8, 2013                                        
International Women’s Day
As the Tucson community comes to be in the developing stages of a complete and new curriculum of Mexican American/Ethnic Studies and Women/LGBTQ Studies within the Tucson Unified School District, it is imperative that we finally pull free the wool over the public’s eyes about the film “Precious Knowledge”.

The audience the film has reached does not understand that the community they watch on screen in no way reflects the current reality of the Tucson Ethnic Studies community; a community which now stands fractured and divided, in a current state of comatose in order to afford the price of “moving on” without practicing accountability, after the locally and widely known events of the director’s act of sexual violence against one of the young alumni of the program on the opening night of the film’s premier in the very city “Precious Knowledge” is based on.

The city of Tucson, Arizona alone stands (as well as with allies in Phoenix) as the only city that will not screen the movie “Precious Knowledge” out of respect for the once fallen warrior, friend, comrade and ally who suffered a deeply psychological abuse of sexual assault/rape at the hands of film director Ari Palos.

In the year 2013, it is a crime to still continue on with the charade all for the financial benefits of a few and the collective silence in order to maintain a shining image of a movement, rather than the actual movement itself. The film “Precious Knowledge” now stands as but a symbol of an internalized tolerance to gender and sexual violence, even within the activist community; producing an enabling response arising from deeply rooted ties to the heteropatriarchal system of colonization.

This response of silence and silencing by the Tucson Ethnic Studies community has led to a false rose-colored perpetuation for our national allies that, “everything is under control,” while locally we are now eating each other alive from the inside out over this issue- and many others coated in the same tint of misogyny. A misogyny that has been shown through additional unacknowledged acts of gender and interpersonal violence practiced by other members of the Tucson Ethnic Studies community, including its leaders.

The Tucson community, just as other communities living the same internal complexities, needs to heal and move forward in a positive way that uplifts and empowers those affected by sexual violence. In order for that process to begin our first step must be honesty and the acknowledgement of the traumatic experiences lived by survivors of gender and sexual violence.

Enough is enough; our voices will no longer be silenced. We will not be sacrificial lambs no more.

Today, local and national community, sharing the same values of justice, movement building and a rejection to all forms of oppression, are invited to take a firm stand against sexual violence.
  • Local and national communities are asked to combat the silencing, dismissal and enabling of sexual violence.
  • Local and national communities are asked to reject the dominant society’s rape culture that shames and blames a victim into silence, further prohibiting them to seek justice.
  • Local and national communities are asked to eradicate the mindset that survivors of sexual violence need any sort of police records or documents to legitimize their traumas.
  • Local and national communities are asked to stand committed in developing effective procedures of community accountability, transformative justice, and expanding community and self-education on gender violence, in all its manifestations.
Our battles today are meaningless if we cannot provide healthy and safe spaces to organize and resist for everyone regardless of their gender, ethnicity, sexual identity, class, age, culture, disability, language, origin of birth or belief system. We must model the visions we have for a better tomorrow in the everyday practices of liberation in our communities, in our homes and within ourselves.

This is not a depoliticized call to focus on personal self-development instead of building movements to dismantle white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism… [for] our movements to be successful they must prefigure the societies we seek to build. Movements must dispense the idea that we can worry about gender violence ‘after the revolution’, because gender violence is a primary strategy for white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism… Those who are having an interest in dismantling settler colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism must by necessity have a stake in dismantling heteropatriarchy.  (Andrea Smith. “Introduction” The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities, pp. xv)


Girl Code, Responsibility, Accountability and In Lak Ech
22 Mar
I didn’t believe my friend when she was raped.
……
The last few years in Tucson have been a struggle to survive. With the battles in our communities and legislation targeting brown people of color on indigenous land – we have nearly killed each other and the work and the fight and the fighting has made us all sick – susto. It deserves writing that will never end now that it has started. Through it all, I now reflect on two moments when I know I fucked up. I monumentally fucked up and hurt other women. When it first happened, she was and we all were sorting through statements and over ‘what does this mean to this movement’ shit. She may have at first said something(s) and later they changed which isn’t uncommon with sexual violence and doesn’t delegitimize what happened to her or her voice at any given moment. Sexual violence is haunting and what happened to me with a family member fifteen years ago took me almost a year to tell anyone about. My mom. She knew and never questioned me aloud, but my family raged in confusion. My grandparents led my smear campaign.

‘The divorce and custody battles were just really hard on her she has got to be making this up for attention. Her father, our son would never do this.’

But he did and I still can’t name it. I never filed a report, never told a counselor, I didn’t bring it up in custody hearings, and haven’t explained to my friends who insist that I masturbate but I DON’T FUCKING WANT TO because touching my naked body disgusts me (for a number of reasons) and I haven’t talked about it with anyone the way I go over it with myself. I’m sure it accounts for my inability to have physical intimacy, even hugs are uncomfortable when they’re unwanted and they’re usually unwanted.

After this past summer I even wondered if it’s why V couldn’t force a sexual connection or some shit with me. I questioned myself over and over.

The loneliness of something I can’t even verbalize that was happening in my subconscious made me suicidal about things I could verbalize and understand like break ups. So my moment of attempted overdose or short episode with antidepressants seem unusually common and associated with the moments they took place in but I’ve come to understand that I carry my trauma everyday regardless if I acknowledge it and it shapes my behavior and response.
……
When she said she was raped, she didn’t use that language, in those first days she didn’t say to me, “I was raped”. She told me and one of my best friends at the same time.  I refuse to go over details of what was said and will limit my details because the space to go over this with all of us – belongs to her. Arguably some friends (a word that has become interchangeable to also include: community member, co-worker, social justice acquaintance) thought they probably just had sex, that some of what happened was consensual and she didn’t want to follow through with it and so it was date rape, which apparently isn’t rape-rape in our disgusting shaming language for those who drink alcohol or like to fuck. There is nothing wrong with liking to have sex. We were all friends, all us comadres, going through a lot of shit in Arizona – we deserved to get dressed super cute and go out for drinks. There were nights we drank A LOT. I was going through a break up and thought I was going to die, as usual. Reflecting on the time we had as comadres, a tight inseparable group, it forever transformed me. My home girls, mujeres, had my back and I mostly healed that break up and got through it because of them and jäger bombs. We always took care of each other, took cabs, three or more of us, had our usual spots, and didn’t fuck around with guys. We went together and left together and slept over at each other’s places.  On “Chican@ prom night”, a huge night for our community, it was different. We didn’t carefully plan our night besides our outfits; we’d be with hundreds of our friends and community members.  I suppose we assumed we’d be safe. That there was no way something could happen to any of us around movement men we worked with. We didn’t plan designated drivers or anything like that, the night was predictable except for the predatory behavior of one, who now, obviously had a plan for his night.

We all went to a film premiere and then to a local bar for drinks and dancing.  He was a creep. He was drunk and sloppy and grabbing on women half his age, he wanted to dance; he wanted to celebrate and be the center of attention. Women’s attention. I left before they did. We asked around about rides and getting people home and left.

In the next two days I found out something went intolerably wrong, and I didn’t know what to think of it all. There were talking circles and whispers and meetings and time moved slowly but it  also went quickly. Inescapably slow and quick, so I have a hard time remembering each day. I think for the most part there were young women who never believed her (and still don’t), young women who always have, and those of us who thought nothing at all — who wanted to be neutral.

Neutral on rape.

The privilege of not knowing what to do and checking out. Checking out was easy. There was so much work to do as usual. Subtlety, my best friend and I combined the work we had been doing with work that needed to be done along lines of gender and sexual violence. She was more on point than I was (usually) and I basked in her energy and kind of said “fuck off” to everything else.
……
A month later after some unnecessary drama, I chose to think what everyone else in Tucson seemingly thought and I pulled the same shit my grandparents had done to me and like my former male teachers and people I looked up to, my only concern was Ethnic Studies. What does this mean for our comunidad, our fight? In my eyes, she did something that allowed for me to minimize her almost instantly and we fought over email exchanges that were cc’d to other young folks and that was that. I was Team Ethnic Studies(how the fuck did that happen and why wasn’t  I just team myself?).
Folks around the country would call me as a respectable mujer and ask if they could show the film to raise money, they heard there was controversy and wanted to hear it from me. I would call one of my teacher/mentor from the movement and let them know and usually my answer was “yes– Yes, if I were you I’d show the movie.” I’m really struggling now with how sick it all sounds because it was all sick. But I was willing to do anything for Ethnic Studies, ANYTHING. I would’ve then and I will do as much now as long as I’m not negotiating anyone’s dignity in the process.

I remember when he called me, from Save Ethnic Studies, in a panic. He knew then the power I held so he manipulated me and convinced me she was enemy #1.

I’m just a man and I have no say in this, but you’re trucha and if she gets this around, she has eighty some page report on our community. This will destroy us.

Of course he needed me to engineer a solution, a way to exploit young people in the name of social justice education. And I was a pawn in this modern nationalist epic novel. I could be the down ass trucha home girl who was loyal to her Raza, gets arrested, cooks comida, works with the young students and is never mentioned in a history book twenty years from now. This is all so romantic to a young organizer. And I loved everyone involved in this fucked up mess. I even sat down with two women I thought would jump me with words, one being the perpetrator’s partner (I realize I haven’t mentioned that yet, yes he had/s a partner which complicated the situation even further) and tried being – neutral. When we met, she gave me a gift, a fox and chocolates. My friends told me not to do it; she wanted me to be a bridge. I am a bridge in so many ways, I understand that. If I could make peace I would but only recently have I realized that I can’t now and I couldn’t then. Even if my education taught me that I could change the world, I can’t take on every task or every hit that comes my way.

But I still did. I tried to organize a meeting with everyone at the table – all the comadresat least. 

Like, ‘let’s sorts this out as women.’ I was still in this mentality like it was a women’s job, my job,  to sort through shit, find what was good and exemplify behavior for our community. I do this now, but I also do shit that exemplifies anger and lust and human shit. And CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW it’s not just my job to give a shit because I’m identified as a woman? So in the end, this was all silenced. She went away, literally – she moved out-of-state and out of the country and slowly the whispers became softer and softer. Our community dragged itself forward but this became the norm for all of us. Everything that happened then and since deserves endless words and stories or lessons for future generations and this generation right now.


……

During Freedom Summer, organizing became mundane and everyday. There were moments of hope and of accomplishing what we once had but what happened and was silenced will also be told.
I had a long emotional affair that was overdue to become physical and at summer time it did. When I kissed V I thought of my friend. In feeling like a slut – it was the same friend who named us both sluts after all, I would think of her. I would also think of his girlfriend. My political analysis of what we owe one another shifted in moment’s time. When he tried to fuck me when we were drunk it was because over all of this that I was able to know anything at all about consent and that I can change my mind. I CAN CHANGE MY MIND. When I’m drunk or he’s drunk or I can change my mind whenever the fuck I want. Or I can say no or I can say yes to this and no to that and seriously HE JUST SHOULDN’T HAVE TRIED WHEN I WAS DRUNK to begin with.
……

L and C are now my friends. I think.

L and I had lunch, she poured over journals and emails and texts. We spent a day together too, she’s been around now. It makes me feel alive. It is because of her resilience and resistance that I gather the will to act. When I hug her I don’t understand how she even lets me touch her. Hug her, to be around her glowing smile or share words with me… words to share with any of us.

C, she came to an event recently, she donated ten dollars to malintZINE. She hugged me. I thought her text messages were strategy, to get me to have lunch with her, so she can rip me apart, deservingly, although that’s never been her style. If she wanted to give me a regañada, I would sit and answer whatever she needed me to for her healing. She said she respects me still. I don’t understand. I lent her a book. My copy of Junot Diaz’s This is How You Lose Her.

“The half life of love is forever”

Maybe these things mean not much to anyone other than myself; possibly them. I have and will continue to reflect on these past few years and my own behavior. It is through my reflection that I need to account for what has happened and document. Accountability to me is speaking my truth. Acknowledging the ways in which I can and need to grow. Responsibility is challenging myself to behave in ways that will cause growth to happen. I have a responsibility to L and C to do work from here on that moves towards – NEVER AGAIN. It wasn’t through ethnic studies that I learned In Lak Ech, tu eres mi otro yo. But through two ethnic studies alumni, both younger than me, who offered me forgiveness and room to grow. Creating some Chicana girl code of accountability and responsibility. To taking care of each other and never assuming anyone else will.  To loving other women and loving yourself.

Unitary Status Plan Public Forum #3

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Today was the last of 3 public forums held in order for the community to express concerns about the proposed Desegragation/Unitary Status Plan directly to the Special Master.  I think it was the most attended, at least 70 people spoke, and it ran an hour late. Only one speaker was against MAS, everyone else had beautiful words in support of the program. As usual, here are my pics.

FULL SET:  http://chrissummitt.com/blog/desegforum3

Unitary Status Plan Public Forum #3

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Today was the last of 3 public forums held in order for the community to express concerns about the proposed Desegragation/Unitary Status Plan directly to the Special Master.  I think it was the most attended, at least 70 people spoke, and it ran an h…

I need help to put this show together!

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As you may know, I am trying to put a show together with some other photographers (https://www.facebook.com/events/322767944484919/).  It will be a photographic history of the fight for ethnic studies in Tucson. We have many amazing photographs from local photographers but still need some funds for printing them for the show.

We need some support from our community to help us pay for the printing of these huge 6’x3.5’ banners priced at $73/banner. If you would like to donate to fund our photo documenting project, do it here: 

https://www.wepay.com/donations/mas-through-the-lens-of-time

 Anyone that sponsors at least one banner will receive an 8×10 print {Any fine art print!} from any photographers collection as a thank you gift!!” If you can’t fund a full banner smaller donations are also needed “we are in need of the following items: wine, beer, soda, water bottles, cheese platters, veggies, chips and salsa, small plates, small clear cups for wine. ” Please pass on and THANK YOU for making this possible!!!

For those who would like to sponsor a banner, I will give you a signed 8×10 print of anything in my collection! (I usually sell them for $60-$75).  Anything on my website or facebook page is available!

http://chrissummitt.com/#/galleries/

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.224488444244279.75902.220574284635695&type=3

We have to print by Aug 6th. Any donations are appreciated.  Please help us bring this history to the community. 

https://www.wepay.com/donations/mas-through-the-lens-of-time

Huitzilopochtli

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The art show was a great success. Lot of people came to see the artwork and many pieces were sold.  I think more than half of the 50 photos I had up got sold.  There was a huge book on display, music, face painting, food, and more.  Art is such an important part of the movement and of social change in general.  Thank you everyone who came out.

Don’t forget about the next show that I am helping put together on August 11th: http://chrissummitt.com/masartshow.jpg

FULL SET from last night:http://chrissummitt.com/blog/willtoact/

Art Show!!!

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There is a show tonight and it’s going to be a good one.  I have over 50 photos in the show and there will be many other works in different mediums from amazing artists. Come check it out!

When: 7/28/12 5-9pm

Where: Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery, 218 E. 6th Street, Tucson AZ

T.U.S.D. Board Meeting (Community Festival)

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Another Board Meeting.  Stegeman brought up his motion to unban some books.  It didn’t make sense. Just some dumb political move. Nothing happened, no books were unbanned.  

The community came out and had their voice heard. There was a beautiful sunset. We will continue fighting.  It’s only a matter of time before they fall.

FULL SET HERE:  http://chrissummitt.com/blog/boardmtg_7_24_12/

MAS through the lens of time

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I’ve been photographing the fight to save ethnic studies for a while now and so have other local photographers.  It’s been a pretty wild ride and it is not even close to over. Along the way I’ve captured some pretty powerful images and ridiculous circumstances.  I am working with some other photographers to put together a showcase of the history of this battle in photographs.  If you’re ion town, please stop by the show.  It will definitely be something to see.

When: Aug 11th 6-9pm

Where: Fluxx Studio and Gallery, 414 e. 9th street, Tucson AZ

What: A collective of local photographers have come together to create a time line of compelling images captured in one of the most important civil rights movements of our time, the struggle to save Mexican American Studies. The power of solidarity, courage and love may not always be televised, but it has been documented in photos – don’t miss this historic show! SATURDAY AUGUST 11 FLUXX GALLERY 414 E 9TH TUCSON…6-9PM…$5 donation appreciated, proceeds will go to the Raza Defense Fund.

https://www.facebook.com/events/322767944484919/

An Evening in Celebration of Mario Suarez

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Today there was a special reading from the works of Barrio El Hoyo’s literary pioneer, Mario Suarez in support of Tucson Freedom Summer with Tucson writers Mari Herreras, Ernesto Portillo, Jr., D.A. Morales, Maya Arce, and Jeff Biggers.

Beautiful words read by talented writers.  Photos below:

Full Set: http://chrissummitt.com/blog/suarezreading

More info about Mario Suarez: http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/Books/bid1562.htm

UNIDOS & Freedom Summer Press Conference

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Today there was a Press Conference held in front of TUSD Board Member Mark Stegeman’s house.  The purpose was to address the recent decision by Stegeman to ‘unban’ books which he previously helped get taken out of the classroom.This is felt to be a political tactic and not sincere in the least.  Here are some photographs.

FULL SET: http://chrissummitt.com/blog/press_conf_stegeman/

Here is some more info:

On January 10th 2012, the Tucson Unified School District board voted to suspend all Mexican (MAS) classes with a 4-1 vote. A few days after the resolution was passed TUSD representatives entered the classrooms and boxed hundreds of MAS books, thus starting the BAN on Mexican American history books and renowned Chicano literature, which historically document the stories and contributions of Mexican Americans to the U.S. 

Fast-forward six months to the upcoming July 24th school board meeting. Former board President and current board member, Mark Stegeman, will be introducing a resolution to “un-ban” the MAS books he had voted to box up in February. As representatives of the movement to reinstate MAS in TUSD schools we question this move on several fronts. Why now? What does Dr. Stegeman hope to gain by this strange reversal? After two years of a relentless drive to help eliminate the MAS program from TUSD, is Stegeman now reconsidering the damage he has inflicted on TUSD students and the Mexican American community or is this an attempt to bolster his re-election campaign by telling more lies to sugar coat the truth? 

We believe Dr. Stegeman’s gesture is a poor attempt to placate what he would refer to as “restless natives”. Stegeman’s shady maneuvering to distance himself from his previous decisions and reverse such a serious issue as banning books from classrooms, calls into questions every one of the board’s votes concerning MAS. We further question whether it has really taken Dr. Stegeman six months to come to the realization that banning books is wrong or if the successful efforts of Tucson Freedom Summer are posing a threat to Dr. Stegeman and his re-election. As Tucson Freedom Summer participants survey dozens of local households, evidence of deep concerns regarding TUSD’s actions toward MAS is emerging and is being strategically documented.

Tucson Freedom Summer (a project of Save Ethnic Studies) is a national convergence of activist, artists and organizers who in addition to a month of cultural and educational events are currently launching a citywide informational canvass and survey about the state of education in Tucson. Information about events and volunteering activities can be found at Tucsonfreedomsummer.com and
on Facebook at Tucson Freedom Summer 2012.

T.U.S.D. Board Meeting

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Here we are again, another board meeting. I’ll just get right to the good stuff. There was a good showing from the community today.  Just prior to the meeting, dark storm clouds gathered and a short down pour occurred. The people outside were let very slowly into the building to find shelter from the rain. Due to the ridiculous security, this was a slow process.

Once the meeting began, there was a call to the audience, there were many great speakers in support of MAS, and at least one planted speaker from Stegeman. There was much support from activists that came in from out of town. Directly after the call to the audience, a rumble began and it wasn’t the thunder outside, it was from within. Clapping hands joined in, a beat was formed and calls from across the room began the song. The room was filled with words about Rosa Parks and despite Cuevas’ best attempt to quell the energy in the room, it went on.  Immediately, the board members got up and walked out.  All except Adelita Grijalva who remained for the song’s entirety.  As soon as the song was completed, a call from the audience, “Tucson Freedom Summer, walk out!”  And the whole room was emptied in a matter of minutes.  Chanting and inspiring words continued outside. 

Here is my documentation: 

FULL SET: http://chrissummitt.com/blog/boardmtg_7_10_12/