Monday, February 18, 2008

Why you should never tell people your fears or favorites

--because they either will use them against you or decide that you really CAN argue taste.

What am I learning about the [historical] education of Americans? That, if at all possible, it is far worse than when I went to school. That little is being taught that might really matter in the future or in the here and now. That I should not VALUE education as much as I do sometimes... because it feels like Arizona just likes to bust balloons of optimism and it's painful to see your ideals go pop. It happened in Chicagoland too, but not to the extent it seems to here.

I have spent a good deal of time trying to explain why no one except the Mexicana/os and the bigots in the US know there was/is any "race" problem with a raza face. Why did I decide to teach college only to have to "explain" the very basic information of Chicana/o history and American history? I mean, as in "What do you mean, Mexicans were lynched?!"

And oh hell, let's forget about simple things like teaching Jane Austen or Twain or poe or something... *grumble*

I don't want your guilt. I want your present-day action and an honest assessment of who we are as a people in the US, or if not then the PEOPLES of the US. Smart and not so smart. And please don't ask me to explain Mexico and Mexicans to the non-Mexicans, and don't take my inability to be omniscient as proof positive that you were right in your nativist or ignorant assumptions.

No, this isn't aimed at any person in particular. But the more time I spend in this state (bless your heart, Tucson and Flag!), the more I realize I'm almost tapped out of activist energy. I hope they invent a pill soon so I can take it, but damn, what the fight takes out of you sometimes. But, as one of my students in Chicago once said, "I don't get it. What fight?"

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