Given that today is Martin Luther King Day, and that we’re still dealing with book banning based on race even today, I’d like to make a booklist in honor of those books banned in Arizona. Let’s crowd-source. This can be a pretty wide list, and some of the books might be a little radical, if by “radical” we mean considering that Columbus might not have had the best of intentions when it came to indigenous peoples in the Caribbean and on the American continents, but I think that books like this are important to the discourse in this country, especially in places like Arizona where they’re dealing with the confluence of several cultures with conflicting goals. After all, couldn’t that apply in so many places in this world? How will we come to understand one another’s points of view if we ban those viewpoints? From the Salon.com article:
Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.
Here’s the list of books banned in the Tucson school district last week (source). What other books like this should we celebrate?
*For more on the situation in Arizona, see here and here.
BANNED MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES READING LIST
Curriculum Audit of the Mexican American Studies Department, Tucson Unified School District, May 2, 2011.
High School Course Texts and Reading Lists Table 20: American Government/Social Justice Education Project 1, 2 – Texts and Reading Lists
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader (1998), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
Critical Race Theory: An Introduction (2001), by R. Delgado and J. Stefancic
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000), by P. Freire
United States Government: Democracy in Action (2007), by R. C. Remy
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1990), by H. Zinn
Table 21: American History/Mexican American Perspectives, 1, 2 – Texts and Reading Lists
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004), by R. Acuna
The Anaya Reader (1995), by R. Anaya
The American Vision (2008), by J. Appleby et el.
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (1998), by B. Bigelow and B. Peterson
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A. Burciaga
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (1997), by C. Jiminez
De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998), by E. S. Martinez
500 Anos Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures (1990), by E. S. Martinez
Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998), by R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History (2006), by F. A. Rosales
A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (2003), by H. Zinn
Course: English/Latino Literature 7, 8
Ten Little Indians (2004), by S. Alexie
The Fire Next Time (1990), by J. Baldwin
Loverboys (2008), by A. Castillo
Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
Mexican WhiteBoy (2008), by M. de la Pena
Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
Woodcuts of Women (2000), by D. Gilb
At the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria (1965), by E. Guevara
Color Lines: “Does Anti-War Have to Be Anti-Racist Too?” (2003), by E. Martinez
Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy (1998), by R. Montoya et al.
Let Their Spirits Dance (2003) by S. Pope Duarte
Two Badges: The Lives of Mona Ruiz (1997), by M. Ruiz
The Tempest (1994), by W. Shakespeare
A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993), by R. Takaki
The Devil’s Highway (2004), by L. A. Urrea
Puro Teatro: A Latino Anthology (1999), by A. Sandoval-Sanchez & N. Saporta Sternbach
Twelve Impossible Things before Breakfast: Stories (1997), by J. Yolen
Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004), by H. Zinn
Course: English/Latino Literature 5, 6
Live from Death Row (1996), by J. Abu-Jamal
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (1994), by S. Alexie
Zorro (2005), by I. Allende
Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1999), by G. Anzaldua
A Place to Stand (2002), by J. S. Baca
C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), by J. S. Baca
Healing Earthquakes: Poems (2001), by J. S. Baca
Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems (1990), by J. S. Baca
Black Mesa Poems (1989), by J. S. Baca
Martin & Mediations on the South Valley (1987), by J. S. Baca
The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools (19950, by D. C. Berliner and B. J. Biddle
Drink Cultura: Chicanismo (1992), by J. A Burciaga
Red Hot Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Being Young and Latino in the United States (2005), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing up Latino in the United States (1995), by L. Carlson & O. Hijuielos
So Far From God (1993), by A. Castillo
Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985), by C. E. Chavez
Women Hollering Creek (1992), by S. Cisneros
House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros
Drown (1997), by J. Diaz
Suffer Smoke (2001), by E. Diaz Bjorkquist
Zapata’s Discipline: Essays (1998), by M. Espada
Like Water for Chocolate (1995), by L. Esquievel
When Living was a Labor Camp (2000), by D. Garcia
La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia
Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003), by C. Garcia-Camarilo, et al.
The Magic of Blood (1994), by D. Gilb
Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001), by Rudolfo “Corky” Gonzales
Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to “No Child Left Behind” (2004) by Goodman, et al.
Feminism if for Everybody (2000), by b hooks
The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999), by F. Jimenez
Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991), by J. Kozol
Zigzagger (2003), by M. Munoz
Infinite Divisions: An Anthology of Chicana Literature (1993), by T. D. Rebolledo & E. S. Rivero
…y no se lo trago la tierra/And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1995), by T. Rivera
Always Running – La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (2005), by L. Rodriguez
Justice: A Question of Race (1997), by R. Rodriguez
The X in La Raza II (1996), by R. Rodriguez
Crisis in American Institutions (2006), by S. H. Skolnick & E. Currie
Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Tucson, 1854-1941 (1986), by T. Sheridan
Curandera (1993), by Carmen Tafolla
Mexican American Literature (1990), by C. M. Tatum
New Chicana/Chicano Writing (1993), by C. M. Tatum
Civil Disobedience (1993), by H. D. Thoreau
By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996), by L. A. Urrea
Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life (2002), by L. A. Urrea
Zoot Suit and Other Plays (1992), by L. Valdez
Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert (1995), by O. Zepeda
ETA: Also appropriate to this discussion, OTHER things that MLK once said besides the quotes you normally hear on this day:
Every time I read about stuff like this, I can’t help thinking about the Nazis–and just about every other dictatorial, tyrannical form of leadership where the main objective is to keep people ignorant for the purpose of maintaining oppressive control.
It seems like an attempt to remove the agency of the students to learn and see both side and understand how to think critically for themselves. Shakespeare? Come on! One cannot undo the past simply by hiding it. It’s there to learn from.