(NAME-MCE) Running for Our Lives: Victory for Ethnic Studies

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Running for Our Lives: Victory for Ethnic Studies 
Arizona Watch 
_http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=335007337
5bdcc2b1c4315b48a4d7f70_ 
(http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=3350073375bdcc2b1c4315b48a4d7f70)  
New America Media, Commentary, Roberto Dr. Cintli  Rodriguez, Posted: Jul 
07, 2009   
TUCSON -- A grueling spiritual run from Tucson to Phoenix in defense of  
ethnic studies—in 110-plus-degree heat—culminated in a resounding victory in  
front of Arizona’s state Capitol.

The victory, however, had already taken place when the  50 runners, after 
completing nearly 120 miles, were greeted with ceremonial  copal and a drum 
at the Nahuacalli-Tonatierra Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples  in downtown 
Phoenix. Led primarily by high school and college students, the  runners were 
joined by parents, toddlers, elders, teachers, nurses, construction  
workers and
ceremonial leaders. About 150 supporters joined them as they  walked 
through the streets of Tucson and an equal number joined them as they  walked with 
them to the state Capitol in Phoenix.

The victory had been  secured even earlier as the run received an 
incredible amount of support from  the barrios and communities of Tucson, Eloy, Casa 
Blanca, Guadalupe and Phoenix.  It also involved the spiritual support from 
the Yoeme nation and the Akimel  O’odham nation— which provided runners 
through their own territory.

The  purpose of the June 27 to 29 run was to defeat an Arizona state bill 
(S.B. 1069)  that emphasized the teaching of individualism at the expense of 
ethnic studies.  Its passage would have represented the ultimate triumph of 
ignorance over  enlightenment, politics over education and censorship over 
academic  freedom.

As the runners circled the Capitol on the third day, word  trickled down 
that the author of the anti-ethnic studies bill, Arizona State  Senator 
Jonathan Paton, declared his own bill dead. However, the following day,  the 
person responsible for shepherding this bill, Tom Horne, the Arizona  
superintendent of schools, said that he would attempt to eliminate ethnic  studies next 
year.

While the bill targeted ethnic studies, Horne's real  objective was his 
opposition to Raza Studies, a highly successful academic  program of the Tucson 
Unified School District that stresses the indigenous roots  of this 
continent. Students from this program have consistently outperformed  their peers 
over the past five years. Thus, Horne’s opposition is not about  academics, 
but about his insistence on the supremacy of Greco-Roman roots at the  
expense of the indigenous roots of the continent. All this, while asserting that  
ethnic studies are racist, dysfunctional and un-American.

There is not  enough room on this page to convey the actual story of this 
run. Everyone who  participated came back with historias sagradas, profound 
truths. This run  will one day rank as an event akin to Cesar Chavez’s fasts 
or the student  walkouts of a generation ago: a monument of what people are 
capable of when they  believe in something.

As one of the young people noted, “We went to fight  against an anti-ethnic 
studies bill, but what we really came for was to know  ourselves.”

Many thought it was a desperate act of fools, saying, “You  guys must be 
crazy! Do you know how hot it gets in the middle of the  desert?”

Yet, the response was virtually unanimous: “Either we’re crazy  or we are 
serious.” And everyone who participated understood the seriousness of  what 
was at stake: If this bill passes in Arizona, it will ignite a nationwide  
movement to ban ethnic studies.

While its opponents argue that ethnic  studies are un-American, ethnic 
studies, in fact, are quintessentially American.  They are about peoples that 
have been an integral part of this continent for  hundreds, if not thousands, 
of years but have been historically marginalized,  ostracized or disappeared 
by Western academics.

Horne has attempted to  remand ethnic studies to the status of "forbidden 
curriculums." Through his  effort, he would impose upon Arizona the notion of 
acceptable and unacceptable  academic areas of study, conjuring up the era 
of the Inquisition.

It is  precisely for these reasons that the mostly young students decided 
to put their  bodies on the line. They walked and ran with their hearts and 
they spoke with  their feet. When they could no longer run, their spirits 
took over.

This  triumph in the desert has now become an example as to how to defeat 
emissaries  from the Dark Ages – no matter where they rear their ugly  heads.

Rodriguez, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona,  writes 
Arizona Watch for New America Media. He can be reached at  XColumn at gmail.com
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