Leftist activists in Texas this past week pushed for, and won, something that is incredibly exclusionary and yet none seem to notice.
I’ve covered the subject matter before, the adoption of a Mexican-American studies course for Texas public schools by the State Board of Education. In past instances of the subject appearing in the press I pointed out that while Texas has its roots in Mexico from which its people gained independence, the Spanish speaking immigrant population, both legal and otherwise, is not by any means almost all of Mexican origin.
This past week, while the SBOE was working on adopting what it called “Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent,” largely Democrat and liberal folk appeared en masse to demand the hyphenated Mexican-American label be part of the official name.
It is interesting that liberals who claim to be sensitive to others would press for this name, with the arguments they used, when clearly a huge part of the Latino population has not only no connection to Mexico other than perhaps having traveled through it to get here but, culturally has a bit of Latin American enmity towards Mexico and Mexicans.
I guess it is O.K. for those who claim the Mexican-American appellation to insist on a course name that may trigger negativity in other Latino immigrants. But of course, if we insisted that American history in Texas schools be subtitled as “An Anglo-American Experience” we’d all be called hateful exclusionary bigots.
Sadly our State Board of Education members did not seem to recognize this obvious bit and so they did change the name of the new course to “Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies” sans hyphen – that must be the victory, pyrrhic as it is.
Loss of a hyphen a victory? Texas adopts divisive ethnic studies course.
I’ve covered the subject matter before, the adoption of a Mexican-American studies course for Texas public schools by the State Board of Education. In past instances of the subject appearing in the press I pointed out that while Texas has its roots in Mexico from which its people gained independence, the Spanish speaking immigrant population, both legal and otherwise, is not by any means almost all of Mexican origin.
This past week, while the SBOE was working on adopting what it called “Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent,” largely Democrat and liberal folk appeared en masse to demand the hyphenated Mexican-American label be part of the official name.
It is interesting that liberals who claim to be sensitive to others would press for this name, with the arguments they used, when clearly a huge part of the Latino population has not only no connection to Mexico other than perhaps having traveled through it to get here but, culturally has a bit of Latin American enmity towards Mexico and Mexicans.
I guess it is O.K. for those who claim the Mexican-American appellation to insist on a course name that may trigger negativity in other Latino immigrants. But of course, if we insisted that American history in Texas schools be subtitled as “An Anglo-American Experience” we’d all be called hateful exclusionary bigots.
Sadly our State Board of Education members did not seem to recognize this obvious bit and so they did change the name of the new course to “Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies” sans hyphen – that must be the victory, pyrrhic as it is.