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Show A p DADA | y j - f 10 VENCEREMOS SPRING A by Marcial Gonzalez In December 1967 Chicano activist Raul Ruiz wrote an article in the East Los Angeles community newspaper Inside Eastside which was addressed to Chicana/o high school students. In the article Ruiz states, “If you are a student at Lincoln [High School] you should be angry! You should demand! You should Protest! You should organize for better education! This is your right! This is your life!.” In a subsequent article he wrote, “Something is terribly wrong in Eastside schools and Chicano students are not to blame.” What was terribly wrong in the schools in the 1960's is that Chicana/os were victims of a racist educational system that resulted in high drop out rates. The work of Ruiz and other Chicana/o activists helped spark a wave of walkouts by Chicana/o students at high schools across the Southwest. Today the radical militancy of the 1960's seems like a practice of the distant past. What has persisted, however, is an educational system that fails to meet the needs of Chicana/o students and other minorities. This is true not only of schools in 1 Los Angeles, but of those in Utah as well. A recent article in the Salt Lake Tribune (7/26/93), citing figures from the 1990 census, states that, “61 percent of Utah's 37,000 Latinos have a high school diploma.” It is our right! It is our life! Utah's Minorities Are Not Always Invisible Editor's Note: Recently the Salt Lake Tribune published an article about the realities of racial profiling in Utah. It reemphasized a fact that many of us have already known for years. Ethnic minorities not only face discrimination in Utah; authortties and law-enforcement officials actively seek them out and assume they are guilty of a crime because of their color. This article ran four years ago in Venceremos. What a shame it is that we feel we must reprint it today. By Marco Leavitt If the police officer who stopped Ricky Duran last January had been able to believe that the young, Latino boy was capable of being in college, then he wouldn[t have ended up on the whose only crime was taking a nightly news. He wouldn't have few credits at the community been handcuffed, repeatedly college, became the highly publisearched, and hauled off to the cized face behind the larger detention center. He would simissue of the state's mistreatment ply have been just another boy of minorities by law enforcement on his way home with textbooks professionals. in his pack. “We have come to think of it as Tronically, it is nl because of normal . It is not normal,” says that news camera, which was Alice Duran. filming a report on truancy, that What has become normal in we know of the incident. Utah is the disproportionate “It would just have been another time when the cops did —number of minorities in the juvenile justice system. A report it,” says Alice Duran, the boys submitted to state juvenile mother. authorities last year by the Utah Incensed by the actions of the Social Research Institute at the police and that KUED would University of Utah shows that convict her son on television youth of color in Salt Lake City, when he wasn't guilty of any Ogden, and Provo are arrested crime, Alice Duran was deterat rates much higher than would mined that the affront would not be expected given their small pass unnoticed. So she went to the ACLU who vowed to bring a see INVISIBLE, page 10 law suit. Ricky Duran, a shy teenager INDUSTRIAL WORKERS world WITHOUT DOSSEsS HE MECHA Justicia y Dignidad Para Todos! ONE BIG For More Informatión FORA JOIN THE UNION Contact The lww at: - SclgmbOiww.org or (801) 485-1969 MIURA WI The only ethnic group which ranks lower than Latinos are Native Americans at 59.3 percent. This is in a state where 86.2 percent of whites over the age of 24 have graduated from high school. The article also states that less than 10 percent of Latinos in Utah and other western states have college degrees compared to 22.7 for whites. What these statistics seem to indicate is that the curriculum in Utah schools is designed to provide a higher quality of education for EuroAmerican (white) students than for ethnic minorities or students of color. The statistics would have us believe that Utah schools function on a dual system of education— no longer separate, but still unequal. Tf this is the case, how different is Utah's educational system from the system of apartheid being dismantled in South Africa today? Chicana/o students and their parents should not accept unequal education, nor should that be expected to tolerate a curriculum designed to obscure Chicana/o culture or one that conditions students to be content with low-paying, lowskilled jobs. Ruiz? words were written more than twenty-five years ago, but for Utah's Chicano population, they still ring true today. “You should protest! You should organize for better education!” Some people are fond of saying that Utah is five to ten years behind the times of other states. Could it be the case, rather, that Utah is some thirty years behind the times—that the conditions for Chicana/os in Utah schools are similar to those of Los Angeles schools of the early 19608? And if so, are Utah schools then powder kegs waiting for an ¡inevitable explosion by Chicana/os and other minorities demanding equal education? Is there not something terribly wrong in our schools which demands immediate attention? These are the burning questions of the day that Chicana/os should ask ourselves. TUIUNTIAICTAA Editor's Note: This article appeared for the first time in Vol. 1 No.3 Spring 1994 issue of Venceremos. The article speaks to the fact that the established educational system only offers one version of history—the anglo-male conquest of the Americas—and the exclusionary teachings that go with it. To date there are few if any Chicana /o studies, African American studies, Native . American studies, Pacific Islander studies, Astan American Studies or an all encompassing ethnic studies program at any of the area high schools. At the University of Utah only one 3 credit-hour class on diversity is required. WYIAVIY do de la secundaria. El artículo también indica que “menos de un 10% de los latinos en Utah “ y otros estados del oeste tienen un título universitario comparado con un 22.7 porcentage de los blancos. Lo que estas estadísticas parecen indicar es que el curriculum en las escuelas de Utah esta diseñado para por Marcial Gonzalez entregar una mejor calidad de educación a los estudiantes En diciembre de 1967, el Euroamericanos (blancos) que activista chicano Raul Ruiz a las minorias étnicas o los escribió un artículo en un estudiantes de color. perdco de la comunidad de Los Las estadísticas nos hacen ls. Angeles del Este, Inside Eastcreer que las escuelas de Utah side, el cual estaba dirigido a funcionan en un sistema dual los estudiantes secundarios de educación, sin separachicanos. En el artículo Ruiz ciones, pero aun desigual. Si declara, “Si tú eres un estudieste es el caso, ¿cuan diferente ante en Lincoln (Secundaria) es el sistema educacional de deberlas estar enojado. Utah del sistema separaDeberías exigir. Deberías cionista que está siendo protestar. destruido en Africa del Sur Deberías organizarte por hoy? una educación mejor. Este es Los estudiantes chicanos y tu derecho. “¡Esta es tu vida!” sus padres no deberian acepEn un artículo posterior el él tar una educación desigual. Tampoco se debería esperescribió, “Algo esta muy mal ar que ellos acepten un curen las escuelas del este de Los Angeles y los jovenes estudiriculum diseado a hacer antes chicanos no tienen la desaparecer la cultura chiculpa. cana, o que condicione a los estudiantes a contentarse Lo que estaba terriblemente mal en las escuelas en los 60's -con bajos salarios o trabajos Las palabras es que los chicanos eran victi- - secundarios. de Ruiz fueron escritas hace mas de un sistema educacional racista que tenla como más de veinte años, pero consecuencia un alto indice de para la población chicana de Utah, son aún válidas. decerción escolar. “¡Debes protestar! ¡Debes El trabajo de Ruiz y otros activistas chicanos ayudó a _organizarte por una mejor encender una ola de protestas .. educación” Alguna gente a “que Utah en los estudiantes .chicanos AL cinco o diez años m-s por todo el Suroeste. atrasado que los dem-s esta-Hoy la militancia radical de dos en los E.U. ¿Podría darse los 60's parece una pr-ctica el caso que Utah esté m-s bien del distante pasado. Sin treinta años más atrás? embargo, lo que ha persistido, ¿Que las condiciones para es un sistema educacional los chicanos en las escuelas de que no favorece las necesiUtah sean similares a aqueldades educacionales de los las en Los Angeles en los años estudiantes chicanos y otras 607? minorías. Esto es verdad no Y si esto es así, ¿son las solo en las escuelas de Los escuelas de Utah un polvorln Angeles sino tambien acá en esperando una ¡inevitable Utah... explosión si los estudiantes Un artlculo reciente en The chicanos y otras minorias Salt Lake Tribune (7/26/93), demandan una educación cita datos del censo de 1990. igual? En el, 61% de los 37,000 estu¿Hay algo terriblemente diantes latinos tienen diplomal en nuestras escuelas que ma de secundaria. exige nuestra acción inmediaEl único grupo étnico que es ta? Estas son las preguntas m-s bajo que los latinos son lo quemantes del dia que los chinativo americanos, al 59.3%. canos deberiamos hacer. Este es un estado en que un ¡Es nuestro derecho! 86.2% de blancos sobre la Es nuestra vida! edad de 24 años se ha gradua$5 Nota del Redactor: Este articulo fue publicado en Venceremos en 1993. Como todos sabemos, la situación de las escuelas publicas es lamentable. Con informacion y communicacion podemos movilizarnos y intentar que el derecho de una educacion sea alcanzable para todos. Student Action Needed DT Una Llamada a Los Estudiantes 2000 |
