When we heard that Tucson Unified School District administrators not only prohibited Mexican American Studies, but then walked into classrooms, and in front of young Latino students, during class time, removed and boxed up books by our most beloved authors - that was too much…
[Politicians] in Arizona have become experts in making humans illegal. We did not do enough to stop that, thus that anti-immigrant legislation spread to other states such as Alabama and Georgia. Now, these same legislators want to make thoughts illegal.
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Tony Diaz, of Latino writers’ organization Nuestra Palabra, in press release, ‘Librotraficante Caravan Smuggling Banned Books Back to Arizona, Sparks National Movement.’
READ THAT AGAIN. (At least, I had to - several times, in fact - before it could sink in). They went into the classrooms and packed up the books in front of the students. And what sorts of books?
Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed? Banned. Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza? Banned. Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools? Aptly enough, BANNED.
And the list goes on and on and on [Excel file here]. Books by beloved authors Isabel Allende, James Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros, Howard Zinn, bell hooks, Sherman Alexie, and, I shit you not, even William Shakespeare have been banned. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE.
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