Protesting Arizona's Book Banning Law

“They’d stop me from learning about my culture?”

This Sunday, I drove down Highway 17 to attend the Libro Traficante event at the downtown San Francisco library with my 11-year-old cousin, Danny, and my partner, Greg. The event was put on to protest legislation that has led to books being banned in Arizona.

Twenty poets, activists, teachers, and regular folk read for four hours from books that K-12 students are not allowed to read, consider, or discuss in Arizona classrooms as legislated by law—as legislated by law! This phrase merits repetition. Less than two months ago, on May 11, Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law HB 2281 which dismantled the Ethnic Studies curriculum in Arizona and led to a list of books that could not be taught K-12.

I wanted Danny to know about political protest—that it is important to stand up and speak our truth. Danny spends the summer with me. He goes to day camp at Camp Capitola. We have swim lessons at Simpkins on Tuesdays and Thursday. On the weekend, we head to beach for sun and boogie boarding.

Danny understood that banning books is simply wrong.

Greg also saw the value in this event, and he wondered why more people didn’t know about it. As an electrician who works at an oil refinery in the Bay Area, Greg meets a lot of working class men of all ethnicities. He began asking his co-workers if they were aware of the book banning, and no-one was. Ethnicity didn’t matter: Latino or not, no one he spoke to was aware of the book banning in Arizona.

This is how bad things happen. We don’t know. We don’t see. We don’t react. We must rally together and protest this legislation. Please read the law yourself: Arizona House Bill 2281 specifically states:

"A school district or charter school in this state shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

1. Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
2. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
3. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals."

In response, the Tucson Unified School District issued a list of books that are not to be taught in the district. (See the full list at the end of this post.)

This list includes classics such as Shakespeare’s, The Tempest, historical works by Howard Zinn, and the poetry and prose of numerous Latino, Chicana, Dominicano, Puertoriqueño writers. This is not only about Arizona, Mexican-Americans, Latinos and Latinas. It’s about everyone. Please do something. Spread the word. Read the books. We know what happens when good people do nothing.

BOOKS BANNED

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

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2004) by R. Acuña

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 Aztlán: Selected Writings (1997) by R. Gonzales

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views Multi-Colored Century (1998)

by E. S. Martínez

500 Años Del Pueblo Chicano/500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures

(1990) by E. S. Martínez

Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human (1998) by R. Rodríguez

The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez

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

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 White Boy (2008) by M. de la Pena

Drown (1997) by J. Díaz

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. Martínez

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

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 (1995) 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. Hijuelos

So Far From God (1993) by A. Castillo

Address to the Commonwealth Club of California (1985) by C. E. Chávez

Women Hollering Creek (1992) by S. Cisneros

House on Mango Street (1991), by S. Cisneros

Drown (1997) by J. Díaz

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. García

La Llorona: Our Lady of Deformities (2000), by R. Garcia

Cantos Al Sexto Sol: An Anthology of Aztlanahuac Writing (2003) by C.

García-Camarilo et al.

The Magic of Blood (1994) by D. Gilb

Message to Aztlan: Selected Writings (2001) by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales

Saving Our Schools: The Case for Public Education, Saying No to “No

Child Left Behind” (2004) by Goodman et al.

Feminism is for Everybody (2000) by b hooks

The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1999) by F. Jiménez

Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools (1991) by J. Kozol

Zigzagger (2003) by M. Muñoz

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. Rodríguez

The X in La Raza II (1996) by R. Rodríguez

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

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Yo Soy Joaquin/I Am Joaquin by Rodolfo Gonzales

Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea