Banned books library

San Antonio is one of four cities (the others being Houston, Albuquerque, and Tuscon) that will host, what Diaz has dubbed, “underground libraries,” community-minded reference/lending facilities forged with the primary purpose of keeping at least four copies of each book that was taken out of Arizona classrooms when the HB2281 law (sounds like a virus vaccine, no?) effectively killed off Tucson's ethnic studies and sent boxes of Latino literature to a book depository for the interim.

Greg Harman - The shelves at SWU's Underground Library are organized by first edition, signed, fiction, poetry, and banned. Underground Librarian Diana Lopez said that recognized local writers like Sandra Cisneros and Dagoberto Gilb have contributed works to the effort. SA Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla even donated multiple copies of her book of poetry, Curandera, republished with "Banned in Arizona" on the cover.

 San Antonio's Underground Library erupts into operation this Thursday, May 10, with a reading from Gustavo Arellano, the much-syndicated Ask a Mexican columnist, who has just written a subversively salivating book called Taco USA (see review "Time of Mex-Tex"). On Arizona's recent legislative policies, the author, who is a great fan of Librotraficante, says: "Those idiot politicians thought that Mexicans and their allies would just allow them to strip the libraries and classrooms of such books; instead, it created the opposite effect. Sure, Arizona law has now pushed Latino literature to the back of the burro, but now you have a vibrant movement of people pushing and reading these books, and authors more than willing to engage in such actions to promote literature. To use that terrible but so apropos cliche, the sleeping Mexican has woken up." •

A list of books

This quiet, gray afternoon, a patron came in with quite a list of books; most were out, but she did find a handful to take with her; the others I put on hold. Quite an interesting selection:

Zeitoun, Dave Eggers (2009).

A ticket to the circus: a memoir. Norris Church Mailer (2010).

The house at Riverton, Kate Morton (2009).

Hannah's list, Debbie Macomber (2010).

Bombay time, Thrity Umrigar (2001).

Day after night, Anita Diamant (2009).

Welcome to Utopia: notes from a small town, Karen Valby (2010).

The cleanest race: how North Koreans see themselves and why it matters, B.R. Myers.

Somewhere inside: one sister's captivity in North Korea and the other's fight to bring her home, Laura Ling and Lisa Ling (2010).

Texas textbooks rewrite U.S. history

A fascinating look at how conservatives wield their power.

Last week, the Texas Board of Education debated the statewide curricula, most notably the social studies curriculum. These board members are elected officials— not experts or professional historians— though according to the March 12 issue of The New York Times, “some members of the conservative bloc held themselves out as experts on certain topics.”

Certain ones? Which?

What upset people, however, was not the makeup of the Board, but its decisions. The aforementioned bloc (10 of the 15 members) espouses conservative values— they question Darwin, they believe the founding fathers were guided by Christian principles and they dislike Thomas Jefferson for coining the term “separation of church and state.”

Imagine conservatives disliking Jefferson, he of states's rights.

On this last point, the Board decided to replace Jefferson on a list of Enlightenment thinkers students should know with Calvin, Aquinas and Blackstone. It also neglected to add notable Hispanics to the history of the Mexican-American War. Nuanced defenses of McCarthy and criticism of Johnson’s Great Society were included in the curriculum, however, comprising a neat, Republican package that passed along party lines, 10-5.

History according to the conservatives.

The influence of this decision goes beyond Texas. Since Texas is the second most populous state, textbook publishers tailor their American History texts to Texan standards. And since the most populous state, California, is so persnickety about its curriculum, Texas really sets national standards for what students will learn. This is especially true given the primacy of the textbook in America. Indeed, the textbook is the cornerstone of public secondary civics education and far more influential than the teacher. The teachers who write test questions from their own words and research are far fewer than the mass of underpaid, overworked, non-history majors who pull test questions straight from the book. In too many classrooms, practice questions at the end of chapters stand a good chance of becoming actual test questions.

The saving grace is that most high school students don't give much attention to history class, ignore much of what terachers say, and forget the answers they've provided to test questions as soon as the test is over.

So if most students are simply learning by rote in public schools, what they are memorizing is very important. Since these schools are public, it is not just a matter of what parents want students to learn, but what parents and special interest groups can lobby politicians to include in curricula and thus force students to learn (unless attentive parents intervene). Because make no mistake— anything run by the government is ultimately backed by a monopoly of coercive force. Thus, this debate about an American history curriculum is really a battle over what will be the state-sanctioned, monolithic account of how things were.

Clearly this article comes from a liberal viewpoint, but, anything run by the government is ultimately backed by a monopoly of coercive force? What exactly does that mean? What the right wing says?

Everyone ought to stop fooling themselves. There is no one authoritative history, in America or anywhere else. Bias is inherent to historiography. No matter how closely a historian scrutinizes sources and attempts to balance one account with another, by the very selection of some sources over others, a particular account is written; not all sources can be included, and that is OK.

Truth must still be sought, though, and certain histories will do this better than others. Simply because there is no one irrefutable account does not make all accounts equally valid or valuable. It would behoove the people of this nation to start compiling the truths of their own stories and presenting them alongside many others, rather than jostling to write their own pages in the state-approved story book of what really happened. This can take the form of textbook-free classrooms that rely on articles and primary sources or free association of like-minded individuals to educate their children in a certain tradition (read: private schools). Embracing our differences has always made us stronger as a nation, and it is what will keep us ahead in the coming decades, even as European countries wrestle to redefine what it means for them to no longer be ethnic nations. The beauty of this civic nation is forged in the fires of pluralism. E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”

By NATHAN STRINGER

Published: Thursday, March 25, 2010

Lone Bookstore's Last Chapter

Fourth-graders at C. M. Macdonell Elementary School in Laredo who wrote letters trying to persuade their bookstore, the only one in town, not to close.









Mary Benavides steps from behind the cash register several times a day to embrace the mourners. For more than 30 years, she has managed the mall's B. Dalton outlet -- the only bookstore in Laredo. It will close next month.

slideshow

All B. Daltons nationwide are closing, as corporate parent Barnes & Noble shutters the chain. In this era of mega-bookstores with cafes and cozy couches and 150,000 titles -- and with more than a million books available online -- B. Dalton's cramped outlets no longer make economic sense.

Xavier Garcia and Joe Garcia IV read at the B. Dalton bookstore in Laredo, Texas.


The city council is expected to pass a resolution Monday proclaiming that Laredo needs a bookstore. State lawmakers have promised to write letters. A "Save Laredo's Bookstore" page on Facebook has 530 members and a city committee is circulating petitions. The theme of their campaign: Laredo Reads.

Now (Monday, 1.15pm) up to 6





Jose Angel, 10, stands in front of two boards with English and Spanish words in his bilingual class.




Author Sonia Nazario saw that first-hand when the bookstore manager and several high-school teachers invited her this fall to discuss her book "Enrique's Journey." Over two days, Ms. Nazario spoke to 4,000 people, and some waited hours for her autograph. "It was like the hottest rock star had shown up in town," she said. "I've never had such a reception in my life."

Nearly 2,000 copies of her book sold in Laredo, and there was a waiting list for all 75 copies at the public library.

"Books created a communal bond in what was, to me, an unlikely place," Ms. Nazario said. "The beating heart of that was the bookstore."

Rewriting history, Texas style

The fight over school curriculum in Texas, recently focused on biology, has entered a new arena, with a brewing debate over how much faith belongs in American history classrooms. The Texas Board of Education, which recently approved new science standards that made room for creationist critiques of evolution, is revising the state's social studies curriculum. In early recommendations from outside experts appointed by the board, a divide has opened over how central religious theology should be to the teaching of history.

Extending their reach, creationism creeps into history.

Three reviewers, appointed by social conservatives, have recommended revamping the K-12 curriculum to emphasize the roles of the Bible, the Christian faith and the civic virtue of religion in the study of American history. Two of them want to remove or de-emphasize references to several historical figures who have become liberal icons, such as César Chávez and Thurgood Marshall.

Liberal icons? They happen to be accomplished Americans, and also Americans of color. Coincidence the creationists want to "de-emphasize"?

"We're in an all-out moral and spiritual civil war for the soul of America, and the record of American history is right at the heart of it," said Rev. Peter Marshall, a Christian minister and one of the reviewers appointed by the conservative camp.

Well, the Rev is right, but for the wrong reasons. The record of American history includes the accomplishments of Cesar Chávez and Justice Marshall.

The three reviewers appointed by the moderate and liberal board members are all professors of history or education at Texas universities, including Mr. de la Teja, a former state historian. The reviewers appointed by conservatives include two who run conservative Christian organizations: David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, a group that promotes America's Christian heritage; and Rev. Marshall, who preaches that Watergate, the Vietnam War and Hurricane Katrina were God's judgments on the nation's sexual immorality. The third is Daniel Dreisbach, a professor of public affairs at American University.

Elmer Gantry, er, the Revattributes Watergate to sexual immorality? Was Nixon sexually immoral? Or simply immoral?

Hmm, let's see: a former state historian, chairman of the history department at Texas State University, versus a reverend who attributes a neocolonial war to sexual immorality; whom to side with? Who might be more knowledgable? Tough call.

The conservative reviewers say they believe that children must learn that America's founding principles are biblical. For instance, they say the separation of powers set forth in the Constitution stems from a scriptural understanding of man's fall and inherent sinfulness, or "radical depravity," which means he can be governed only by an intricate system of checks and balances.

Through his wickedness, man invented a constitutional system of government; interesting theory. Perhaps instead of Justice Scalia's 'originalist' theory, wherein he tries to deduce what the Revolutionary Generation of Jefferson and Washington and Madison meant, or would have meant, were they to evaluate modern questions and contemporary problems, we should have a fire-and-brimstone Supreme Court where the wicked are exhorted to repent.

Some outside observers argue that curriculum analysts should be trained academics. "It's important to have trained historians establishing the framework," said David Vigilante, associate director of the National Center for History in the Schools at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Good point, but he's from California. Suspected pointy-headed academic liberal.

The conservative Christian reviewers, in turn, are skeptical of the professional historians' emphasis on multiculturalism, views stated most forcefully by Mr. de la Teja but echoed by Ms. Hodges. Reaching for examples of achievement by different racial and ethnic groups is divisive, Mr. Barton said, and distorts history.

Divisive? Right. So their suggestion is to study the white Christian version of history, and unite everyone behind it. Brilliant.