Where were the Mexicans?
We started our Civil Rights unit in my English 3 class on Monday. This is a pretty typical English class for the junior year of high school; we read pieces of American literature and follow a curriculum that moves chronologically throughout United States history. This is so us English 3 teachers can work with the U.S. History teachers to create meaningful, interdisciplinary lessons. It actually works pretty well, and saves me from doing a lot of historical background before we start each unit, freeing me up to do more English-y things, except when you take into account the often difficult language and “unrelatablity” of many early American authors. (I know, many of us may have had an English literature breakthrough reading Emerson and Thoreau, but our students do not feel the same way. Trust me.) Part of this “unrelatability” also comes from the fact that almost all of these authors that are frequently taught through history (until the Harlem Renaissance writing of the 1920’s, or maybe The Narrative of the LIfe of Frederick Douglass in the Civil War era) are white.
Amy and Cathy both wrote earlier about the “dead white guys,” and I’m not saying that they are not an important part of English literature and United States history. I’m just saying that, when we teach the literature written by the “dead white guys,” and reserve the literature written by African-Americans, for example, for units that stand alone in the curriculum instead of incorporating that literature into each unit, we’re really saying to our students: “Well, sure, African-Americans were around then, but what they were doing isn’t worth studying right now.” Which is why I love Ileana’s idea of using slave narratives and spirituals to teach Beloved. How can we ignore the spirituals and slave narratives when we teach about colonial America, for example? We can’t, and we shouldn’t.
So I started this year’s Civil Rights unit with a new direction, and I was totally excited about it. I was planning on extending the typical Civil Rights unit past the 1960’s and into the 1970’s to talk about feminism and women’s rights of that time. After all, feminism is part of the fight for civil rights, right? I began Monday with this idea in mind (and I still think it’s a pretty good one; besides, I can’t talk about the 70’s without talking about feminism just a little bit) and with the general purpose of weaving together the narratives of all oppressed people in the United States during this tumultuous time. I was introducing the lesson with a PowerPoint presentation complete with YouTube videos and stuff that I really thought would grab the students’ attention when a student in every single class would raise his/her hand with a question. When I called on that student, he or she inevitably said: “Miss, where were the Mexicans while this was going on?”
Just as inevitably, a Hispanic student in the class would retort: “Probably in Mexico” and a few would add “eating tacos.” I was crushed. So much for my idea to weave narratives of oppression. How much credibility would I have with my students if I forgot to discuss Hispanic-American people, especially in a school where 40% of the student body is Hispanic. (In my defense, I didn’t forget the oppression of Hispanic people in America. Rather, it was something I was saving for later when we got to more modern literature and social issues. This is because I am embarrassingly a product of the very type of education – and media – I’m trying to work against, and truly thought, like my students, that immigration from Mexico to America was not a focus in our society until recently. And I am admitting this to you now so you can see my shortcomings and learn from them in your own classrooms, because ignorance is not an excuse in the classroom; we should all work every day to fight against the oppression of all people, and to do that, we must incorporate all people into our lessons.) I answered each student with the same response I always use when I don’t know something I should: “I’ll give extra credit tomorrow to anyone who comes in with the answer.”
When I got a chance tonight, I did a little searching, and found a great timeline of Latino Civil Rights from Tolerance.org, and I plan to use this in my classroom tomorrow to illustrate that the civil rights movement really did have implications for all people, and I am going to have my students generate a timeline of civil rights milestones that includes all people through United States history, culminating with Day of Silence on April 16 after which (if I figure out a way to participate myself), hopefully, we can discuss those oppressed because of their sexuality, as well.