Rudy Acuña, author of Occupied America, says things like there is a “fine line” that separates Mandela from Hitler, and compares Ground Zero to the Mexican-American border fence. His sort of nonsensical gibberish is ignored by scholars and adored by acolytes.
If one should offer contrary opinions, the old and some say addled, professor does not engage in scholarly exchanges; instead he issues threats and hurls insults. Acuña is committed to the big lie, and no lie is too big in its service; case in point; Dr. Lupita Cavasos Garcia.
Dr. Cavasos Garcia, an immigrant from Mexico, is an administrator with the Tucson Unified School District, tasked with overseeing Acuña’s obsession: TUSD’s Mexican American Studies classes. Her decision to put kids’ education above politics has made her character a target of assassin Acuna. He has adjudged her to be a “vendida,” and the punishment meted out is the public torture of her good character.
Acuña attempts to portray Garcia as a “Housepanic,” or what his minion Roberto “Dr. Cintli” calls “Mousepanics,” in his book, The X in La Raza. They object to Garcia’s embrace of her Mexican American identity rather than a “Chicano” identity required by the Acuña’s thought police.
Much like the absurd and demeaning statements Acuña has made questioning Dr. Mark Stegeman’s qualifications, an MIT PhD who serves on the TUSD Governing Board, Garcia’s qualifications are marginalized by implication. He goes so far as to imply that Garcia, a woman who worked in primarily Hispanic school districts for nearly thirty years, has little experience teaching Hispanic children.
However, the only crimes, for which Acuña has attempted to convict Garcia in the court if public opinion, is her dedication to her profession and her determination to protect children from political predators.
A proud heritage
Lupita Garcia comes from a prestigious line of Hispanic civil rights activists. Garcia’s uncle, Dr. Hector Garcia born in Tamaulipas Mexico, immigrated to this country at the age of three. He was a graduate of the University of Texas, and founder of the GI Forum. A decorated World War II veteran, Dr. Hector Garcia founded the GI Forum to redress injustices suffered by Mexican American veterans in South Texas. He watched it grow to 500 chapters in 24 states advocating for civil rights, health care and education for Hispanics.
Joel Cavazos, Dr. Lupita Cavazos Garcia’s brother taught Latin American Studies at Wayne State University in the mid-seventies and left only to help his parents build the family owned business.
Garcia’s uncle, Felix Tijerina, was also born in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He immigrated to the United States as a young boy who began as a busboy and waiter and worked his way up to owner of a chain of Mexican restaurants in the Houston area. In his book, Mexican American Odyssey, author Thomas H. Kreneck not only traces “the influential life of Mr. Tijerina as an individual, but illustrates how Tijerina reflected many trends in Mexican American development during the decades he lived (1905-1965), years that were crucial for the Hispanic community in Texas today.”
Tijerina emerged “as a leader in such mainstream groups and boards as Rotary International and the Houston Housing Authority.” Kreneck wrote that Tijerina was a pioneer in Mexican American interaction with Anglos. He was particularly noted for his efforts on behalf of Mexican American education. While serving an unprecedented four terms as national president of LULAC, from 1956 to 1960, he launched an internationally acclaimed educational initiative called the Little School of the 400 to teach English to preschool Spanish-speaking children.
Dr. Lupita Cavazos Garcia was inspired by her uncle’s work in the educational arena and chose to honor him with the choice of her dissertation topic.
Inspiration creates advocate for education
Contrary to another lie forwarded by Acuna who wrote, “Pedicone has brought in underlings with fewer qualifications about Mexican Americans than he has. According to sources in Denton, Houston and San Antonio, who know Assistant Superintendent of Government Programs and Community Outreach Lupita Cavazos-Garcia, she has almost no experience in teaching Latinos in any subject but math. I searched the University of Texas Library for her dissertation, there was no listing. I checked her out in the Proquest dissertation data bank, no listing.”
Garcia’s dissertation is entitled, The Impact Of The Home Instruction For Parents Of Preschool Youngsters (Hippy) Program On Reading, Mathematics, and Language Achievement of Hispanic English Language Learners, (UMI # 3214467), was written in 2006 as a PhD candidate at the University of North Texas.
Acuna’s lies won’t stop Garcia
Dr. Lupita Cavazos Garcia is very proud of her extended family who immigrated to the United States. It is that pride and their dedication that fuels Garcia’s resolve and forms her dedication to education.
Like Tijerina, Dr. Lupita Cavazos-Garcia’s parents were poor immigrants who turned a “mama-papa bakery and restaurant,” as she calls it, into a very successful Mexican food products corporation. “My parents took the lead from family members like Felix Tijerina who paved the way for us,” says Dr. Garcia. “Mr. Kreneck outlines a pattern of identity and assimilation that has been traced in bold, broader terms by other scholars who have called Tijerina’s contemporaries the ‘Mexican American Generation.”
Garcia has faced misogyny and bigotry in ways most will never experience. She has fought tooth and nail for equal access to good public schools for all kids for over thirty years. An apparently addled man, with nothing but resentment to sell, will not dampen Garcia’s enthusiasm for education, nor will it erode her resolve.
“Whereas Dr. Acuña, Dr. Rodriguez, Mr. Richard Martinez and some members of the MAS Advisory council and I want the same thing for our Mexican American children, we have different philosophies of how to accomplish this. They see assimilation as holding back Hispanics, my family embraced assimilation. My family taught us that it is not assimilation that holds us back, but loss of our values and beliefs.”