A crowd of thirty, made up of mostly news crews, attended a forum on TUSD’s Mexican American Studies hosted by the Associated Students of the University of Arizona yesterday. The focus of the program was Arizona statute that prohibits the segregation of students by color and the promotion of hate.
Proponents of segregating classes included university professors Roberto “Dr. Cintli” Rodriguez, and Nolan Cabrera. TUSD Governing Board member and university professor Mark Stegeman offered his view in opposition to the classes as they were.
Stegeman has said that Mexican American history and culture should be incorporated in the district’s literature and history curriculum. He argued that much of the content was simply political.
Roberto “Dr Cintli” Rodriguez author of The X in La Raza, one of the few books actually used in the classes, claimed that the classes help students “seek the root of the truth and social justice; and what it means to be human.”
The X in La Raza tells students that “Raza today can be well-informed when confronting the Newt Gringrich’s and the “Housespanics” or “Mousespanics” (my wife’s terms) of the world.”
Forum speaker, Kim Dominguez an undergraduate student in the university’s Mexican-American Studies program, told the crowd, “I’m angry, so I have to read from what I wrote, otherwise I’ll say all kinds of crazy things.” Dominguez then went on to say, “If we call it like it is, these white privileged men are straight-up racist, living the legacy of manifest destiny, and HB 2281 is a white-only sign for Arizona 2012.”
The event was for the most part was civil until an adult female MAS supporter began a long epithet filled rant towards Mark Stegeman. Afterward, one observer said, “Wow, I thought Tucson was supposed to be the new home of civility.”