Calling books by any other name

The Texas State Board of Education voted in April to create a new course, covering the history and cultural contributions of Mexican-Americans from an interdisciplinary perspective.

That was a victory, in a sense, for the Texans who had advocated for the creation of an official Mexican-American studies course. And it was a notable decision on the SBOE’s part. In 2014, the board rejected a similar proposal. Although Democrats on the board have continued to advocate for the idea, Republicans continue to hold 10 of its 15 seats.

It’s not clear why Republicans would have become more receptive to promoting Mexican-American studies in Texas public schools. And the course, as approved in April, was going to be called “Ethnic Studies: An Overview of Americans of Mexican Descent.”

One of the Republicans on the board, David Bradley, had objected to calling it “Mexican-American Studies.” The name, he argued, was inherently “divisive.” Most of the board’s Democratic members agreed to a compromise.

Some advocates, however, objected to that. Tony Diaz, a Houston-based writer, teacher and community organizer, was among them. He had, he told me recently, been demanding a MexicanAmerican studies course for five years. The course the SBOE had voted to create would be based on a Mexican-American studies course that has been offered in Houston ISD since 2015.

But in Diaz’s view, the name wasn’t just wrong, it was insulting. So he responded to the change by organizing an effort to persuade the SBOE to revisit the issue.

On June 12, the board heard testimony from dozens of witnesses who

made the case that the course should be called “Mexican-American Studies.”

What happened next was genuinely astonishing: on June 13, the State Board of Education voted in favor of changing the name. I couldn’t believe it. Neither could Diaz. Both of us were delighted, but baffled. A unanimous decision

Even more striking, perhaps, the vote was unanimous. Even Bradley, the Republican from Beaumont who initially objected to the course name, had a change of heart on the subject.

Bradley, considered one of the most conservative members of the board, had come under some criticism from his colleagues. Ruben Cortez, a Democrat from Brownsville, described Bradley at one point as “mean-spirited.” In an email to the San Antonio Express-News, Bradley scoffed and added that his Democratic colleagues were being ungrateful, really.

“Mr Cortez should learn to say Thank You!” Bradley wrote.

Something happened along the way to change his mind.

Recently over lunch, Diaz explained that he had effectively been provoked into activism. He’s a poet by background, with a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Houston. In 1998, he founded an organization called Nuestra Palabra, in order to promote Latino literature and literacy.

Similar efforts, in Arizona, eventually elicited a backlash. In 2010, the state passed a ban on courses that would “promote resentment toward a race or class of people” or “promote the overthrow of the United States government.” This was, of course, a de facto ban on MexicanAmerican studies — and, in 2017, it was struck down in federal court.

By then, Diaz had launched his Librotraficante movement to promote the books Republicans had targeted, and decided to demand change from the Texas Board of Education. At first, the board hadn’t been particularly receptive to his request for a MexicanAmerican studies course. Perhaps, Diaz mused, that was because they were, in fact, demands — issued by a Mexican-American poet to a board dominated by Republicans in a safely red state with notoriously low voter turnout.

From that perspective, the SBOE’s decision to create a Mexican-American studies course, after rejecting such an idea in 2014, might be a sign of incipient political change. Actually listening

But Bradley is retiring at the end of this term. In April, Democrats on the board had agreed to a compromise to secure approval for the course. And the witnesses who testified in June weren’t making demands; they were making a case for a change that might seem semantic or minor in the grand scheme of things.

“It was like the ultimate graduate course in Mexican-American studies,” Diaz said. There had, he continued, been some beautiful moments over the course of the day, when he felt as if Republicans on the board were actually listening to the experts and advocates who had been fighting, for years, for a MexicanAmerican studies course.

It’s possible, of course, that the Republicans were actually listening. And, in any case, they were right to put politics aside. There’s no reason to call a Mexican-American studies course something other than Mexican-American Studies; the real mystery, perhaps, is why we don’t put politics aside more often these days.