This past August, a federal judge lifted a ban on a Mexican-American ethnic studies program at the Tucson Unified School District. The decision came after a group of students sued, arguing the ban was overly broad, discriminatory, and violated their free speech. Although the ban and ruling that followed only affected Arizona, the case had implications for students throughout the country.
Would other school administrators and state legislatures be able to ban books that “advocate[d] ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals?” This was a prominent point of contention, despite conclusive evidence showing the educational benefits of such courses that draw on the lived experiences of students.
Banned Books Week is happening now, Sept. 24-30 2017, so we’d like to take this opportunity to highlight 10 books that were temporarily banned under this ruling, and that speak to the experiences and complex history of Latinx in the US. For young students, the most powerful narratives can be those that allow them to closely relate to the characters and their struggles. Characters and narratives can stimulate and facilitate learning by offering a vocabulary to contextualize concepts that will serve students in class and in life, like critical thinking. Accessible narratives also offer Latinx and other historically underrepresented youth a place to find solidarity during a period of development that can be tough for even the omnipresent youth.
- Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement edited by Kimberle Crenshaw
- The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader by Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado
- Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson
- Puro Teatro: A Latina Anthology edited by Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez and Nancy Saporta Sternbach
- Borderlands: The New Mestiza = La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa
- Loverboys: Stories by Ana Castillo
- Mexican White Boy by Matt de la Pena
- The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
- Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. by L. Rodriguez
- A Place to Stand by J. S. Baca
There were 88 titles in total that were explicitly banned, we welcome you to access the full list here.
~ posted by Orlando L.
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