COMMUNITY RESISTANCE AGAINST HB2281 DRAFT
Call for Papers, Panels, and Workshops
ROCKY MOUNTAIN FOCO REGIONAL CONFERENCE
In Defense of Ethnic Studies and MEChA:
A Proven Path to Higher Education
in Arizona and the United States
November 19 & 20, 2011
Arizona State University
Hosted by Rocky Mountain Foco, NACCS
The year 2011 marks the first year in the application of law HB 2281 that, co-sponsored by Tom Horne and Steve Montenegro, racially targets one single American ethnic group and seeks to dismantle a federally-mandated educational program, Raza Studies, which has programmatically and effectively addressed, with an over 80% success rate, the recruitment and mentoring of US Latino K-12 students into college and university programs. Being valiantly challenged in the courts by the instructors and administrators in Raza Studies, whose Mexican American curriculum is part of a multicultural program in the Ethnic Studies unit of the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), the drafting and passing of the unconstitutional HB 2281 was used as a wedge issue and passed by the Arizona Legislature. Some scholars point out the instrumental role played by an arch-conservative Salvadoran immigrant who is a current legislator; he facilitated the succesful taking over of the top five elected positions in Arizona. Considered by some as anti-US Mexican, such legislator was also the only Arizona Latino legislator, who represents the predominantly Anglo-American District 12, to vote for SB 1070 in the Arizona legislative session of 2010. At the head in passing such an un-American law was the new Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, who has delegated the task of dismantling the highly successful program of Raza Studies to his successor, Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal. To counter such un-American and racially oppressive acts across Arizona, the Rocky Mountain Region, the Southwest, and the rest of the United States, many voices have risen in defense of Ethnic Studies, specifically TUSD´s Raza Studies, which is an integral part of other curriculum and instructional programs such as Afro-American Studies, Native-American Studies, and Asian-American Studies. In heeding these voices and in line with a NACCS resolution passed at the 2011 annual NACCS conference in Pasadena, California, we are seeking to engage in a constructive intellectual dialogue and so the Rocky Mountain FOCO will hold a multi-organization conference entitled “In Defense of Ethnic Studies: A Proven Path to Higher Education in Arizona and the United States” to be convened and hosted November 19 & 20 by the Arizona State University at Tempe.
We are thus seeking proposals for papers, panels, and workshops, which address the central theme, and its four major subdivisions: 1) the History of Ethnic Studies in Arizona’s College and Universities, 2) the History of Ethnic Studies in the United States: Fifty Years of Curricular, Instructional, and Applied Scholarly Research for America’s Universities and Society in General, 3) the un-American Criticisms of Ethnic Studies by Arizona Politicians: Tom Horne, Steve Montenegro, and John Huppenthal, 4) the Conscious Undermining of the Cambium Report; 5) the Role of Students, Instructors, and Administrators in Mexican American/Chicano/a Studies; and 6) the Role of MEChA in Promoting Higher Education from 1969 to the Present.
Invited Speakers: Renowned Historian Rodolfo Acuña, NACCS Ex-National Coordinator Devon Peña, Arizona Superintendent of Schools John Huppenthal, Steve Montenegro, and others.
Proposals
Proposal format: Name(s), address, home and work phone number(s), e-mail, one 25-50 word paragraph description, paper/panel/workshop title, and audio-video request.
Deadline
First priority: Saturday, October 29, 2011. Notification: Thursday, November 3, 2011. Please email submission to: NACCS 2011 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference Committee, c/o Dr. Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G., Mexican American Studies in Spanish, Spanish Program, SILC, Arizona State University, defendethnicstudiesmecha@gmail.com.
Information
For more information, e-mail: Daniel Vargas, Chair, NACCS Rocky Mountain Foco, Daniel.Vargas@asu.edu; or Dr. Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G., Chair, NACCS Rocky Mountain FOCO Committee to Defend Ethnic Studies in Arizona, Manuel.Hernandez@asu.edu. Or, see: http://defendethnicstudiesinaz.blogspot.com/
NACCS Rocky Mountain FOCO Committee to Defend Ethnic Studies in Arizona
Members
Dr. Manuel de Jesús Hernández G., Chair
Daniel Vargas, Chair, NACCS Rocky Mountain FOCO
Dra. Graciela Silva-Rodríguez, Logistics Coordinator
Aurora Muñoz, Secretary
Constantino López, Treasurer
Tomás Ramos Rodríguez, Program Coordinator
Jorge Mancillas, Historian
Ana Sifuentes, Latin America Liasson
Juan Villa, Media Liasson
Vanessa Fonseca, Southwest Liasson
Dr. Daniel E. Pérez, Chair, Ethnic Studies Program, University of Nevada, Reno
Dra. C. Alejandra Elenes, Women Studies, Arizona State University West
