Latinx for Quality Education
Community Quotes
“Teaching students to focus on being victims of oppression, rather than empowering them with skills and pathways to succeed, is a terrible injustice. Ethnic studies should inspire and enable students by teaching them pride in their heritage, empathy and respect for others, and confidence to succeed in fulfilling their dreams.”
— Mauricio Cevallos
Volunteer/philanthropist for quality education and mental health, mentor to under-served youth, immigrant from Ecuador
“As a proud Latino Californian, I am deeply concerned that the draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum continues to promote an offensive, one-sided political ideology, and encourages our children to view themselves as victims rather than leaders. Latinos have contributed so substantially to our nation’s success- in government, industry, science, the arts, education, etc. Ethnic studies should build pride in the critical role we have played, and continue to play, as leaders in every aspect of our country’s development. We want to see a course which helps break down barriers between people and helps build a stronger, more tolerant and inclusive community.”
— Victoria Samper
Retired teacher, health care professional and immigrant from Colombia
“This draft curriculum is a call to revolution rather than an education. A good ethnic studies curriculum would build understanding and respect for the unique and complex cultural history of each of the many components of the Latinx community. Instead, this draft idealizes Marxist terrorists and omits the multitude of Latinx success stories.”
— Anonymous
Examples of Selected Latinx Neo-Marxist/Militant ‘Role-Models’ in the ESMC
The below list of figures is selected as ‘role-models’ for social change, rather than seminal non-violent figures who do not pass the ideological litmus test of the ESMC’s Critical Ethnic Studies framework.
Comandanta Ramona (Sample Lesson 6: line 1125, p. 50)
Comandanta Ramona (1959-2006) was the nom de guerre of an officer of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a revolutionary indigenous autonomist organization based in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. She led armed uprising within Mexico.
Ideology: far left socialist Marxist ideology; anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist, libertarian socialist, radical democracy, anti-Zionist.
Farabundo Martí (Sample Lesson 6: line 1130, p. 50)
Marxist-Leninist activist and a revolutionary leader in El Salvador during the 1932 Salvadoran peasant massacre.
Became known as a Salvadoran revolutionary and, for many, a martyr for the Salvadorian people; involved in the founding of the Communist Party of Central American and led a communist alternative to the Red Cross called International Red Aid.
Helped start a guerrilla revolt of indigenous farmers.
Lolita Lebrón (Sample Lesson 6: line 1084, p. 48)
Led an armed group of Puerto Rican nationalists in an attack on the US House of Representatives in 1954. They fired 30 bullets from a spectator’s gallery, wounding five congressmen.
Oscar López Rivera (Sample Lesson 6: line 1093, p. 49)
Activist and militant who was a member and suspected leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a clandestine Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organization devoted to Puerto Rican independence and is responsible for over 130 bomb attacks in U.S. cities between 1974 and 1983.
López Rivera was convicted for seditious conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, interstate transportation of firearms, and conspiracy to transport explosives with intent to destroy government property.
Roque Dalton (Sample Lesson 6: line 1165, p. 50)
Poet and political architect of the revolutionary movement in El Salvador. He wrote emotionally strong, sometimes sarcastic, and image-loaded works dealing with life, death, love, and politics.
Dalton’s work inspired the imagination of those dedicated to the overthrow of the capitalist system, committed to armed struggle; Marxist-Leninist, joined the Communist Party
Vickie Castro (Sample Lesson 6: line 1075, p. 48)
Leading female figure in the East Los Angeles high school walkouts; first act of mass militancy by Mexican Americans in modern California history, and set the tone for activism across the Southwest.
David Sanchez and Vickie Castro were the founding members of the Brown Berets, the Chicano Communist/Marxist movement modeled after the Black Panther Party.
IN CONTRAST, the ESMC is missing positive role model figures such as:
Jorge Ramos, a Mexican-American journalist who anchors the Spanish language Univision nightly news and is known as the “Walter Cronkite of Latino America.” He was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People.
Julian Castro and Joaquin Castro, two twin brothers making large impacts in current American politics. Julian Castro was named Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama and Joaquin serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Jose Hernandez, Mexican-American migrant farmer worker who became an engineer and NASA astronaut. Wrote From Farmer Worker to Astronaut in Spanish and English with the message for kids to set goals and persevere to achieve their dreams. A vocal immigration reform advocate who ran for Congress in 2012 at the urging of President Obama.
Latinx for Quality Education highlights their community’s concerns with the ESMC Draft 2 to Governor Newsom in a letter co-signed by the director of the Asian American Educational Coalition.
Moe Cevallos, co-director of Latinx for Quality Education
