We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

by Bettina L. Love

in 1998, the Tucson (Arizona) Unified School District began offering Mexican American history, literature, and art classes after community activists demanded that the school district reduce the number of students being pushed out of school. Not surprisingly, the ethnic studies classes drastically increased attendance, and students who took them reported higher graduation rates and college enrollment than students who were not enrolled in ethnic studies classes. In 2010, the state of Arizona banned ethnic studies classes focused on Mexican American history because state officials and school board members argued that the classes advocated resentment toward White people, even though the classes were open to all students and simply created “ethnic solidarity,” as if ethnic solidarity were a bad thing.