The Textbook That Calls Mexicans Lazy
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By J. Weston Phippen, The Atlantic (8minute read)
For years teachers and activists in Texas had tried to get Mexican American studies on the curriculum. More than half of the state’s school system is Latino, and Mexicans make up the majority of that number, so some Texans wanted the state to offer an optional course that taught history through a different lens.
Two years ago, the Texas State Board of Education called for publishers to submit a Mexican American Studies textbook for a special-topics social-studies course, which would make the class available to schools that wished to teach it. In May the Texas Education Agency released a sample of the course textbook it’s considering, and it has prompted anger and derision.
The latest development in this Mexican American Studies (MAS) struggle came Tuesday. A group of historians and educators released a 54-page report that outlines what they say are factual errors and important omissions in the textbook. But most of all, the informal committee says, the textbook is thematically flawed: It talks of Mexicans as lazy, and Mexican Americans as cultural separatists, stubbornly resisting assimilation.
[Photo courtesy of The Atlantic]
