Rudy Acuña: What can you expect of an educational system where, according to a 2012 Gallup Poll, 46 percent, of Americans believe in creationism?
About Rodolfo F. Acuña
Rodolfo F. Acuña is the founding Chairperson of the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University, Northridge and author of Occupied America.
Arizona Copycats: Mexicans in the Photo
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: Our communities are still under siege. A war is raging in Arizona. The prison industry is still agitating, and the Tea Partiers and the Minutemen types are still terrorizing Mexicans.
The Immigration Paradigm: The Shell Game
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Rudy Acuña: We are taking a bath on immigration: it looks as if a guest worker program will be part of the grand bargain, and it is likely that there will be a long, slippery and tenuous pathway to citizenship.
Culture Wars: The Young Grow Old
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Rudy Acuña: Pundit after pundit predicts that the entrance of large numbers gay and Latino voters will end the culture wars that divide the country. There is only one problem — progressives forget that the “Young Grow Old.”
Pricing Working Class Kids Out of Higher Ed
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Rudy Acuña: This rise in the cost of higher ed will have a disastrous impact on the lower half (income wise) of the Mexican American and Latino community. This is where the dropout numbers are concentrated. Over time, this trend will destroy all hope that si se puede, it can be done.
What Happened to Chicano Studies?
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: A war on the memories of Mexican Americans and other minorities is occurring raging throughout the country, and I am interested in knowing why the right wing is so obsessed with erasing our historical memory?
It Really Is Immigration Reform, Stupid!
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Rudy Acuna: The truth be told, I am not all that sold that President Barack Obama will do the right thing. It took him a long time to embrace the Dreamers. And even now he is deporting more of the Dreamers parents and cousins than George W. Bush did.
PBS, Oscars Slighting Latinos
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Rudy Acuña: I still remember going round and round with broadcasters over Ken Burns’ special on World War II. As in the case of his documentaries on jazz and baseball, Mexican Americans and Latinos do not exist for Burns.
Defending Educational Rights in Tucson: Murder in Progress
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Rudy Acuna: The suppression of free speech in Tucson has gone unrestrained despite the hype that we are a national minority.
The Failure of National Latino/Mexican American Organizations
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Rudy Acuna: With all of the hype around Latinos these days, how could Arizona have happened? I thought we had power.
The Rattlesnake and the Cobra: Does Race and Ethnicity Matter?
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Rudy Acuna: My preference is to ridicule Arpaio through caricatures and set up a dunking booth where we could sell chances to throw baseballs at the lever that would tumble the sadist excuse for a human being into the water.
Arizona: False Expectations and the Poor
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Rudy Acuna: So, are those fighting to save Mexican-American Studies paranoid? Should they be apprehensive about the Mexicans smoking cigars and the Gringos speaking Spanish?
An Illusion Becomes a Delusion: Maybe I am Missing Something
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Rudy Acuña: My criticism of the Democratic Party is based on principles, not on ambition. Unless it recognizes its chauvinism toward Latinos, it won’t be able to correct itself.
How Democrats Have Abandoned Their Core
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Rudy Acuña: The strategy of the DNC has been to support Blue Dog Democrats who have sold out on the issues of the economy, immigration, and the struggle to save Mexican American Studies in Tucson. In the process, racism has become constitutional in Arizona.
Moral Authority and The Supreme Court: La Mordida
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Rudy Acuña: Much has been written about the growth of the Latino population and its voting power. But truth be told, Latinos are growing increasingly disaffected with government and most are cynical about its fairness.
The Role of the Middle-Class Revisited
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Rudy Acuña: Today the rights of Mexican Americans and immigrants are being blatantly violated by state and local officials in Arizona. Where are the voices of middle-class Latinos? Where is the fight back?
A History Lesson: Barrio for Sale
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Rudy Acuña: Barrios should not be for sale and when they are developed it should be for the benefit of the community and not elites such as the Committee of 25 or the Southern Arizona Leadership Council.
Intellectual Incest: Teaching Mexican-American Students
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: Mexican American Studies (AKA Chicano Studies) came about because of the failure of the educational establishment to deal with systemic problems such as high school drop outs.
Feeding Off Latino Misery
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Rudy Acuña: As a group Latino politicos have not been especially progressive. Indeed, they have been less than courageous when it comes to police brutality and capital punishment.
Idiotas: Enduring Fools
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Rudy Acuña: Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wagging her finger at President Obama recently caught my attention; it is a gesture that betrayed her IQ and upbringing. It was a punk act, and she did it because she knew she could get away with it.
Giving Hypocrisy a Bad Name: Censorship in Tucson
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: The nativists’ hypocrisy gives opportunism a bad name. They care nothing about the truth, they care nothing about Latino students
Worse Off Today Than in the Sixties: Who Gives a Damn?
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Rodolfo Acuna: The major reason for the lack of progress of Mexican American and other minorities is society’s historical amnesia or more aptly its Alzheimer disorder that erases the memory of previous efforts or commitments to bridge the gap between black, brown and white – rich and poor.
Latino Students: Don’t Get Angry, Get Even
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: ALEC Arizona and Latino Students – In Tucson, brutalizing immigrants and Latino students is part of the grand strategy ALEC and others use to keep Mexicans in their place.
Payback Time
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: One of the first political lessons that I remember was Benito Juárez’s famous saying, “entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz,” “among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.”
White Elbows: “Better Than What?”
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Rodolfo F. Acuña: My mother always knew that Mexicans had to be better than gringos if they were going to make it. We had to be cleaner; she would scrub my elbows until they were raw, trying to make them white. She bought us an Encyclopedia Britannica that none of us could read.
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