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News Taco: Every Week is Banned Books Week for Chicanos.
Every week is banned books week for Chicanos.
In Arizona, two Chicana high school students, Maya Arce and Korina Lopez, await word of when their case against Arizona HB 2281 goes up before the 9th Circuit Court of appeals.
That’s because in 2012, via AZ HB 2281, Arizona officials banned Mexican American Studies, claiming it promoted the overthrow of the government.
That statement is full of so many ironies I don’t know where to begin.
Since it’s Banned Books Week, for everyone else, let’s start there. Typically, challenging a book is hard work.
You have to read the book — well, at least the paragraph or sentence that boggles your mind, or that people have told you should offend you. You have to fill out a form, sign your name, let your neighbors know that you’re a book banner.
Turns out Arizona is streamlining the process. With Arizona House Bill 2282, whichprohibits any courses or classes that “promote the overthrow of the government,” AZ officials were able to effectively challenge over 80 books in one swoop. Some were even carted out of classrooms and boxed during class time, in front of our youth.
These books were part of the curriculum for the K-12 Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson Unified School District.
The books include novels such as The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros,Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, and The Magic of Blood by Dagoberto Gilb.
There are more. So this Banned Books Week, starting Wednesday, September 24 through October 1, every hour, from 9 am to 9 pm, the Librotraficantes will tweet and post the title and author of one of the books on the list of MAS Banned Books. It will take us all week to do it. There are that many. We’ll be using the hash tags #MASbannedbooks #MASbannedbooksweek and #Librotraficante.
When we Librotraficantes smuggled the banned books back into Arizona during our 2012 Librotraficante Caravan, I re-read some of the works to see what I had missed upon my first read because I couldn’t think of one of them promoting the overthrow of the government.
Published in Latino Daily News
Source: http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/news-taco-every-week-is-banned-books-week-for-chicanos/31210#When:00:46:59Z
