Arizona's ethnic-studies ban may have shut down Tucson's classes in Mexican-American studies, but but activists are fighting back in what is being called Tucson Freedom Summer. ColorLines [5]' Julianne Hing extracts a set of tips on how to respond to unjust legislation.
Asking the Community What It Needs First
Organizers of the Tucson Freedom Summer acknowledged they couldn’t start their work without figuring out where the community is at. So they're going to canvass people to find out. The goal is to knock on 40,000 doors by the end of the summer, and just over a week into the month they've hit more than 3,000, said Sean Arce, the former director of Tucson’s Mexican American Studies program ...
Teachers Can Teach Without a Classroom
In between the door-knocking and voter registration, every Sunday educators are holding community encuentros, public education forums. The first Sunday's session was led by three former Mexican American Studies teachers who discussed the documented educational benefits of ethnic studies courses ...
Treating Everyone Like a Potential Voter
The ultimate purpose of the civic engagement and forums, Mireles said, will be to leverage the community's political power come Election Day. Mireles hopes the canvassing will help inform local activists about the community’s needs so they can begin to make informed demands on their local politicians ...
Read Julianne Hing's entire piece at ColorLines. [5]
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