Memory as an Act of Defiance: Latinx Pride All Year Long

“Identity is our way of reminding ourselves that we are beautiful in a society that doesn’t validate us or often makes us feel as if we don’t belong.” By Irene Sanchez Note: A previous version of this article was originally published on Sept. 19, 2016 and republished on Sept. 27, 2017. While in grad school … Continue reading Memory as an Act of Defiance: Latinx Pride All Year Long

Learning Loss for Generations: Segregated Mexican Schools and the 1918 Flu Pandemic

“With so many Mexicans in the grammar schools this would greatly interfere with class work, as the excluded students, who are always the slowest in the classes, would fall still farther behind, making the present task of completing a year’s work before next summer nearly impossible”. This denial of education for Mexican students during the 1918 flu pandemic, which was the same “logic” that established separate Mexican schools, was rooted in white supremacy and racism in the ideas that Mexican students were dirty, unclean, inferior in intelligence, and likely wouldn’t catch up with school work anyway.

The Real American Dirt: How Targeting Mexicans Led to Banned Chicano/Latino Books and Classes

By Irene Sanchez Xicana Ph.D. The most recent discussion on NPR surrounding the novel American Dirt featuring Myriam Gurba- the Chicana author who was the first to critique the book, author Luis Alberto Urrea, author Sandra Cisneros and author of American Dirt-Jeanine Cummins, has reminded me about the injustices that Chicano/Latino communities still face in … Continue reading The Real American Dirt: How Targeting Mexicans Led to Banned Chicano/Latino Books and Classes

Connecting Wilson and Trump: How anti-immigrant hate has spread since Prop 187

Connecting Wilson and Trump: How anti-immigrant hate has spread since Prop 187By: Irene Sanchez It has almost been a year since Trump released a political ad on Twitter that demonizes Mexican/Latina/o/x people, yet we must remember he is not the first to use political ads to invoke fear of these particular groups. While many news … Continue reading Connecting Wilson and Trump: How anti-immigrant hate has spread since Prop 187

Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia

Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia By Xicana Ph.D. The ivory tower as a whole doesn’t uplift anything, but those who reinforce it. It reinforces existing power. The status quo. A lot of folks within it do too. A lot of people who preach social justice do it every single day. Let’s … Continue reading Stop reinforcing the status quo inside or outside academia