SEREMOS BLOG: Celebrating Words Festival (and resisting the banning of books)

Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when none would listen to the ‘guilty’, but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself. And when finally they set the structure to burn the books, using the firemen, I grunted a few times and subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with me, by then. Now it’s too late. (Fahrenheit 451, p. 82)

Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore is a community space and retail outlet that serves the people of northeast Los Angeles. The Chicano poet and author Luis Rodríguez was essential in helping to establish as well as lead this cultural initiative, one intended to serve a community that has few other cultural resources. As such t continues to be the nucleus of a vibrant enterprise, helping to support and promote literacy among underserved communities as well as sponsoring cultural festivals and community forums. They also provide valuable support for new authors who address issues of relevance to multicultural communities. It is the type of institution that I would imagine struggles financially from year to year, but I assume that it is not primarily a for-profit venture. I am glad that we have enterprises such as this one.

Tucked as it is in the community of Sylmar, in the sprawling San Fernando valley, I am reminded very much of my own community in the Riverside area. Both regions are bound to Los Angeles by the powerful economic and cultural weight of the megalopolis, and both are saturated by media from the big city. Yet despite this the San Fernando Valley also maintains much of a small-town atmosphere, based as this is on the survival of strong local traditions and histories. Riverside was very much an agricultural community, while Sylmar and the San Fernando Valley in was a center of small manufacturing. Both were also more economically accessible to working class immigrant and minority communities, and they continue to be even though Los Angeles itself has also undergone a tremendous transformation and has seen "white flight" to other areas. The city of Sylmar is nestled amidst looming brown hills, and it feels as if it is located a world away from Los Angeles, separated as it is by these physical and cultural divide. As with my community in Riverside County, it is also infernally hot during the summers.

As part of its' agenda of ongoing activities Tia Chucha’s sponsors an event known as the Celebrating Words Festival. This year it took place on May 18 at LA Mission College, a local two-year institution. The focus this year was centered on the battles taking place in Arizona, a new “culture-war” (to borrow the term that was popularized by conservative pundit Pat Buchannan) that continues to be waged by cultural conservatives against more socially liberal and progressive groups. As such, it is part of an impulse by groups such as the Republican Party to stoke fear among the national community, erecting straw-men that will build outrage and therefore energize their base groups. One of their targets has been undocumented immigrants, and local politicians in Arizona have built a national platform by demonizing them and by using overblown rhetoric.

Prominent among these figures are the governor of the state, Jan Brewer, and the sheriff of Maricopa County, Joseph Arpaio. Their advocacy, in conjunction with that of other politicians and groups in the state, has led to the passage of controversial bills such as the Arizona SB 1070, one that sought to implement new procedures to target suspected undocumented immigrants by engaging in what the Justice Department has determined just today (May 24) is a form of racial profiling. It has also lead Sheriff Arpaio to engage in creative tactics that serve more to create publicity for himself rather than to facilitate effective law enforcement. (Tactics such as requiring inmates to wear pink prison outfits, or at their worst, streamlining the procedures for deportation of suspected illegal immigrants.) The governor has followed course, and in a series of actions, has resisted such actions at President Obama's presidential order that Dream-act students (undocumented young people who have resided in the United States for several years) be allowed to register to gain special protected status from deportation.

The other side of this equation, of course, involves the effort to modify the public school curriculum in an effort to reshape curricula that was deemed contrary to the promotion of national unity, understood by these cultural groups as "Western Civilization", associated as it is with their conservative political agenda. This resulted, then, in an effort that had been ongoing for several years, one which sought to eliminate a wide range of Ethnic Studies programs. As asserted by then state superintendent of public instruction Tom Horne, these programs, which had been shown to address student needs for a more culturally-inconclusive curriculum that brought attention to a diverse range of issues and experiences, were deemed divisive and subversive. These ethnic studies programs had helped to improve student retention levels, in addition to teaching needed critical thinking skills for communities that were at risk. They included programs in Chicano, Native-American, Asian-American and African-American studies, but also gender studies, to name a few. Not only were these programs to be eliminated from the public school curricula (but not from university programs), but the works associated with these programs, encompassing such fundamental authors Rudy Acuña, Sherman Alexie, Howard Zinn and even Shakespeare (his work The Tempest appears on this list). To be clear, these books aren’t “banned”, they simply are not allowed in classrooms in the Tucson Unified School District of Arizona. Scholar Caroline Gerado, a participant at the conference, testified to having seen how books that must have cost the districts hundreds of thousands of dollars were removed wholesale from schools and discarded in dumpsters.

Like the legal statutes that were passed and defended by Arizona political figures, this educational policy was and is being resisted. It has served to energize a new wave of resistance for what may take the form of a new generational struggle, and it is being resisted by instructors who have committed to teaching these materials on sites away from public schools. (Giving rise to what we may humorously describe as "librotraficantes", as noted in Megan Feldman's article from 2012, located here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/19/arizona-ethnic-studies-ban-s-unintended-result-underground-libraries.html) In the meantime it brings up earnest soul-searching, especially in light of the fact that the politicians that trumpet these programs continue to enjoy large support from the electorate, with Sheriff Joseph Arpaio having been recently reelected. What is motivating these actions and how are they related to demographic trends? Why the effort to ban literature in order to enshrine what can only be viewed as a political program? What role do socially conservative groups such as the loosely-defined "Tea Party" movement play in these efforts, espousing as they do an agenda that is anti-regulatory as well as more extreme when it comes to border enforcement and the curtailing of civil liberties? On a more limited basis, is it the corollary to a new effort being waged to impose standardization in our public school systems? What are the fundamental psychological, political, economic and social impulses at play?

These were some of the questions that were addressed at today’s conference held in conjunction with the Celebrating Words festival sponsored by Tia Chucha’s. It is part of an attempt to understand not only the rationale behind these efforts, but to propose ways in which they can be resisted by culturally-conscious individuals who are aware of the threats that this form of censorship implies. (It is a form of censorship, after all, to compile a list of "subversive" texts to be eliminated from public school.) It is not only a battle similar to that waged in the 60s and 70s when the literary canon was being expanded to include new authors, works and new multicultural perspectives, but to one that is increasingly tied to new debates regarding the decline of the middle classes and the fundamental changes in our economy, as well as to new demographic pressures alluded to above. It is also a battle that is related to civil rights struggles as they pertain to other communities such as the anti-DOMA federal statues and the rights that are being sought by Gay, Lesbian and Transgender communities.

Moderating the panel was Professor Cintli Rodriguez, who teaches at the University of Tucson in Arizona and who has seen first-hand not only the efforts to impose these new policies, but who has been active in resisting them. The panel also included several scholars and authors, including Luis Rodriguez, Frank Mundo, Caroline Gerado, Rudy Acuña and Melinda Palacio. (Not pictured: Caroline Gerado)

(Prof. Cintli Rodriguez, Moderator)

(Luis Rodriguez, Author, Founder of Tia Chucha's)

(Melinda Palacio, Author)

(Prof. Rudy Acuña)

(Prof. Frank Mundo)

It was and is a subject that is very much at the forefront of concern for minority communities. The sponsors could well have dedicated several sessions to this topic, but given the time constraints, we could only touch on a few aspects of this multi-faceted problem. The moderator, Prof. Cintli Rodriguez, chose to open this one-hour discussion with the question: Why do these politicians and ideologues make such an earnest appeal to Western Civilization? Is it not an attempt to impose an us-against-them dichotomy?

The whole idea of preparing a list of banned books is one that would seem to be incompatible with the humanist values of Western Civilization, values that were forged in the crucible of struggle and revolution, as noted by Frank Mundo. (The latter wrote an article in an anthology published under the title Ban This!) I would add that many of these values are part of a process that dates back centuries, a movement that has witnessed the conjunction of rationality and tolerance, with a consequent expansion of the notion of citizenry, with all the responsibilities and rights accorded. If from ancient classical culture we inherited the notion of polis, the city-state with a citizenry and with a limited form of representative democracy, we also inherited the notion of the barbarian, a dichotomy that seems to play to the idea of affirming certain hierarchies. What seems to be at stake is the idea of who belongs to the official firmament of this nation, and who is allowed to define what is a citizen and what values are to be defended and upheld.

We continue to see the portrayal of “others” whose values, despite the ostensible relativism of Enlightenment philosophes such as Rene Montaigne, could continue to appeal to a vocabulary of caricature and vilification when applied to those with whom we disagree. (We see this more than ever in our current corrosive political climate.) The appeal to “rationalism” was one that used to serve as the basis for moderation, but nowadays, this “rationalism” is in no fundamental way different from other coercive ideological techniques and has become part of an institutional mechanism that is bent on preserving itself and defending the interests of those who are best able to take advantage of these institutions, even at the sake of imperiling the notion of democracy (that which is in the public interest). I am talking, of course, of changes such as those evident in our economy, in the way in which great divides are becoming apparent, and in which corporate interest intersect with those of other narrow interests to divide this country.

Prof. Cintli Rodriguez shared with us his conception of this new dichotomy, one that he applies uniquely to the circumstances that relate to Hispanic immigration. While others offered their interpretation that economic institutions are becoming more and more unequal and coercive, with the continued loss of our traditional manufacturing base and the growing influence of what may be termed “corporate” culture (the expansion of power held by elites who dominate large economic units), a few brought up the way in which we seem to be engaged in a new generational transformation. It is true, minority communities have grown tremendously in the last few decades while the middle class has been shrinking. Arizona’s Hispanic population currently amounts to approximately one third of the total, and the forecasts for growth indicate that this state will soon join the ranks of other states such as California, New Mexico, and Texas as those having "majority-minority" populations.

To reiterate, Texas as well as California are both termed as “Majority Minority” states. This means that the Anglo-American portion of the population (yes, I know, the term "Anglo" can be misleading since it tends to suggest ancestry exclusive to Great Britain and specifically England, but it is a term commonly used to designate European ancestry in these regions), as self-identified in the US Census, forms less than 50% of the state population. Other states in the Southwest are rapidly heading in that direction as well. Whether this will factor into a fundamental political realignment remains to be seen. It may mean that a perennial “red” state (one that traditionally is known for social and economic conservatism and routinely votes for Republican candidates) such as Texas may eventually become a “blue” state, but this is a transformation that is still in the works. I am much less optimistic that this will happen, because not only do movements and ideologies have a way of metamorphosing to form new coalitions, but minority communities should not be perceived as being monolithic in their political proclivities. I have read studies that indicate that the Hispanic community may very much be receptive to a socially-conservative agenda, if only the Republican Party would stop demonizing them.

But what struck me was the idea developed by Prof. Rodriguez that had to do with overturning the basis of what we have termed as “nativism” on the part of conservative sectors who feel imperiled by immigrants and by the changes that are being wrought to the social fabric. There is the suggestion, after all, that there is a “native” culture, that which was created through generations of assimilation of European immigrants, that is under siege, and one hears it expressed in the phrase that is popular among members of the Tea Party: “I don’t recognize my country anymore”. This idea of nativism, of course, has never been as settled as they would like to believe, and it was always a point of contention among the many groups who came to coexist in this country. We may think, for example, of the way each succeeding wave of immigrants was greeted by those that had preceded them, of how the newcomers were deemed fundamentally “alien”, and of how groups such as the Irish as well as Eastern European Jews, to name a few examples, met with hostility as well as active discrimination. And yet, these groups have all left their marks, through a period of struggle in which they and many other groups sought to storm the bastions of power that were closed to them.

The idea of nativism takes a curious term if we approach it, of course, not only from a historical perspective (who came first, who displaced which group), but also, from the idea of indigenous identity. This is, of course, a complex question, especially as it pertains to Latin Americans who by and large are mestizos, but who represent a diverse and heterogeneous amalgamation of different cultures. The “indigenous”, as developed by Prof. Rodriguez, is the idea of a community that is tied specifically to Indian (native) cultures, those that are themselves isolated in their countries of origin and denigrated throughout the continent. It is unfortunate but true that indigenous country is officially celebrated in national myths but unofficially denigrated in almost all countries of this continent, ranging from North to South America. And yet these communities and their values have survived, and we may see them as alternatives that help to explain not only why we see the movement of peoples throughout the world, by why these movements represent alternatives for new communal and civic identity that are precisely transnational, factors that may help to explain why they are so resisted by conservative sectors in the United States.

The “indigenous” are those who have a different perspective of time, who suffer overwhelmingly from elevated rates of poverty, who have been marginalized and excluded for hundreds of years, and who have seen themselves displaced economically, socially and politically. (Prof. Rodriguez is of course drawing a parallel with the experiences of communities in the United States, such as the Chicano community, elaborating a new language of self-definition.) And yet the cultural ethos of these communities has survived, and what he proposes is a new idea of nativism, one that is grounded on more sustainable economic, political and cultural practices that are predicated, fundamentally, on a new communitarian ideal. It shouldn't be an "us" against "them" dichotomy, and what he proposed to do was overturn the notion of what is native, to address head-on the cry of politically conservative sectors who rail against foreigners, who see a continual threat from the south, who don't wish to recognize other community voices that wish to organize even as they themselves organize in their own movements.

It is more hopeful way in which to direct this discussion regarding the banning of books and the segregation of communities that is ostensibly based on the desire to assimilate them to an "official" ideology. The economy is becoming more and more predatory, and we see a shrinking of the middle classes, as well as fewer and fewer opportunities for the working classes and more resistance to recognizing their social and community goals, but the whole notion of conservative agitation is one that is predicated on divisiveness and confrontation. The author Luis Rodriguez noted this as well, commenting as he did on the way this culture of disenfranchisement has led to social pathologies that are exported to the rest of the world, as has happened, for example, with the export of gang culture from the United States to the countries of Central America. These divisions are predicated on fear, but they also continue to stoke this misapprehension and feeling of dread, of values that are supposedly under attack, misdirecting attention from the real processes at work in our societies, and the way in which the post-industrial economy and the globalist mindset of transnational capitalism erodes the practice of democracy.

While hard-working Mixtecos and Zapotecos and Triquis and other representatives of Indian cultures from the south are harassed and detained, forcefully consumed by the penal culture of the United States that is exported to the rest of the world, we see that their passage is in a very real way motivated by new economic realities, by the transformation of a worldwide economy that is predicated precisely on the circulation of labor. The stable and millennial lifestyle and ethos of these traditional cultures is under real threat in a way that is not recognized by anti-immigrant groups in the United States such as the Minutemen who don't see further than their own border, and who don't acknowledge the way in which multinational companies create the conditions for these migrations, absorbing workers and transforming them into a subclass. The socially conservative groups behind initiatives such as the banning of ethnic studies programs thus are waging a futile battle, because they are addressing not the causes of any perceived problems (the growth of subclasses of marginalized and exploited peoples who they see as having "values" different than their own), but only the symptoms of a more predatory economy that is precisely predicated on their message of anti-regulation, pro-business values. It is a classic case of the left hand unable to see what the right hand is doing.

(Danza Temachtia Quetzalcoatl)

With regards to the scope of a policy of creating lists of banned books, the panelists talked of a chilling effect. It isn’t that the more venerable works will become unavailable; they won’t. Students will still have access through other venues to books such as Louis Rodriguez’s book Always Running, or to Shakespeare’s The Tempest, or to Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. What happens, however, is that new authors will find themselves in a climate that is less receptive to their works, because they will not benefit from networks of distribution and promotion that previous authors have enjoyed. Author Melinda Palacio shared an example of this while discussing the reception of her novel Ocotillo Dreams. Before the statute banning ethnic studies curricula, she related how she had been receiving numerous inquiries about her works, as well as invitations to present them in various universities as well as book stores. Now, she was no longer fielding these inquiries, and instead, found a certain reluctance and well as hesitation on the part of book store proprietors who were now concerned about how her work would play in the altered cultural dynamic of conservative agitation against multiculturalism. A culture that sanctions the creation of a list of banned books is one that has submitted to the tool of fear, and is thus consequently robbed of a certain amount of dynamism, a certain capacity to question and debate new perspectives.

It is a frightening concept, and before attending this debate, I had considered the question of subversive literature and the role that is plays in marginalizing and controlling public discourse. It may be that, as occurred with Alexander Solzynitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, there will arise a culture of Samizdat literature (or librotraficantes, using the term alluded to above), where banned books are circulated underground. This will, of course, ironically bolster the value of these books, investing them with a degree of symbolic power that, as with the case with the literature that circulated in the former Eastern Bloc countries, proved counterproductive to the agents that sought to implement the ban. But it is also the case that this impulse is one that is grounded on what can be viewed as a mirage. The impulse to ban books is of course inherently counterproductive, but it is also a part of a tactical scheme that is manipulative, for these restrictions reinforce the perception of dichotomies that will continue to operate well into the future. While in ordinary life we may well come to recognize certain communalities, and to realize that our economic institutions are becoming more inherently unequal and oppressive, to draw attention to these “culture wars” is to create battles that sidetrack us from these fundamental questions of how the system of capitalism is fundamentally broken. If working class Anglo-Americans can’t reach common ground with working class Chicanos or working class African Americans, because other indexes of division are magnified or fundamentally manufactured, then the real basis for any common struggle predicated on mutual recognition and joint action remains an elusive concept.

Banning ethnic studies and creating these ridiculous lists of banned books all in the name of safeguarding a national consensus that seems increasingly imperiled by “others” (“I don’t recognize my country anymore”) only serves to make the possibility of achieving true consciousness about the real dimensions that much harder to attain. The fear of ethnic struggles is, of course, part of a wider struggle. It still amounts to a familiar battle between the haves and the have-nots. One that is being hotly contested not only in Arizona but worldwide, and which was effectively wielded as part of the discourse of fear and security as part of a “War on Terrorism” by the prior Republican administration, institutionalized as a destructive foreign policy and as a surviving public surveillance initiative that is breathtaking in its scope because it is so intrusive.

The stories will not disappear. If they don’t come out in books, they will be preserved in oral narratives, in songs, or in so many of our other cultural manifestations. The solution, of course, as shared with us by Prof. Rodriguez as he related to us the way in which protestors have been challenging these statutes in the many districts in Arizona, and as emphasized as well by Prof. Acuña who related to us his experiences with attempts to delegitimize his work and to classify it as unsuitable or suspect (he used to publish children’s books before a directive circulated that claimed that his works were unsuitable for that group, prompting him to switch to writing academic texts in 1970), is to stop being afraid. They can't arrest all of us, can they?