Tucson Book Bans?!

Tucson is special to my heart, having been the first US destination I visited (attending Prof. Charles Ragin's excellent graduate course on QCA). So I follow it in the news, and unfortuantely, not enough dull moments in what people think of as a sleep ol' town...

And what to make of recent wire buzz, are they really banning books in this day and age?! Seems Mexican-American Studies teachers were sent a memo from the school district saying that the following books, which are specifically mentioned in a court order, are to be removed from the classroom, boxed up, and stored in the district's textbook depository, presumably until furnace-time can be booked:



Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado

500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures edited by Elizabeth Martinez

Message to Aztlan by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Fiere

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuña


Seems work by Winona LaDuke's "To the Women of the World: Our Future, Our Responsibility" is also on the banned list, high praise we might say...

Downtown Tucson carpark...maybe they could light the bonfire here?
Salon piece...