Prototype Issue
As Immigration Battle Heats Up, Indigenous Education Comes Under Fire
By Ernie Bustamante
(page 1 of 2)When Academia Semillas del Pueblo, a K-8, LA Unified School District charter school, opened its doors in the East LA community of El Sereno in 2001, it went unnoticed by most.
That changed, however, when Doug McIntyre, host of the Morning Show at Talk Radio 790 KABC decided to investigate the school’s practices.
McIntyre first became aware of Semillas on May 1, 2006—almost five years after it was founded and coincidentally the same day hundreds of thousands throughout the U.S. took to the streets to show their solidarity with immigrants.
Co-Principal Marcos Aguilar, a former teacher at Garfield High School, co-founded Semillas in order “to provide an alternative to children and their families in East LA that respected their languages, culture and parents.” Other Co-founders included: Minnie Ferguson, Dr. Juan Gomez Quinones, Dr. Irene Vasquez, Abel Aguilar and Isidro Nunez.
A listener informed McIntyre that Semillas did not fly the American flag, but instead the “Zapatista revolutionary flag.”
“Their website at the time I found to be highly provocative,” stated McIntyre. “The school claimed to teach children our culture, our ways, our traditions.”
The school’s mission as written in their new charter proclaims: “Academia Semillas del Pueblo Charter School is dedicated to academic excellence, an appreciation of the cultural and intellectual heritage of Indigenous Peoples and the promotion of positive social awareness. We consciously strive to provide students effective and comprehensive pedagogy through a globally inclusive curriculum within a positive, supportive learning environment involving students, teachers, parents and staff. Academia is a high quality public charter school. We believe learning best occurs when it is an act of love and the product of the community.”
“To me, the purpose of public education is to produce the next generation of American citizens to take place in the American society, not some other culture. The public has a right to expect that,” McIntyre stated.
Co-Principal Aguilar disagrees: “The purpose of education today is to prepare children for the 21st century—to be internationally minded and capable, to be multilingual and to be engaged citizens of the world. As Indigenous Peoples, and as the “first Americans” it is the U.S. that must be transformed to respect our cultures, especially in light of its history of genocide against our ancestors throughout the continent.”
Public charter schools like Semillas receive taxpayer dollars but are freed from some of the restrictions imposed on other public schools. Semillas also receives funding as an affiliate of the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the country.
As McIntyre’s investigation into the school increased, so did the controversy. “That’s when the crazies got involved,” stated McIntyre. Semillas received bomb threats and McIntyre received death threats.
Rodolfo Acuna, a Chicana/o Studies professor at California State University Northridge and advisor to the school believes racism and ignorance are the main reasons for the school’s criticism.
“This goes beyond the cultural studies debate,” Acuna stated. “People in the United States feel threatened. They want to go back to national origins and control genetics; too many brown eyes and dark hair. It is being driven by fear and the fear peddlers.”
McIntyre maintains that school is set up to be self-segregated, “to teach a very specific ethnic enclave, a boutique even, among the Hispanic population. I think it’s bad for the country, these divisions between racial lines is exactly that; it’s divisive. It’s not the taxpayers’ job to teach me my heritage. People can misrepresent my point of view, but they can’t misunderstand it. It has nothing to do with being racist or racism.”
“The purpose of education today is to prepare children for the 21st century—to be internationally minded and capable, to be multilingual and to be engaged citizens of the world."
Despite low test scores, unconventional teaching methods and the initial recommendation by the LAUSD Charter Office not to renew Semillas’ charter, the LAUSD School Board voted in March to renew the school’s charter for another five years.
Semillas is presently the only school in East LA to offer the International Baccalaureate’s Primary Years Program. In addition, the school offers both Mandarin and Nahuatl languages as subjects.
The charter office reversed its recommendation after evaluating new evidence.
According to Aguilar, the initial assessment of the school by the charter office was not fair. “We successfully proved to the Superintendent and his high level staff that the process was demonstrably flawed, that in fact our school demonstrates successes in ways even the District cannot, such as English instruction and parental engagement.”
Hundreds of community members marched from Olvera Street to LAUSD Headquarters to support the charter renewal.
“LAUSD have failed the children of the poor abysmally. The solution to that is not to engage in using kids as lab rats, it’s to get back to basics,” McIntyre concluded.
Aguilar defended the school and the charter renewal stating, “Academia Semillas is the right to the historical wrong committed against students in East Los Angeles for decades.”
Discussion