critical_linking - Vance Cameron Holmes

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Running head: CRITICAL LINKING
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Critical Linking in the Multicultural Classroom:
A Cultural Overview of
African American and Mexican American Urban Learners
Vance Holmes
Metropolitan State University
Urban Teacher Program
EDU 630
Paul Spies, Ph. D.
March 30, 2011
Contact: Vance Holmes, 1500 LaSalle Avenue #320 Minneapolis, MN 55403
Email: vance@vanceholmes.com
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“Despite the movement to a post-racial society, the legacy of slavery, segregation,
discrimination, and deculturalization continue to affect the descendants of America’s enslaved
Africans, Native Americans, and Mexican Americans. While racial categories lose meaning in a
post-racial society, there are still generations affected by previous harsh racial laws, segregation,
and attempts at deculturalization.”
– Joel Spring
Critical Linking in the Multicultural Classroom:
A Cultural Overview of African American and Mexican American Urban Learners
Urban educators must be critical linkers, able to maximize individual learning
opportunities by identifying broad cultural patterns and connecting to students through culturally
responsive instruction. A large majority of the diverse students in Minnesota's city schools are
African American and Mexican American learners. These cultural groups are distinct and
dissimilar in many ways, even though both communities have endured bigotry and
discrimination throughout the history of American education. While the past challenges of the
two populations are decidedly different, exploring their histories in tandem may guide the urban
educator toward a better sense of how to bring America's multicultural triumph into the
classroom. This duel examination will compare, contrast and critically link information about the
African American and Mexican American urban learner in three areas – historical, social, and
educational experience – and each section will be linked to practical implications for teaching in
the culture-rich metropolitan schoolroom.
“If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the
thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.”
– Carter G. Woodson
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Linking to History
As an urban educator, exploring the origins of the Black and Mexican communities in
America may lead to a better understanding of how to maximize student learning through
knowledge of the historical background of each group.
In Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality, Joel Spring (2010) advises that the
deculturalization and Americanization of enslaved Africans is a complex history to chart
“because they originated from a variety of language groups and cultures within Africa” (p. 43).
Additionally, the treatment of these enslaved workers differed from region to region, decade to
decade, and century to century. Ronald Takaki, in his introduction to A Different Mirror (2008),
declares that throughout U.S. history, “African Americans have been the central minority” (p. 7).
The first enslaved Africans, arriving at Jamestown in 1618, came from established European
trading areas along the west coast of Africa. These Africans were familiar with European
languages and customs. Takaki found that the first arrivals were not actually slaves, “rather, like
most of the white laborers, they were probably indentured servants” (p. 52). But by 1700, the
origins of the slave population had significantly changed. As a result of the increased demand
caused by the flourishing southern plantation system, slave traders began to import villagers
from the interior areas of Africa. These Africans did not share a common language or culture.
They had no contact with Europeans prior to being enslaved (Spring, p.45). Spring articulates the
psychologically devastating experience of those who survived the two-month Middle Passage:
“wrenched out of their villages, separated from their families, marched to the African coast in
shackles, forced into the dark holds of sailing ships, and then sold to some unknown AngloAmerican in a country that had little resemblance to their homelands” (p. 45). Deculturalization
was used to render enslaved Africans dependent on the slaveholder. After purchasing enslaved
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Africans, Spring writes, the plantation owner would immediately “take away their identities by
giving them new names” (p.51). Consumed by fear of insurrection, slaveholders set about to
deny enslaved Africans any form of personal expression, cultural connection or education.
The processes of deculturalization and cultural transformation experienced by Mexican
Americans differ from those experienced by African Americans, but the historical patterns are no
less complex. Discrimination toward Mexicans and Americans of Mexican heritage developed in
two stages. First, in the treatment of those who remained on their land following the U.S.
conquest, and then, in the early twentieth century when political and economic conditions in the
two countries compelled many Mexicans to seek residence in the U.S. (Spring, p. 91). Ronald
Takaki’s research revealed that during the 1820s Americans began crossing over the Mexican
border. “Many of them were slaveholders from the South,” he writes, “in search of new lands for
cotton cultivation” (p. 156). Attitudes founded on an ideology of ethnic, religious, and cultural
superiority provided motivation for the U.S. to begin annexing Mexican land. Within this
ideology, Mexican Mestizos were classified as a sub-standard racial mixture. In 1830 the
Mexican government prohibited further American immigration and declared slavery illegal
(Takaki, p. 156). The culture clash continued until finally, in May of 1846, the U. S. Congress
declared war on Mexico. The Mexican-American War – which Spring emphasizes was, among
other things, a race war – ended in May 1848 with ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo. Racialist ideation, the doctrine of “manifest destiny,” and the conception Takaki
identifies as “a belief in American Anglo-Saxon superiority” were the bases for the MexicanAmerican war and together would continue to be the root of hostilities between the neighboring
nations for a hundred years (p. 164). The Mexican American heritage, according to Spring,
“became segregated schools, housing, and discrimination in employment” (p. 91).
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Exported away from their homeland as members of intact Mexican communities or as
U.S. immigrants who had assimilated into existing Hispanic communities, Mexican Americans
had a far different historical experience than the descendants of those imported to America
through the African holocaust. The centuries of determined deculturalization that accompanied
the evil of slavery have almost completely obscured the diverse histories represented by the
American descendants of enslaved African peoples. Takaki speaks of “the hidden origins of
slavery.” He then establishes that, “while freighted with racial significance,” the institution of
slavery was actually conditioned by economics and “class conflicts within White society” (p. 7).
The driver was economics, not ethnicity. In contrast, much of the discrimination and domination
of Mestizos and Mexican Americans stemmed from Anglo American obsessions with race and
racial superiority. Spring is clear in his remarks about this hidden horror of Mexican American
history. U.S. citizens remain ignorant of the brutal tactics used to acquire Mexican lands, Spring
notes, and are generally unaware of the ethnocentricity and bigotry underpinning the complex
history of the Mexican-American war (p. 87).
Linking Learners to History
Takaki declares that currently, “one-third of the American people do not trace their
ancestries to Europe; in California, minorities have become the majority” (5). This is supported
by U.S. Census Bureau statistics which project that in 40 years, America’s so-called “minorities”
will outnumber Whites. All non-White populations, including the African American community,
will increase – but the fastest growing group will be Hispanic / Latino (U.S. Census Bureau,
2010). By the middle of this century, government projections show that of the 60 percent of
children in the U.S. that will come from non-White populations, roughly 40 percent of them will
classify as Hispanic / Latino. Minnesota will see similar increases, with the Mexican American
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population more than doubling in the next 25 years. Most of these population increases are
expected to take place within the Twin Cities metropolitan area (MN State Demographic Center,
2011).
The African American and Mexican American communities both have long histories as
targets of bigotry, abuse and discrimination. It is necessary for urban educators to recognize how
seemingly distant historic happenings still have a day-to-day effect on many families.
Appreciating distinctions and variances in the two histories provides the start of a framework for
approaching cultural diversity in the classroom:

A respect-filled learning environment that expands students' capacity to
appreciate diversity and perceive self in a multicultural perspective

Instructional planning that accounts for multiple literacies and supports
linguistic diversity
"¡Pobre México! ¡Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos!"
– attributed to Mexican President, General Porfirio Díaz
Linking to Social Background
Exploring the historic challenges of the African American and Mexican American
communities may provide the urban educator a better understanding of how to be effective in the
multicultural classroom through review of the cultural and social experiences of the two
communities of color.
African Americans – suddenly and systematically separated from family, home,
language, religion and heritage – had to devise completely new modes of connection and
communication (Spring, p.52). Black communities developed linguistic and cultural traditions
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which reflected means and methods of interacting with power and powerlessness. By 1800, the
plantation system had expanded throughout the South. Millions of African Americans were
being held as slaves. The North was free, “for the northern states had abolished slavery after the
American Revolution,” Takaki clarifies, but African Americans were not free from bigotry and
institutionalized discrimination. Takaki records that Black Americans were the target of "virulent
racism . . . everywhere in the North, Blacks experienced discrimination and segregation” (p.
102). Throughout the South, he says, enslaved African Americans “constituted the essential labor
force in Southern agriculture for tobacco, hemp, rice, sugar and especially cotton cultivation.”
Blacks in post-Civil War America were denied the right to become U. S. citizens and were faced
with restrictions on most other basic rights. Under the "separate but equal" scheme, states erected
laws to limit the right of African Americans to vote, bring a law suit, use public facilities, marry
and even read books. Literacy was a punishable crime for enslaved Africans in several parts of
the South (p.53). By the end of the nineteenth century, many Blacks were living in conditions
close to slavery. “The possibility of progress for Blacks was distressingly remote,” writes
Takaki. “Racial borders had been reinforced by class and caste” (p. 130). Full citizenship for
African Americans would not be achieved until the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s.
Researcher Spring explains that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded Mexican
territory to the United States that encompassed major parts of the future states of California,
Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and Texas (p. 87). Mexican leaders insisted the
treaty specify that Mexicans living in ceded territory were to immediately be recognized as full
U.S. citizens (Takaki, p. 164). However, denial of citizenship and voting rights, as well as
segregation in accommodations and schooling, were the norm for Mexican Americans
throughout the Southwest following the Mexican-American war. The deculturalization and
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segregation of Mexican Americans again became pronounced during the great immigration
period of the early twentieth century. During this period, according to Ronald Takaki, most
Mexican Americans were agricultural laborers, often working under miserable conditions (p
165). Students of Mexican heritage were routinely prohibited from speaking Spanish. “Educators
argued that learning English was essential to assimilation and the creation of a unified nation”
says Spring (p. 97). It was widely assumed that, once forced to give up their language, Mexican
American citizens would abandon their ethnic heritage. The Mexican American fight for
citizenship rights, explains Spring, is exemplified by policies of Mexican “extermination and
ejection” which resulted in the removal of entire communities. “The U.S. government and state
governments in the 1930s ignored citizenship rights and deported about 400,000 Mexican
Americans back to Mexico,” says Spring. “Many of those deported were officially native-born
citizens” (p. 89).
Takaki establishes that Blacks fought for survival and sanity, having suddenly become
strangers in a strange place; Mexicans battled exclusion and extermination, upon finding
themselves “foreigners in their native land” (p 165). Spring sees that enslaved Africans resisted
deculturalization by recreating themselves in the New World, while Mexican Americans resisted
it by finding ways to preserve and protect the world they knew.
Linking Learners to Social Background
Spring points to statistics which indicate a continuing “persistence of income inequality”
for Black and Mexican Americans (p. 149). Despite the legal demise of segregation, Blacks and
Hispanics are still largely educated in ethnically segregated public schools. Segregation by
family income also persists (p. 152). The deculturalizing and demonizing of these two minority
groups, declares Spring, produced “a legacy of family instability, low educational achievement,
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living in low-income neighborhoods, and low family incomes that continue to fuel educational
and income inequalities” (p. 152). A comprehensive study on the integration of Mexican
Americans conducted by UCLA sociologists Telles and Ortiz shows that, unlike the descendants
of European immigrants to the United States, “Mexican Americans have not fully integrated by
the third and fourth generation” (Telles & Ortiz, 2008). The sociologists found that – even into
the fourth generation – most Mexican Americans continue to live in majority Hispanic
neighborhoods, consider their ethnicity to be very important, and identify as "Mexican" or
"Mexican American," with only about ten percent identifying as "American." Telles and Ortiz
reported “economic status improved for Mexican Americans from the first to second generation
but earnings, occupational status and homeownership were still alarmingly low for later
generations” due to low levels of schooling (2008). The Minnesota Minority Education
Partnership has examined the opportunity gap that exists between European Americans and
Black and Mexican Americans in Minnesota’s metropolitan areas (Minnesota Minority
Education Partnership [MMEP], 2009). The MMEP contends that for many students of color,
“lagging achievement evidenced as early as fourth grade appears to be a powerful predictor of
rates of high school and college graduation, as well as lifetime earnings” (MMEP, 2009). High
school graduation statistics, detailed by Minnesota’s Department of Education, present a clear
indicator of the state’s opportunity gap. In 2009, Minnesota’s graduation rate for White students
was 82%. For Blacks the rate was 44%. Though statistics for Mexican Americans are not
specifically charted by the state, the overall graduation rate for Hispanic students was 45%
(Minnesota Department of Education, 2011).
To be effective, educators in the diverse urban classroom need to be knowledgeable and
thoughtful about the ever-changing universe of issues important to various social groups, so that
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culture – the engine of cognition – may be ignited. In order to command a culturally responsive
classroom, educators must learn to appreciate the values and views that have shaped the outlook
of the African American and Mexican American communities because each group has its own
experience, and because pedagogical research indicates that culture prompts cognition. To
engage urban learners, teachers must link instructional content and strategies directly to the real
lives of students, so an instructional framework for Black and Hispanic Urban learners should
include:

Curriculum content that avoids bias and reflects the contributions of all
cultures

Consistent incorporation of culturally relevant classroom materials
“There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul
cannot be permanently chained.”
– Frederick Douglass
Linking to Education History
The educator of diverse urban learners can effectively craft a culturally responsive
classroom and increase student achievement through an understanding of African American and
Mexican American education history.
“During and immediately after the Civil War,” Spring writes, “former slaves took the
initiative in establishing schools” (p 57). Private tutoring and schooling provided by abolitionist
societies and religious groups, though often designed to preach not teach, also had an important
part in the advancement of African American education throughout the 1800s. As African
American common schools began to appear in the early nineteenth century, Spring notes that
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Blacks faced repeated attempts to limit their educational opportunities “through underfunding of
their schools or by educational segregation” (p. 44). Planters forcefully objected to the idea of
education for Black children since it threatened the steady supply of agricultural laborers. All
U.S. schools, regardless of whether they were located in the South or the North, were “racially”
segregated. Segregation resulted in unequal school funding and educational opportunities for
African Americans. Despite legal challenges mounted by the NAACP and other groups, public
schools continued to be segregated throughout the nineteenth century. They would remain so
until 1954. The official end of segregation, and other legal battles finally won through the Civil
Rights movement, prompted widespread feelings of ethnic pride and empowerment in the
African American community (Takaki, p. 389).
The inequities of segregation that placed limitations on Black education imposed
comparable restrictions on the schooling opportunities of Mexican Americans. While most
Southwestern farmers and their political representatives maintained that Mexican American
children were suited for farm work – not school work – there was also a contingent of public
officials who proposed compulsory education as a way to "Americanize" Hispanic children
(Spring, p. 96). For a majority of Mexican American youth growing up in the late 1800s, there
simply was no opportunity to attend school. Those who were able to go to school were very often
subjected to a curriculum devised to acculturate them and eradicate ties to their native language
and customs. In 1918, the Texas legislature enacted laws requiring instructors to use English in
public schools. Similar statutes were passed in other states. The California Bureau of Instruction
mandated that school personnel use only English in the conduct of school business (Spring, p.
94). Attempting to circumvent the poorly funded segregated public schools, some Mexican
American families sent their children to Catholic and private schools. In 1929, the League of
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United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was formed. LULAC set out to end school
segregation and anti-Mexican bias in school textbooks. Following World War II, Mexican
American groups such as the American GI Forum, joined by other Hispanic / Latino civil rights
groups, began the push for bilingual school programs, culturally sensitive educators, and courses
in Hispanic history, literature and languages.
Linking Learners to Education History
In a broad analysis, the African American struggle for recognition and equality centered
on gaining freedom from the horrors of human bondage, hysteria, hatred and greed. Struggles in
the Mexican American community often involved the "Melting Pot" issues of forced culturallinguistic assimilation and ethnocide. The research from Takaki and Spring detailing these major
differences – as well as other, more subtle distinctions between the two groups – compels the
educator of diverse urban learners to value the limitless variety of cultural knowledge students
bring to school.
Since 1990, the number of children of immigrants in Minnesota has swelled more than
200 percent according to a recent report by the Urban Institute (Urban Institute, 2010). English
learner (EL) communities have grown so quickly that Twin Cities metropolitan school districts
are just beginning to catch up. Currently, Minnesota’s Black and Hispanic students are roughly
two to three years of learning behind White students of the same age. While about a quarter of
the White students in the Twin Cities area test below expected grade level proficiency, that
percentage is more than doubled for Black and Mexican American learners. Compared to the
nation as a whole, Minnesota has one of the highest gaps between students of color and White
students – and between students of different income levels (MN Meeting Series on Education,
2009). On average, the number of out-of-school suspensions given to male students of color in
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Minnesota is equivalent to about seventeen percent. Less than four percent of the state's White
male students receive out-of-school suspensions. Students of color are admitted to district
Gifted/Talented programs at less than half the rate of Whites – and nearly three times as many
were classified as cognitively impaired (U. S. Department of Education, 2011). As for diversity
in the teacher workforce, information gathered from a 2009 survey by the Minnesota Minority
Education Partnership shows that only 3.3 percent of Minnesota teachers are racial or ethnic
minorities. Three-fourths of the learners in Minneapolis and St. Paul schools are students of color
or Native Americans, but just 16 percent of teachers are. The state’s K-12 school administrators
are also primarily White (93 percent). Administrators of color, or who identify as American
Indian, comprise just seven percent of the school administrators in Minnesota (MMEP, 2009).
Spring (p. 106) provides a deculturalization list, advising that the process has historically
involved one or more of the following educational methods: (1) Segregation and isolation; (2)
Forced change of language; (3) Curriculum content that reflects culture of dominant group; (4)
Textbooks that reflect culture of dominant group; (5) Denial of cultural and religious expression
by dominated groups; (6) Use of teachers from dominant group. The list is useful to this analysis
in two ways. First, it serves as a point of comparison. African American education has been
marked by isolation and denial of culture. The main methods used to mis-educate Mexican
Americans would include forced change of language and mono-cultural instructional materials.
Considering the ultimate failure of these educational methods to deculturize communities of
color, Spring’s list is also instructive as a model of what does not work in the urban classroom.
Thus, when the items are analyzed as their opposites, Spring’s deculturalization list completes a
six-component framework for culturally responding to African American and Mexican American
urban learners:
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
A respect-filled learning environment where all teachers and subjects “reflect a
multicultural perspective” (Spring p. 133)

Instructional planning that accounts for multiple literacies and supports linguistic
diversity

Curriculum content that avoids bias and reflects the contributions of all cultures

Consistent incorporation of culturally relevant classroom materials

Learning strategies that activate and celebrate cultural knowledge

Diverse, culturally competent educators and “strong role models” (Spring p.
133)
“The promise of the twenty-first century is the promise of the changing colors of the American
people. Demography is redefining who is an American. The time has come for us to embrace our
varied selves. A new America is approaching, a society where diversity is destiny.”
– Ronald Takaki
Linking to Power
This examination of the African American and Mexican American communities has
highlighted major differences in the social outlook and social situation of each group. Urban
educators are empowered by knowledge of the history, culture and educational experience of the
many cultural groups represented in metropolitan schools. Culturally responsive pedagogy is
built around the concept of relating the learning to the learner. Therefore, teachers must remain
connected to the real lives of their students. The African American and Mexican American
communities both endured various forms of institutionalized discrimination throughout their
social and educational histories – a fact which is reflected in the current concerns of each group –
and the two histories have here been shown to be different on several accounts. However, the
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triumphant legacy of obstacles overcome is shared by these communities of color and now
defines American popular culture (Spring, p. 65). This comparing and contrasting of African
American and Mexican American cultural differences points the urban educator toward the
passion and power potentiated in the culturally connected, critically linked classroom.
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References
Minnesota Department of Education (2011). School report card. Retrieved from
http://education.state.mn.us/ReportCard2005/index.do/
Minnesota Meeting Series on Education (2009). Closing the opportunity gap. Retrieved from
http://www.minnesotameeting.com/2009-education-series/closing-the-opportunity-gap/
Minnesota Minority Education Partnership (2009). Retrieved from http://www.mmep.org/
Minnesota State Demographic Center (2011). Retrieved from
http://www.demography.state.mn.us/
Spring, J. (2010). Deculturalization and the struggle for equality: A brief history of the education
of dominated cultures in the United States (6th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill.
Takaki, R. (2008). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America. New York: Little,
Brown & Company.
Telles, E. E., & Ortiz, V. (2008). Generations of exclusion: Mexican Americans, assimilation,
and race. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Urban Institute (2010). Children and youth. Retrieved from
http://www.urban.org/adolescents/index.cfm/
U.S. Census Bureau (2010). Census Data. Retrieved from
http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/
U. S. Department of Education (2011). Office of Civil Rights. Retrieved from
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html/
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