Educators, activists lobby for Hispanic-studies program

DENVER -- When a Colorado teacher got her English language students talking and writing about the police shooting of a black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, she was able to draw parallels to events close to home. Cara Luchies, who works in a high school that is 50 percent Hispanic, used an archive on the region's Latino history for information on two young Mexican-Americans who were killed by law enforcement in Longmont in 1980.

Luchies is among educators and activists across the country who say they are working to ensure young Americans of any background learn through ethnic studies about the hard work of nation-building. The push has at times met opposition.

Lawmakers in Arizona passed a 2010 ban on ethnic studies that forced a Tucson school board to shutter a Mexican-American program. In Texas, a push for a statewide Mexican-American studies high school elective faltered in the face of concern that it might introduce leftist politics into classrooms.

But in Colorado, a government class that by state law must cover "the history and culture of minorities, including but not limited to the American Indians, the Hispanic Americans and the African Americans," has been a graduation requirement for a decade. A measure before the state legislature would strengthen that law.

The proposal would create an ethnically diverse commission to help school districts develop the kind of curricula for which teachers like Luchies have been searching.

"We want to move that law forward," said state Rep. Joseph Salazar, a Democrat who introduced the proposal this session. Last month, the House education committee referred the proposal to appropriations.

Salazar said he doesn't expect much opposition to the proposal he made in response to constituent concern that implementation of the law on ethnic studies has been weak.