Director: Ari Palos
Cast: Curtis Acosta/ Jose Gonzalez
The Precious Knowledge documentary takes place in Tucson, Arizona. The documentary depicts the personal narratives of teachers and students and their experiences with cultural inequities in Tucson such as, unsafe neighborhoods, poor healthcare, and the lack of quality education. Students enrolled in an Ethnic Studies course at Tucson Magnet High school are twice as likely to graduate high school than their counterparts in other schools. Despite this, Arizona school administrators and lawmakers strive to shut down the program. As a result, students create a civil rights movement in an effort to keep their Ethnic Studies program. .
Throughout the documentary, teachers and students express their appreciation for and commitment to the social justice curriculum taught in the Ethnic Studies program. Jose Gonzalez, an Ethnic Studies teacher, believes in the concept of [Chunachi]---“plant the seed and it will grow”. This belief aligns with the concept of “Critical Hope” presented by Duncan in Hope Required When Growing Roses in Concrete. Duncan suggests that although teachers cannot create the perfect environment for learning, they can provide opportunities for “leaking in of sunlight, water, and other resources that encourage hope” (186). In addition to sunlight and water, a "seed" is the fundamental ingredient needed to grow a "plant". Gonzalez's metaphorical “seed” refers to the hope he tries to instill in his students through a culturally relevant curriculum. Gonzales believes that through a social justice curriculum he can foster hope (i.e. seeds), provide culturally relevant knowledge (i.e. sunlight and water) and teach students to advocate for themselves and others (i.e. growing plant 🌱) to create social and personal change.
In contrast, school administrators and lawmakers in Tucson, Arizona hold more conservative values and expectations for curriculum and teaching. State Senator John Huppenthal states that, "You cannot teach that social systems are stacked against you. You cannot teach evil ideas and expect healthy outcomes.” The social systems that Huppenthal references is a concept that Tricia Rose researched and explains in, How Structural Racism Works. In her lecture, Rose suggests that social systems are “not operating in a single sphere way” as suggested by Huppenthal. Rather, Rose proposes that, “there are interlocking effects to systemic racism and that various aspects of society produce structural inequalities in ways that are interdependent, interactive and compounding.” Coincidentally, a change in policy to one structure of society will not automatically cause change in another. In order for changes to occur in multiple structures of society, changes need to occur in policy and in fundamental beliefs.
Text: Border Lands/La Frontera--The New Mestiza
Author: Gloria Anzaldua
The Borderlands/La Frontera-The New Mestiza is a compilation of poems and short stories that presents the Chicano and Latino experience with emphasis on issues of identity, gender, race, violence, religion, and sexuality. In the poem, Interface, Gloria Anzaldua explores the concept of inner-self and female sexuality. Leyla is presented as being part of the speaker, "She'd always been there occupying the same room." The struggle between a women's inner-self such as her wants, needs, and desires is presented as a secret, "what does it feel like she asked, to inhibit flesh." Since the speakers sexual desires and LGBTQ relationship are in direct contrast to conservative beliefs and cultural expectations they are kept a secret.
In the work, Letting Go, Anzaldua suggests that wanting change is simply not enough. She states:
Yet, you don't quite empty.
Maybe a green phlegm
hides in your cough.
You may not even know
that its there until a knot grows in your throat
and turns into a frog.
The imagery of phlegm hiding in your throat and transforming into a frog connects to systemic racism and the evolution of systems, like the criminal justice system. The 13th documentary outlines how the prison system has been redesigned from slavery to lynching down the line to mass incarceration. The prison system is similar to the phlegm in your cough; this system of oppression continues to evolve through conservative and capitalist policies which in turn, benefit conservatives and capitalists through the privatization of the system. Even through evolution, the system of oppression still exists. The evolutionary frog 🐸 is potentially worse than the phlegm.
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