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Go back to page 2..., page 1... Washington. The UFW filed its second suit against an apple grower in March 1998, alleging that Auvil Fruit Co. Inc. retaliated against 28 farm workers who engaged in a four-day strike in September 1997. According to the suit, the workers went on strike September 1, and the company videotaped them, hired replacement workers without informing them of the strike and required strikers to vacate company housing. The suit was filed under Washington's Little Norris LaGuardia Act and requests reinstatement and back pay. The UFW filed a similar suit against King Fuji Inc. in September 1997. The NLRB General Counsel agreed to file complaints against Stemilt Growers Inc. of Wenatchee, Washington, Fruit of Yakima, and their labor consultant, Ag-Relate Inc. of California; a hearing is scheduled for August 4 in Yakima. The complaint, based on charges filed by the Teamsters, alleges the companies and the consultant told employees they could lose their jobs if they participated in union activities and that the INS might raid the plants if the union won the election. On May 27, four Mexican unions, the Teamsters and the UFW filed a complaint with the NAFTA office in Mexico's Labor Ministry, charging that the Washington state and US governments and the apple industry have failed to provide health and safety protections to the 40,000 to 45,000 Mexican workers who harvest apples in Washington. The complaint alleges that OSHA has failed to protect safety standards and that labor law does not protect workers trying to organize unions. According to the complaint: "Wages of warehouse and field workers have fallen below poverty levels." Under the NAFTA labor side agreement, if Mexico finds merit to the complaint it can demand consultations with the US Department of Labor and then ask for a panel of experts to investigate. Since January 1994, 11 complaints have been brought under the NAFTA labor side agreement; most were filed by US unions charging that Mexican workers employed in maquiladoras were not protected by Mexican labor laws. In 1998, a bill that would permit workers to be housed in tent cabins for less than four weeks was signed into law in Washington, over the objections of the UFW. In 1997, the UFW persuaded Governor Gary Locke, a Democrat, to veto a similar measure. The 1998 bill added money for permanent low-income housing and tightened rules on plumbing and electricity. Oregon. The Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United union signed its first farm worker agreement in April 1998 with an organic producer of strawberries and blueberries that calls for wages of at least $6.50 an hour, and a grievance and seniority system. The Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United (PCUN) is attempting to organize workers employed by 250 fruit and vegetable growers who contract with Norpac Foods Inc., a Stayton-based cooperative. PCUN has been calling for a boycott of Norpac products for the past five years. One dairy worker was fired after he was seen by his employer talking to union organizers; the dairy also grew crops under contract for Norpac. Three Oregon farm workers whose strawberry earnings were reported under other workers' social security numbers, raising the acknowledged workers pay above the minimum wage, sued Moorhouse Farms in May 1998 for violations in 1993, when there were a peak 175 workers employed. According to the workers, if all of the hours of work were accounted for, some workers received only $3.88 an hour when the minimum wage was $4.75. For example, the suit alleges that a father-daughter team picked 2,368 pounds of strawberries in one week and were paid $332, or $0.14 a pound. The employer reported that they worked 34 hours each; the workers say 36 hours each. At the reported 34 hours, the workers averaged $4.88; at 36 hours, they were paid $4.61, or less than the minimum wage. Moorhouse Farms says that it did not know that several workers were working under one social security number, and that it is not liable for minimum wage violations because it did not hire the unacknowledged workers. Steven Greenhouse, "Mexican Unions File Complaint Against Washington State Apple Industry," New York Times, May 28, 1998. Alex Pulaski, "Farm workers fight wage discrepancies," Oregonian, May 16, 1998. California: Housing, (posted 7/10/98) Housing. A May 31, 1998 profile of housing in the Watsonville and Salinas areas reported that strawberry workers earning $200 a week often shared housing to maximize savings and remittances. In many cases, private landlords are able to obtain very high rents by charging each individual for the right to sleep in a house, apartment, motel room or mobile home. The 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled 3-0 in July 1998 that an Oceanside strawberry grower can be sued for negligence for a 1994 fire that killed one farm worker and severely burned another. The workers were living rent-free in plastic-covered shanties they had erected on property leased by grower Ichiro Kosha, and the shanties were set ablaze by a candle or discarded cigarette. Kosha's attorneys argued that he should not be liable because he did not build or supervise the housing. However, the court ruled that, because Kosha provided portable toilets and running water, and established rules such as a prohibition on women and relatives, Kosha fit the state Employee Housing Act definition of a landlord. The case now returns to Superior court to determine if the workers should have known about the risks of living in the shanties. The long-term effect of the decision is not clear. There is no requirement that growers provide housing for their workers; making growers liable for injuries to workers in housing that the grower knows about may prompt some growers not to provide housing, and to prohibit informal housing on their property. Joe Rios, who founded FLC J.J. Rios Farm Services in 1980, wants to build a $5 million camp for 400 solo male farm workers at the intersection of Tully Road and Harney Lane south of Lodi. J.J. Rios has a peak 1,000 farm workers, primarily to develop vineyards and to harvest grapes. Rios estimates that he could break even by charging workers about $6 a day. The federal government provides funds to farm employers and nonprofit organizations to construct farm worker housing. In 1979, the federal government spent $69 million under one program that makes low interest loans; in FY98, spending was cut over 50 percent to $28 million. Since 1983, 7,584 houses and apartment units have been built under the USDA program, an average of 506 a year. The number of labor camps operated by farmers dropped from 5,000 in 1968 to 1,000 in 1998. El Niqo rains are blamed for unemployment that reached 40 percent in some farm worker communities in June 1998, a time when unemployment is usually low and falling. Mendota's Employment Development manager Jesse Maldonado put the unemployment rate at 38 percent in May 1998 and 21 percent in nearby Firebaugh. In Fresno County, which had farm sales of $3.4 billion in 1997, many crops are one month or more late because of the weather. A June 23 Sacramento Bee article told of several migrants from Mexico who used remittances to invest $170,000 last year in four garment shops that now employs 200 people. The investors were organized by the governor of the Mexican state of Guanajuato. Tired of have their remittances, sent by money order, eaten away by large service charges, lost or stolen, they invested about $1,000 to start-up garment shops in Guanajuato. The shops then hire local workers. The manager of one of the plants in El Tigre, which is 150 miles north of Mexico City, spent a decade as a farm worker in California's San Joaquin Valley. The success of the garment plant means that he no longer has to travel north for work. Tony Perry, "Farmer Faces Suit in Death of Worker Courts: Growers can be held financially liable for letting employees live in dangerous conditions, appellate panel rules," Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1998. Eric Brazil, "Valley starting to recover," San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 1998. Steven Greenhouse, "As U.S. Economy Booms, Housing for Migrant Workers," New York Times, May 31, 1998. UFW: Strawberries, (posted 7/10/98) Strawberries. Most observers think that the UFW in 1998 must request and win an election among strawberry workers to sustain its organizing campaign. However, there were several indications during the peak of the June-July strawberry harvest that the organizing effort is not going well. First, most growers oppose the UFW, and many have hired anti-union consultants to explain to workers why they should not support the UFW. Many workers fear that, if they vote for the union, the employer will go out of business. An anti-union brochure that turns the UFW's black eagle into a buzzard flying over the logos of farms on which the UFW won elections that have gone out of business has reportedly scared many workers away from the UFW for fear of job loss. Two strawberry producers, Ocean View Produce in Oxnard (1994) and VCNM Farms in Watsonville (1995) went out of business after the UFW won elections. Second, many of the workers at the nation's largest berry producer seem to oppose the UFW; several hundred workers on June 3 briefly struck Coastal Berry to protest "harassment" by UFW organizers and the reported dismissal of the general manager because he did not favor the UFW. Coastal Berry, with 1,200 acres of strawberries and 1,500 workers, has pledged to be neutral as the UFW tries to organize its workers. In April 1998, the UFW's first contract in the strawberry industry-with Swanton Berry Farm-was announced in San Francisco with Mayor Willie Brown. The eight-month contract, which expires January 31, 1999, provides for minimum-entry wages of $7 to $8.75 an hour, along with medical and dental benefits and a $0.25 an hour contribution to the UFW's pension plan. This is the first UFW contract to make Cesar Chavez's birthday, March 31, a paid holiday. Several employers complained that the election should not have been held in December 1997; the UFW said that Swanton employs a peak 40 workers. At the time of the December 1997 election, Swanton said it employed a peak 17 workers, and the nine who voted, approved membership 8-1 for the UFW. One voter has since been challenged as a supervisor. To emphasize its commitment to the strawberry campaign, UFW General Counsel Marcos Camacho moved his office from La Paz near Bakersfield to Watsonville. The UFW got SB1967 introduced into the California Senate, which would have held strawberry coolers such as Driscoll would become responsible for violations of field sanitation standards on the farms where the berries they cool and sell are picked. The bill failed on a 16-19 vote. The Ventura County Agricultural Association in May 1998 filed a ULP against the UFW, charging that UFW organizers attempting to sign up workers employed by Coastal Berry Company in Ventura were intimidating those who did not want to talk to the UFW. Coastal is officially neutral in the UFW campaign; co-owner David Gladstone visited the fields with UFW President Rodriguez, and sent a letter to workers which read: "With a union, everybody will know that we are a fair company that respects its employees....Our customers will know that we have a work force that has a voice, because they are represented by a union that they have freely chosen." Coastal recently bought 150 more acres of strawberries in the Ventura area, doubling its acreage there. On June 17, the Western Growers Association, a 3,300-member trade group representing produce farmers, sued the UFW and Coastal, charging that Coastal and the UFW are secretly allied to persuade Coastal workers to support the UFW. In summer 1997, WGA filed charges with the ALRB making similar assertions; they were dismissed. Both the nation's largest berry co-op, Naturipe, as well as Driscoll, say the growers who produce strawberries for them under contract welcome ALRB-supervised elections in which strawberry workers vote to decide if they want the UFW to represent them. On June 30, UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta and several Ventura County community leaders announced the formation of a local commission to use "moral suasion" to enhance workers' rights. Huerta said "we are going to bring the agriculture industry into the 21st century." According to the commission, workers in Oxnard, Ventura County, earn an average of $6 an hour, compared to an average hourly wage of $6.85 for Watsonville pickers. In August, the National Strawberry Commission for Workers' rights is expected to issue a list of recommendations to improve working conditions. UFW Activities. Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers of America, was arrested in May 1998 for criminal trespass in Buffalo, New York while trying to pass out leaflets to consumers explaining the UFW's strawberry campaign. The UFW campaign continued in Florida, where UFW supporters picketed outside Publix Super Markets headquarters in Lakeland. The five largest US supermarket chains-A&P, American Stores, Kroger's, Ralphs, and Safeway-have endorsed the UFW's call for strawberry growers to permit their workers to organize and bargain collectively under the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act without fear of discrimination. The UFW will hold its biennial convention at the Fresno Convention Center September 5-6, 1998. The UFW continues to negotiate with Waterdam Packing, where it won an election in 1994, and is renegotiating an agreement with Bear Creek Production Company which is scheduled to expire June 30, 1998. Mushrooms. The UFW represents a majority of workers employed to produce mushrooms in California. Monterey Mushrooms, seven miles east of Watsonville, is the largest above-ground mushroom farm in the world, producing 30 million pounds a year, or 600,000 pounds a week, with 500 employees. Mushrooms are grown in 65 windowless "growing rooms" in which mushrooms grow in trays that are stacked four tiers high. There are four pickings, or "breaks" over the 13-week growing cycle. Sold by Amfac in 1988, Monterey Mushrooms today employs 1,800 workers at six plants in Northern California, Texas and Tennessee and produces about 110 million pounds of white button mushrooms a year. "Western Growers sues Coastal Berry, UFW," Ventura County Star, June 19, 1998. John A. Lehr, "UFW targets area strawberry fields," Ventura County Star, July 1, 1998. Pamela Johnson, "Union Seeks to organize berry pickers," Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1998. David Greenberg, "Strawberry pickers plan to push for improvements," Daily News of Los Angeles, July 1, 1998. Eric Brazil, "Strange anti-union protest shuts berry grower 1 day," San Francisco Examiner, June 6, 1998. Eric Brazil, "The strawberry standoff," San Francisco Examiner, May 17, 1998. John A. Lehr, "Complaint is lodged against UFW union," Ventura County Star, May 5, 1998. Midwest: Meatpacking, (posted 7/10/98) ConAgra Inc. agreed in April 1998 to pay $223,000 in fines and other costs for knowingly hiring illegal aliens in Glasgow, Kentucky in 1994. Federal prosecutors said a former ConAgra plant manager, a former personnel manager, a former payroll manager and a line supervisor were all aware that four of their workers were illegal aliens. ConAgra sold the poultry plant to Valley Fresh in 1995, one year after the INS began investigating illegal workers at the plant; the plant is now closed. ConAgra also agreed to participate in the INS Verification Pilot Program. In Kentucky, 86 illegal immigrant workers were detained at the G.F. Vaughan Tobacco Co. near Lexington; most earned $6.25 an hour. The Lexington Hispanic Association estimates that 10,000 permanent Hispanic residents live in Lexington, and another 10,000 to 15,000 live in Fayette County part of each year. Most of the Hispanics are hired by farms, the thoroughbred horse industry and restaurants. The INS asks those arrested if they have family in the US, and offers them the opportunity to take their family back to their home country. Mark Grey, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa, criticized a Government Accounting Office study of the effects of IBP on economic indicators in Black Hawk county, saying that the GAO relied on 1980 and 1990 census data that are out of date in 1998 because of continuing immigration. According to Grey, John Deere laid off more than 9,000 workers in the county in the early 1980s and Rath Packing Co. closed in 1985; IBP opened its plant in May 1990 and now employs 2,100 people. IBP representative Jim Petzoldt in Storm Lake, Iowa, said that since January 1998, IBP verifies newly hired employee's data with both the INS and Social Security databases. Michigan reportedly employs a peak 45,000 farm workers, and Michigan farmers are joining the push for an easy-entry guest worker program, saying that the migrant crews that traditionally show up to fill $6 an hour jobs are not arriving in 1998. Critics counter that labor-intensive agriculture, concentrated in the western part of the state along Lake Michigan, has made few efforts to recruit workers; farmers simply wait for crews to show up when they are needed. Says one asparagus grower, "Folks who live around here won't do that kind of thing (farmwork). You need people who are good with their hands and good at that kind of labor. You just can't get that out of our local society." Asparagus workers in Michigan can make about $9 an hour or more. One grower said that those who can offer good housing, pay unemployment insurance and good wages are able to get workers, but if one of the ingredients is missing, the grower may have trouble finding workers. The Michigan Farm Bureau says that their state is the fourth largest user of migrant labor in the country, and that 1998 will be the second consecutive year of a migrant labor shortage. One asparagus grower who encountered a labor shortage resorted to cutting his asparagus with an alfalfa mower, which cut young growth resulting in decreased yields later in the season. Four of the five workers killed in a grain elevator explosion in Wichita, Kansas in June 1998 were Mexican immigrants. An exhibit in Milwaukee recounted the history of Obreros Unidos (Workers United), an effort by migrant cucumber harvesters to obtain higher piecerate wages from Libby, McNeill & Libby Inc. in August 1966. The Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission supervised an election in August 1967, and the workers voted 405-8 to form a union. By 1968, Libby mechanized the harvest. Wisconsin passed a farm-worker housing law in 1977 and annually inspects each of the state's 125 migrant labor camps. In Wisconsin, the percentage of the 40,000 Hmong on welfare dropped from 77 percent to 12 percent between 1987 and 1997. Wisconsin restored food stamps for legal immigrants in May 1998. A report issued by a Hispanic research group estimated that 10 percent of Minneapolis residents are Hispanic. HACER (Hispanic Advocacy for Community Empowerment through Research) estimates that there are 31,600 to 37,920 Hispanic residents in Minneapolis are Hispanic; there were 7,900 Hispanics in the 1990 Census. Demographics USA estimates that the St. Louis metro area's Hispanic population in 1997 was 32,630, or 1.3 percent of the area's 2.5 million residents. Robert Goodrich, "Area's Hispanic population is growing steadily," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 8, 1998. Alexandra Marks, "Flow of Immigrants Too Fast for Some Critics," Christian Science Monitor, June 30, 1998. Jon Jeter, "Immigrants' Reality," Washington Post, June 13, 1998. Lynn Henning, "Healthy economy steals state's migrant workers," Detroit News, June 3, 1998. Linda Feldmann, "For Hmong Farmers, Help Wilts," Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 1998. GAO. 1998. "Community Development: Changes In Nebraska's and Iowa's Counties With Large Meatpacking Plant Workforces." RCED-98-62. February 27. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/rc98062.pdf Southeast: Latinos, Enforcement, (posted 7/10/98) Many southeastern newspapers are publishing articles on the changing face of their state's population. The Atlanta Journal on April 19, 1998 ran a series of articles on Latinos in the southeast, including a look at how unions are attempting to organize Latino workers in North Carolina, how migrant farm workers are doing in Immokalee, Florida, and how some US employers are offering English classes for workers and Spanish classes for managers. Latinos began to arrive in Atlanta in large numbers in the early 1980s, after the oil price crash and the recession in Texas. Between 1990 and 1996, the Hispanic population of Arkansas more than doubled, and rose by 75 percent in North Carolina and Georgia. One article covered remittances to Mexico, which were estimated to be $4.5 billion in 1997. According to the report, the cost of transferring money has been increasing despite competition among money senders: it costs $10 to send $100 via Giro Max and $68 to send $1,000 via Western Union. Western Union offers a "preferred customer program" that permits $300 to be sent for $15 rather than the standard $27. South Carolina's State newspaper ran a series on Hispanics in that state (http://www.thestate.com/mex/), noting that Hispanic immigration in the 1990s is the most significant demographic development since slavery. There were 41,000 to 150,000 Hispanics among the state's 3.7 million residents in 1996--the discrepancy reflects differences in estimates of unauthorized migrants. There is general agreement that the first Hispanics in the state were seasonal farm workers. Some learned about nonfarm jobs in food processing and construction and settled in the state. Mexican immigrants have been joined by Guatemalans and other central Americans. One employer said that he preferred Hispanics: "They're always on time. They're dependable. They have a good attitude." In Newberry, South Carolina, public officials are learning Spanish to deal with Mexican immigrants attracted to the area by poultry processing plants; the Louis Rich turkey processing plant has 500 Hispanics among 1,500 workers. Siler City, North Carolina has experienced a wave of Hispanic immigration to fill jobs in area poultry plants. The city's population rose from 5,000 to 8,000, and is now 40 percent Hispanic. In 1997, the city hired its first bilingual police officer, and most schools and clinics have bilingual personnel. The county commission in 1997 unanimously approved a resolution calling for an immigration moratorium. The North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles announced that its 419 driver's license examiners would aim to become culturally sensitive and completely bilingual. The DMV said that it would expand its list of acceptable forms of identification to include Mexican passports and the Mexican matricula, an ID card for people who have served in the Mexican military. Northeast: Poultry, Eggs, (posted 7/10/98) Georgetown, Delaware was profiled in the Philadelphia Inquirer on May 29, 1998. Founded in 1792, Georgetown had 4,300 residents in the 1990 Census and today has an estimated 8,300. Most of the new residents are immigrants from southern Mexico and Guatemala, drawn to Georgetown by poultry jobs. Georgetown, Delaware has been transformed by immigration, largely from Guatemala. It had a relatively large supply of low-cost housing, and thus became the preferred residence for immigrant poultry workers, who often pay $500 a month to share a house with four to six others. There is a Spanish-language cable television station, a Spanish-language newspaper, and a Spanish-language radio station, as well as Latino-oriented stores and restaurants. According to the Georgetown mayor, local workers shunned poultry processing jobs, while "[Guatemalan] people will work 80 hours a week if the plant will let them." A local priest says that the poultry plants turned to Latinos after they "pretty much exhausted" the local African-American work force. A Changing Face conference in September 1997 heard that Delmarva's first Latino residents were migrant farm workers who settled out after harvesting vegetables such as tomatoes and melons for Delmarva growers. Some 3,000 to 5,000 farm workers continue to migrate to Delmarva every year and 400 migrant farm worker children were enrolled in federal education programs in summer 1996. The Changing Face papers are available at: http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/jul_97-15.html However, most immigrants in the area today work in poultry processing. Poultry is a $1.6 billion industry on the Delmarva peninsula, which anchors the top of a U-shaped poultry belt that runs from Delmarva south to the Shenandoah Valley through North Carolina and Georgia and north to Arkansas and Missouri. The Delmarva Poultry Industry said in fall 1996 that 3,200 Latino immigrants were employed by six area poultry processors-Allen Family Foods, Delmarva Poultry Industry, Townsends Inc., Perdue Farms Inc. and Mountaire Farms-including one-third, or 1,138, Hispanics employed by Perdue, where Latinos are 40 percent of the work force. Townsends reported in summer 1996 that one-third of the 2,000 workers at its Millsboro, Delaware plant were non-citizens. In Pennsylvania mushroom country, an armed gang reportedly preyed on Mexican workers who live in trailers in Kennett Square and New Garden. On May 17, Kennett Square police arrested two Wilmington, Delaware men who allegedly attacked and robbed seven migrant workers in the first of four assaults targeting the area's Mexican community. DeCoster Eggs. With the help of the Mexican government, 14 farm workers sued the former DeCoster Egg Farm, once the nation's largest brown egg producer, for violations of labor laws on behalf of an estimated 1,500 former DeCoster employees. According to the suit, DeCoster recruited the workers in south Texas with false promises of good housing and high wages, and then housed up to 17 workers in individual trailers, failed to provide proper medical care and intimidated workers, fining them for mistakes. According to the Mexican consulate, this is the first suit the Mexican government has ever filed against a US employer. DeCoster paid $2 million to settle a $5.8 million federal fine a year ago for health and safety violations, and split into two companies, Maine Ag and Quality Eggs of New England. New York. A report in Newsday detailed the life of migrant workers on Long Island in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the migrants were Southern blacks who followed the crops north and returned to homes in the South in the fall. Some migrants made $70 to $90 for a six-day week, but a survey showed that the average weekly wage in 1959 was $26. The migrants paid labor camps $12 a week and 50 cents a meal or $12.50 a week for room and board. In the early 60s, New York Governor W. Averell Harriman increased migrant worker housing requirements, when 3,500 black migrant workers and 500 Puerto Ricans were in Suffolk county. By 1971, the number of migrant workers dropped to 1,700 because of mechanization and dwindling farm acreage. The current farm work force in Suffolk county is about 8,000; about half are seasonal workers. Seasonal workers earn at least the minimum wage, with some earning up to $10 an hour. Housing is still difficult to find; there are 20 farm labor camps. A coalition of religious and labor organizations in New York staged a statewide 40-hour fast on March 24 in support of legislative action to benefit farm workers. The group is hoping the fast will encourage the state Legislature to pass laws that extend the state's minimum wage, a guaranteed day off, collective bargaining and access to toilets for farm workers. Bill Bleyer, "Long Island: The Hard Life in Migrant Alley," Newsday, June 7, 1998. Steven Greenhouse, "Poor conditions follow laborers as they travel north," New York Times, May 31, 1998. Mary Otto, "Seeking a new life, immigrants transform Del towns," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 29, 1998. Christina Asquith, "For migrant workers, often easy prey, an unexpected friend," Philadelphia Inquirer, May 15, 1998. Rural Communities, California: Central Valley, (posted 7/10/98) On May 27-28, 1998, about 250 people attended a "new thinking for a big valley" conference in Sacramento. There was agreement on three points. First, the population of the Central Valley, the 450-mile long and 75-mile wide area between Redding and Bakersfield, is projected to double over the next 25 years, from about five million to 10 million. Second, agriculture remains the core industry of the valley, but there are concerns about seasonal unemployment, and the environmental and water impacts of agriculture. Third, the status quo is not sustainable: if current growth patterns continue, the valley is more likely to have a mix of poverty and prosperity than with an economy that offers upward mobility to all residents and is attractive to outsiders who can move elsewhere. The Central Valley had about three million residents in 1970, and will almost double to six million by 2000, and then to double again by 2040. This population increase is driven by three major factors: immigration, high fertility, especially among immigrant women, and spillover population growth from the Bay area and Los Angeles. Population growth is associated with poverty that may be hard to eradicate: the three poorest metro areas of the US are El Paso, Fresno and Bakersfield; about 30 percent of the adults in the San Joaquin Valley have not finished high school, and 25 percent of the children in the San Joaquin Valley live in families with below-poverty level incomes. From an economic point of view, the Central Valley is bisected by the relatively successful Sacramento region. Based on government and extensions of Silicon Valley, the economy for the two million or 40 percent of the Central Valley's residents in the Sacramento area offers higher incomes, low unemployment and more prospects for upward mobility. The 600,000 residents of the northern Sacramento Valley, by contrast, have an economy based on a declining agriculture and natural resources base. San Joaquin Valley. Almost 60 percent of the Central Valley's residents live in the San Joaquin Valley, in cities strung out along Highway 99 that are anchored by Stockton, Modesto, Fresno and Bakersfield. The future of the San Joaquin Valley dominated the discussion, with most speakers saying that the San Joaquin Valley needs to maintain and improve its agricultural base, but also diversify its economy to offer more jobs and to reduce both seasonal unemployment and poverty-level earnings. In April 1998, all of the major San Joaquin Valley metro areas had unemployment rates that were higher than the state's rate of 5.7 percent, and many rates were higher in 1998 than 1997: Bakersfield, 12.2 percent, Fresno 14.9 percent, Merced 17.2 percent, Modesto, 13.3 percent, and Visalia 15.7 percent. An October 1997 survey of 250 public assistance recipients in Fresno county found that 40 percent had been on assistance for five or more years. Fresno county had 350,000 wage and salary jobs in 1996. Each year, employment increases by about 1.4 percent or by 5,000 jobs. Fresno county needs 55,000 additional jobs over the next five years to provide jobs for current welfare recipients, but is projected to add only 31,000 jobs. In December 1997, there were 5,500 adult refugees receiving cash assistance. Instead of diversifying away from agriculture, agriculture is expanding in a manner that promises more seasonality. Vegetable and melon production in the San Joaquin Valley rose 55 percent to 17 million tons between 1987-89 and 1994-96, and fruit production rose 14 percent to eight million tons. Even successful food manufacturers talk about how hard it is to transform a labor force accustomed to seasonality to understand the need to come to work regularly, and be willing to continually upgrade skills on the job to handle new technologies. It is not clear how easy it will be to "reform" agriculture. Discussions of particular land use, water, and environmental issues usually put farmers on the defensive, as they question the motives and science behind "outsiders" who call for changes. On farm labor, agriculture would prefer to go back in time, to restore a Bracero-style guest worker system that seasonally shuttles foreign workers in and out of the valley. Many speakers decried the short-run orientation of valley leaders. Developers "control" politics in many cities, and they persuade elected officials to approve new subdivisions even though the additional taxes and fees that accrue to the city do not pay for the additional services demanded by new residents. Land-use decisions shape the economy of tomorrow. If there is more emphasis on approving new housing than on preparing the labor force for better jobs, tomorrow will bring more people, but not workers prepared to function in a high-wage economy. Many speakers noted that valley residents have no "sense of place," no sense that the valley is a distinct region that residents can readily acknowledge being from. Indeed, surveys find a long list of obstacles to attracting higher wage industries into the San Joaquin Valley, led by an inadequately trained labor force, negative perceptions of the weather and living conditions, and the absence of similar industries for synergies. Instead of upgrading workers by offering English courses, many Central Valley companies are teaching their managers Spanish so that they can communicate with workers, including E&J Gallo Winery Inc. and fruit and vegetable processor Tri Valley Growers, a 530-member cooperative that has 8,000 mostly Latino seasonal workers. Most experts urge companies to teach their managers Spanish and to teach their workers English. A study of Stanislaus county's economic evolution highlights the challenges. The county has had faster job growth than the state over the past 40 years, but the unemployment rate in the county, which used to be the same as the state's unemployment rate, was two or three times higher than the state's rate in the 1990s. The old rationale-high unemployment is the price an area must pay for an agriculturally based economy-no longer holds, as services and other sectors of the economy expand. What seems to have happened is that the agricultural practice of having workers rely on unemployment insurance benefits for part of their annual income has spread from farming to nonfarm sectors-nonfarm employers in farming areas seem to be quick to lay off workers, expect them to collect unemployment insurance benefits, and then be ready to return to work when needed. A May 20, 1998 Wall Street Journal article reviewed the poverty in farm worker towns such as Parlier in the San Joaquin Valley. Anthropologist Juan Vicente Palerm emphasized that recently arrived immigrants from rural Mexico are trying to build new lives despite their poverty: Palerm sees "communities that are re-inventing themselves." Economist J. Edward Taylor, on the other hand, emphasized the fact that per capita incomes are declining in these towns as ever poorer migrants arrive and that continuing immigration tends to retard wage increases, which perpetuates poverty. There are about 500 acres of strawberries in Fresno county; 90 percent are grown by southeast Asians, mostly Hmong, Mien and Lao. About 85 percent of the strawberries grown in the Fresno area are sold to processors and 15 percent through roadside stands. Many of these farmers belong to the 364-strong California Highlander Cooperative, which represents southeast Asian growers of strawberries and other crops. The US has 314 metro areas-cities of at least 50,000 and the counties that are in their economic ambit-that include 80 percent of the US population and generate 85 percent of US GDP. The wage and benefit package for metro area workers is 50 percent larger than the wage and benefit package in rural areas. Fiscalization. On June 6, 1978, California voters approved Proposition 13, which capped local property taxes at one percent of the property's assessed value and permitted reassessments only when property changed hands. Property taxes cannot rise more than two percent annually and a two-thirds vote is needed to raise local property taxes. One effect of Proposition 13 is to encourage the enactment of fees and user charges. Another way to obtain revenue is to encourage the construction of shopping centers and auto malls to get more sales taxes. Some five million tourists visit the Napa valley each year, making the Napa Valley second only to Disneyland as a California tourist attraction. The city of Napa has 70,000 residents, half of the county's residents. A planned American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts is expected to bring more tourists to Napa Valley. Marc Lifsher, "Where Economists See Need, Scientists See Hope in Future," Wall Street Journal, May 20, 1998. Sheila Muto, "New Employee-Relations Lesson: Spanish 101 for California Managers," Wall Street Journal, April 22, 1998. Comments On History-Social Scientist Standards For Grades K-8 And 10-12, (posted 7/7/98)
Introductory Remarks As I am writing, the majority of California students in grades K-12 are persons who are descended from the Original Americans, that is, from the peoples who have been living in the Americas from the days when the great glaciers covered much of Canada, that is, before 13,000 years ago. It is true, of course, that these students will be known by various names, some using Chicano/a, while others will use Mexicano/a, Mexican-American, Latino/a, Hispanic, American Indian, Indigenous, Mestizo/a, Cholo/a, or even African-American or white, but they all have in common their American ancestry (in whole or in part) stemming from the Incas, Garifunas, Nahuas, Otomies, Mayas, Yaquis, Mixtecs, Navajos, Cherokees, and other Original Peoples or First Nations of North and South America. By the year 2010 some scholars say that Brown Americans with indigenous ancestry will constitute an absolute majority of the California population. This represents a fundamental shift in California history. In the Los Angeles Basin one can drive from West Los Angeles to San Bernardino or from Eagle Rock to Compton without hardly ever leaving an area where persons of American indigenous ancestry are either the majority or a substantial element of the population. In 1848 English-speaking Euroamericans suddenly became a majority in northern California, and then in the 1870's-1880's in southern California as well. Now, a century or a century and a half later, the pre-1848 situation is being recreated, with a non-white majority. In addition to the persons of mixed or indigenous race, California is also home to growing numbers of persons of Asian, Pacific, Middle Eastern, and African ancestry. These great changes in the racial and ethnic character of California must require a revolution in the way we teach history and social science. If we are to make education meaningful for the huge numbers of youth of American race, of African race, of Asian background, of mixed and other ancestries we must make our curriculum California-centered, Americas-centered, Pacific-centered, and world-centered. The old patterns of European-focused, east coast-focused, Atlantic-centered curricula must be replaced. If we do not we can expect additional generations of troubled youth and gangs, contributing to social chaos and growing prison populations. I would aver that an irrelevant education is, in many ways, an education for gangs and alienation, since an education which ignores youngsters deprives them of the knowledge of who they are and what they can become. For many years, our curriculum has insulted non-whites and neglected women while giving preferential treatment to persons of Anglo-European ancestry and male gender. Fortunately, Eurocentric and male biases are no longer legal. Legal Background The proposed history-social science standards must meet the requirements of the California State Constitution which, at Article I, Section 7b, states: A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens. This means that the culture and history of all citizens must be recognized in the schools, on the same terms, and that no single class of citizens may have their culture and history enshrined above that of everyone else. The latter would, of course, constitute a privilege of immense value and one giving a distinct advantage to the favored class of citizens. It is especially important to note that "a class" would specifically include the working class and its organizations, such as organized labor. Proposition 209, now Article I, Section 31a, mandates that the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, and public contracting.... Public education includes the curricula pursued in the schools and thus no curricula can be adopted which discriminates against any race, ethnic or national group, or either gender, or which gives a preference to any race, ethnic or national group, or either gender. General Findings The proposed curriculum standards actually remind me very much of what I personally studied in the 1950's at Glendale College and at USC. The standards for world history resemble a cut-back version of the Civilization Past and Present text developed by T. Walter Wallbank under whom I studied at USC. His text was a pioneering one, but we are at the year 2000, half a century later, and we should have the opportunity to make use of the last fifty years of scholarship. The United States history standards presented hark back to an era when women counted for very little and the story of our country was presented as a glorious pageant of Anglo-American triumphs with Native Americans and other non-Caucasians mentioned only as peripheral issues or slight blemishes, if at all. Tragically, the proposed standards are extremely deficient and cannot possibly meet the legal requirements of the California Constitution. In fact, I must say in all frankness that I find them outrageously biased and fundamentally racist. Upon examining the proposed standards one is struck immediately by the incredibly strong bias against women. Women are everywhere left out of the mainstream of history, whether it be in the ignoring of Minoan civilization and other women-centered cultures of ancient times, to the total neglect of the history of the victories of patriarchy and the elimination of female deities, to the figures selected for special biographical study throughout the curricula. I have attempted to analyze the proposed standards on a quantitative basis, in order to provide at least an impressionistic view of relative treatment of women and other groups. The standards include roughly 333 inches of material (37 pages x 9" per page). Excluding transitional phrases, about 300" contain content. Women receive about 1" of the 300", along with seven "traces" or references to a single name, usually Susan B. Anthony. I know that the reader will find it hard to believe, but it's a fact! The entire modern women's' movements from the right-to-vote struggle through modern feminism receives 1/2"! Roe v. Wade seems to go unmentioned. Students will not have to know about women's struggles to obtain a serious education or to attend major universities or to do graduate work, or their efforts to open job opportunities outside of the home or factory, or their efforts to control the kind of clothing and restricted environments imposed upon women, or their ability to write and to read literature of their own choosing; nor will students understand the crucial role of women in the reform of prison conditions, of facilities for the mentally ill and retarded, for the deaf and blind, or in the entire settlement house movement for immigrants. State law now requires that there be no preferential treatment for males. By that test, these proposed standards must be rewritten from start to finish. They are illegal on their face. The proposed standards also have a strongly anti-Americas bias. The evolution of American civilizations from the great Louisiana mounds of 4,000-5,000 years ago, to the development of the worlds largest cities in Peru and Mexico, to the fantastic urban centers of Cahokia in Illinois and Moundville in Alabama, to the intensely democratic and often matri-focused federations of the Hodenasaunee (Iroquois), Leni Lenápe (Delaware), and Muskogee (Creek), to the many rich artistic and architectural traditions of the Adena-Hopewell, Mochica, Chimu, and Totonaca, one finds a big glaring hole. The tapestry of American history and political-social evolution is reduced to a few short units of study, all in the early grades. As incredible as it may seem, the section in the standards dealing with the pre-500 CE period contains nothing about American origins and students will be led to believe that all civilization commenced on other continents. Yet in my study of "The Urban Tradition Among Native Americans" I note that "the evidence seems to indicate that from about 1600-1700 BC. until the 1519-1520 CE period the largest cities in the world were often located in the Americas...." (see Forbes, in forthcoming issue of American Indian Culture and Research Journal). The domestication of crops in Mexico now extends back to almost 10,000 years ago, and, of course, these crops are among the most important in the world, including maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squashes, beans, and tomatoes, among many others. Very large cities began to appear as early as 2,000-1,600 BC. along the coast of Peru at Aspero and Las Haldas. The latter may have been one of the largest cities for its time in the world. Subsequent great urban areas included many Olmec sites in Mexico, Kaminaljuyu in Guatemala, Mitla and Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Tikal in Guatemala, Tiahuanaco near Lake Titicaca, Huari farther north in Peru, and the great center of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, all flourishing before 500 CE. Teotihuacan was a contemporary of Rome and was probably the greatest urban center in the world, with seven square miles of ceremonial/educational area and a vast population. That perhaps the greatest urban centers of the pre-500 CE period could be left out of the standards, centers which often directly influenced developments in our country, is astounding indeed! But we must also sadly note that many great cities and cultures of the post-500 CE era are also left out including Chan Chan in Peru, Snaketown in Arizona, Yellowjacket in Colorado, and Tula and El Tajin in Mexico. The proposed standards fundamentally neglect the 20,000 or 30,000 years of American history in favor of a few "snapshots" inserted without any understanding that over half of our pupils possess American racial ancestry (including, incidentally, a high percentage of African-American youth) and that they need in-depth exposure to the greatness of the indigenous American mind and to the wonderful intellectual, architectural, artistic, mathematical, scientific, and social accomplishments of the Original Americans. "Aztecs are us" might be a good slogan to keep in mind. For the majority of our pupils have, or will soon have, some degree of Nahua ancestry or heritage. But "Aztecs are us" is best seen as a symbol that we must stop thinking of ourselves primarily as Europeans. Native American civilizations and historical experiences receive a total of 10" with virtually all of that in grades 3 to 7. First Americans simply do not exist in the high school curricula proposed, except that Central and South American rebellions receive brief mention. The standards commission is clearly telling Native children to drop-out after grade 7! Mexico and Mexican-Americans receive about 1.5" of attention, virtually all in grades 4 to 8. Of this, almost none actually deals with Latina/os, Chicana/os or any aspect of the current student majority in California's schools! Again, it is quite clear that the commission intends to drive large numbers of Latina/os out of high school at an early age. Incredible as it may seem, the struggles of Mexican-Americans after World War II, with such groups as CSO, LULACS, American GI Forum, etc. are entirely left out, as are the long organizing efforts of unions such as CUCOM, formed long before. The Mexican American Political Association, MAYO, MECHA, Tijerina, "Aztlan," and Cesar Chavez, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the Delano strike are ignored or not treated in any appropriate depth. In short, the "civil rights" and political history of the present majority of California students is virtually non-existent. Many other inexplicable glitches appear in the standards. Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, the Pacific (including Hawaii), Iran and Persian civilization, Armenia, eastern Europe generally, coastal Africa from Senegal to Angola where most of our African ancestry stems from, Ethiopia, the expansion of Bantu peoples, connections between Africa and the Pacific, the development of democracy in Switzerland, the history of Canada, Mexico and Latin America are among the areas or topics strangely overlooked or barely mentioned. Given the ethnic and cultural legacies of our California students one would expect otherwise! In the coverage of United States history one finds that the story is still one of the westward-migrating Anglo-American ethnic group without even a pretense of treating the United States as a country on the face of the earth. For example, in 1800-1850 students are to learn about issues in the "north" and the "south" but nothing is to be studied about the "west" or Alaska or Hawaii or Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. What was happening politically in New Mexico in 1838 or between the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota (Sioux) out on the High Plains is ignored. In short, only white people who speak English count in these proposed standards and geographic sections of our land become worthy of study only after they pass under Anglo-American rule. This is a one-sided and ethnically-biased way of teaching, one sure to tell non-white youth that they do not belong! [See Jack D. Forbes, "The Historian and the Indian: Racial Bias in American History," The Americas (Academy of American Franciscan History) XIX(4) April 1963; "Frontiers in American History," Journal of the West I(1), July 1962; "The Indian in the West: Challenge for Historians," Arizona and the West I(3) Autumn 1959; and "Racial Bias in Gold Rush History," The Masterkey, 33(1),January-March 1959]. The use of the term "American people" in the standards implies that Native Americans are not Americans, that African-Americans are not Americans, and that no Americans from the rest of North and South America are Americans! The very conscious way in which the United States War for Independence is spoken of as "the American Revolution" not only betrays probably erroneous ideas about "revolution" but also denies to the other peoples of the Americas or to Native Americans any participation in an "American" revolution. Of course, we all know that Anglo-Americans have developed the habit of referring to themselves as Americans, a habit which began innocently enough when they used the term in much the same way that someone in France might say "I am a European." But it becomes an ethnic weapon when other people who have equal (or better) claim upon the name are excluded >from its embrace. It can no longer be used in a racially-biased manner, legally speaking. And this brings up the fact that pre-Columbian contacts between Africans and America are totally ignored, as are Chinese and Japanese early contacts with the west coast and Mexico. Left out also is the fact that the first permanent non-Native settlers in the United States were Africans who, in the 1520's, managed to rebel successfully against the Spaniards in what is now South Carolina. They were still alive, and intermarried with Americans, when De Soto invaded the region two decades later. Now how can it be that these African pioneers on the east coast, long preceding any English settlers, are left out of the tapestry? How is it that Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese visitors to the west coast are ignored, even though some of them preceded Jamestown ? Shockingly, Asian-Americans receive 0" out of 300 (that's right, zero) unless we can interpret "immigrant" as covering all of our Asian nationalities including Asians in contact with California as early as the sixteenth-century or in the case of the Hwui Shan voyage, in the fifth-century. Unknown vessels of Pacific design were seen by the Spaniards along the Pacific Coast and some sixty Asian craft are known to have reached the region in the century after 1770. Contacts between Native Americans and Polynesians receive no attention and the entire subject of our Pacific history, including the internal development of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and of Samoa and Guam are ignored. The relocation of Japanese-Americans in World War II and the important Korematsu case seem not to be mentioned. This follows the pattern of completely ignoring discrimination against Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and other Asian workers from 1848 on, and also ignoring the economic, cultural, and labor union organizing contributions of such groups in Hawaii and along the west coast. African-Americans are treated with incredible disdain by the standards. In addition to my remarks above, it should be said that Africa (including Kem/Egypt) receives 4" in grades 6-7, with only two trace references in high school. African-Americans, who have almost always made up a significant proportion of the U.S. population, receive about 8" of 300, mostly in grades 8 and 11. Much of this attention has to do with slavery or civil rights and very little focuses upon the rich cultures of Black Americans or on their internal history. The "Harlem Renaissance" seems to end Black cultural developments and little is said about Black religion, music, dance, art, literature, theater, film, or economics. Politics are pretty well limited to Garvey (coupled with the KKK) and the so-called civil rights era. The sections dealing with the African-American struggle and civil rights, found at 11.4 and 11.9 in grade 11 are an example of very poorly prepared material, even when there is an appearance of dealing with non-Anglo-Americans. There are so many things left out, that a major essay would be needed to fill in the gaps, but let us note that the struggles of Jews, Native Americans, Chicanos, and others, going on often at the same time as the Black struggle, are not mentioned at all. This, of course, distorts the entire issue of racism and prejudice in the USA. The struggle of Jews to obtain admission to elite "white" universities in the early part of the century and the anti-semitism of the KKK and other right-wing movements are ignored. But still further, the long efforts of Blacks to build up their own universities and to gain admission to "white" colleges is left out, along with numerous campaigns for jobs and fair play which long preceded the post-World War II era. The difficulties faced by Black troops in both world wars along with the prejudice faced afterwards, the racial attacks of the 1920's, lynching, the segregation of musicians (such as that faced by Lena Horne when she sang with white bands), are among the countless topics not explored. One has a tendency to either laugh or cry when one sees the way in which this significant sector of the American population has been shunted into a few little ghettoes of attention. But then, the examples of the struggle for democracy never draw upon the Haitian rebellion against France or for that matter on any rebellion involving African peoples. So what we have is a rather systematic policy of exclusion which can hardly be accidental. Again, one wonders if Black youth are supposed to stay in school to graduation after being so thoroughly insulted. The Middle East and South Asia also suffer from under-attention, somewhat surprising in view of the very large numbers of Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, Iranians, and other Middle Easterners now living in California. The Middle East receives about 5.5", all in grades 6 and 7, and focused on ancient Hebrews, Islam, and Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley along with the discussion of India is all lumped together in grade 6 where pre-500 CE civilizations are dealt with, even though the topics seem to extend to the Mongol conquest (called Turkish) of much later. Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and other aspects of Persian civilization are ignored, along with countless other topics. But the standards not only suffer from racial and ethnic blindness. They seem to also downgrade the historical experiences of the vast majority of Europeans and European-Americans who belong basically to the peasant-small farmer tradition, to the working class, or to the classes of artisans, small-shopkeepers, and so on. The historical standards' focus is upon the kings, princes, elites, wealthy planters, presidents, and other well-known persons who are almost inevitably male and privileged. The standards would have us believe that the struggles of the peasants, factory workers, miners, and other common folk played small roles in the evolution of "democracy." Instead, credit is usually extended to a document such as the "magna carta" or some elite empowerment such as the "Glorious Revolution." Considerable space in several grade levels is devoted to the supposed evolution of democracy, individualism and freedom, but the focus is on the wealthy elites, and always on white people, preferably English. The well-documented influence of Native American democratic practice upon European thinkers such as Voltaire and Rousseau is ignored, as are the countless daily examples provided by Native People's contacts with their colonial neighbors. The specific contributions of the Great Binding Law of the Iroquois, superbly documented in the writings of Professor Donald Grinde (as well as by Benjamin Franklin) are left aside unmentioned. But still further, the actual struggles of European peasants and workers is ignored. The Swiss "Everlasting Compact" from 1292 receives no mention, nor the Peasant Revolt of 1525 or the Anabaptists or the struggles of Scots, and Dutch, and Icelanders, and Norwegians, and Catalans of Andorra, and countless others to obtain free cities, constitutions, charters, parliaments, and so on. Instead, the emphasis is placed largely upon how elite males brought us democracy. Students will be hard pressed to understand why the Delaware sachem Tammany was ennobled by the colonial masses during their uprising against George III and why Tammany Day (May 1) was a major holiday in the early days of the USA. In any case, the Regulator's Rebellion of North Carolina, the Whisky Rebellion, and Shay's Rebellion, join the Luddites, Cromwellians, Brethren of the Poor, and urban rebels as subjects not mentioned or sectionalized by the standards. Grassroots activism by ordinary people seems to be insignificant in our history. The various farmers' movements of the USA >from that of the Greenbackers and Populists of the last century, to the Grange and National Farmers' Union of our own, seem to be ignored. The growth of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Knights of Labor, the Socialist Party and its strength before 1920, the Lincoln-Roosevelt League, and the anti-monopoly and reform movements often led by women find very little mention. In all fairness, it must be said that many sections of the standards appear, at first glance, to be ethnically, racially, class, and gender neutral; and, of course, a great deal might well depend upon how a given teacher or local school district might interpret a particular section. On the other hand, California teachers are not tested for their competence in Native American, Black, or Chicano history, for example, nor are they required to take courses in women's history or women's economics. Thus the apparently neutral sections are not likely to be interpreted in culturally diverse fashion. Moreover, many of the apparently neutral sections are not really neutral at all. In grade 12, for example, (12.1) students are supposed to deal with the fundamental principles "and moral values" of "American" democracy, but, in fact, every subsection reflects only white European male ideas either explicitly or because no references to Native American, female, or non-European influences are included. In section 12.2 students are asked to "compare the relationship between government and civil society in constitutional democracies with the relationship in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes." This might seem to be neutral, but will the teachers and students be sophisticated enough to know that regimes which call themselves "constitutional" and "democratic" may be filled with totalitarian or authoritarian areas such as Native reservations from the 1850's through the 1920's or later, Black segregated regions, "Bantustans," "company towns," et cetera, or may have colonies and non-self-governing territories (such as the Canal Zone or Puerto Rico), or may exclude entire classes of persons from voting (such as women or non-whites)? Subsection after subsection, by ignoring the reality of life in the United States, that is, by ignoring the specific situations of Native Americans, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and women, for example, creates an artificial neutralness which is actually a cloak to hide the existence of non-white and non-middle class persons. In 12.5, for example, students are asked to explain "why an independent judiciary is essential for the preservation of freedom." This is clearly not a neutral question. From the perspective of Native Americans, who have had court after court deny them the status of "persons" in the Constitution, or of Black Americans who similarly were for a long period denied the status of "persons," or of working-class Americans who have seen judges overwhelmingly represent the business and wealthy classes of the country, the idea of an "independent" judiciary is a cruel joke. A neutral section would have to ask: "how can one obtain a judiciary which might be balanced between all ethnic groups and economic classes, and both genders, given the overwhelming difficulty of working-class persons, women, Native Americans, Chicanos, etc. to obtain appointments as judges." Tragically, the sections of the standards which could be used to excite non-white and working-class students are designed instead to directly turn them off because they are so blatantly false or so obviously attempting to sell a particular ideology. The economics sections in grade 12 are not only boring, I would aver, but they are anything but multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and objective. For example, at 2 under 12.3 students are asked to "explain economic rights (e.g., right to acquire, use, transfer, and dispose of property; right to choose ones work, join labor unions, copyright and patent), how they are secured and their importance...." One can immediately think of a thousand ways in which poorer persons and non-whites have been systematically denied such "rights" and in which such "rights" do not exist at all. On the other hand, I am also concerned about the creation of the "right" to "patent" since we are faced with huge corporations and avaricious scientists now attempting to "patent" genetic characteristics which they never created, or to "patent" traditional Native American herbs, medicines, and biophysical formulas and materials, or to gain control over the world's plant genetic materials, or to copyright the works of creators who are forced by contracts to turn their creations over to corporations, etc. Is there a "right" to "patent" and if so, what about the rights of taxpayers who so often have paid the costs of the research through Federal grants and generous subsidies but who receive no economic return? In short, we are often dealing with the ideology of advancing the interests of investors and powerful corporations, not of the working-class or middle-class children in our schools or their taxpaying families. In grade 12 I see no significant discussion of the "national security state" with all of its omnipresent secret agencies, huge budgets, masses of spies, investigators, satellite surveillance systems listening to many of our messages, other satellites capable of recording our movements, electronic devices of all kinds capable of recording our conversations, and, of course, a well-documented record of subsidizing dictators, carrying out assassinations, smuggling arms and drugs, and on and on. Isn't this one of the most significant realities of United States Government today, the dilemma of how we can preserve even a rudimentary popular government while at the same time trying to fund massive defense and security agencies which civilians may not really control? Should the United States persist in its role of "world policeman?" Can we afford it? Should our citizens be expected to give their lives and resources to do so? Can we preserve "democracy" while being a world power? Or should we strengthen the United Nations or give responsibilities to regional groups such as the Organization of American States? None of these kinds of questions are dealt with in grade 12, in spite of the fact that many young men and women will be asked to join the military soon after their graduation. Similarly, there is no discussion of the World Trade Organization as the new government of the world, a non-democratic government. What are the implications of GATT and NAFTA and the proposed MAI for the "three levels of government" discussed in the standards. Actually, the WTO is a new fourth level of government with the power to set aside laws adopted by any of the other levels of government, but the standards ignore this. Similarly, the existence of Native American tribal governments with their own constitutions and judicial systems is totally ignored ( but then who is surprised at that!). The other territories of the United States are also ignored. The immense "war on drugs" and the powerful Drug Enforcement Agency, the arbitrary way in which marijuana is outlawed but alcohol is allowed, the fight with the huge tobacco industry, other public health issues, the right-wing militia movement and extremism, the threat of terrorism and the equal threat of anti-terrorist legislation, the attempted assault on the separation of church and state by some groups, the issue of victimless crimes and their political and civil impact upon women (prostitutes, for example), homosexuals, and others, the failure to vigorously fight against HIV by promoting public health solutions such as the use of condoms - one can go on and on. Another topic of major importance left out is the question of the impact of television and of the violence seen on both film and video; and, still more important perhaps, the increasing concentration of ownership of media of all kinds, including newspapers, publishing houses, film studios, music products, and so on, along with the appearance of bookstore chains putting independent stores out of business. The media has a decided impact upon elections and political discourse, so how can one discuss government and democracy while ignoring this crucial question: how can we have a free press and free access in all communities to a diverse range of books, periodicals, and other forms of media? And what are the implications of huge foreign-owned conglomerates controlling large segments of the US media? These are real issues of democracy, significant ones, which should be taught instead of repeating old themes already exhausted in earlier grades. At 12.12 students are asked to talk about the ideas of Alexis de Tocqueville, an illustration of the tendency to always look to a white male for ideas. But why not direct the students to William Apess, a Pequot American of part-African ancestry, and a brilliant first-hand student of US character? Perhaps he is ignored because he wrote seminal books about white racism and authored a study of five poor women, of various races. Apess is one of our great American thinkers, so why is he left out? The senior economics course is a rather strange mixture of some economics theory with some very ideological concepts favoring the wealthy-investor class at the expense of ordinary Americans. What is largely left out are the kinds of knowledge which Native Americans, Latinos, African-Americans, and many Asian-American groups would want or need to know, along with women's economics. The so-called "market economy" brand of economics is presented almost exclusively, but in a very naive or unrealistic manner which ignores actual state intervention, subsidies, and other non-market aspects of the way most countries run their economies. Concepts of "scarcity," "choice," "benefits," and "costs" are presented without reference to the values of Native Americans and others who place emphases upon sharing, simplicity, human relationships, extended families, the conduct of ceremonies, and other cultural considerations. Economic activity is presented as being distinct from other aspects of life, which may indeed be the ideological perspective of a certain school of economic theory. But alternative ways of looking at "incentives" and profit must be considered, along with concepts such as usury and excess profit. Students are asked to "explain the elements of the United States market economy in a global setting" at 12.15 but the question of whether we have ever had a "market economy" should be asked. Most industrialized states developed their economies behind high tariff barriers and with all kinds of government interventions and subsidies. The business sector of the US even today receives massive subsidies and the government promotes the sales of company products overseas ranging from military weaponry to agricultural goods. Moreover, a good part of the US economy is directly dependent upon government defense and space spending, and congresspersons actively lobby for projects which even the Department of Defense does not desire. None of this is discussed. The concept of how prices are set is extremely naive, since large mega-corporations have been setting prices for decades based upon market manipulation and collusion, coupled with advertising. The concept of monopoly or of concentration in a given industry or of the operation of inter-locking directorates, et cetera, are not discussed. And yet, the lessening of competitition in many fields is a major concern of observers today. The idea that an "entrepreneur" might value the personal satisfaction of producing an excellent product through the working together of a close-knit work-force has no place in the economic theory presented. "Profit" is the "incentive," or so the students are to be told. The concept of "command economy" is applied to Marxian systems, while the US is supposedly a "free market." (see 12.16 at 3). But from the perspective of most of us, the US economy is largely a "command economy" with most activity being determined either by government (defense, energy, space, subsidies, giveaway of research results, etc.) or by huge corporations operating on a command principle. The actual "free" sector of the US economy is not discussed because it involves small farmers, small business people, small entrepreneurs, organic food manufacturers, etc. Many constraints also exist on independent producers, of course. Ideology is also expressed by statements such as: "explain the factors that may cause the costs of government actions to outweigh the benefits...." This is political unless placed within the context that a high percentage of the federal budget is used to subsidize business or for defense/space spending supported by the most conservative sectors of Congress. Similarly, also in 12.17, we read "explain distribution of income... and methods that federal, state, and local governments use to influence income distribution through transfer payments and taxes." This again is very political unless "transfer payments" include agricultural subsidies for wealthy agribusiness corporations and other subsidies of the wealthy classes, and unless the analysis of the tax system honestly compares the types of deductions given to businesses (such as depreciation, transportation expenses etc. ) which are not given to workers who also use aging vehicles etc. Moreover, many taxes, such as sales taxes and even income taxes often fall most heavily on workers. But perhaps more important than these examples is the fact that students are not asked "what kind of a society do we want? Do we want to live in a place where everyone has access to adequate health care, to a good education, to decent housing, to a good job, and to a safe and non-toxic environment, for example?" Do we want to have extremely rich people, and lots of very poor people as in Brazil, or do we want a huge middle-class, as in Netherlands or Scandinavia? The teaching of economics in grade 12 should revolve around real world questions, ones which are not answered according to a particular ideology but which are open-ended and studied in relation to ethics. But also the subject must be relevant to women, who as homemakers and caregivers, have often been denied any wages, benefits, or even any status in the economy. The fact that caregivers, whether men or women, often receive no recognition in economics is simply an indictment of a male bias. The so-called "welfare" system, which is really a misnomer, must be analyzed fully since it impacts a high percentage of our students. But one of the key issues facing our society is completely left out, and that is the way in which technology is altering our economy faster than we can deal with the changes or grasp their implications. One crucial example of this is the "downsizing" which has resulted from robotization and profit-taking by management and major investors, a process threatening the job future of many of our students. Can we continue to robotize and still support the necessary numbers of workers? Whose studying this issue? What are their findings? So long as profit remains the only guiding principle can anything be done? Other issues relate to the future impact of GATT and NAFTA on the removal of factories from the United States, proposals for shorter work weeks in order to share wealth gains with workers and to provide more jobs, and the question of who should own the labor-saving machines purchased with the contributions of both capital and labor. All of these questions seem to be avoided in the standards proposed for grade 12. In short, we seem to have an elitist, upper-class approach to U.S. history, politics, and economics, an approach which hides the history, politics, intellectual life, and struggles of the ethnically-different and of the oppressed and less fortunate of all colors beneath a curriculum designed to maintain preferential treatment and privileges for Anglo-Americans of upper economic status. For all of its pretense to be interested in individualism and freedom, these curriculum standards are also designed to help create (or maintain) a command society, a social system where commands come from wealthy elites through their corporate organizations and through their control of media and government. I have not yet seen a section of curriculum which would seek to have students study changes which could be made to bring us a society where power is decentralized and where huge organizations are brought under democratic control. Thus a command society is what is being offered, not a democratic one. (See my article, "Education for Democracy, The Humanist 27(2) 1967, 52-3). Conclusion The proposed standards are a disgrace to us as educators approaching the year 2000. They represent, by and large, the prejudiced thinking of a half-century ago. They make little or no use of the wonderful scholarship of recent decades, especially the scholarship of women and non-whites. Anglo-American males and other Caucasian males are given preferential treatment generally. Non-whites and women are discriminated against, along with several European nationalities who have contributed to the building of California, such as people of Armenian, Italian, Jewish, and Irish origin. The standards are illegal, failing the tests of both Article I (7b) and I (31a) of the California Constitution. Moreover, it seems highly likely that the standards are in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in that "equal protection" is clearly being denied to women and non-Anglo-American groups. My conclusion is that the proposed standards should be set aside or tabled until a task force can be selected to thoroughly revise them to meet legal requirements. Such a task force must be comprised of knowledgeable persons who are of diverse ethnic, racial, and national origin backgrounds. Half of the task force should be women. No one ethnic or national group should be allowed to dominate the task force, and persons representing working class perspectives should be included. It would be a serious mistake to attempt to adopt standards which are not only illegal, but which also will continue the process of alienating large sectors of our youth. Carlos Castaneda, champion of New Age, drug-induced mysticism, dies -- Friday, June 19, 1998, (posted 7/7/98) Breaking News Sections Best-selling author Carlos Castaneda, whose books about a sorcerer and drug-induced mysticism attracted millions of New Age followers, has died of liver cancer. He was believed to be at least 66. Castaneda died April 27 at his Westwood home, attorney Deborah Drooz said today. No funeral was held and his Cremated remains were taken to Mexico. For more than three decades, Castaneda claimed to have been the apprentice of a Yaqui Indian sorcerer named Don Juan Matus. His first book, "The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge," described peyote-fueled journeys with the sorcerer who could bend time and space. Castaneda argued that reality is a shared way of looking at the universe that can be transcended through discipline, ritual and concentration. The sorcerer, he said, can see and use the energy that comprises everything-but the path to that knowledge is hard and dangerous. While his 10 books sold millions of copies worldwide-and continue to sell in 17 languages-critics doubted that Don Juan existed.Castaneda always maintained that his experiences were real. "This is not a work of fiction," Castaneda said in the prologue to his 1981 book, "The Eagle's Gift." "What I am describing is alien to us; therefore, it seems unreal." Castaneda was obscure on such matters as his birth.Immigration records indicated he was born Dec. 25, 1925 in Cajamarca, Peru, while various resource books place his birth exactly six years later, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. "He didn't like attention," Drooz told the LosAngeles Times. "He always made sure people did not take his picture or record his voice. He didn't like the spotlight." Castaneda, who held a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, said he met Don Juan in Arizona in the early 1960s while researching medicinal plants. He followed when the shaman moved to Sonora, Mexico. His first book was a best seller when it appeared in 1968, as were several sequels that purported to track Castaneda's 12-year apprenticeship. The books were critically praised-author Joyce Carol Oates called them "remarkable works of art"-and even Debunkers liked his heady visions of mysticism. "It is a con touched by genius," one critic wrote in the Saturday Review.In recent years, Castaneda's disciples offered seminars and books on "Tensegrity," a discipline composed of martial arts-like movements that Castaneda once said allowed ancient Mexican shamans to "perform indescribable feats of perception." He claimed that Don Juan recommended it as a way for him to lose weight. "The movements force the awareness of man to focus on the idea that we are spheres of luminosity, a conglomerate of energy fields held together by a special glue," he told the Times in a 1995 interview. Castaneda himself rarely made appearances and never Allowed himself to be photographed or tape-recorded. "A recording is a way of fixing you in time," he once said. "The only thing a sorcerer will not do is be stagnant." While Castaneda contended that Don Juan did not die but rather "burned from within," he had no doubt about his own mortality. "Since I'm a moron, I'm sure I'll die," he told the Times. "I wish I would have the integrity to leave the way he did, but thereis no assurance."
(NOTE TO EDITORS: The name Rudy Acuna (in graf 12) has a tilde above the "n." Thank you.-UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE) Ward Connerly, the regent who almost single-handedly terminated affirmative action at both the University of California and within the state, now wants to raze ethnic studies within the UC system. The effort not only infringes upon academic freedom, but is also unconstitutional and immoral. So what's new? Connerly's previous efforts have also resulted in several legislative attempts to eliminate affirmative action nationally. On its face, there is no intellectual merit to bolster his argument that ethnic studies have contributed to the further racial polarization of society. Furthermore, his call for a "review" of ethnic studies is viewed by many scholars as a subterfuge for its eventual elimination nationwide. Seemingly unbeknownst to him, reviews are already an integral part of academic life. Evelyn Hu-DeHart, chair of the University of Colorado's ethnic studies department, says that Connerly is not presenting an intellectual argument. "Instead, what he's doing is tapping into the fears of ordinary people." Ethnic studies are under attack because it's a pedagogy of liberation and those whose minds are being intellectually liberated include many whites, she says. "We've fulfilled our mission, which is to create educated citizens so that they can participate in a democracy. Apparently, that's threatening." Yolanda Broyles Gonzalez, Chicano studies professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, noted that most of the current regents were appointed by conservative governors. "They fear the browning or coloring of America," she says. Moreover, will Connerly's effort to annihilate ethnic studies include the elimination of Jewish, Irish, Russian, Middle Eastern and Portuguese studies, she asks? This effort comes within the context of California's Propositions 187, 209 and 227 -- which radically attempted to curb immigration (1994) and eliminate affirmative action (1996) and bilingual education (1998). These campaigns have indeed triggered similar national movements. This is majority rule gone awry. It is actually part of a well-orchestrated, step-by-step "anti-rights" movement, initiated by right-wing fanatics, designed to take people's rights away. They use anti-immigrant and anti-people-of-color electoral statements to strike out at these populations. Yet, says Hu-DeHart, they do so while using the language of the civil rights movement, and they recruit people of color, to be able to sway many undecided or genuinely concerned voters. "The fact that they use our language means we have won the moral battle," she adds. Those who are involved in these anti-rights movements say that they're proud that this is a nation of immigrants, that they want to eliminate racial preferences and help children, all the while supporting a bigoted agenda, she notes. To eliminate ethnic studies, all that is theoretically needed is a majority of regents to agree with Connerly. The movement to eliminate ethnic studies goes further than the other movements in that it is an attempt to go for the intellectual jugular. Ethnic studies, along with women's studies, have long represented the search for truth in higher education, particularly about subjects such as the settling and founding of this nation, genocide against indigenous peoples, slavery, the unlawful and immoral acquisition of most of this country's territory, and the lack of universal suffrage for people of color and women for much of this nation's history. The truth about these subjects is uncomfortable, so much so that Rudy Acuna, one of the founders of Chicano Studies at California State University at Northridge, simply calls the movement to abolish ethnic studies an effort at "academic interference and thought control." The logic of those opposed to ethnic studies is that if these centers of study don't encourage assimilation and Americanization and if they haven't eliminated racial consciousness, then they have outlived their purpose. Also on their list for elimination are academic support centers, graduation ceremonies and organizations that cater to people of color. Apparently, it's time to kill the messenger. If ethnic studies are eliminated, it will move us from a questioning intellectual tradition toward the institutionalization of official history. And this struggle is not really about the past, but about a future where people's rights will be respected. Can mass book burnings and an intellectual inquisition be far off? COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE PLEASE NOTE NEW CONTACT INFO AS OF FRIDAY NOON: Both writers are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored (ISBN 0-918520-22-3 UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library, Publications Unit. Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race (Cloth ISBN 0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 Bilingual Review Press) and the antibook, The X in La Raza II. They can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7904, 505-242-7282 or XColumn@aol.com Gonzales's direct line is 505-248-0092 or PatiGonzaJ@aol.com.
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