Chicano Movement - Movement Artifacts

Movement Artifacts
As previously mentioned, there are two primary identities involved in the Mexican American Studies protest in Tucson, Arizona. The first being the TUSD administrators for making the decision to invalidate the MAS program from their high schools; and the second being the Chicano student group known as the UNIDOS that were protesting to protect their ethnic studies. These passionate students found themselves doing research and evaluations of past protest strategies of the Civil Rights Movement to achieve rhetorical victory for themselves. At the same time, the TUSD administrators were working to achieve the same accomplishment and also to save their reputation as professionals in the school setting. The following section will further analyze the UNIDOS use of chaining themselves and chanting in the same board room that TUSD administrators called upon Tucson Police Department (TPD) for security on April 26th as forms of movement artifacts.
The scene started off when nine students heard of the board meeting that was going to take place with all Tucson Unified School District administrators to discuss the rapid decision of state superintendent Tom Horne to remove MAS. Already ignited with anger and frustration the UNIDOS decided they would make an appearance that was going to have their voices essentially be heard by the school board. Since board meetings were open to the community, the students began to invite and inform others of their plan to invade the meeting and find themselves a seat that no one else could take from them. Some of the TUSD educators caught glimpse of this plan and helped the district administrators seek help from the Tucson Police Department to prepare for the worst case scenario.
Upon the morning of April 26, 2011, the UNIDOS made their first move right as the doors opened. Running into the facility with chains wrapped around their wrists and interlocked within one another, the nine UNIDOS were able to move past police officers, board room security guards, and Tucson Unified School District staff (Cabrera). Battling shoves and dodging the screaming threats of officials, these board room warriors were able to sit in solidarity against the TUSD administrators (Cabrera). Once they were able to settle in their seat and chain themselves to the chairs, the UNIDOS raised their linked wrists and smiled at the crowd with great cultural pride. They proceeded to show enthusiasm and dedication to their protest by chanting in unison, “Our education is under attack. What do we do? Fight back!” (Cabrera). Not only did those nine students gain respect from their peers, they gained support from parents, family, and friends that were also part of the cultural community of Tucson.
On the other side of the fence, the Tucson Unified School District found it in their best interest to reach out to the Tucson Police Department for help with the situation at hand. TPD found it necessary to respond by providing K-9 units, bomb squad patrol officers, and a hovering helicopter (Cabrera) to observe the outside area. Inside of the school boardroom, security was hired to prevent students from passing the doors to find seats before administrators. As seen in Three Sonorans News, “Unidos take over TUSD school board” (2011), two grown men dressed as security and possibly TPD took on several high school students with strong force but lost the scuffle as the UNIDOS outnumbered them as they charged ahead into their seats. Michael Hicks amongst other board members witnessed first-hand that, “The meeting [was] cancelled, no vote [took] place, and the students [were] victorious!” (Three Sonorans News).
Looking closely at the identities of UNIDOS and TUSD administration, a clear divide occurred that shocked the community and resulted in unanimity for most people. The UNIDOS found a sense of identity within one another which reflects the meaning of their name “UNIDOS.” From Spanish to English, “unidos” translates to “united” which happens to be the first word in their name’s acronym, United Non-Discriminatory Individuals Demanding Our Studies (Cabrera). The founders of this student-led group, UNIDOS, are all Chicanos and pride themselves in learning and sharing stories of heritage, traditions, and survival ways of living with their peers, family, and community. Mexican American Studies does not only provide historical knowledge, it provides confidence to the normally marginalized group of Chicano students (Meier and Stewart). Thus, by the UNIDOS chaining themselves to their seats and chanting words that show how bound they are to their ethnic studies, their motive becomes clear; by saving their ethnic studies, they were saving themselves from education system failure.
As for the Tucson Unified School District administrators, their professionalism as policy makers was challenged during the protest as they continually showed dismissive behavior towards the demands of their Chicano students. Leaders within this identity such as Tom Horne, John Huppenthal, and Michael Hicks, refused to address the issue with the UNIDOS via open dialogue at the school board meeting on April 26th (Three Sonoran News). Tucson Unified School District only showed unity with the Tucson Police Department (Cabrera) which further demonstrated their lack of connection with their students leaving them in no place to properly make or destroy a policy with a one-sided perspective. Consequently, without any school district administrator releasing a statement or rebuttal to the rhetorical actions of the UNIDOS, silence was taken heavily and triumph was seen to be of the Chicano students and not of TUSD.
To conclude this section, it is important to evaluate the effectiveness of the movement articles used by the UNIDOS and TUSD. For the Chicano students in the UNIDOS group, the use of chains and their chant was extremely effective because they were able to gain two things from it. One being community support and the second being a voice that would finally be heard their TUSD administrators. These two artifacts really tied into their identity as Chicano students because they showed their district administrators that they were taking responsibility of their education and success in the classroom by protesting the decision to remove Mexican American Studies from their schools. Tucson Unified School District only used the Tucson Police Department as a movement artifact which ended up dwindling their effectiveness and success. Nevertheless, TUSD administrators lost community support and reliability as policy makers for their district since they failed to show interest in the needs and wants of their students. Their movement artifact tied to their identity because as local authoritative figures, TUSD administrators sought out help from other authoritative figures to help maintain status and protection under the law.