Maria Federico Brummer

Maria Federico Brummer: so I just did this last Monday, um, kind of giving a brief timeline of, like, why we have some kind of Mexican-American studies in our school district because we are unique. We know that. Um, so 1973. Yes. It it coincides with my the year of my birth. Uh, we have African American plaintiffs, um, the fishers who initiate a class action, a class action lawsuit against the school district, Tucson Unified because of the discriminatory racism, prejudice, everything that, um, they had to endure. And I say the parents, they were they brought in this lawsuit to protect their children, the next generation. Um, so we had segregation in so much in Tucson that, uh, post Brown versus board of Ed. Occasion, our school district integrated by putting Mexican American students in with African American students at um Dunbar and uh John Springs are predominantly African American or segregated schools. Uh, because at that time in the census, Mexican Americans were labeled as white. And so that was integration, right? Um, so those kinds of practices is exactly what the Fisher plaintiffs were, were targeting from their 1975. They get the Mexican American plaintiffs, the Chicano plaintiffs, uh, together to join the lawsuit. And so, 1975, they initiate, uh, what we call the Fisher Mendoza, um, case, and they win against the school district by 1978, which is when I enter kindergarten.

Maria Federico Brummer: Um, so I consider myself to be that generation that really benefited from the, the work, um, that these, these plaintiffs put and, and made our district accountable for. And we're still working on the vestiges of all this racism from those generations. Um, and so with that, I got, you know, we had, uh, we had, I think, 14 different stipulations within that lawsuit. Some of them include, like having African American and Mexican American administrators, um, the, the language to bilingual education. It also included, um, having black studies. So in 1980, 1978, 1980, we start having black studies like started the talks in 78 but 80. We create a black studies department. And so the charge for this district entity was to create curriculum, create lessons that teachers could use in the classroom. Um. It was going. There were very few teachers. We had very few African-American teachers, and we had very few other teachers that were versed enough in order to do this curriculum. Then it wasn't until 1997 that our community, our Chicano Mexican-American community, starts organizing and saying, hey, they theoretically have black studies over here running. Why can't we have Chicano studies running? And so through that organization, we get our governing board to approve, um, Mexican American studies. I believe the name was like Hispanic Studies first. But then we get to Mexican-American studies and then Mexican-American studies

Maria Federico Brummer: we dismantled the Mexican-American studies department, and we had a list of books that we had to get out of our classrooms. That was that was a part of the stipulations of the law. And we also had to be retrained as Mexican-American studies teachers to no longer teach from a Mexican-American studies perspective. And all of our classes were, um, and this was, yeah, overnight, our classes were no longer, um, Chicano studies classes, but like, a generic US history class. Or whatever, whatever content area. Um, we then also have 11 teachers who organize Mexican-American studies, teachers who organize and, um, have a, a lawsuit against the then superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne. And, um, that case went to court. We had to do some. I say we, um, we had to modify, like the approach in terms of who we were suing and who who was who was suing him. Um, as the this is an elected official. So there was another superintendent of public instruction, so we had to sue him and we and it wasn't through our local legal counsel that we came up with. This approach is actually outside legal counsel, um, that came in and provided, I think, a pro bono, um, advice that we have a student be the representative versus the teachers. The teachers didn't have the right for equal protection. It was the students that had the right for equal protection.

Maria Federico Brummer: Um, I think my community has put a lot of responsibility on me, and I am to receive it and also produce for them, too. So there isn't, um, I would say there hasn't been a time when I could just be like, chill. I'm just doing my thing. I think that I've always had to maintain a high profile and know that I'm not off the clock, ever. Um, or that there is a distinction when I'm, I'm an educator, a critical educator, I'd say. And then I'm not. Um, the expectation is that even today, Maria is going to hold the line for us and our school district. If I have anything. This is a huge school district. We have over 8000 teachers. We have 26,000 or so, 43,000 students. 26,000 of those students are identified as Mexican American Latino. Um K through 12. And so when in this position, I know I can't touch every single kid every day. But like my responsibility is to make the impact that our district, they made an impact on my parents when they were here, but it was negative. So we have to recover from that. We have to reconcile from that and we have a responsibility. And so I see that my community members still look to me and say, hey, this is happening over here, what are you doing about it? And I have to do something about it. Um, and so my, my ask of them is like, keep coming, keep coming, keep having trust in me, keep having hope in me. And and, um, I'm hoping never to let them down.