Mexican American Studies Youth Conference inspires lifelong dedication to the preservation of culture and history

Mexican American Studies (MAS) has been offered in Texas public schools for about a decade. It was accepted as an official course in 2018. Almost 12,000 high school students in the state are enrolled in MAS courses.

The University of Texas at San Antonio is hosting a Mexican American Studies Youth Conference this week to bring together hundreds of students and educators to strengthen this growing academic field.

TPR's Norma Martinez spoke to Lilliana Saldaña, associate professor in Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Sylvia Mendoza, associate professor in Mexican American Studies, also at UTSA.

Saldaña began by explaining that this conference is a celebration of a decade of MAS in public schools and 30 years of MAS at UTSA.

Saldaña: We thought this would be a good opportunity to celebrate 10 years of Mexican American Studies in our public schools. That this would be a good opportunity to bring together the youth who are taking Mexican American Studies courses, not just in our high schools, but also our middle schools, our community colleges and universities.

So this is a space where we can affirm our collective struggles and accomplishments, our identities, our histories, where we can gather to affirm what we've been able to do in the past 10 years and to think of what we can do to sustain MAS for future generations. And it is a historic gathering in the sense that entire classes are coming together.

Schools are bringing their students to this space to learn, to co-learn, to share, to affirm what they're learning — the transformative power of Mexican American Studies and ethnic studies here at the local level. And I would say that it is a part of that ongoing process of organizing, of mobilizing that will sustain us in our city.

Martinez: Sylvia, do you think that MAS, the future of it, is in danger of being scaled back? We've seen a lot of pushback against race based education in public schools. By the time people get to university, sometimes it's their first exposure to these kinds of things. And so what are you hearing from students? What's your observation about what you are seeing happening in public schools?

Mendoza: I do think that there's definitely a threat. I think Mexican American Studies, ethnic studies as a whole, are consistently under a threat because of the concepts, because of the affirmation, because of the power that it brings.

I think one of the exciting things about having this youth conference now is that it's in the legacy of a larger movement that's been happening for decades. And during the Chicanx civil rights movement. When they had these youth conferences, it was kind of a testament to the power of the community of young people, of parents, community organizations coming together to support this knowledge, to support the field.

So I think the answer is "Yes, and." I think, yes, there is definitely a threat to Mexican American Studies and ethnic studies with legislation happening, but I also think that there is always a thirst and a drive and a desire by the community to make sure that these histories are included.

Martinez: Sylvia, Lilliana was talking about how Mexican American Studies can be transformative. And we've talked to many people on our program "Fronteras" about really how their lives have changed through these particular programs. And so this conference, is it maybe another effort to keep that interest going forward, instead of it maybe stalling out in secondary education? You want that to be more of a lifelong effort?

Mendoza: Absolutely. One way to keep that sort of interest going is by having a direct relationship and contact with the schools. So making sure that it's not just conversations that we have at the higher education level but inviting parents and youth who are at the high school, at the middle school [level]. And we even have teachers who collaborate with us who teach at Bonham Elementary. So making sure [that] the sooner that students have access to this information, it's not only powerful for them, but also powerful for sustaining the field.

Martinez: So this is sort of the first of its kind here in San Antonio, Lilliana. Is there any sort of precedent that you're basing this on?

Saldaña: Well, it's all based on the past. And I remember when I was in school seeing how they were organizing with the local high school students, and they would create spaces at UTSA in the community to bring youth together to talk about our local history, to talk about our collective struggles to engage with students, with youth, middle school students, high school students, community college students. Because 20 years ago, MAS was not in our public schools. And we were only about 10 years old at UTSA. And so I keep thinking of this legacy of organizing with youth, for youth, and creating these spaces.

And I think this is a testament to the MAS movement in San Antonio, which is connected to the larger movement in Texas, which is also connected to the larger movement for ethnic studies in the U.S.

Over the past 10 years, we've been working with teachers, not just in San Antonio, but teachers throughout the state, from the Rio Grande Valley, in El Paso, in North Texas in the Dallas Fort Worth region, in Austin, and here in San Antonio, to support teachers to offer these courses. And then the teachers are building the curriculum, and oftentimes they're building it from scratch.

But this is an opportunity to celebrate the teachers, to affirm what they're doing, to bring the students so that they can share what they're learning in their classes, and then we'll see from there what other additional strategies we can come up with to sustain MAS.

I think one thing that we wanted to stress was that MAS is ... students [who] are taking Mexican American Studies in our public schools are very excited. I mean, for the first time, they're learning about Mexican American history and culture. They're learning about ancestral traditions. They're learning about movements — the civil rights movement, the Chicano movement — and they're making those connections with our present.

And I think for a lot of youth, we want them to understand that MAS is not just a high school elective course, but that MAS is a field of study, and that this field of study has been around for more than 50 years, and that this field of study is a space where they can connect their personal aspirations, their professional aspirations, their aspirations for community advocacy, for social change ... actually bridge all of this together and where you're going to keep learning the analytic frameworks that you need to learn to change the world.

The Mexican American Studies Youth Conference is Nov. 4, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the University of Texas at San Antonio's Downtown Campus in the Buena Vista Building.