Mexican American

He may have soared a gazillion miles in outer space, but back here on Earth, U.S. astronaut Jose Hernandez has stepped knee-deep in controversy. Hernandez, the California-born son of Mexican immigrants, is a full-fledged media star in Mexico. Fans here followed his every floating, gravity-free move during his two-week journey in space as he Twittered from the shuttle Discovery and gave live interviews to local TV programs. After the shuttle returned Friday, Hernandez told Mexican television that he thought the United States should legalize the millions of undocumented immigrants living there so that they can work openly because they are important to the American economy.

STOCKTON -- In the center of a starkly lighted wrestling ring, RJ Brewer glared at the overwhelmingly Latino crowd and spread the flag of Arizona across his back. Buff, mean, white and glistening with baby oil, he snatched the microphone from the referee. "I come from the greatest city in the United States: Phoenix, Arizona!" the wrestler yelled in English. "Phoenix is the only city with a woman in power with the guts to get into the president's face and address the real problem in this country!"

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, U.S. policymakers looked for new ways to understand America's place in the new world. What would be the primary focus of U.S. foreign policy? Who would be our greatest threats? Some academics, among them Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, feared that the absence of an "undesirable other" would weaken our national identity.

After that stint on Comedy Central 's “The Daily Show,” the Tucson Unified school board is probably wishing it had hired a media consultant before trying to explain its position on the district's controversial Mexican American Studies program.  Normally, when people are featured on a television show, they call family and friends and let them know the time and channel. That might not be the case for board member Michael Hicks, who appeared in a segment about the ethnic studies controversy.  Hicks was interviewed by comedian Al Madrigal on the satirical news show Monday about his decision to oppose the school district's Mexican American Studies program, which was shuttered in January to keep the district from losing more than $14 million in state aid. The Tucson school board voted to end the program after Arizona's education chief had ruled the district in violation of a controversial state law banning classes designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.

Julian Samora, 75, a Mexican American sociologist who helped create the academic movement for Mexican American studies. A native of Colorado who studied at Adams State College and Colorado State University, Samora went on to Washington University in St. Louis, where in 1953 he became the first known Mexican American to receive a doctorate in sociology and anthropology.

A friend of mine, an African American fireman in San Francisco, thinks that Mexican Americans are smart because most of us don't bother to vote. On the other hand, my Mexican mother frets. Unlike Texas or New Mexico, which have older, more politically active Latino populations, California has only lately begun to see Latinos running for school boards or city halls. California has yet to see one of its own Mexican American politicians assume statewide or national stature.

When President George W. Bush visits Mexican President Vicente Fox Feb. 16, he will see a familiar face in the group that greets him at Fox's ranch in San Cristobal, Guanajuato. Juan Hernandez, appointed by Fox to head the presidential Office for Mexicans Living Abroad, introduced Fox to Bush in 1996. Then, the two presidents were governors. Hernandez, who was teaching Mexican literature at the University of Texas, Dallas, had invited Fox to speak at the university's new Center for U.S.

It's a crumbling cluster of buildings, the facade shedding bricks so regularly that Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina hesitates to get too close for fear one may conk her on the head. Molina has never even set foot inside. But for nine years, she has faithfully socked away money the county gives each supervisor to pay for community projects, amassing about $15 million to transform this decaying complex beside the historic Olvera Street plaza into a Mexican American cultural center.

James deAnda, a retired federal judge who as a lawyer on a pivotal 1950s case established that Mexican Americans were entitled to the same constitutional protections as other minorities, died of prostate cancer Sept. 7 at his vacation home in Traverse City, Mich. The longtime Houston resident was 81. DeAnda was the last surviving member of the four-man legal team behind Hernandez vs. Texas, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on May 3, 1954.

As she joined about 2,500 marchers striding through neighborhoods east of downtown Los Angeles on Saturday with placards that read, "Brown and Proud: I'm the next generation," 17-year-old Santa Monica High School senior Jennifer Galamba said, "We're here to honor heroes and a defining moment in our history."

Reporting from San Pedro Garza Garcia, Mexico Oakland-bred Raka Rich brought the flow of California hip-hop, in Spanish. Puerto Rico's Davila 666 ignited a wild mosh-pit with its Latin-tinged punk. And all kinds of new Mexican acts — as varied as Juan Cirerol of Mexicali and cumbia-rockers Sonido San Francisco — showed that Mexico's independent music scene just might be at its most dynamic in years. Over 12 hours on Saturday, some 4,500 fans gathered to hear more than 50 international acts at a sonically diverse annual music festival called NRMAL.

They were bold enough to call it a revolution. Back in the 1970s, when Chicano art was synonymous with East Los Angeles, its storied murals and its art center, Self-Help Graphics, a group of Mexican American artists decided to break away. They headed north, seven miles, to start their own Chicano arts collective in Highland Park, an area that was still mostly white with little presence of Latino art. "Our mission was to transform Highland Park into a super-revolutionary Chicano town," said artist Richard Duardo.

A few days into 2012, ABC's cross-dressing disaster "Work It" managed to claim Worst Comedy of the Year, but surely CBS' "Rob," which debuts Thursday, comes in a close second. Created by comedian Rob Schneider and based, apparently and tragically, on his own life, "Rob" takes a classic "Bridget Loves Bernie" setup — Anglo man marries Mexican American woman after whirlwind romance and now must meet her family — and manages to make it weirdly offensive to just about everyone, especially comedy lovers.

On Wednesday, 28 seventh- and eighth-graders at Tucson's Mansfeld Middle School followed their familiar routine. They walked into Room 306, sat at their desks and greeted teacher Rene Martinez. But the class they'd known the day before had vanished. No longer can the students discuss Chicano perspectives on history. And no longer can Martinez teach Mexican American studies. After the Tucson Unified School District board voted late Tuesday to suspend the controversial classes to avoid losing more than $14 million in state aid, the students' world shifted.

The Tucson Unified School District voted late Tuesday to suspend its controversial Mexican American studies program rather than lose more than $14 million in funding after the state schools chief ruled the program violated the law. During a raucous session that included passionate public comments and accusations of cowardice, the board voted 4 to 1 to suspend the classes. If it had not, the district would have lost about $5 million in state funding in February, retroactive to last August, and $14.4 million over the fiscal year, according to the state Department of Education.

Tucson's Mexican American studies program remains in violation of state law, Arizona's public schools chief ruled Friday, ordering that millions in state funding be withheld from the school district until the program is dismantled or brought into compliance. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, said the Tucson Unified School District program was in violation of a new state law prohibiting ethnic studies classes that are deemed to be divisive. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or which "promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

Even before I learned that two of the American soldiers taken prisoner in Yugoslavia on Wednesday were Latino, I'd been thinking that it was time to write once more about all that Mexican Americans have contributed to this country during wartime. It started when I made a few telephone calls inquiring about a small item at the bottom of the 1998 California Form 540. It allows one to donate to a "Mexican American Veterans' Fund," among other worthy causes.

As she often does on these cemetery visits, 7-year-old Jasmin Morales holds a 16-ounce can of Budweiser over her grandfather's gravestone. The thin girl with waist-length hair and pleated blue sundress waits as her father, Raul, plucks away grass grown over the grave. Raul blows hard on the stone, whisking away remnants of dirt. "There you go, pops. All cleaned up. Probably thirsty, huh?" Raul says.

Tucson's Mexican American studies program violates state law, an Arizona administrative law judge ruled Tuesday, paving the way for the program's possible demise. Judge Lewis D. Kowal affirmed a prior decision by the state's schools chief that the Tucson Unified School District's program violates a new law prohibiting divisive ethnic-studies classes. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, had deemed the program in violation in June. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people.

Arizona's public schools chief had heard unsettling reports about what was being taught in the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican American studies program and decided to see for himself. As he sat in on a Chicano literature class, Supt. John Huppenthal noticed an image of Che Guevera hanging on a wall and listened to a lecturer cast Benjamin Franklin as a racist. And though teacher Curtis Acosta did not directly portray Mexican Americans as an oppressed minority, he discussed educational theorist Paulo Freire and his "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," which the Tucson High Magnet School students used as a textbook.