In praise of ethnic chauvinism

by David Safier

I hope I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure TUSD's Ethnic Studies is toast. With Huppenthal as Ed Supe and nary a Democrat in sight in a major elected state position, I don't see how anyone can stop the Republicans from shutting the program down.

The anti-Ethnic Studies crowd condemns the program — and I'm talking specifically about the La Raza Studies program, which is the only one they really care about — by saying it teaches hatred of whites mixed together with ethnic pride bordering on chauvinism.

If you take that down a notch to something closer to reality — that La Raza Studies teaches, among other things, about the oppression of Hispanics and other minorities in this country and gives students a sense of pride in who they are — that's exactly what the program should be teaching.

And if the program ventures into ethnic chauvinism on occasion, I say, so much the better.

The most ethnically chauvinistic people in the country are white European-Americans with Christian heritages. The Ethnic Studies haters would disagree, of course. The reason they don't think they're ethnic chauvinists is that they don't acknowledge that they are an ethnic group. They're what's normal. They are the dominant — read that superior — culture that everyone else should conform to. Obviously, that's the highest form of chauvinism — chauvinism with a big old, self-congratulatory cherry on top.

I'm Jewish. I belong to a privileged minority which has suffered horrific discrimination through the centuries, but right now in the U.S., we Jews have it pretty good in terms of acceptance, educational level and income. I've never really had to fight against discrimination. I've never felt any avenue was closed to me because of my heritage.

But the fact is, there are moments when I'm chauvinistic as hell. I can't help it. When someone Jewish accomplishes something wonderful, I swell with pride as if I share that person's accomplishment. When I watched a documentary about Hank Greenberg, the great Jewish baseball player, a few months ago, some moments filled me with such pride and joy, I was in tears. Trust me, if Hank weren't Jewish, I wouldn't have watched the documentary — I'm not much of a sports fan — and if I did, I would have been only mildly interested. But a Jew excelling in sports! How great is that?

When I was younger, that kind of pride in Jews helped give me a pride in being Jewish, which I needed. I didn't have to feel as weird about being the ethnic oddball or feel as left out when everyone was talking about Christmas or as hurt when someone made an anti-semitic comment. I'm Jewish, man! Look at all we've done! Look at who we are! It's great being a Jew!

Now I'm a grown man, and I don't really need that stuff, but it's part of me. And you know what? It makes me feel good.

Unlike Jews, Hispanics aren't a privileged minority in the U.S., not by a long shot. The general culture stamps them as inferior. A Hispanic kid looking for role models, looking for people who have "made it" in a way this country values, can find them, but it's far easier to see Hispanics who the country brands as failures.

Where does that kid find the enthusiasm that lets him/her wake up every morning and say, "I'm going to make it. I'm going to work my ass off in school and get good grades, then I'm going to college and become a successful doctor or lawyer or teacher or business person"? Life can grind enthusiasm like that out of you in a thousand different ways — death of hope by a thousand cuts — until you just give up. It can seem like it's not worth the struggle.

So what could be better than a program in school that lets you know how your people have been mistreated in this country, a country which has robbed most of your people of the chance to advance socially, educationally and professionally? What could be better than a program that shows you how and where Hispanics have "made it" and encourages you to do the same?

I don't know if La Raza Studies teachers say this, but I think it would be great if they said, "You know the best way you can get back at the people who are trying to keep you down, who kept your mother and your father and your aunt and your uncle down? Succeed in spite of the haters! Show them how wrong they are when they say you'll never amount to anything. Get good grades and high SAT scores and flash them around with pride, then go to college and earn a degree. Don't let the people who look down on you win by making you think you can't do it. You can!"

I remember a scene from, "Stand and Deliver," a film about a math teacher in an L.A. high school with mainly Hispanic students who transformed his students into math whizzes. The story is basically true, though, of course, the film took liberties along the way.

At one point, the teacher was telling the students about the mathematical wonders of the ancient Mayan culture. It was a stirring history lesson, which was probably new to the students. And he ended by saying something like, "So of course you're good at math! It's in your blood."

I choked up when I first saw that scene, and I choke up every time I think about it. As a teacher (and maybe as a Jew who experienced moments like that myself), I knew what was going on inside of those students. They were overflowing with a sense of joy and pride. For a moment, everything the dominant culture had taught them about being second class citizens and failures as students who could hope for nothing better than a high school diploma and a life of menial labor disappeared. They knew they could be anything they wanted to be. They could be great at math. It was in their blood.

For ethnically chauvinistic white European-Americans to conspire to take away a program which can teach its students ethnic history, ethnic pride, and yes, even a bit of ethnic chauvinism, is obscene. But that's what's happening. And because these people are confident of their power — after all, who's more powerful than a white American? — they will probably succeed.