Walkout Educational Materials

Synopsis

Set in Eastern Los Angeles in 1968, Walkout is the true story of Mexican-American students' fight for equality in public schools. The film depicts the brave acts of Paula Crisostomo, a beautiful and intelligent high school senior, and her friends, who decide to stage a series of walkouts in their predominantly Mexican-American high schools in order to elicit change. The students are encouraged by their progressive teacher, Sal Castro, who is passionate about the Mexican-American— or "Chicano" – cause.

Through secret meetings at a local restaurant, they plan a series of walkouts in conjunction with other local high school students. Sal instructs students to work in an organized, coordinated fashion, and suggests informing reporters of their intentions to bring attention to their cause. The first walkout is a success and students leave the school chanting “Chicano Power!” Their next walkout, however, is met by fierce resistance from the police and students are beaten with clubs, kicked, and punched in full view of reporters. Amazingly, none of the footage is shown on the local news.

The students decide to stage another walkout. Paula’s mother, who initially questioned her daughter’s involvement, now leads a group of community members towards the school to support the students' efforts. Following the arrests of Sal and some of the organizing students, the entire community marches to the police station where chants of “Chicano Power!” erupt after Sal and the students are released.

Message to Educators

Walkout examines the controversial but critical activism of a group of East Los Angeles Chicano students who challenged and confronted the educational inequalities of their high schools. Based on a true story, the film details the 1968 struggle of young activists who objected to traditional educational assumptions, celebrated their Chicano heritage, and actively informed changes, both in school and out. As such, Walkout depicts cross- curricular themes of civil disobedience, non-violent protest, culture, identity, and the role schools play in society -- all of which relate to studies of history, sociology, politics, and expression.

With this in mind, please select and modify the educational materials in this packet to meet the specific needs of your students and classroom environment. All activities and ideas are intended to inspire further curriculum development and instructional adaptation.

1 Before Viewing

I. Key Concept and People Sal Castro Paula Crisostomo Bobby Verdugo Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales Chicano/Chicana Latino Corporal punishment Walkout Nonviolent/passive resistance Brown Berets East LA thirteen Chicano Youth Leadership Conference

II. What Did You Say? Open class using a foreign language (you can use a real language of your choice, or simply speak "nonsense" or "Pig-Latin"). Use gestures and body language to help communicate your ideas; for example, pass out an assignment and ask students to get started (using the “foreign” language). After a few minutes, ask students the following questions:

1. So, who knows what to do? 2. How did you know? 3. How did you feel when class began this way? 4. How would you feel if the assignment I just gave you really "counted"?

If you use a real language (or even Pig-Latin), some students may be able to understand you. Those students, then, are privy to information that is unclear to others. Ask any who were able to understand how they felt. Did they feel they had a special advantage?

Conclusion / Tie-In: Many students in Walkout were not native English speakers, yet were expected to use ONLY English. Have your students think about how the prohibition of Spanish in the classroom would impact and complicate Mexican American students' learning. Is this policy helpful, hurtful, or both?

III. The Hidden Curriculum Sociologists assert that, in addition to the standard curriculum of subjects and textbooks, schools teach more subtle lessons, often referred to as "The Hidden Curriculum." This "hidden" curriculum involves the moral, social, political, and class-based values transmitted and learned by school members -- sometimes without even knowing it. Review the following school decisions and think about what values are transmitted by this hidden curriculum.

2 1. A school decides to include foreign language translations of important texts in the school library. 2. A school removes seven books from the library shelves because they are controversial. 3. A school denies approval for a "Minority Student Council." 4. A school establishes strong partnerships with community organizations. 5. A school hires a special counselor to help students with college searches and applications. 6. A school uses money from a school improvement grant to hire a new detention monitor. 7. A school punishes students who speak their native language at school.

Can you think of other examples of "hidden curriculum" from your own or others' experiences?

IV. "I am Joaquin" In the Youth Chicano Leadership Conference, Sal Castro recites the epic poem "I am Joaquin" by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales to Chicano students. The poem is associated with the US Chicano movement of the 1960s. The narrative voice, Joaquin, relates the struggles of the Chicano people to attain economic justice and equal rights. He has much pride and faith in his culture and believes that if the Chicano people stay proud and demand acceptance, they will succeed in attaining equality. Preface this scene by going over some or the entire poem in class. The following is an excerpt of the first 32 lines:

1. I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion, 2. caught up in the whirl of a gringo society, 3. confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes, 4. suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society. 5. My fathers have lost the economic battle 6. and won the struggle of cultural survival. 7. And now! I must choose between the paradox of 8. victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger, 9. or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis, 10. sterilization of the soul and a full stomach. 11. Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere, 12. unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical, 13. industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success.... 14. I look at myself. 15. I watch my brothers. 16. I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate. 17. I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life – 18. MY OWN PEOPLE 19. I am Cuauhtémoc, proud and noble, 20. leader of men, king of an empire civilized 21. beyond the dreams of the gachupín Cortés, 22. who also is the blood, the image of myself.

3 23. I am the Maya prince. 24. I am Nezahualcóyotl, great leader of the Chichimecas. 25. I am the sword and flame of Cortes the despot 26. And I am the eagle and serpent of the Aztec civilization. 27. I owned the land as far as the eye 28. could see under the Crown of Spain, 29. and I toiled on my Earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood 30. for the Spanish master who ruled with tyranny over man and 31. beast and all that he could trample 32. But...THE GROUND WAS MINE.

(The complete poem can be found at http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/latinos/joaquin.htm)

Go over the meaning of specific lines (i.e. line 2- "caught up in the whirl of a gringo society"), and ask students the following questions: What is the tone of the poem? Explain the “paradox” that Joaquin faces (line 7). What is the significance of the cultures he references? What is Joaquin’s message?

4 During Viewing

1. Use the worksheet found in Appendix 3 to guide students’ comprehension of key developments in the1968 East L.A. student walkouts. Issues addressed in the worksheet include the unfair treatment of Chicano students in school, catalysts for change, intentions of the walkouts, and obstacles the students faced.

2. Use the worksheet found in Appendix 4 to discuss educational inequalities as they existed in 1968 and today. Consider the following questions: Do educational inequalities still exist? Have the demands from the Chicano student walkouts been met? What is your evidence that their demands have or have not been met?

5 After Viewing

I. Neglected Chicano History in Textbooks At the beginning of the film, Sal Castro reminds his students to see how Mexican American history is neglected in textbooks:

Sal: Read the part of 9,000 Mexican Americans who fought in the American Civil War. Paula: Mr. Castro, it doesn't say anything about Mexican Americans. Sal: Let me see. That's funny, we were there. Paula: What side did we fight on? Sal: Both. Student: And we still lost? Sal: Yeah, we still lost. You know what we lost? We lost our legacy. Why? Because we’re not in this book. See, if people don't know about it, then it never happened. See, you’re learning your history from people that don't know your history. Your blood is in Gettysburg.

(Chapter 1)

Textbooks are important vehicles through which a society passes its values and notions of diversity to the next generation. Ensuring that all voices are represented in textbooks is crucial to enhancing a pluralistic democracy.

1) Have your students examine how their textbooks address and introduce Mexican Americans. Ask them to share their findings with the class. Specifically, have your students look to see whether there was mention of Mexican American participation in the American Civil War. If there is no mention, ask students to speculate reasons why. 2) Have your students browse the Great Depression section in their textbooks. Ask them if the issue of coerced Mexican-American emigration during 1930s is addressed in this section. If yes, how is it addressed? If no, speculate reasons why it is not addressed. 3) Distribute the news article, Some Stories Hard to Get in History Textbooks (see Appendix 3) and have your students think about why the histories of some minority groups are left out of textbooks and what can be done to enhance diverse perspectives in the classrooms.

II. Chicano Civil Rights Movement The 1960s was a turbulent era for social justice and change. While the African-American Civil Rights Movement is nationally recognized and is widely researched, the Chicano Civil Rights Movement is less so. According to historians, there are at least four components to the Chicano Civil Rights Movement: A youth movement against discrimination and inequality in schools, the farm workers movement, the movement for political empowerment, and the struggle for control over homelands in the U.S. southwest. The 1968 East L.A. student walkouts were among the major efforts put forth by Chicanos in the fight to gain equality.

6 1. Comparison of Civil Rights Movement Timeline This timeline activity will give students a basic understanding of the historical background and key events of the Chicano Civil Rights movement. Make copies of the African American and Chicano Civil Rights movement timelines (see appendix 5 and 6). Separate students into groups and distribute the timelines to different groups. Moving in chronological order, have African American Civil Rights groups identify a year and read the event to the whole class. Have Chicano Civil Rights groups do the same. Prepare a short lecture on these key events. Afterwards, have students compare and contrast the African American Civil Rights movement and Chicano Civil Rights movement. How are the goals, strategies, and challenges similar to and different from each other? Did it seem as though one movement influenced the other? 2. Fighting for Educational Inequalities: Case Study Socorro Gómez and Yolanda Almaraz were two Mexican American teachers who worked in a public school system dominated by Anglo teachers in California during the mid 1970s. After witnessing the educational inequalities experienced by Mexican American students in the area, they decided to initiate reforms in local schools, which resulted in a student strike against the schools in 1976.

Organize your students into groups. Have each group choose either Socorro Gómez or Yolanda Almaraz as their case for further study. Have each group read the biography and primary resources and watch the interviews of their case (see Appendix 1).Ask students to report what they learned; specifically, what were the teachers’ experiences and perspectives on school discrimination and bilingual education? How did they manage to change educational inequalities? What challenges did they face?

III. Personal Narrative As illustrated in the movie, racial/ethnic background plays a crucial role in the formation of youth identity. In this activity, have your students write an essay that addresses the history of their racial/ethnic groups and how their racial/ethnic background impacts their daily experience and identity. Below are questions for students to consider in the essay:

• What is your racial/ethnic background? • How did you come to live in the United States (i.e. ancestors immigrated, parents recently immigrated, etc). • If your family now lives in the United States, how were they treated when they immigrated? o Did they suffer from unjust treatments and/or receive advantages because of their racial backgrounds? • Do you encounter any unjust treatment and/or receive advantages because of your racial/ethnic background?

7 Appendix 1: Resources

Case Study: Socorro Gómez and Yolanda Almaraz http://www.brown.edu/Research/Coachella/collection.html http://www.brown.edu/Research/Coachella/women.html

Chicano Studies Research Center http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/default.htm

Chicano Civil Rights movement timeline history.arizona.edu/tah/postwar/civilrights_chicanos_timeline.htm

Educating Change: Latina Activism and the Struggle for Educational Equity http://www.brown.edu/Research/Coachella/introduction.html

"I am Joaquin" by Rodolfo Gonzales http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/latinos/joaquin.htm

Improving Latino Education: Roles and Challenges for Superintendents and School Boards http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/press/reports/current.asp

Mexican American Voices http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/mexican_voices/mexican_voices.cfm

PBS, African American World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.html

Sal Castro and the Chicano Youth Leadership Conference http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/documents/csrcp_CastroProgram.pdf

Some Stories Hard to Get in History Textbooks http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-04-04-history-books_x.htm

The Chicano Movement in Washington State 1967- 2006http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/Chicanomovement_part1.htm

The Brown Berets: Young Chicano Revolutionaries http://www.fightbacknews.org/2003winter/brownberets.htm

Walkout: The True Story of the Historic 1968 Chicano Student Walkout in East L.A. http://www.democracynow.org/2006/3/29/walkout_the_true_story_of_the

8 Appendix 2: McREL Standards Covered Behavioral Studies Topics: 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 29, 33 Standards 1. Understands that group and cultural influences contribute to human development, identity, and behavior Standards 2. Understands various meanings of social group, general implications of group membership, and different ways that groups function Standards 4. Understands conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and institutions

Civics Topics: 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 27, 34, 38, 40, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 87 Standards 10. Understands the roles of voluntarism and organized groups in American social and political life Standards 11. Understands the role of diversity in American life and the importance of shared values, political beliefs, and civic beliefs in an increasingly diverse American society Standards 25. Understands issues regarding personal, political, and economic rights Standards 28. Understands how participation in civic and political life can help citizens attain individual and public goals Standards 29. Understands the importance of political leadership, public service, and a knowledgeable citizenry in American constitutional democracy

History

Historical Understanding Topics: 11, 13, 14 Standards 2. Understands the historical perspective

United States History Topics: 17, 25, 30, 53, 59, 66, 110, 111, 112, 119, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128 Standards 29. Understands the struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties Standards 31. Understands economic, social, and cultural developments in the contemporary United States

Language Arts Topics: 2, 4, 18, 23 Standards 8. Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes Standards 9. Uses viewing skills and strategies to understand and interpret visual media

9 Appendix 3

Some stories hard to get in history books Updated 4/5/2006 1:36 AM By Kasie Hunt, USA TODAY Most high school students in the USA probably don't know that tens of thousands of Mexican-Americans — many of them legal residents or even U.S. citizens — were forcibly sent to Mexico during the depths of the Depression. That's because few history books even mention it.

Related story: U.S. urged to apologize for deportations

A USA TODAY survey of the nine American history textbooks most commonly used in middle schools and high schools found that four don't mention the deportations at all. Only one devotes more than half a page to the topic.

For social activists, textbooks are the most important vehicle for trying to raise awareness about controversial or sensitive periods in U.S. history — "the issues that I didn't learn in school," says Greg Marutani, who heads the education committee of the Japanese American Citizens League. His group tries to increase awareness among students of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II by developing curriculum guides and holding seminars for teachers.

According to the survey, the nine textbooks devote a total of 18 pages to the internment issue, compared with two pages on the coerced Mexican-American emigration.

While textbooks are critical in shaping public understanding of issues, changing textbooks isn't easy.

"Most histories are designed to make people feel good" about their country, says John Womack, a history professor at Harvard University. He says people of Mexican ancestry were coerced into leaving the United States in the 1930s because many small border-state towns, hit with a scarcity of jobs, were "thoroughly racist." But he says it is difficult to put such negative comments into textbooks that states purchase for their schools.

Financial realities also make change difficult. "Once a textbook enters a classroom, it stays there for a number of years," says Gilbert Sewall, director of the American

10 Textbook Council, because schools invest a significant amount of money in a set of books. Sewall says a list of the most popular high school textbooks changes "glacially."

Bureaucracy is another factor slowing the pace. Curriculum guidelines are written by state education departments, and each state maintains its own list of approved textbooks. No single agency can change textbooks. "There has never been a federal mandate on textbook content," Sewall says. "It's a state issue" that would have to be dealt with one state capital at a time.

Even if a state takes an official position on an controversial topic, actually getting the issue into textbooks can be complicated. In January, California formally apologized to Mexican-Americans for the Depression-era deportations. However, high schools in California — unlike middle schools — are not required to select books from a state- approved list.

The federal government provides funding for independent educational projects, which can have a trickle-down effect. In 1988, when Congress formally apologized to Japanese- Americans over internment and paid $20,000 per person in reparations, it also created the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund. The fund dispensed $3.3 million aimed at raising public awareness of the issue.

Dale Shimasaki, executive director of the fund until it expired in 1998, says one law school's curriculum project assembled a legal text on the topic, and a project at the University of Arkansas created a curriculum now required for all of the state's seventh- and eighth-graders.

Shimasaki says a similar project could help Mexican-Americans raise awareness about the deportation issue. "The parallels are very striking and very eerie," he says.

The Japanese American Citizens League's Marutani says both groups still have work to do. "We have achieved what we need to if someone said to a high school grad, 'Can you name some examples where the U.S. government mistreated its citizens?' and they could answer correctly," he says.

11 Appendix 4: During Viewing Worksheet 1

Inequalities and mistreatments in school Student Demands Leading factors to Action

Keywords: Camp; The mentor: Sal Castro

Keywords: Corporal Punishment for using…

st 1 Meetings/ Proposed Strategies Bonus Box For you thoughts!

Keywords: Bicultural education, Mexican food, Cultural heritage, College counseling for all Keywords: Board of Education meeting, what did they learn, why did they choose a walkout as their display of protest? Outcome, the happy ending

Opposition

Walkout Keywords: Chicano college enrollment12 rate

Keywords: Police; labeled as “radical youths”; School pressuring Paula Crisostomo

Obstacles to equality then Inequalities then Student Demands then

Appendix 5 1968 … back then & 20__ __ … are things still the same today? What are the conditions at your school?

Would it be easier to strike for equality today? Why?

What would you demand today? Do these inequalities exist still?

Resource Box: CNN’s Corporal Punishment News Clip: “More than 200,000 children were spanked or paddled in U.S. schools during the past school year…Corporal punishment in schools remains legal in 21 U.S. states and is used frequently in 13.” URL:http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/20/cor poral.punishment/index.html

13 Appendix 6: African American Civil Rights Movement Timeline

(From PBS, African American World. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.html)

1954 -In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

1955 -Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system.

1956 -The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregation of Montgomery, Ala., buses is unconstitutional.

1957 -The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work for full equality for African Americans. -For the first time since Reconstruction, the federal government uses the military to uphold African Americans' civil rights, as soldiers escort nine African American students to desegregate a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Daisy Bates, an NAACP leader, advised and assisted the students and eventually had a state holiday dedicated to her.

1960 -Four African American college students hold a sit-in to integrate a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., launching a wave of similar protests across the South.

1961 -The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins to organize Freedom Rides throughout the South to try to de-segregate interstate public bus travel.

1962 -African American radical Malcolm X becomes national minister of the Nation of Islam. He rejects the nonviolent civil-rights movement and integration, and becomes a champion of African American separatism and black pride. At one point he states that equal rights should be secured "by any means necessary," a position he later revises.

1963 -More than 200,000 people march on Washington, D.C., in the largest civil rights demonstration ever; Martin Luther King, Jr., gives his "I Have a Dream" speech. - Four African American girls are killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. - Martin Luther King, Jr., writes his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," his famous statement about the civil rights movement.

14 1964 - The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), CORE and the NAACP and other civil-rights groups organize a massive African American voter registration drive in Mississippi known as "Freedom Summer." Three CORE civil rights workers are murdered. In the five years following Freedom Summer, black voter registration in Mississippi will rise from a mere 7 percent to 67 percent. - President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, which gives the federal government far-reaching powers to prosecute discrimination in employment, voting, and education. - Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1965 -One year after splitting from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X is assassinated in New York by gunmen affiliated with the NOI. - King organizes a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, for African American voting rights. A shocked nation watches on television as police club and teargas protesters. -In the wake of the Selma-Montgomery March, the Voting Rights Act is passed, outlawing the practices used in the South to disenfranchise African American voters

1966 -Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seales found the Black Panther Party, a radical black power group, in Oakland, California. Although it develops a reputation for militant rhetoric and clashes with the police, the group also becomes a national organization that supports food, education, and healthcare programs in poor African American communities. - The holiday of Kwanzaa, based on African harvest festivals, is created in the U.S. by an activist scholar, Maulana Ron Karenga.

1967 -Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American justice on the Supreme Court.

1968 -Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His murder sparks a week of rioting across the country.

15 Appendix 7: Chicano Civil Rights Movement Timeline

(Compiled by Katrina Jagodinsky, Teaching American History Grant Website, The University of Arizona)

1950's Immigration from Mexico doubles from 5.9% to 11.9% of total US immigrants. 1954 In Hernandez v. Texas , the Supreme Court recognizes that Hispanics are a separate class of people suffering profound discrimination. 1954-58 Operation Wetback deports 3.8 million persons of Mexican descent. 1965 The National Farm Workers Association meets in a Delano church and vote to join the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee strike. Chavez' National Farm Workers Association begins its grape boycott. 1966 Rodolfo Acuña starts teaching the first Mexican American history class in Los Angeles . Cesar Chavez leads a march from Delano to Sacramento , CA , taking 25 days and arriving on Easter Sunday. The United Farm Workers wins a contract with a major grape grower. 1967 The Mexican American Youth Organization is formed on college campuses in Texas . David Sanchez forms the Brown Berets to begin a series of pickets in front of police stations. 1968 Cesar Chavez begins a 25-day fast near Delano, stating that he is fasting in penitence for farm workers' moral problems and talk of violence. Denver Chicanos begin a boycott of Coors Brewery for discriminatory hiring. Students protest educational and military draft policies and walk out of schools in California and Texas . 1974 The Southwest Voter Registration Education Project is established. Raul Castro becomes the first Chicano governor of Arizona . 1975 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is extended to Hispanic Americans.

16