www.montereycountynow.com MAy 30-june 5, 2024 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 13 A conversation with Maximiliano Barraza Hernandez, an outgoing ninth-grader at Pajaro Valley High School, feels like going to an introductory college course in what some on the right might dismiss as “wokeness.” As he wraps up an ethnic literature studies class, he talks about social issues like the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration and how the patriarchy negatively affects men. “It’s this endless cycle where men hurt other men and they are traumatized, and the cycle keeps going,” he says. I’m talking to Barraza Hernandez and his younger sister, eighth-grader Ixel Barraza Hernandez, because they and their parents have become leaders of an emerging movement in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District (which includes part of North Monterey County). Their dad, Gabriel Barraza (who is Mexican American), emphasizes the importance of the curriculum in a majority-Latino district. “If you close your eyes and picture someone as American, you are not going to picture someone who looks like me,” he says. But his vision is for more than inclusion—he also reflects on growing up in a community steeped in racist language toward Black, Chinese and Filipino neighbors. “We all have that capacity to carry this inside of us. What makes you different is that you make the decision, every single day, to not be that way,” he says. Their mom, Lourdes Barraza Hernandez, notes that her children’s learning has far outpaced her own growing up, first in Mexico then in Watsonville. “I attended K-8 schools here, but I never had a class like that,” she says. “When I went to college, I thought that racism was something from the past. It wasn’t until I went to Occidental that I got smacked in the face with racism.” This family might be unusually sophisticated in their discussion of structural racism. But in many ways, they represent the future norm after California’s ethnic studies curriculum requirement takes effect. Per 2021 legislation, high schools in the state must begin offering one semester of ethnic studies for the Class of 2030, meaning such coursework must be offered by the 2025-26 school year. Many districts, like PVUSD, are ahead of that requirement. But exactly what to teach and how to teach it remain flashpoints of controversy. In PVUSD, it became controversial two years into a three-year contract with the Oakland-based firm Community Responsive Education, which had been hired starting in 2021 to guide teachers and administrators in developing and implementing a framework for teaching ethnic studies. But CRE founder Allyson TintiangcoCubales—who’d also been hired to chair the committee developing the California Department of Education’s model curriculum for ethnic studies—came under fire for the model curriculum’s failure to completely and accurately depict the historic and ongoing struggle of antisemitism. (According to news reports at the time, the original 600page curriculum made only two mentions each of the Holocaust and antisemitism, compared with 317 mentions of Chicanos, 303 of Mexicans and 236 of Black people. In the model curriculum adopted in 2021, I count 58 mentions of antisemitism and 15 mentions of the Holocaust.) The controversy led the PVUSD board to abruptly vote not to complete year three of the district’s contract with the firm. It’s also had the unintended effect of mobilizing dozens of students and parents to form a new coalition engaged in school district matters. What began as Zoom meetings among about a dozen people has developed into repeat rallies at PVUSD board meetings of students and parents asking for a chance to weigh in on the CRE contract. As of May 20, it’s evolved into a coalition called Pajaro Valley for Ethnic Studies and Justice, which held its first in-person town hall meeting, featuring TintiangcoCubales as a guest who presented to some 75 people in the audience. I expect the coalition to run candidates, engage in a coming bond measure and more. “They ignored the community, and they created this mini movement,” Gabriel says. He adds that ethnic studies was never meant to be confined to the classroom, but to have real-life application: “Thank you for helping us to put it into action.” Sara Rubin is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com. Culture Warriors Ethnic studies contract causes a rift in PVUSD—and a community group. By Sara Rubin No Comment…Squid enjoys trading sea snail mail for fun, but only uses it for work if Squid can’t get a response any other way. That’s how Squid’s colleague tried to reach the management at Pacifica Senior Living, the San Diego-based company that owns Pacific Grove Senior Living, to no avail. The company came under fire in a report produced at the request of the California Attorney General, which found a series of failures. The Weekly couldn’t get a response by phone, email or snail mail. But Squid still wanted to know what Pacifica had to say about the findings, so Squid oozed over to a meeting at PGSL on May 15. After an hour’s worth of updates to a roomful of residents about things like menus and landscaping, Pacifica VP Beau Ayers finally acknowledged the elephant in the room: the scathing report. “I am not here to go through it line by line,” he said. “There are things that were disputed and refuted within this report.” A resident asked: “Can you specify what things?” Instead of a specific response, Ayers said: “The majority of it.” The crowd laughed. He took some heat from residents for the company’s marketing, which portrays the retirement community as high-end. Speaking to a small group afterward, Ayers said that’s just how marketing goes: “Everyone says they’re the best.” Squid asked for a copy of the company’s response to the AG, but got nothing. Squid can only imagine what it might say: “We think we’re the best.” Code Breakers…Squid has done Squid’s best to follow the Golden Rule as taught by Granny Squid— Squid would hope everyone would do the same, but that’s not the case. Hence why we have rules, laws and, sometimes, codes of conduct. On May 15, Pacific Grove City Council considered updating its own code to allow censure of councilmembers for violations—but in the end it was left toothless. To be fair, the proposal brought by Councilmember Joe Amelio had issues: It included no process for how to perform a censure. Amelio offered to bring back an amended version, but was rebuffed. While the proposal focused on policing behavior, opponents talked as if it was about silencing others. Councilmember Luke Coletti (whose behavior has come under scrutiny in the last two years, still discussed in closed-session meetings) said a recent surge in censures in other cities “reflects a quasi-religious obsession with policing expression and tone.” Without naming names, he scolded Amelio and his lone supporter, Councilmember Chaps Poduri, saying: “This whole thing, going to war, it’s over, OK. We did it, it’s done with, time to move on.” Mayor Bill Peake said including censure would be a “tyranny of the majority.” Minutes later, a majority voted down the proposed code of conduct, 4-2. the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. “I thought racism was something from the past.” Send Squid a tip: squid@montereycountynow.com
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