Civil rights group rebuffs member, supports Ethnic Studies

RIO RANCHO, N.M. (AP) — The nation’s oldest Latino civil rights organization said Friday it strongly supports Ethnic Studies programs in colleges and won’t participate in the “glorification of historical figures” or defend monuments that eulogize violence like those around Spanish conquistadors.

The League of United Latin American Citizens said Ethnic Studies programs in universities across the U.S. should be defended and vowed to celebrate “Indo-Latinx-Afro history” after a member publicly called for some programs at the University of New Mexico to be censored.

“LULAC supports the growth and establishment of Ethnic Studies programs and departments especially those that address the hidden, suppressed and silenced voices of our Latinx, Chicanx and Indigenous ancestors, past and future,” the group said in a statement. “A central component of Ethnic Studies is the story of survival and resistance against colonialism in the Americas...a story that includes the destruction, suppression, and marginalization of the original peoples of the Americas. ”

The statement came after New Mexico LULAC Executive Director Ralph Arellanes wrote to the president of the state’s largest university that the school should dismantle some Ethnic Studies programs and censor classes.

Arellanes, who signed that letter in his role of New Mexico LULAC executive director and chair of the Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico, said he has collected stories of Hispanic students “leaving classrooms crying” after being told by professors that Spanish conquistadors participated in genocide against Indigenous populations.

“The Hispano Roundtable of New Mexico, New Mexico LULAC and our many expert historians in New Mexico request a meeting with you to discuss our concerns,” Arellanes wrote. “We will be calling for the removal...