Wrong speakers for Deer Valley students
I disagree with the Antioch Unified School Districts’ decision to allow activists Dolores Huerta and Rigoberta Menchu to address Deer Valley High School students. If the district was seeking to empower youths and enable them to look at issues with a greater world view they should have stayed away from controversial speakers with specific agendas.
Dolores Huerta, a Latino Civil rights activist, co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW) and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, promotes labor unions, “sustainable” communities and “social justice”. Social justice is a Marxist theory touting economic equality (redistribution of wealth) for all classes in society. The UFW backed the recent Take Our Jobs” campaign which urged people to apply for agricultural jobs held by undocumented workers.
Rigoberta Menchu rose to fame in 1982 when a series of her taped interviews became the basis for a ghost-written autobiography. In 1999, however, anthropologist David Stoll published Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans, citing numerous examples of inaccuracy on key points e.g. she couldn’t have been forced to watch her brother burned to death because she was elsewhere at the time and secondly, no rebels were ever burned to death in the town. (Her brother was executed for being a rebel.) Stoll’s book caused a clamor for the Nobel Foundation to revoke her award. Menchu initially denied she had fabricated anything but later relented and said she may have exaggerated certain aspects of her life story. She remains a controversial figure.
Barbara Zivica
