Somos MÁS: (De)liberating Solidarity in the Aftermath of Arizona's Ethnic Studies Ban

In 2010, Arizona garnered national attention for the passage of House Bill 2281, better known as the Ethnic Studies Ban. From the moment lawmakers introduced the legislation, students, teachers, and their allies immediately... [ view full abstract ]

In 2010, Arizona garnered national attention for the passage of House Bill 2281, better known as the Ethnic Studies Ban. From the moment lawmakers introduced the legislation, students, teachers, and their allies immediately began a series of sit-ins and walkouts aimed at blocking the passage and implementation of the ban. It came as no surprise that the backers of the law as well as many media outlets portrayed the Save Ethnic Studies protests as disrespectful and out-of-line, using them as evidence that ethnic studies courses corrupted otherwise well-behaved students by breeding dissent and incivility.

What was much more surprising was the way incivility was also deployed within the Save Ethnic Studies movement to discipline ‘unruly’ voices. These internal divisions are the focus of Milta Ortiz’s 2015 docudrama MÁS, based on her interviews with teachers, students, and other activists central to the movement. The play reveals the breakdown of the Save Ethnic Studies coalition, exposing disagreements over the methods and meaning of the struggle for social justice in Arizona. Writing five years after both the banning of the courses and the breakdown of the coalition, Ortiz opens old wounds with the clear intention to reopen, at least symbolically, lines of closed communication. This paper argues that MÁS creates a productively undisciplined conversation about the possibilities of and limitations to coalitions of solidarity by creating aesthetically what no longer exists in actuality, a dialogue between dissenting voices. By delinking this dissent from the destruction of the coalition, MÁS proposes that incivility is not an obstacle to but rather a fundamental part of successful and sustainable solidarity.