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LULAC Demands Texas Substitute Teacher Be Permanently Disqualified From Instructing Students Following Racists Remarks

Nation’s Oldest & Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization is Calling on the Texas Education Agency, a State with a Racist History of Banning Spanish in Public Schools, to Permanently Disqualify a Socorro School District Substitute Teacher from Instructing Students

El Paso, TX - Today, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) issued a statement demanding that the Texas Education Agency and Socorro Independent School District permanently ban the substitute teacher who told a male Hispanic student: “Speak English, we’re in America.” The incident was caught on camera. LULAC President Domingo Garcia and LULAC El Paso District Director Mary Yañez issued the following statements in response to the incident which is now being investigated by the Socorro Independent School District, a city outside of El Paso:

“The substitute teacher caught on camera telling a student to ‘Speak English’ must be permanently banned from instructing students effective immediately. Teachers and all school staff are meant to be leaders and mentors to our children – not racists who harbor anti-immigrant sentiments,” said Domingo Garcia, LULAC National President. “From 1918 until the Texas Bilingual Act in 1969, Texas laws banned Spanish in public schools and many of us remember personally that this was enforced with humiliating corporal punishment in schools. It is abominable that this institutionalized racism against the Hispanic community in Texas hasn’t ended.”

“The days when a Hispanic student’s mouth would get washed with soap for speaking Spanish are long gone,” said Mary Yañez, LULAC El Paso District Director. “We ask the Socorro Independent School District to investigate this matter and if racial comments were made by the teacher, she should be banned from teaching.”

About LULAC
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit https://lulac.org/