Before taking a Mexican American studies class — also known as MAS — Franklin High School student Karen Jimenez didn’t know the Aztecs called themselves the Mexica when they founded the city of Tenochitlan, the historic center of modern-day Mexico City.
Her classmate Leo Arrata didn’t know migrant workers entering El Paso in the early 1900’s through the U.S.-Mexico border were stripped naked and sprayed with hazardous delousing chemicals. This included Zyklon B, a poisonous gas that was used in Nazi death camps.
“We don’t talk about this and it’s just so crazy, it’s shocking to learn about,” Arrata said last month at the one-year anniversary of Cafecito y MAS, a monthly community meeting discussing Mexican American studies hosted by his Franklin High School history teacher Karina Echavarri.…