There is a misrepresentation of what diversity means and its implication on the Public Education in the United States. United States public schools have become a battleground for contending educational and social philosophies. Some school rejects the emerging multicultural curriculum while others argues for greater recognition of the diverse cultures that are increasingly represented in our rapidly expanding population; specially Hispanics. Despite the facts that some public schools served all students (not students let behind Act), Mexican American children during the first four decades of the twenty-century was limited to elementary grades. I believe we still have discrimination in public schools, maybe not to extend like were in the old times, but now we called it different: " Multiculturalism-. Most of the school board members now and then; still unsympathetic to diversity. .
We have seen it in the Lone Star movie, which is a rich and rewarding exploration of the tensions and attractions between the people of this multi-racial community. The screenplay avoids platitudes and easy answers, and treats the characters as individuals, rather than symbols or idealized stereotypes. Various political, racial, and familial tensions in this small community are also revealed through the experience of an African American officer (Joe Morton), who has returned home to head a military base, and through the personal struggles of a Mexican-American teacher (Elizabeth Pena), who does battle with an angry school board upset over her multicultural approach to the history of the Alamo. Throughout the story, which gracefully moves back and forth between the past and the present, memory is the catalyst for present-day realizations and changes.
This is a story of the Great Possibility, what America COULD be, and what it has lost by not working past its prejudices and fears. Lone Star is most intimately concerned with how different cultures and generations mix, match, and interact in a place where anglos have the wealth and power.
