Op-Ed: Reclaiming Public Spaces: Renaming Robert E. Lee Elementary
Story by Margarita Gonzalez (she/her)
Edited by Nina Alegre
In the Fall of 2020, amidst the national reckoning with systemic racism following George Floyd’s murder, the Edinburg and Rio Grande Valley community came together to decry the racist, white-supremacist namesake of the local elementary on Sugar Road. Residents demanded that the school board change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary, and after a short grassroots campaign spearheaded by local activists, were met with approval.
To their credit, Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District (ECISD) was responsive and quick to establish a process for the community to nominate individuals for the new name.
However, the process was abruptly halted after this development, and the school board has ignored inquiries of “Why?” for the last five years. What has kept Edinburg CISD from removing this Confederate monument?
Two anonymous inside sources who work closely with the school board shared that “the school board just doesn’t want to change the name” and that “it’s history, it happened, that’s how we’re teaching it.” The blatant disregard and disrespect for the democratic process established for residents to rename the school is overwhelming, as is their faulty logic on how to teach something like the Confederacy.
Recognizing History, Not Idolatry
Robert E. Lee Elementary, which was named in 1957, was named at a time when segregationists were fighting to stop integration and the Civil Rights Movement.
Chandra Manning, a professor of history at Georgetown University, said the naming of schools after Confederate soldiers accelerated in the 1950s after the government mandated desegregation as a tactic to make Black students feel unwelcome.
With this context, the school’s refusal to change the name becomes part of the long history of discrimination in Southern states. Recognizing history is important, and it is essential to teach history appropriately to honor good people and changemakers. Being the namesake for an institution, building, or street is an indication of celebration and reverence. We do not teach about who Hitler was with statues of Hitler or with institutions named after him.
Comparatively, Robert E. Lee was an extremely racist man whose legacy was fighting for the Confederacy’s “right” to enslave other people. Just like The Third Reich fell, The Confederacy lost the war. The Union won, and freedom for Black Americans was enshrined in our Constitution.
The Edinburg namesake was problematic from the start and throughout the decades, as it existed unchallenged. The school board’s inaction and abandonment of the renaming procedure are enormously offensive to all Edinburg and RGV residents who made their voices heard in 2020 and 2022. If the school board is okay with ignoring such a popular initiative, who else are they comfortable with ignoring, too? Students who may have grievances?
ECISD’s behavior is rooted in anti-Blackness and is anti-democratic through their choice of upholding the name of a hateful white supremacist man. They are sending a message of anti-inclusivity, hurting Black students and their families who live in the Rio Grande Valley.
Higher Expectations for Institutional Decorum
ECISD can do better, and they have. Many of its existing schools are named after local educators, such as the Carmen V. Avila Elementary, named after the educator and the first Hispanic to graduate from The University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA), there is also the Melissa D. Betts Elementary, named after one of the first African American teachers in the Valley, the Robert De La Vina Elementary, named after a local educator and AirForce man, the Anne L. Magee Elementary, named after yet another local educator, and finally, the Alfonso Ramirez Elementary, named after the first Mexican-American Mayor in Edinburg.
Knowing Our Own History, Decolonization and Gloria E. Anzaldúa Elementary
The activists behind the 2020 renaming initiative pushed for the Robert E. Lee Elementary rename to be that of Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa Elementary. Gloria E. Anzaldúa was a native of the Rio Grande Valley who graduated from Edinburg High School and UTPA. Anzaldúa later became a world-renowned author, poet, activist and scholar.
Anzaldúa wrote about her experiences growing up as a farmworker, often writing about the Valley and how borderland regions affect our identity. She was a literature powerhouse and an LGBTQIA+ icon. She wrote prominently on feminist theory, queer theory and Chicanx history.
Many who have become familiar with Anzaldúa in college come to notice her lack of recognition in Edinburg—which for me, upon noticing, was a historical omission that filled me with grief; her absence hurt, and it was offensive.
My motivation behind pushing for Anzaldúa was thinking of what it would have been like to grow up knowing who Anzaldúa was, to know someone so extraordinary came from my hometown, whose work was resonant on identity in multiple ways—for a young queer Chicana growing up in a homophobic environment, she would have been empowering and healthy for my sense of self. I want youth in the RGV to grow up with that sense of empowerment, the pride in being from the border and Mexican-American, of being queer.
On this panel, Guadalupe Pardo and myself address these topics in-depth.
We need appropriate role models that the youth can relate to, look up to and be inspired by.
Standardized history in Texas has historically been taught from the ethnocentrism of an American, so children of color are often taught to revere figures that were also our oppressors, such as the valorizing of Anglo-Texans at The Alamo, who fought to keep slavery within the newly annexed Texas—versus Mexican-Americans, our ancestors, who fought to keep their land and were staunchly anti-slavery.
Another example is the positive regard in which José De Escandon is held, with a statue of him featured at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, despite his status as the Rio Grande Valley’s first colonizer.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa was not the only popular name among candidates appropriate for the name change; other suggested names included local educators like Emilia Schunior Ramirez and Homero Cano. However, the support for Gloria E. Anzaldúa submitted put her overwhelmingly in first place, with 217 votes out of 828 submissions.
Edinburg’s Conservative Political Culture Hurts Progress
Edinburg politicians, of which ECISD’s school board members are known for being overly conservative and out-of-step with progressive RGV youth, from the 2021 anti-abortion ban attempted by the city council, to the school board’s reluctance to teach comprehensive reproductive health. These politicians celebrate a culture of reactionary conservatism.
It is easy to speculate that school board members might have had a homophobic reaction to Anzaldúa’s winning nomination for the elementary school’s new name, contributing to their shelving of the idea. This would make ECISD’s behavior of ignoring constituents offensive both to residents of African American descent and to those who identify as LGBTQIA+.
“Just not wanting to” as the logic to ignore this name change, especially after a democratic process was implemented for the rename, is immature, racist and insulting to all constituents who participated in this communal, inclusive process; it’s insulting to students of the same identities.
According to Lutzker & Lutzker’s law firm, “in the case of public schools, certain approvals must be obtained before a name change,” which was done when the board unanimously voted to change the name in August 2020. “The first step can usually be done quickly with historic figures where there is political will. The later selection process may take some time to get right.”
ECISD was halfway done with the renaming, so has the selection and renaming process been abandoned?
On this Action Network page, you can email the superintendent and board members, asking them to acknowledge and explain the delay in renaming the school and to resume the selection process. There is also an Instagram page dedicated to archiving activism and organizing efforts in Edinburg and providing updates to ongoing projects such as the renaming of Robert E. Lee Elementary.
