Georgina Perez: Homegirl of the Week

Its been awhile since I've given this out and if anyone deserves it lately its State Board of Education Member Georgina Perez.

I spend a lot of time being critical of local leaders. Especially on issues having to do with raza. Hell I'm known for taking attendance at the Cesar Chavez march and counting all the brown elected officials that don't even show up for that.

But as you read this post ask yourself, what have you done since last Thursday?

Well, Member Perez helped a young lady graduating in Tornillo work with Congressman O'Rourke's office to secure a temporary VISA for her mother to be able to cross the border and watch her graduation ceremony.

Then, as a Democrat in a 10-5 Republican majority board (meaning Republicans have quorum with 8 of their 10 members and literally don't need Democrats to show up) she was able to pass Mexican American Studies on the State Board of Education. While other states are eliminating that coursework in high school, especially in the Trump era, Perez led the charge to pass it, making Texas the first state to do so.

Then, for an encore, she was able to get Dolores Huerta back into social studies courses in the state of Texas. For those of you with no frame of reference, this is a board that a few years ago was overtly racist, removed Huerta from text books, and had a board member who wanted the idea that dinosaurs roamed the earth with man put into Texas curriculum.

To give you an idea of how bad things were, the SBOE refused to include slavery as even one of the causes of the Civil War. Well, she changed that too!

But thats not why I'm making her Home Girl of the Week. She's HGOTW because of the adversity she's had to face along the way this week. Racists and xenophobes have attacked her for helping that young lady get permission for her mother to watch her graduate.

On the other side, she has her own raza trying to burn her in effigy because they threw a tantrum over the name of the ethnic studies course for brown people. Even after Perez did a lot of politicking with her Republican colleagues on the board to successfully change the name back to Mexican American Studies, which was something none of the other Democrats had the pull to be able to accomplish, she is still getting heat from our own raza.

The protesters started referring to her as a "Lone Wolf". Perez embraced the intended insult, which is the most Chicana thing ever, and worse a big brooch of a wolf to the meeting this week.

Looks like she gave some haters the proverbial finger with her hashtags in this tweet following the vote too!

Why, because she wasn't vocal enough for protesters during the meeting. Well thats because the only thing some members can do is pitch a fit to give the appearance that they are putting up a fight. Others actually do the hard work away from the public eye to get things done. Some what credit, some just want to get the job done.

She even had one of the protesters threaten her with an opponent after the first meeting this week. Which was hilarious when you find out who the alleged opponent was going to be. Seriously, my sides are still hurting from laughing so hard when I heard who it was.

By the way, the vote was unanimous, so the heat really is misplaced.

Some people are show ponies, some are work horses.

SBOE Member Georgina Perez - Homegirl of the Week.