outside wall of Galeria de la Raza, a gallery in San Francisco's Mission District.

Clark is not Hispanic. Her father is African-American. Her mother is Native American. And she proudly touts herself as the product of the Tucson Unified School District's ethnic studies program. The very one Tom Horne's intent on destroying.

"It's very deep political consciousness that they give you," she told me over lunch in Tucson, referring to her ethnic studies. "So you can see the root factors of things.

"This is not just an immigration problem, it's an economic problem. Because all of the people coming up to the U.S. are economic refugees. They've lost their work, they've lost their livelihood down in Mexico because of U.S. trade policies."

Like many on the left, Clark points an accusing fingerat the North American Free Trade Agreement, which critics say has devalued the price of corn in Mexico and helped impoverish many Mexicans, thus forcing them to flee north for work.

The ethnic studies program did not teach her this, per se, rather it taught her how to think critically. At age 16, she was already reading Howard Zinn's influential A People's History of the Unites States and comparing it to other U.S. histories. Pretty advanced stuff for a 16-year-old.

Anglos are not excluded from the classes, according to Clark. She told me that students read Chicano literature, African-American literature, and Native American literature, among other writings.

"It's very diverse," she said. "And it teaches you to have self-consciousness about other cultures. A lot of the students end up studying anthropology