Indigenous Educators

Indigenous educators fight for an accurate history of California, article by Allison Herrera. Source link; HCN paywalls after 4 articles

In other words, the Golden State understands that it has a problem with what it’s teaching its children. It just isn’t doing much about it.

• “In the 1950s, after renovations were complete, visitors could wander into the chapel and see statues of saints and pictures of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the stucco walls. They could see the simple wooden pews that still filled the church and, outside, the stones once used to grind grain, and then wander through the Spanish-style garden with its large gray fountain, rose bushes and lemon trees that glowed in the California sun. Tour guides typically avoided the darker details of its history, of course, such as the 4,000 Salinan tribal members buried in a mass grave about 500 feet from the church — their deaths and disposal a final reward for their work in building the mission. At 9 years old, Castro first saw the burial site and its marker: A crudely made sign, better suited for a spaghetti Western, that just read “Indian Graves.” / “My parents would say they ‘got sick and passed away,’ ” recalls Castro. “Euphemisms. These ways of blunting the terrifying truth of it: That they died by the thousands building these missions.””
• “Castro remembers his dad telling him, “Know who you are and be proud of it, but don’t tell anyone.” That was the fear talking — fear passed down from parents and grandparents who remembered when it was still legal to kill Indians in California.”
• AB738, Native American curriculum model, but no funding for training, development, textbooks of Native American studies

“If it is ugly to teach children to revere the great Americans of the past, to cherish the traditions of our country, to hate communism and its creatures, then I say let’s be ugly.”

• “The Passing of the Patriot”, Max Rafferty; Reaganist conservative sermon
  • CA superintendent, 1962–1970
• 1960s college campus protests on Vietnam War and onwards (preceding 0101)
• Father Junipero Serra
• Rupert and Jeannette Costo
  • American Indian Historical Society – “The Society”
  • Indian Historian Press: Genocide in Northwestern California, Jack Norton; Native newspaper Wassaja
  • precedent to 1969 Alcatraz occupation
  • 1968 testimonies for Indian Education
  • 1965+ California Curriculum Commission advisory member
    • rejection of romanticized, misinformed text
  • Institute for Teachers alternative school of education
• grassroots approaches to specific curricula creation
• national movement
• “In his opinion, children can handle difficult truths; it’s the parents who have a problem.”
• “His mom taught Sunday school and his grandfather hosted catechism classes, though he never became Catholic. In Castro’s eyes, his mom accepted the church because she saw the similarities between Salinan values and Christian teachings: generosity, kindness, taking care of others. His dad had those values too, Castro says, but unlike his mother, his father never forgave the church.”