3rd grade - SERIOUSLY biased education

Now that the summer break is looming ahead, my eldest son brings home all the projects from the 2010-2011 school year. Among those was an impressively illustrated folder about "Communities Long Ago" talking about groups of people that were constitutive of this country. It starts out with 'African Americans': While of course bringing on the issue of slavery, thankfully the group's characteristics are not limited to the role of victimized, but include a reference to Harriet Tubman.
Next, comes the group 'Colonial Americans', and unsurprisingly, nothing wrong can be said (obviously from the teacher's point of view) about them. I'll spare you the details.
But then, I became irate with the group of the 'Pioneers': Those brave fellows who traveled West "looking for new land" (not so much taking away land already occupied for centuries, oh no!) and UH-OH, they "suffered droughts, floods, Indian attacks, disease, and starvation to claim THEIR FREE LAND". Ahem, EXCUSE ME? so Native Americans defending their families, tribe and land, are equivalent to disease and natural disasters.
Let's turn to see what the teachers had to say about the next group, 'Native Americans': "This group had a conflict with white men over land ownership". Now THAT understatement of the year got me all riled up; they are actually trying to teach my child that the dispossession and genocide of Native Americans was a legal problem and somehow legitimate?

Every week it becomes evident that there is an urgent need as a parent to be involved in your child's education, to defy stereotypical representations of minorities and offer different perspectives to ethno-centric teaching approaches.

Fifteen years after Beijing

Fifteen years after Beijing

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Human trafficking in South Florida

I really enjoy living in South Florida, not merely for visits to the beach with the kids on weekends, and the tropical climate, but in particular for its cultural diversity. Many others are lured to a place under the US sun out of profound economic distress or political persecution, and then there are those forced here to be enslaved and exploited.

Reading a Miami Herald article this morning on human trafficking in South Florida, and about a gang of Latin American pimps whose network of private brothels was recently busted, I was disgusted by one reader’s [ktmbpilot] comment:

"This is what [sic] to their fellow countrymen/women. What will they do to you? This is classic example of why many do not want Hispanics allowed into the USA"

So what, back to the racist generalizing mode? Like, say, all Germans are Nazis, all Colombians are drug dealers, all Native Americans are lazy …? We have heard that one before, and all that such sweeping oversimplifications do is to corroborate not the veracity of the statement itself, but the racist ignorance of the venter.

But let’s not dwell on the racist remark per se, rather focus on the double-standards applied: I don’t need to engage in deeper market economics here to explain the intricate laws of supply and demand. Who exactly are the people that exploit enslaved Hispanic women at a rate of $25 that leaves their pimps with ‘revenues’ of $ 2,500 a week? Any chance these delinquents simply cater for the needs of the oh so decent brigade of (while, male) American Mr Cleans that the commentator implies are to be favored to the heinous and wicked Hispanics ‘invading’ US soil?

Also, let's not forget that in many countries, including the US, Native women have been disproportionally impacted by sexual exploitation. For evidence to this outrageous crime refer to the Shattered Hearts report on Native American victims in Minnesota, or to the website MissingJustice that pillories trafficking of young Aboriginal girls in Canada.

At times, it seems futile to post responses on the web to all scum that is out there, but nonetheless there is this urge to set things into a different perspective. And let’s pray that the organizations involved in the relief efforts for Haiti will set sufficient mechanisms in place to ensure that human trafficking will not victimize the numerous children orphaned by the devastating quake.

Civil*ice*age*ion

Heading back from a trip with my kids to an environmental and marine preservation center, I happened to see a sign on a humungous gas-guzzler speeding by, that read “‘Global Warming’ – A greater Scam than Madoff”. Well, given the fuel-comfort most Americans - and for that matter, most industrialized nations - seem to enjoy, combined with a large helping of ignorance that waives all wake-up calls, layered with Republican rhetoric frosting, and sprinkled with a general interest limited to national concerns as this individual displayed, such a sign comes as no surprise – yet, still succeeds in annoying me.

Whereas the disillusionment with the Cophenhagen show still lingers on, one comes to wonder as to why exactly the 'developed' industrialized world considers itself more 'civilized' than non-Western ‘others’? Dependence on fuel, intoxicating ground water with garbage, burdening landfills with non-recyclable items, convenience food, plastic bottles, and the list goes on … that is what supposedly determines an enlightened civilization?

I guess it’s back to the question how you define civilization. Reading a chapter book from the Magic Tree House series to my 2nd-grader, I found myself disgusted with the way in which civilization was explained in the usual ethno-centric validation of Euro-American cultures:

"Monks sat at wooden tables. Some were reading. Others played chess. Best of all, some were writing and painting in books. ‘This is our library,’ said Brother Patrick. ‘Here we study math, history, and poetry. We play chess. And we make books.’
‘Jack,’ said Annie. ‘I think this is it.’
‘What?’ said Jack. ‘Civilization!’ said Annie."

A European myself, I think it is central for my children to learn about European culture and civilization, but I vociferously refuse to have them learning that European culture is either the only, the superior, or the right version of civilization.

What about the markers of civilizations of so-called ‘other’ cultures, invaded, endangered, oppressed, marginalized, or destroyed by so-called Western modernity? Griots or storytellers in pre-colonial kingdoms of the African Sahara? Carvings by Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand? The list is endless, but it reminds me of a recent instance in which a non-European, ‘other’ form of history was endorsed and acknowledged: The “Delgamuukw v. British Columbia” trial; In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in this land rights trial that oral histories were just as important as written testimony.

It is unfortunate that an acknowledgement of ‘other’, non-Western, in particular indigenous traditional historiographies continues to be largely amiss in dominant, ‘Western’ cultures. And it is precisely in children’s literature where we need to see a more encompassing approach to how we teach global histories.

However, I have to give Osborne credit in that she included a foreword, where she explains about Viking cultures of Scandinavia and the sophisticated ships they built "completely by hand." Given the proclivity of avid young readers to skip the foreword and rush to the main story (which of course, refers to my little reader at home), I only wish Osborne would have taken this example as a basis for her story, and as a proof of culture and civilization,


Sources:
Mary Pope Osborne. 1998. Viking Ships at Sunrise. New York et al: Scholastic.
Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010 [online] at http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1997/1997scr3-1010/1997scr3-1010.html

Of ‘Lox’ and other bagels: Remembering the River of Turtles

I am positively impressed by our new neighborhood: When introducing ourselves, everyone went great lengths to get our names right, asking twice for pronunciation, apologizing beforehand for probably getting it wrong next time we met, and calling for patience. This is more than a European family with Turkish and Portuguese names could have expected, especially in a culture that cherishes abbreviations and acronyms (“Ped Xing” being my personal favorite). Our experience in the past two years has been rather the opposite, with people urging you to offer a short version of your name, or radically mutilating your original name by calling you by your initials.

However, I had to face my own ignorance over place names: Driving along the Loxahatchee every day, a road alongside a canal dividing Broward and Palm Beach County, I was laughing hard when someone told me a friend called it ‘Lox and Bagels’ road. The conversation triggered my interest in the name itself, which indicated a Native American language. Digging online, I soon discovered the charming meaning, and much more for what the “River of Turtles” stands for, namely Seminole resistance in The Battle of the Loxahatchee in 1838: In view of the US government’s disavowal of treaties granting Seminoles land in Florida, Black and Native American Seminoles fought side by side near the headwaters of the Loxahatchee River, the former resisting recapture into slavery and the latter resettlement to Oklahoma.

Humbled by my own ignorance, I have a New Year’s resolution: A little more effort on my own part to respect and appreciate the historical paths I am treading on …

Sources:
Richard J. Procyk, 1999. Guns across the Loxahatchee: an archaeo-historical investigation of Seminole War sites in Florida, with special focus on the Battle of Loxahatchee, January 24, 1838. Florida Historical Society Press.

Kathleen Chaptman. “Artifacts found, collected from forgotten Loxahatchee battle from 1838”. Palm Beach Post. Sunday, March 15, 2009. [Online] at http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/03/15/a1a_riverbend_0316.html.

Children's books and the Politics of Naming

Coming from the public library a couple of weeks ago, I started reading to my five year-old what appeared to be a most inconspicuous picture book: “Franklin’s Canoe Trip” by Sharon Jennings.
The impression that this was another literary misdemeanor (the list of children's fiction considered 'canon' and written from a colonial stance is oh so long) started on the very first page, where Franklin voices his excitement about the trip because he “wanted to be just like the explorers he had learned about in school”. My reserved suspicions were confirmed when on the way to the river, Franklin discusses the trip with his friend bear in the anticipation that they might “discover a whole new country”. After a long paddling trip with their fathers, they encounter a crowded campsite; they roam the surroundings and end up finding a secluded cove. And then comes the oh-so-familiar colonial gaze:

“Franklin and Bear … explored the beach. They drew a map and named everything they found. ‘Let’s call this Bear’s Lagoon,’ said Franklin. ‘And this is Franklin’s Shore,’ decided Bear.”

Invoking the infamous politics of ‘naming’, a process in which dominant cultures attempted imposing their cultural framework onto Indigenous spaces, this seemingly innocuous children’s book emulates an imperialistic, colonial attitude, inexorably transforming the cultures and territories it met with – to say the least.1
Speaking from a non-aboriginal perspective, one should not tire to unambiguously acknowledge the need for redress and re-assertion of Indigenous status, cultures and peoples. And despite some success at re-naming and re-inscribing an Indigenous social reality within contemporary modern societies, we still encounter remnants of a politics and ideology that seeks to silence the ‘Other’ voice. But, of all animals, the author chose a turtle that sets out to discover part of Turtle Island …
Next time at the library, I’ll definitely circumnavigate the Franklin books, and rather go for a Robert Munsch!

1 For a discussion on the intricate process of naming, by colonial powers as well as by Indigenous peoples, see Rebecca Ann Bach, 2000. Colonial Transformations: The Cultural Production of the New Atlantic World. New York: palgrave.

A manifesto of ignorance

Meticulously organizing my precious time each week in the mornings to get some work done before spending quality time with my family, batendo papo with friends, or enjoying a good book, you would think that e-mail newsletters were the last thing to subscribe to. Alas, given the propensity to have first-hand information on the latest publications, I tolerate the occasional bookstore-newsletter. Only, it got me all riled up recently, recommending among the bestselling non-fiction works Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin.
‘Oh well,’ you might say, ‘just another partisan-inspired manifesto’, and you sure are right about that. His diatribe against liberal policies was almost fun to read for revealing the preconceptions and bias of his conservative argumentation. However, what drew my ire was the fact that the book presents a cacophony of oh so bigot, colonial, imperialist deliberations. The reader is impressed upon with the thought that America, prior to founding, was settled by people mostly from Europe – and that pertains to the matter of Native America so benevolently obnubilated in Levin’s tirade. For all that he is so concerned about America’s civil society, he disregards his own standards and duty as an individual of that society, to “respect the unalienable rights of others and the values, customs, and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that establish society’s cultural identity.” (3) Of course, he is only talking about settler-colonial identity and European values in this context.
‘Ah, but that was to be expected from such a writer’, is what you interject, and I agree. But when I read such a testimony of essentialist doctrine, calling for an end to “multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism”, I do think it is time to unsubscribe from those convenient email newsletters …