This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
In honor of Indigenous People's Day, here is a powerful PBS award-winning documentary on the history of the Pueblo peoples in New Mexico and the destruction of their communities and ways of life of the peaceful Zuni due to a misguided Spanish myth of the seven golden cities of Cíbola. Spanish greed for gold led people like Francisco Vásquez Coronado's arrival. There, of course, was no gold to be found, much less golden cities.
I hope that we, as a country, stop acknowledging Columbus Day honorifically as the "arrival" of the Columbus when this mythic national narrative severely distorts the actual narrative of invasion, death, and destruction of native peoples who were termed "savages," surely to mask and justify the actual savagery of Western European colonizers.
We must continue to decolonize ourselves and the K-12 and higher education curriculum in our country.
Thanks to University of New Mexico Professor Dr. Irene Vasquez for sharing.
Today, October 12 is Indigenous People's Day. I do like this phrase from this piece below: "We got Columbused!" I take this to mean war with native people's, genocide, colonization, theft, appropriation, and distorted perspectives of our communities with an enduring impact as the actual violence of "getting Columbused" hides behind, and masquerades today as, white privilege, entitlement, and neoliberalism.
Indigenous People's Day, in contrast, reclaims and re-casts Indigeneity, land sovereignty, and struggle as ongoing decolonial projects from Indigenous people's perspectives.
A growing number of states are officially recognizing Monday asIndigenous People’s Day, a new name replacing or being celebrated alongsideColumbus Day, an old holiday that honored a slave-owning, racist, disease-spreading Spaniard who is controversially credited with “discovering” land that was already occupied by Native Americans. The fact that the latest installment of Indigenous People’s Day fell in a year marked by a nationwide racial reckoning made it all the more significant.
Epistemology, or ways of knowing, is a concept that is oftentimes hard to grasp because it's hard for us to imagine ourselves outside of our current ways of knowing. Though not always, one tends to grasp it more readily if you speak two or more languages.
Certain concepts, ideas, and the feelings that accompany them, particularly in the realm of identity caught up with a deeps sense of history and place, simply cannot be fully translated. Hence, the importance of language and cultural preservation and revitalization.
The interview transcript appears below. However, I encourage you to hear his interview with Krista Tippett in this On Being podcast.
Writer David Treuer’s
work tells a story that is richer and more multi-dimensional than the
American history most of us learned in school. Treuer, who grew up on
the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota, helped compile the
first practical grammar of the Ojibwe people. He says the recovery of
tribal languages and names is part of a fuller recovery of our national
story — and the human story. And it holds unexpected observations
altogether about language and meaning that most of us express
unselfconsciously in our mother tongues.
Today, on Indigenous People's Day, I express my condolences to the family of my dear, departed friend and colleague, Dr. Bernardo Gallegos, an outstanding scholar whose work, I feel, has never gotten the attention it deserves. He passed away peacefully last week in his home.
I encourage you to read his work that addresses Indigeneity and education, including his autobiographical writings from his experiences growing up in New Mexico as a Genizaro.
Thank you for your friendship and for being an inspiration to so many, myself included, through your outstanding contributions to scholarship. Thank you for sharing and theorizing of your numerous life stories that always seemed to track back to your youth and the fountain of insights related to having grown up as a Genizaro, nourishing your powerful intellect and generous heart and spirit.
A number of his other publications appear below. May you rest in peace, my friend. What a difference you made and will continue to make in the world.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2018). Reflections on the Social Foundations of Education. Educational Studies, 54(1): 55-62.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2016). Education and Indigenous Slavery in New Mexico. American Educational History Journal, 43(1): 16.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2015). Sixteenth Century Indigenous Scholars of El Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlaltelolco. Professing Education, 10(1)
Gallegos, B. P.. (2012). The Education of Hummingbird Boy. The Sophists Bane: A Journal of the Society of Professors of Education., 6(1)
Gallegos, B. P.. (2017). Postcolonial Indigenous Performances: Coyote Musings on Genízaros, Hybridity, Education, and Slavery. Postcolonial Indigenous Performances: Coyote Musings on Genízaros, Hybridity, Education, and Slavery.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2010). Handbook of Research in Social Foundations of Education.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2004). Performance Theories and Education, Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Identity.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2003). Indigenous Education in the Americas: Diasporic Identities, Epistemologies, & Postcolonial Spaces, Special Issue: Educational Studies Journal.
Gallegos, B. P.. (1991). Literacy, Education, and Society in Colonial New Mexico, 1693 to 1821.
Gallegos, B. (2010). Introduction: Globalization, Institutions, and Power. Handbook of Research in Social Foundations of Education.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2010). Curriculum Studies in Relation to the Field of Educational Foundations. Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. 5.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2010). Subaltern Curriculum Studies. Encyclopedia of Curriculum Studies. 7.
Gallegos, B. P.. (2010). "Dancing the Comanches", The Santo Nino, La Virgen (of Guadalupe) and the Genizaro Indians of New Mexico. Indigenous Symbols and Practices in the Catholic Church. 24.
AUSTIN - AUSTIN – The Austin City Council approved a resolution
Thursday to recognize the second Monday in October as Indigenous
Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day.
According to the group that
pushed for the change, Equilibrio, Austin now joins 40 other cities that
have passed similar resolutions.
The sponsor of the resolution,
Council Member Ora Houston, said her initial intent was for the city to
recognize both days, but amendments by Council Members Alison Alter and
Ellen Troxclair to clarify the language to specify that failed to pass.
During
the meeting, the Co-Director of Equilibrio told the council observing
both days doesn't acknowledge the fact that people were already in
America before Christopher Columbus landed here.
"It would look a
little strange for Austin to be the only city that said we're going to
recognize Indigenous Peoples' Day and also this guy who was genocidal
against indigenous people. We think that's kind of talking out of both
sides of the mouth and we think it's important that we're really clear
about what we're recognizing and what we're deciding to step away from,"
Tane Ward told reporters after the resolution passed.
The resolution also states the city will encourage Austin schools “to include the teaching of Indigenous Peoples’ history.”
Columbus
Day became a federal holiday in 1937. Council Members and supporters of
the change say they hope if enough cities adopt Indigenous Peoples'
Day, the federal government will take notice and follow suit.
The
City of Austin doesn't currently observe Columbus Day by giving
employees time off, the holiday is just notated on city calendars. So
starting next year those calendars will instead say Indigenous Peoples'
Day.
The Council also approved a resolution condemning the display of monuments and memorials of the Confederacy.
Across
the country monuments, plaques and other memorials in public spaces
that recognize or honor Confederate figures have been called into
question. While there aren't statues on city-owned land in Austin,
several streets are named after confederate figures or the confederacy
itself.
