This Land is Their Land: Representation of Native Americans in Children’s Educational Materials From 1931 to Today
Document Type
Oral Presentation
Campus where you would like to present
Ellensburg
Event Website
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source
Start Date
15-5-2019
End Date
15-5-2019
Abstract
In this paper, I will examine how Native American peoples have been portrayed in children’s educational textbooks in Washington State. I will use elementary school textbooks, classroom guides for teachers, and educational books for children published over last 90 years to illustrate the lack of information on Pacific Northwest (PNW) Native Americans. The authors of my sources simply do not look at Native Americans. When they do, the native peoples are consistently generalized and racialized, especially with the peoples in the PNW. The existing historiography on native peoples focuses on other parts of the country, those who were most affected by events like the Trail of Tears and first contact on the East coast. Very little information about PNW Native Americans exists even in Washington State history textbooks, and thus important information about the history of the state is omitted. By examining the treatment of Native Americans in history textbooks, I find that this treatment has remained largely unchanged over the last 90 years. Textbooks continue to generalize Native Americans, condensing many tribes into a few sentences and racializing them into one nonwhite category. This treatment is not exclusive to PNW Native Americans and continues to affect marginalized people everywhere.
Recommended Citation
Shogren, Katherine, "This Land is Their Land: Representation of Native Americans in Children’s Educational Materials From 1931 to Today" (2019). Symposium Of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE). 9.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2019/Oralpres/9
Department/Program
History
Slides for SOURCE 2019 presentation Shogren
This Land is Their Land: Representation of Native Americans in Children’s Educational Materials From 1931 to Today
Ellensburg
In this paper, I will examine how Native American peoples have been portrayed in children’s educational textbooks in Washington State. I will use elementary school textbooks, classroom guides for teachers, and educational books for children published over last 90 years to illustrate the lack of information on Pacific Northwest (PNW) Native Americans. The authors of my sources simply do not look at Native Americans. When they do, the native peoples are consistently generalized and racialized, especially with the peoples in the PNW. The existing historiography on native peoples focuses on other parts of the country, those who were most affected by events like the Trail of Tears and first contact on the East coast. Very little information about PNW Native Americans exists even in Washington State history textbooks, and thus important information about the history of the state is omitted. By examining the treatment of Native Americans in history textbooks, I find that this treatment has remained largely unchanged over the last 90 years. Textbooks continue to generalize Native Americans, condensing many tribes into a few sentences and racializing them into one nonwhite category. This treatment is not exclusive to PNW Native Americans and continues to affect marginalized people everywhere.
https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/source/2019/Oralpres/9
Faculty Mentor(s)
Marji Morgan