California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law on Friday requiring schools in the state to teach about the historic mistreatment of Native Americans.
The new bill ensures public K-12 schools teaching about Spanish colonization and the California gold rush will include instruction on the mistreatment and perspectives of Indigenous peoples during those periods. The state’s Department of Education must also consult with tribes when updating its history and social studies curriculum framework after January 2025.
“I’m proud of the progress California has made to reckon with the dark chapters of our past, and we’re committed to continuing this important work to promote equity, inclusion and accountability for Native peoples,” Newsom said in a statement on Friday.
The new law, part of a package of 10 bills to advance tribal priorities, was announced on California Native American Day. California has over 100 federally recognized Indigenous tribes, the most of any state in the country after Alaska.
“As we celebrate the many tribal communities in California today, we recommit to working with tribal partners to better address their unique needs and strengthen California for all,” Newsom said on Friday.
A group of students take a basket-weaving class at the California Indian Cultural Awareness Conference in San Bernardino, California, on September 23. A new California law requires schools to teach about the mistreatment of Native Americans.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
Indigenous people are one of several marginalized groups whose lived experiences, including the atrocities they faced, have been glossed over in American history books.
Johnny Hernandez Jr., vice chairman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in Southern California, spoke to the Associated Press about his firsthand experience hearing two different histories of Indigenous peoples in California: one from his elders, based on their life experience and one from his teachers.
“You have your family, but then you have the people you’re supposed to respect—teachers and the administration,” Hernandez told the AP. “As a kid—I’ll speak for myself—it is confusing to…know who’s telling the truth.”
Before the new bill was signed, Hernandez called it a “critical step to right some of the educational wrongs.”
“For far too long California’s First People and their history have been ignored or misrepresented,” California Assemblymember James C. Ramos, a Democrat and the state’s first Native American lawmaker, said in a statement last month.
Ramos, who wrote the new bill, continued: “Classroom instruction about the Mission and Gold Rush periods fails to include the loss of life, enslavement, starvation, illness and violence inflicted upon California Native American people during those times. These historical omissions from the curriculum are misleading.”
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
