The current fourth-grade history curriculum covers the plight of Native Californians, but it’s only recommended and not required. As a result, lessons vary across school districts, with some students getting scant information – or lessons focused largely on the missions. Under Ramos’ law, lessons on the mistreatment of Native Californians will be mandatory. Some of the information may also be covered in California’s new ethnic studies requirement for high school students, which goes into effect in fall 2025.
Tribal leaders said they were pleased with the bill but hope students learn more about Native California history than just the tragedies. Ideally, they said, students should be learning the full breadth of Native history and culture: learning basket techniques in art class, reading Native authors in literature class, studying Native healing practices in health and science classes, and learning Native approaches to environmentalism, politics and economics throughout the entire curriculum.
They’d also like to see schools develop relationships with local tribes, inviting members in to teach the tribe’s history, language and traditions. Students should learn at least some phrases in the local indigenous language, and the school should promote Native culture at every opportunity, they said.
“These stories matter for all Californians,” said William Bauer, a history professor at UC Riverside who specializes in Native Californian studies and is a member of the Round Valley tribe. “I’d hope kids leave school with the idea that California Indians have survived and thrived.”
Shannon Rivers, manager of the nonprofit Indigenous Education Now, a Los Angeles advocacy group, said the bill is much needed, but schools also need to do a better job specifically serving Native students, many of whom are struggling.
Native students lag behind the state average in nearly every measurement, including attendance, graduation rates, math and literacy scores and discipline. One solution, Rivers said, is to create special programs for Native students that focus on their history, language and traditions, which could boost students’ interest in school and help make curriculum more relevant to their lives. His group is currently working with Los Angeles Unified on such a plan.
“It’s important we do this, so Native students have a better understanding of who they are,” said Rivers, a member of the Akimel O’otham tribe in Arizona. “Although the challenge with all these initiatives is that Native people are not monolithic. They’re incredibly diverse, especially in California.”
Disease, enslavement, killing
When Spanish missionaries arrived in the late 1700s, at least 300,000 people lived among an estimated 200 tribes scattered in every part of California, making it one of the most densely populated and diverse regions in North America.
But Native numbers began to decline with the arrival of Spanish missionaries, who brought diseases for which Natives had no immunity, including smallpox, malaria and diphtheria. The Spanish also introduced crops and livestock that altered the landscape and created food shortages for tribes. Thousands of native people died when they became enslaved or imprisoned at the missions, where they were forced to work in the fields and convert to Catholicism.
But the most violent period followed the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills in the mid-1800s. Settlers, private militias and the U.S. troops carried out massacres across California with the intent of exterminating the Native population. By 1900, only about 16,000 Native Californians remained, many living in small groups away from their original homeland.
Over the next century, the population gradually rebounded and Native people nurtured their culture and traditions despite being subject to abuse at government-run boarding schools, discrimination, and legal fights over land ownership. By 2020, there were about 1.4 million Californians who identified as at least part Native American, according to the U.S. Census.
The violent history may be difficult to digest, especially for younger children, but schools should find thoughtful, sensitive ways to impart the full story of Native Americans in California, said Joely Proudfit, head of the Native American studies department at Cal State San Marcos.
“The history of California is tragic. It’s brutal. It’s violent. Genocide occurred here,” said Proudfit, who is both Payómkawichum and Tongva, tribes that are indigenous to Southern California. “We need to be honest about our history, so maybe we’ll have some compassion and empathy with what’s happening in today’s world.”