New Lessons from Omitted Lessons

Based on the museum exhibit, Pasos Ajenos, these Educational Resources aim to provide content and historical framing for teachers and students to explore events, concepts, and ideas that relate to untold narratives in the Borderlands. As educators and students work together in the coming years to write lessons and new educational content related to Pasos Ajenos, they will be made available on this website.

Coming soon and with gradual releases, will be the ability to explore the Pasos Ajenos lessons on the left by clicking the images of each installation. The lessons are designed to provoke thought and dialogue within formal and informal settings and are meant to be tailored by educators and students to help make sense of the world in which we live, particularly the Borderlands region.

Education and Transformation

At the time of writing this in 2020, all of humanity is experiencing the unfolding of multiple crises associated with human behavior, historical events, and the uncertain future of systems that determine our quality of life. One of the systems being examined is the institution of Education. This is a time to recognize human complexity while also helping to shape the transformation that is organically, already underway. 

Education has been a key topic for generations within the Borderlands—with people holding contrasting views about topics like assimilation, language, culture, intelligence, and success. Now these topics have taken center stage as society works to understand the history of education and decide, together, what education will look like in the future.

Timeline: U.S. Context and Borderlands Nuance

The history of this region does not begin with United States territorialization. There exists a long and complex narrative involving multiple communities, peoples, and engagements within this region we are calling “Borderlands.” The specific purpose of this timeline is to illustrate the trajectory of education that parallels U.S. expansion and imperialism in this region of the world. 

1856: The United States became the territorial government in newly acquired New Mexico. Most of what we now know as the “Southwest” was territory gained by the U.S. during its war with Mexico that ended in 1848. New assimilationist schools were introduced that punished children for speaking languages other than English and for carrying with them the generational customs and life-ways learned at home. Thus, parents stopped sending their children to these schools and voted that year to reject “compulsory education” because they saw it as harmful. The territorial government dismissed the popular vote of 99.3% against assimilationist schools, and thereby enforced school attendance by law. Assimilation in the guise of “education” ensued, and carried a punitive legacy forward generations into the future.

Late 1800s: American Indian children from the Borderlands region spanning from California through Texas were forcibly removed from their families and taken to nearby and far away “boarding schools” that were foundationally assimilationist—as battles were waged to exterminate and/or subdue American Indians as part of the genocidal march Westward. Many children fell ill or died, while most others experienced punishment at the hands of authority figures. 

Richard Henry Pratt, founder of one of the most infamous boarding schools– Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania– stated the following. “In Indian civilization, I am Baptist, because I believe in immersing the Indian in our civilization and when we get them under, hold them there until they are thoroughly soaked.”

1896: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that racially segregated public facilities were legal as long as the facilities for “Blacks and Whites” were equal.

1954: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” 

1960s: The broad and diverse Civil Rights Movement focused attention on all matters of inequality in U.S. society, Education being just one.

1997: In Vaughn, New Mexico, sisters Nadine and Patsy Cordova were fired for teaching Chicano Studies to middle and high school teachers. They subsequently filed a federal lawsuit against the school district, claiming their academic freedom and First Amendment rights had been violated. The district settled out of court, paying the sisters a sum of money and purging their teaching record of negative references. This case gained national attention and paved the way for more culturally relevant teaching in the state.

2010: Arizona House Bill 2281 banned Mexican American Studies classes offered in the Tucson Unified School District, despite exponential increases in success rates for students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. This decision would be battled in the courts for years afterward. Ethnic Studies programs across the U.S. responded to this ban with support and by increasing their own offerings.

2017: Trotando Pasos Ajenos (Trotting Foreign Footsteps) debuted in Las Cruces, NM. The exhibit’s opening night welcomed over 550 visitors and featured live music, food, and vibrant community interaction. One visitor wrote, “This exhibit provoked images I carry, as I did work in the fields in the Doña Ana area and made me think of what my great grandparents and father experienced.”

2018: A legal ruling in Yazzie and Martinez v. State of New Mexico requires the New Mexico Public Education Department to improve educational services, programs, and funding for the state’s students, with focused attention on students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English language learners, and Native American students. 

2018: A new elective course called “Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies” is approved by the Texas State Board of Education. 

2020: The Texas State Board of Education approved its second Ethnic Studies course. This new course focuses on African American “history, geography, economics, government, citizenship, culture, and science and technology.”

2020: New Mexico’s Public Education Department forms a state-wide committee to assess cultural and place-based gaps in content and methodology within the Social Studies standards. This is part of the Yazzie/Martinez legal ruling.