Before coming to UBC I had never heard the word ‘unceded’. After having it explained to me at most school gatherings and in almost every class the word really began to sink into my thoughts. It wasn’t only the frequency that that I was hearing the word but also where I was hearing it; on school grounds, in the classrooms, and in surveys provided by the school asking if we understood the history of this land and that it’s Musqueam territory. I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, which on a good day is only 6.5 hour drive South of Vancouver, and Portland just like Vancouver is on unseated land. It is a known but never really talked about fact that there were First Nations people living in the Willamette Valley before the settlers came. Seeing as that I have spent basically my whole life living in the Willamette Valley and had never heard the word ‘unceded’ before it is very easy to assume that the history of Portland’s land isn’t widely understood either. These thoughts only came to me though after extensively discussing Vancouver’s history. As stated earlier it wasn’t just the that we were talking about it unceded land, it was where we were talking about it that made me realize that in the first three weeks I’ve spent at UBC I’ve learned more about Vancouvers history than I have about Portland’s in my whole 19 years combined. I know almost nothing about what Oregon was before Lewis and Clark came and about who was there before the Oregon trail brought an endless flood of settlers West.
Following this stream of thought I came to think about what I did know and the education I had been given about Oregon. I remember being in elementary school and the big treat was that at the end of 5th grade your whole class got to go to the Oregon Trail, which we had studied all year, and stay in a canvas wagon. In middle school I learned all about Lewis and Clark and took a field trip to Fort Clatsop where they had stayed. In high school I spent years studying the colonies and the Revolutionary and Civil War. I remember studying the definitions of words like “manifest destiny”. I can tell you all about how the pioneers crossed the great plains and passed the Rocky mountains to get to Portland. I know all of the funny stories too, like how Oregon’s birthday is on Valentine’s Day and when people were first settling Portland there were so many tree stumps that it was nicknamed Stump Town. I could go in circles talking about what the settlers “found” and built, but no matter how long and hard I search my mind I cannot tell you what or who was there before Stump Town and Lewis and Clark. It is almost like I have never thought to questioned if there even was anything going on before the white settlers came. If I had never been taught anything about the First Nations people living in Oregon and instead solely taught the history of the European settler that came after it is almost like I was lead to think there was nothing before the settlers.
From here I am reminded of a discussion that took place in the the beginning of my ASTU classes about how literature correlates with how we think of history and can shape our memories and ideas of it. My whole life I have studied textbooks that make it seem as if America’s history started when the pilgrims set foot on the East coast. Maybe if I had not grown up with Dee Brown’s, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee on my mothers bookshelf and a neighbor with Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe’s quote, “The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it” as a bumper sticker, I would have never had a second thought or reasons to not believe these textbooks.
An article written by Casey Parks and published in The Oregonian talks about the lacking history of minorities in Portland Public school’s textbooks and calls attention to the fact that in 2015 about half of Portland’s students identify as “non-white”. In the article Parks quotes Portland Publics Schools student Y Le who voices, “It’s weird that our textbooks don’t reflect the diversity we see in our world (…) The type of people that I always see in my house and at school, they should be reflected in our textbooks.” Le is apart of a campaign called the Missing Pages of Our Textbook and is working towards creating a social studies class that focuses on the history of African Americans, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans and will be offered in Portland Public Schools. She point out that,”There’s a history of people who have achieved things that are not white males, but we don’t see that.” By not teaching children about the First Nations people and their achievements Portland Public Schools is leaving it up to the students to fill these gaps in their educations. By not showing students that there was civilization before the white settlers came these textbooks are backhandedly telling students that the settlers built this land and survived all on their own. By saying nothing about the First Nations people of the Willamette Valley Portland Public Schools is essentially teaching students that they did not exist, while at the same time leaving students to assume that the history of Portland started when the white settlers moved West.
Sources
Chief Joseph, or, Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it . “Chief Joseph Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/authors/chief_joseph. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017. “The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”
Parks , Casey. “Textbooks don’t tell the history of minorities, students say. Teenagers want to change that.” Oregon Live, The Oregonian , 3 Nov. 2015, www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2015/11/oregon_ethnic_studies.html. Accessed 26 Sept. 2017.