A History of Violence from the Catholic Missions to the Gold Rush and Beyond, Indigenous Educators Fight for a More Accurate History in California’S Classrooms

GREENER NEW MEXICO | INVESTORS VS. CLIMATE CHANGE | RACISM IN SPORTS

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West

A History of Violence From the Catholic missions to the gold rush and beyond, Indigenous educators fight for a more accurate history in California’s classrooms

April 29, 2019 | $5 | Vol. 51 No. 7 | www.hcn.org No. 51 | $5 Vol. April 29, 2019 By Allison Herrera CONTENTS

Editor’s note Unsettling the West

In this issue of High Country News, we examine the myths of the American West — specifically California. Merriam-Webster defines the word “myth” as a “traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” School textbooks are often as rich a source of American mythology as they are of Greek or Roman tales. I’m not talking about the stories of Proteus or the Golden Fleece. I mean the American creation myth: the story of settlement made possible by men like Columbus and Cortés, who violently seeded a nation where institutions like the Cleveland Indians and Covington Catholic High School thrive. I am interested in the United States’ creation stories, the blueprints that allow citizens to forget or ignore the Gregg Castro, a Salinan tribal member who helped start the California Indian History Curriculum Coalition, thousands of years of history that existed before the and author Allison Herrera at Morro Rock, an important site for California tribes. word “America” even existed. The countless languages, COURTESY OF ALLISON HERRERA cultures and communities that flourished in the Western Hemisphere, the stories that were told, the relationships, the people, their lives — these comprise a whole FEATURE world that many contemporary readers are unlikely to On the cover 12 California History, Retold understand in any tangible way — save for a passage from a half-remembered school textbook. St. Antonio de Padua, By Allison Herrera a painting by Charles In this spirit, we bring you Allison Herrera’s Rollo Peters. The cover story, “California History, Retold,” a fascinating mission, established CURRENTS journey into the state’s school curriculum. From the by Father Junipero establishment of the Spanish Catholic missions in Serra in 1771 on 5 A fossil-fueled state leans green New Mexico’s Energy the 18th century to 1960s school-board politics and land occupied by the Transition Act decarbonizes the state’s power grid Salinan Tribe, was the back again, Herrera invites readers to draw a line from third of 21 Franciscan 6 Can capitalism curb climate change? Investors are Spain’s first brutal incursions in California to the modern missions built in pushing companies to reckon with their environmental impacts lawmakers unable to change an educational system that California. most people agree is broken. But even this doesn’t quite ST. ANTONIO DE PADUA / 7 Hostile team spirit Native American athletes and fans face CHARLES ROLLO PETERS, BANC PIC ongoing racism do justice to Herrera’s story; it unsettles the American 1919.002--FR. COURTESY OF THE West — exposing its myths, its roots, its violence. BANCROFT LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF 8 CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Watchers on the Willamette As an oil-export facility grows, Consider another article in this issue, an activists try to fill the information gap surrounding oil trains investigation by Kalen Goodluck into an ugly modern manifestation of North American mythologies. DEPARTMENTS Searching through news articles, federal reports and court documents, Goodluck found 52 incidents 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG of racial harassment directed at Native American 4 LETTERS athletes, coaches and fans from 2008 to 2018. The U.S. has seen a rise in hate crimes in the last three 9 THE HCN COMMUNITY Sustainers’ Club years, but as Goodluck reveals, bigotry has been a 91 MARKETPLACE constant in Indian Country. 23 BOOKS Together, these stories speak to the myths that Complete access Big Lonely Doug by Harley Rustad and In Search of The Canary Tree govern American politics, policies and behaviors, to subscriber-only the systems in place that make anti-Indigenous content by Lauren E. Oakes Reviewed by Sarah Gilman 4 2 ESSAY sentiments acceptable, even enjoyable, to some. Both HCN’s website stories speak to justice and accountability — and the hcn.org The ABCs of inequity idea that readers can, with the right tools, begin to By Shannon Whitney Digital edition think and act critically when faced with institutional hcne.ws/digi-5107 25 DEAR FRIENDS racism, whether it appears in sports, or education, 26 PERSPECTIVE or anywhere. No doubt you have seen inequities in Follow us Socialism? We’ve been here before. textbooks or at football games. But identifying them is News Commentary by Adam M. Sowards only part of our responsibility. We must also ask why  they exist in the first place. 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston @highcountrynews —Tristan Ahtone, tribal affairs editor 2 High Country News April 29, 2019 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG

THE LATEST

Backstory Trending During the government shutdown of EXCLUSIVE: 2018, former Interior The Forrest Secretary Ryan Zinke signed a deal to Fenn treasure slice a road through has been a wilderness area Pictured in 2014, found in the Izembek the jaguar known National Wildlife On April 1, we played as El Jefe frequents our annual trick Refuge. The 12-mile Arizona’s Santa road was conceived on HCN readers by Rita Mountains. tapping into the as a “medical access” After being blocked route for 1,000-person story of the infamous for years, a mining Forrest Fenn treasure. King Cove, as well permit has been as a way to access a “Denny Burfurdunk, a issued in the big middle-aged snowplow nearby airport and cat’s habitat. speed up shipping operator with a red UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA/ ZZ Top beard, noticed for the fish-processing USFWS plant of King Cove. The something unusual as brainchild of Alaska Trump Proposed more than a dozen years ago, the unacceptable.” But under President Trump’s he was pushing one Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R, administration Rosemont copper mine in Arizona’s Santa administration, the mine moved quickly through of the great piles of Rita Mountains received years of warnings the regulatory process, receiving its Clean Water snow and debris onto the project joined her rubber-stamps many other attempts to from various federal agencies regarding its Act permits in March. The project is ready to the shoulder,” Paige develop the state’s pro- Arizona potential damage to rare water systems, break ground. Coalitions of conservation and Blankenbuehler wrote. tected lands under the copper mine endangered species and their habitats and tribal groups entered separate lawsuits to Burfurdunk allegedly watch of an industry- Native American cultural sites. As recently as prevent that from happening. stumbled across an friendly administration. 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency NICK BOWLIN ornate chest, but he Environmental groups called the environmental harm “substantial and Read more online: hcne.ws/copper may not have gotten opposed the plan and what he expected. warned of the damage The booty included it would do to grizzlies copies of Jewell’s and migratory birds “While Pumpkin Hollow will bring jobs to the Spirit and Joan Baez’s (“In Alaska, wildlands community, most of the payouts from this project Diamonds and Rust. $119 billion “And finally, under lose out to roads Projected cost of storm damage to California will benefit people far away from the town of and drill rigs,” HCN, property annually by 2100, without the cracked plastic 3/19/18). aggressive reduction of carbon emissions Yerington, while the town is left with some of the more of a Neil Diamond devastating and lasting consequences from mining.” 1970 live Gold CD was a signed copy Followup —Ian Bigly, mining justice organizer for the nonprofit The Progressive of an unpublished A federal judge Leadership Alliance of Nevada, speaking about Nevada Copper — manuscript by Forrest struck down Zinke’s $150 billion whose biggest investor is Russian billionaire Vladimir Iorich — and its plan to Projected cost of an extreme storm open a new copper mine later this year. PAIGE BLANKENBUEHLER Fenn himself.” land trade for the HCN STAFF: Read more online: hcne.ws/nevada-mine Izembek road at A recent U.S. Geological Survey study suggests “APRIL FOOLS” the end of March. that sea-level rise poses a far more dire and The Obama adminis- immediate threat to California’s coastline than A silver lining to sage grouse rollbacks? You say tration, after an envi- previously thought. Researchers built a model ronmental assessment, that shows the interaction between storm In March, the Interior Department grouse policy chief, said Colorado COLORADO had refused a similar strength, environmental changes like erosion weakened public-land sage grouse can now use its own “stronger” DEPARTMENT OF project years before, and estuary loss, population trends and prop- policies established in 2015. In all, mitigation policies. This was not TRANSPORTATION: and the judge ruled erty data. Taken together, the implications are the net effect is a reduction in the how the Obama-era policies, “Thanks for the April 1 that the new iteration grim. Even moderate sea-level rise combined protection of sage grouse habitat seen as a landmark conservation belly laugh! Chuckles failed to justify revers- with a strong storm could cause enough from oil and gas development, but compromise by competing Western heard throughout the ing the original deci- damage to surpass the worst environmental several Western states, notably interests, were supposed to work. DOT corridors!” sion. David C. Raskin disasters in California’s history. Vital ports, Colorado, Nevada and Oregon, The goal was to protect crucial of Friends of Alaska large chunks of San Francisco Bay, and other used the process to implement habitat and avoid piecemeal RICK COLLINS: “This is National Wildlife coastal population centers are underprotected conservation policies that match protections that vary from state the best April Fools’ Refuges called the rul- and need to take on drastic climate-adaptation or in some cases exceed the to state. post I’ve seen in a ing “yet another blow projects, the researchers said. NICK BOWLIN previous federal standard. John NICK BOWLIN Read more online: long time. Well done.” to Interior’s aggressive Read more online: hcne.ws/coast Swartout, Colorado’s former sage hcne.ws/grouse policy of giving away JON STILLMAN: “Can’t public lands to serve wait for today to be special interests at over.” the expense of the Laura Krantz American people.” Bigfoot isn’t real, but we really need him spent MATT THOMAS: ELENA SAAVEDRA two years “Maybe they’ll fix the BUCKLEY To podcast producer Laura Krantz, searching for roads with it?!” Bigfoot means much more than the Bigfoot as Read more online: furry figure. “I spent the last two part of her hcne.ws/fools years chasing a shadow, suspending podcast, and Facebook.com/ disbelief to imagine a world wild Wild Thing. highcountrynews enough to hold something as ex- JAKE HOLSCHUH/ traordinary as Bigfoot,” she writes in FOXTOPUS INK her essay. “I didn’t expect to find the idea of Bigfoot so integral to what it means to be human.” KRISTINE SOWL, USFWS Read more online: hcne.ws/bigfoot

Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 LETTERS Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428.

High Country News WHAT ABOUT THE REAL CRIMINALS? EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/PUBLISHER Paul Larmer Reading Paige Blankenbuehler’s EDITOR-IN-CHIEF excellent exposé about the plight of Brian Calvert the Devils Hole pupfish (“Scene of ART DIRECTOR Cindy Wehling the Crime,” HCN, 4/15/19), I couldn’t DIGITAL EDITOR stop thinking about how arbitrary Gretchen King and weighted toward the wealthy the ASSOCIATE EDITORS Tristan Ahtone American legal system is. Here you Emily Benson had an admittedly foolish young man Maya L. Kapoor who broke into a natural hot springs ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR WUERKER/THE CARTOONIST GROUP MATT Luna Anna Archey and accidentally killed a rare fish. For ASSISTANT EDITORS that transgression, the contrite man Paige Blankenbuehler was sentenced to a year in prison and Carl Segerstrom Anna V. Smith a $14,000 fine and was permanently EDITOR AT LARGE banned from federal lands. Wouldn’t Betsy Marston some form of restorative justice be in COPY EDITOR Diane Sylvain order here? Sentence the young man CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Graham Brewer to 80 hours of service rehabilitating Ruxandra Guidi the land, not a year in prison. For Michelle Nijhuis Jodi Peterson generations on the Oregon coast, Jonathan Thompson timber corporations have ravaged tens CORRESPONDENTS of thousands of acres of rare coastal Krista Langlois, Sarah Tory, Tay Wiles, rainforest, buried salmon spawning Joshua Zaffos grounds, poisoned the forest, local EDITORIAL FELLOWS organic farms and residents with Elena Saavedra Buckley, Jessica Kutz herbicides, and have done it all legally. EDITORIAL INTERN For these practices, the likes of the Nick Bowlin Koch Brothers, unlike the young man in DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Nevada, pay exactly zero in restitution Laurie Milford over the years show a natural curiosity intensity of her fear. However, I and are instead protected from justice MAJOR GIFT ADVISER — like most human children. experienced the essay as a window into Alyssa Pinkerton by the complicit state Legislature in a world I don’t know. She is a young DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE Salem. I’d like to think that the crimes Sally Cuffin woman, an immigrant, a person of color Hannah Stevens committed by big industry against the Littleton, Colorado DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANT and a mountain biker in Colorado. planet are so great that they are simply Christine Maila Mein Ms. Connolly and I share few of those DIGITAL MARKETER beyond human conception and the law, THE WHOLE RODEO THING perspectives. My final takeaway was Chris King but money’s symbiotic relationship EVENTS & BUSINESS PARTNER “Life on the gay rodeo circuit” (HCN, universal: People of color, immigrants, with the government is a more obvious COORDINATOR Laura Dixon 3/18/19) brought back a memory: My get the same high off nature that I WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPER explanation. Eric Strebel wife and I were spending the night at do! Ms. Connolly seems intelligent and IT MANAGER Alan Wells Michael Edwards the Fort Lauderdale Airport Hilton compassionate, which is why her letter DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Lincoln City, Oregon before flying home early the next day. broke my heart. I felt she was denying Erica Howard As it happened, the Hilton was the host Vasudevan’s experience of racism even ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT Mary Zachman CURIOUS CRITTERS hotel for the big annual event of the though she knows nothing about it. In CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Florida Gay Rodeo Association. As we doing so, she was denying Vasudevan’s I want to thank you for publishing Beth Kathy Martinez were getting on the elevator with two lived experience. How can we heal our Pratt’s piece, “We shouldn’t celebrate CUSTOMER SERVICE other straight couples, one of the men, country, my heart says, when even the Christie Cantrell (office the killing of a mountain lion” (HCN, referring to the boot-and-hat crowd intelligent and compassionate cannot manager), Karen Howe, 4/15/19). Mainstream media seems Josh McIntire (IT in the lobby, said, with very evident listen without getting defensive? I support), Pam Peters, to always sensationalize these sorts disdain in his voice, “You know what all think that there should be a new rule Doris Teel, Rebecca of events and never goes back to give Tiedeman, Tammy York THAT is, don’t you?” My reply: “Yes. But of good manners among people of good readers the rest of the story. Someone GRANTWRITER Janet Reasoner we used to live in Wyoming, so we’re will. Just as you would not tell a young in my area picked up on this “danger” [email protected] really OK with the whole rodeo thing.” woman who is crying from a miscarriage [email protected] and wrote a hysterical piece for our local [email protected] that she will soon have other children, paper. As someone who has run the local Andrew Melnykovych [email protected] you should not tell a person who has [email protected] foothills for decades (making sure I’m Louisville, Kentucky experienced racism that their feelings FOUNDER Tom Bell aware of my surroundings), it totally are excessive and wrong. The emotion BOARD OF DIRECTORS amazes me how little people understand GOOD WILL AND HEARTBREAK John Belkin, Colo. and intensity may seem too much to about the natural world. Especially Seth Cothrun, Calif. It broke my heart to read Gladys you. However, it does a double injury: Beth Conover, Colo. when supposed wildlife “experts” tell Connolly’s letter to the editor (HCN, First comes the injury of racism, and Jay Dean, Calif. the community to haze animals to Bob Fulkerson, Nev. 3/18/19) about Raksha Vasudevan’s then the injury of denial of experience. make sure they keep their “natural Anastasia Greene, Wash. essay, “Mountain biking is my act Wayne Hare, Colo. fear” of people. Fear is something that Katie Larsell of resistance.” Vasudevan’s essay Laura Helmuth, Md. is learned, not genetically built into a Portland, Oregon John Heyneman, Wyo. was so vulnerable and open. I, like creature. The critters I’ve encountered Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico Ms. Connolly, was surprised by the Samaria Jaffe, Calif. Nicole Lampe, Ore. Marla Painter, N.M. Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. Estee Rivera Murdock, Colo. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post Rick Tallman, Colo. media organization that covers the issues that define the offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Andy Wiessner, Colo. High American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire people Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles Florence Williams, D.C. to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Luis Torres, N.M., Country communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: Director Emeritus News times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 800-905-1155 | hcn.org Printed on recycled paper. 4 High Country News April 29, 2019 CURRENTS

a Santa Fe-based group that has been Strict new emissions pushing PNM to clean up its act for years. standards in the The group, a critic of the bill, would rather Energy Transition see PNM’s investors shoulder the cost Act will force the closure of San Juan of the bonds. After all, the investors are Generating Station the ones who have profited handsomely by 2022. ECOFLIGHT off the power plant for nearly half a century, even as it pumped millions of tons of climate-warming gases into the air, along with acid rain-forming sulfur dioxide, health-harming particulates, mercury, arsenic and other toxic materials. While the bill does not specifically force the plant’s closure, it does mandate the creation of standards that limit carbon dioxide emissions from large coal-burning plants to about half of what coal emits per megawatt-hour — effectively killing any possibility of keeping the generating station operating. The energy transition bonds will help fund a just transition away from coal. Some 450 jobs — about one-fourth of them held by Native Americans — will be lost when the San Juan Generating Station A fossil-fueled state leans green and the associated San Juan Mine close, New Mexico’s Energy Transition Act decarbonizes the state’s power grid together with an estimated $356 million in economic activity annually. BY JONATHAN THOMPSON The bill allocates up to $30 million for reclamation costs, and up to $40 million to help displaced workers and affected n March 23, New Mexico Gov. Michelle electricity can include nuclear, since no communities, to be shared by the Energy The bill O Lujan Grisham, D, signed into law greenhouse gases are emitted during Transition Indian Affairs Fund, Economic the Energy Transition Act, a complex bill fission, as well as coal and natural gas Development Assistance Fund and allocates up that will move the state toward cleaner equipped with carbon capture and seques- Displaced Worker Assistance Fund. The to $30 million electricity generation, clear the way for tration technologies. Carbon capture is Indian Affairs Fund will be spent accord- the state’s biggest utility to shutter one of prohibitively expensive — and unproven ing to a plan developed by the state, in for reclamation the West’s largest coal-fired power plants — but nuclear power is readily available consultation with area tribal governments costs, and up to in 2022, and provide mechanisms for a from Palo Verde Generating Station in and with input from affected communi- just transition for economically affected Arizona, where PNM currently gets about ties, and the economic development fund $40 million to communities. 18% of its power. will help local officials diversify the local help displaced The bill has the support of the state’s Also, “electricity” and “energy” are two economy. The bill also requires PNM to biggest utility — Public Service Company distinct concepts — a common source of replace a portion of the area’s lost genera- workers and of New Mexico, or PNM — as well as envi- confusion. This bill applies only to electric- tion capacity, in the process creating jobs affected ronmental groups such as the Natural ity consumed by New Mexicans and has and tax revenue. Resources Defense Council, Western no direct bearing on the state’s burgeoning The new bill has some missing ele- communities. Resource Advocates and the San Juan oil or natural gas production. Meanwhile, ments. There’s no provision for making Citizens Alliance. National media are the Four Corners Power Plant, located in amends to the people who have lived hailing it as a mini-Green New Deal. New Mexico but owned by Arizona Public near the plant for years and suffered ill Here’s a breakdown of what the bill Service, can continue to burn coal under the health, such as high asthma rates, as a does — and doesn’t — do: renewable standards as long as the electric- result. It won’t stop Four Corners Power Perhaps most significantly, the bill ity is exported to other states. But PNM Plant, located just 10 miles from San mandates that New Mexico electricity plans to divest its 13% ownership in Four Juan Generating Station, from belching providers get 80% of their electricity from Corners Power Plant in 2031, leaving the out pollution (though it does provide for a renewable sources by 2040, and 100 per- plant on shakier economic ground. just transition away from that plant if it cent from carbon-free sources by 2045. The bill helps pave the way for the closes by 2031), and it doesn’t address the Those are ambitious goals that will result planned closure of San Juan Generating massive climate impact from oil and gas in huge cuts in greenhouse gas emissions Station, located just north of the Navajo development or transportation. The act is in a state that currently gets half its elec- Nation in northwestern New Mexico. merely an official acknowledgment that tricity from coal and a third from natural The station’s owner, PNM, announced coal is dying, and that coal communities gas. two years ago that it would likely shut could die, too, without help. That said, it’s important to remember down the plant in 2022 because it was no Nevertheless, the Energy Transition that “carbon-free” and “renewable” are longer economically viable. Many aspects Act is remarkable in that it promises to not synonyms. The 20% of carbon-free of this bill are a direct reaction to the totally decarbonize electricity in a state pending closure, particularly the sections that has leaned heavily on fossil fuel for that allow the utility to take out “energy decades, while also lending a hand to com- Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at transition bonds” to cover costs associated munities that would otherwise be left High Country News. He is the author of River of with abandonment. Those bonds will be behind. It is a good template, or at least Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind paid off by ratepayers, but not taxpayers. a decent sketch, for a national Green New the Gold King Mine Disaster.  @jonnypeace This has irked New Energy Economy, Deal.

www.hcn.org High Country News 5 Can capitalism curb climate change? Investors are pushing companies to reckon with their environmental impacts BY CARL SEGERSTROM

magine a Walmart semi-truck roll- During the Vietnam War, activist share- for methane emissions. I ing down the interstate with its back holders pushed Dow Chemical Company That agreement occurred despite a doors open, plasma-screen televisions to stop producing napalm; throughout major hurdle thrown up by the Trump tumbling out onto the highway, crash- the 1980s investors pressured companies administration last year, when, at EOG’s ing through windshields and causing to divest in apartheid South Africa; and request, the Securities and Exchange chaos. “It would be ridiculous,” said Jonas last year, shareholders forced McDonald’s Commission blocked Trillium’s resolution Kron, a senior vice president for Trillium to ditch polystyrene foam packaging and from going to a vote. Other such rulings Asset Management, a socially responsible Costco to limit antibiotics in the meat it followed. Last November, the shareholder investment firm. Company ownership sells. advocacy group As You Sow filed resolu- would demand better trucking practices, Investors typically rely on three tions urging Wells Fargo and Goldman and the company would respond. approaches to drive change: the carrot, Sachs to align their investments with Methane leaking from oil and natural the stick and the ax. The carrot is a dia- Paris Climate Agreement benchmarks gas operations is the same sort of thing, logue between shareholders and compa- for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Kron says — only on a multimillion-dol- nies. For instance, if investors are worried Both banking institutions fund fossil fuel lar level that also contributes to climate that a company’s coal assets will diminish projects and received failing grades in a change. That’s why his firm has pushed in value as other energy sources become Rainforest Action Network survey of the EOG Resources, the oil and gas company cheaper and momentum for carbon- climate impacts of the banking industry. formerly known as Enron, to get a handle capping legislation increases, they can The corporations resisted and appealed on its methane emissions. suggest ways the company can remain to the SEC, which shut down resolutions Trillium’s efforts are part of a broader competitive. on the grounds that shareholders were wave of concerned shareholders trying to If that doesn’t work, investors can turn trying to micromanage operations by use the tools of capitalism to hold fossil to the metaphorical sticks — nonbinding forcing companies to adhere to climate fuel companies accountable for climate resolutions voted on at annual shareholder change targets. “In the past, the SEC has In 2012, activists change. But as climate action gains trac- meetings that push a company in a par- recognized that shareholders should be protested the lack of tion, an unexpected corner of the Trump ticular direction. Boston-based Trillium able to raise these important issues,” said transparency from administration is threatening the efforts first used the stick on EOG in 2014, urg- Danielle Fugere, the president of As You the Securities and of Trillium and other environmentally ing the company to monitor and mitigate Sow. And Obama-era SEC rulings allowed Exchange Commission aware investors and shareholders. methane leakage in its oil and gas opera- similar shareholder resolutions to go for- over rules governing Investor resistance has a long history. tions, which range from southern Texas ward. But since Trump took office, the SEC the fossil fuel industry. to North Dakota and also extend around has consistently ruled in the corporations’ Now, the SEC is the world. Only 28 percent of shareholders favor. In February, ExxonMobil asked the blocking shareholders Carl Segerstrom is an assistant editor at High from asking companies voted for the resolution, but it got the ball SEC to nix a climate-oriented shareholder Country News, covering Alaska, the Pacific North- to plan for climate rolling, and in late 2018 the company and resolution, and a ruling is pending. change. BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL west and the Northern Rockies from Spokane, Trillium reached an agreement on moni- That could leave investors no choice CALL VIA AP IMAGES Washington.  @carlschirps toring, reporting and mitigation programs but to pull out the ax: divestment. The divestment movement claims to have pulled more than $8.5 trillion out of fossil fuel companies. And even while Goldman Sachs seeks to avoid a reckoning for its carbon impacts, company analysts cite the divestment movement as a reason for fossil fuel companies to reduce emissions. From dismantling regulations to pushing oil and gas leases in previously protected habitat, the Trump administration has shown its allegiance to fossil fuel interests. By protecting corporate executives and boards from answering to investors for their climate impacts, the administration is making it as comfortable as possible for fossil fuel companies and their financiers to continue to sow climate chaos. Nevertheless, as the EOG case demon- strates, even with the administration on their side, some corporations are bending to their shareholders’ will. Shareholder activism “isn’t the straw that is going to break the camel’s back,” when it comes to adapting to and mitigating climate change, said Kron. “But we’re trying to stack as many straws as possible on the camel.”

6 High Country News April 29, 2019 A popular basketball court on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Though sports are at the center of Indigenous communities, teams often face targeted racial bullying from competitors. KALEN GOODLUCK

hate crimes against Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada. This harassment level may also extend, Perry said, to schools outside Indian Country with Native mascots. In a 2012 report to the Oregon State Board of Education, the state superintendent wrote that the use of Native American mascots “promotes discrimination, pupil harassment, and ste- reotyping” against Native American students in school and during sports events. At a hearing in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, held by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last year, Vice Chairman of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Barry Thompson testified on racism against Native During the American athletes. A former basketball Hostile team spirit coach himself, he recalled an episode that third period, occurred when his team travelled to Miller, the chaperones Native American athletes and fans face ongoing racism South Dakota, in 2002. Throughout the BY KALEN GOODLUCK game, Thompson said, a handful of grand- alleged that a parents from the other team made deroga- white man poured tory comments to him and his players, ome of the students were crying as of racial harassment directed at Native including the epithet “prairie nigger.” After beer on two of S they got back on to the bus. In early American athletes, coaches and fans, the game, while his team ate at a Dairy the students and 2015, Justin Poor Bear, now 39, chaper- according to data compiled from news arti- Queen, a group of boys rolled up in a car oned dozens of Native students to see a cles, federal reports and court documents and began yelling at them. As the players called them Rapid City Rush ice hockey game in South by High Country News. Reported incidents left, the other boys fired a shotgun into the racist slurs. Dakota. The trip was part of an after- ranged from racist vandalism and tweets, air over their heads. school program at American Horse School to banners that read, “Hey Indians, get Broadly speaking, professional ath- on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. “It’s ready for a Trail of Tears Part 2,” a refer- letes are more likely to experience rac- not your fault,” Poor Bear told the kids as ence to the 19th century death march ism in the form of hiring opportunities he drove home. During the third period, endured by tribal citizens who were ille- than in overt public actions, according to the chaperones alleged that a white man gally and forcibly relocated to Oklahoma Richard Lapchick, founder and director poured beer on two of the students and by the U.S. government. Other instances of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics called them racist slurs, a claim that could include players being called names like in Sport. “This stands in stark contrast not be proven in court. Poor Bear was “prairie nigger,” “wagon burners” and “dirty to Native Americans, who are confronted angry: He remembered experiencing the Indians.” Nearly all 52 reported incidents with racist names and mascots in many same kind of treatment during his high involved high school sports, but there sports across the country.” school basketball games in the ’90s. were also four university game cases and According to psychology studies, race- “When you first hear the words, ‘Go even a fast food restaurant sign that read, based mascots evoke associations with back to the rez, prairie nigger,’ or name “ ‘KC Chiefs’ Will Scalp the Redskins Feed negative stereotypes and establish unwel- calling, it’s a shock moment,” said Poor Them Whiskey Send — 2 — Reservation.” coming and even hostile school environ- Bear. “Then you realize they’re referring Nineteen incidents occurred at basketball ments for Native students. A 2008 study to us.” His basketball coach would tell the games; 20 happened at football games. found that when Native youth were team: Don’t engage. Of the 52 incidents, 26 resulted in exposed to Native American mascots, Rural towns are often highly sup- remedial actions, including 15 apologies they were more likely to express lower portive of their high school sports teams, to the Native victims. At times, multiple self-esteem. Yet white youth “feel better and reservation athletics are no different. responses were taken, including nine dis- about their own group” when presented But racism has been rising in U.S. sports ciplinary actions — a team suspension, with a Native mascot, said researcher for the past four years, according to the a few school investigations, an academic Stephanie Fryberg, professor of psychol- Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport suspension, volunteer positions revoked ogy and American Indian studies at the at the University of Central Florida, and at school, an athletic team meeting, a University of Washington. Native American athletes and fans are juvenile detention sentence and a disor- Reported acts of racism in U.S. sports often subjected to racist bullying at sport derly conduct charge. But in the remain- have been increasing each year since events. In fact, for Native Americans, ing 26 incidents, no remedial or disciplin- 2015, according to the Institute for this treatment has been the rule, not the ary action was taken. Diversity and Ethics in Sport. The insti- exception, for many years. “In places we think of as ‘Indian tute counted 11 in 2015; 31 in 2016; 41 From 2008 to 2018, there have been at Country,’ and especially adjacent bor- in 2017; and 52 racial incidents in U.S. least 52 reported incidents across the U.S. der towns, Indigenous athletes do expe- sports in 2018. “The rise in hate crimes rience escalated rates of harassment,” and hate incidences are up all across the said Barbara Perry, director of the country,” said Lapchick, the institute’s Kalen Goodluck is an investigative reporter and Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism founder. Meanwhile, the number of hate photographer covering the environment, business at the University of Ontario Institute of groups in the U.S. has reached a historical and tribal affairs. Technology, who spent years studying Please see Sporting racism, page 18 www.hcn.org High Country News 7 bills in 2017 and 2018. She said part of Watchers on the Willamette the reason Oregon hasn’t regulated the shipments is because, unlike other states, As an oil-export facility grows, activists try to fill the Oregon doesn’t have in-state refineries from which to collect fees or information. information gap surrounding oil trains Without comprehensive reporting, BY CARL SEGERSTROM Northwest communities look to email lists, Twitter hashtags and smartphone ship- tracking apps to monitor trains. Loosely Left, Dan Serres, Oct. 3, 2018: No train cars. Reuters trains and their dangerous cargo, they affiliated groups from Idaho, Washington the conservation reports that oil shipments to China have aim to fill the gaps in public knowledge and Oregon operate on a “see-something- director for Columbia “totally stopped” as a casualty of escalat- left by limited official information — and share-something” basis, but are left put- Riverkeeper, an ing trade tension. hold the fossil fuel industry accountable ting together a puzzle with missing pieces organization that works to protect the Oct. 30: Twelve train cars behind the for the threats it poses to their communi- as they try to understand what dangerous Columbia River. wall; 15 waiting just outside to the south. ties, and to the climate. materials are rolling past their houses, Center and right, oil Placard number 1267: Crude oil. Natural light filters through a long schools and rivers. train cars park near Nov. 26: No trains. window as Dan Serres, a train watcher the Zenith Energy Jan. 16, 2019: Yes. More than 20 cars. and the conservation director for Columbia ooking out at the dozens of trains terminal. Placard on side of train cars reads: “Toxic Riverkeeper, describes the project. “You L parked outside Zenith’s terminal in SAMUEL WILSON FOR HIGH COUNTRY NEWS Inhalation Hazard.” would think that we would know how Portland, Mia Reback describes how dif- much oil is moving and when,” said Serres, ferent the train watching is from her usual t Zenith Petroleum’s Portland who grew up just outside of Portland. “This climate justice organizing, which she typi- A Terminal in Oregon, multi-story is definitely a soft spot in how states are cally fuels by tapping into the energy of oil drums rise along the banks of the able to address oil-train traffic.” community gatherings and street pro- Willamette River. Backhoes scratch dirt The public is largely in the dark when tests. Coming to this industrial zone to into a dump truck as sparks fly from it comes to what’s moving through their bear witness to local fossil fuel infrastruc- welders building a metal structure behind towns. In Washington, the Department ture is lonelier, and isolating. walls topped with razor wire. Trucks rum- of Ecology issues quarterly reports on oil But for Reback, the chance to have an ble through on the last day of February, trains; between October and December of impact is worth that discomfort. As she while black cylindrical oil-train cars line last year, it said, 24,693 oil train cars and takes pictures to document the new con- the rails. To the activists who fear they more than 16.8 million barrels of crude oil struction, she recalls visiting the terminal will remote detonate the global carbon travelled the state’s rails. But that under- in the summer of 2015. She had joined budget — or even explode in their commu- counts the total: Trains that merely pass a crowd gathered to remember the 47 nity — they look like rows of bombs. through the state aren’t included. And lives lost a year earlier when an oil train After reports of Canadian tar sands Oregon has significantly less transparency. exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic in moving through Portland surfaced in While the Oregon fire marshall publishes Quebec, Canada. Black-and-white plac- March 2018, a small group formed to try to some information on Bakken crude oil train ards commemorated the name and age of track local oil train shipments by visiting traffic, the state does not share comprehen- each person who died in the disaster: “To the terminal and writing down what they sive quarterly crude oil by train reports with see the visual of children holding a sign of saw. Since then, the group has watched the public. That’s because they are “secu- another child their age next to an oil-train the terminal expand in front of their eyes, rity sensitive,” according to Jennifer Flynt, car was incredibly, incredibly powerful.” as Zenith adds new rail spurs and retools an Oregon Department of Environmental Portland politics tend to favor organiz- the facility to increase export capacity. Quality public affairs officer. ers like Reback and Serres. But even in a The watchers know about the risks of Since 2016, when an oil train exploded city that has passed ordinances to prevent oil-train spills and explosions across the in Mosier, Oregon, along the Columbia new oil infrastructure development, fossil Northwest. By bearing witness to the River, some state legislators have tried fuel companies seem to have figured out a to institute stronger monitoring stan- way to peek through the green curtain the dards and safeguards, most recently this city hopes to close on their industry. Reback Carl Segerstrom is an assistant editor at High year. But so far, their efforts have fallen said she hopes the watchers’ work will “re- Country News, covering Alaska, the Pacific North- short. State Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, center power in our communities, when west and the Northern Rockies from Spokane, D, who represents communities in north- fossil fuel companies and other polluting Washington.  @carlschirps east Portland, sponsored oil-train safety industries have taken power from us.”

8 High Country News April 29, 2019 THE HCN COMMUNITY THANK YOU TO OUR MONTHLY DONORS

Over 700 readers participate in the Sustainers’ Fill out the form below and mail it to HCN. Club at High Country News, contributing more Donation Amount Personal Information than $14,000 each and every month. Join today o Monthly donation ($15 min.) $ Name and help us build an even stronger foundation for Primary mailing address/P.O. Box Payment Method independent media in the West. o Automatic bank transfer (EFT) City, state, zip Account number Routing number Phone Or enclose a check marked “void.” Email Call us at (800) 905-1155 o Credit or debit card Card number Expires Signature/date Email [email protected] Acknowledge this gift as follows: o I would like to make an additional one-time donation:

$ D016A010 Visit hcn.org/support/monthly-giving LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/HIGH COUNTRY NEWS COUNTRY ANNA ARCHEY/HIGH LUNA

www.hcn.org High Country News 9 THE HCN COMMUNITY PROVIDING A ROCK-SOLID FOUNDATION FOR HIGH COUNTRY NEWS

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 CALIFORNIA HISTORY, RETOLD

regg Castro first roamed the Santa Lucia volunteer-run gift shop was opened to peddle rosaries and self- Mountains at the age of 8, going out with his father published books about the mission. to hunt deer and wild pigs in the fall, when the In the 1950s, after renovations were complete, visitors could oak trees and manzanita bushes turn gold and the wander into the chapel and see statues of saints and pictures of famously blue California skies go gray. the Virgen de Guadalupe on the stucco walls. They could see the FEATURE BY GRising along the central California coast, the Santa Lucias simple wooden pews that still filled the church and, outside, the ALLISON are dotted with pines and redwoods and home to rattlesnakes, stones once used to grind grain, and then wander through the bobcats and, some say, the ghost of a headless woman — a set- Spanish-style garden with its large gray fountain, rose bushes HERRERA tler who died crossing a creek in the 1800s. The tallest peak in and lemon trees that glowed in the California sun. Tour guides the range, Junipero Serra, is more than a mile above sea level, typically avoided the darker details of its history, of course, such and caves and grottos can be found throughout the region, as the 4,000 Salinan tribal members buried in a mass grave many of them used by Castro’s Salinan ancestors on trips to about 500 feet from the church — their deaths and disposal a and from the Pacific Ocean. The mountains are also home to final reward for their work in building the mission. At 9 years Mission San Antonio de Padua, one of the 21 Catholic outposts old, Castro first saw the burial site and its marker: A crudely Spain built in the late 1700s to establish a colonial foothold made sign, better suited for a spaghetti Western, that just read here and convert Indigenous people to Christianity. “Indian Graves.” During winter, on the way to Jolon, California, when the “My parents would say they ‘got sick and passed away,’ ” rains came and it was cold, Castro remembers his dad turning recalls Castro. “Euphemisms. These ways of blunting the terri- up the heat in his old Chevy truck and rolling down the win- fying truth of it: That they died by the thousands building these dows. The scent of oaks, rock rose and willow floated into the missions.” truck — the “Jolon smell,” Castro calls it, the smell of home. Less than 70 miles from here, thousands of tourists enjoy It was a long drive between the mountains and the city of the iconic views of Big Sur. But Mission San Antonio de Padua San Jose, where the family lived at the time, so Castro’s dad still casts a pall over the Santa Lucia Mountains. In the wake would often stop and camp near Mission San Antonio de Padua. of its construction, thousands of members of the Salinan Nation That made for an earlier hunting day and gave them a chance and other Indigenous people died of hunger, violence and slav- to linger in their traditional homeland, where his dad felt com- ery. Sacred sites were destroyed. Traditional foods were forcibly fortable. After dinner, as the campfire died and sunset neared, replaced by European staples, such as cattle. When the Mexican Castro would wrap himself in his favorite green coat to ward government took control of the region, Indigenous people were off the mountain valley evening chill and explore the mission’s massacred to fulfill the Spanish land grants promised to colo- gardens and tiled walkways. nists. Then the Americans came. San Antonio de Padua was built in 1771, but by World War As Castro grew up, that history eluded him, much as II, the mission was in ruins: Tiles were falling from the roof, it would escape me. In school, there was no mention of the and looters stole paintings and other valuables from the inte- Chumash, the Esselen, Ohlone, Salinan or other tribes that rior. It wasn’t until the late 1940s that the Hearst Foundation once thrived on the very grounds we played kickball on. There donated money to begin renovating the crumbling building. A were no lessons on the places important to us, like the Wagon

12 High Country News April 29, 2019 CALIFORNIA HISTORY, RETOLD

Cave or Morro Rock, which my grandmother and I visited when MAX RAFFERTY WAS STERN, CLEAN-CUT and had a face that I was a child. We learned in school that there were no Indians conveyed a strict, no-nonsense personality. In the late 1950s left. No Chumash near the town of Shell Beach, or Salinan near and early ’60s, he served as a superintendent of a small school the town of Templeton where I spent my elementary school district in Southern California, a nobody by most accounts. But years; we were extinct. At home, our grandparents were tight- in 1961, everything changed when he delivered his fiery speech, lipped, and often bitter, about our family histories. “The Passing of the Patriot.” Castro remembers his dad telling him, “Know who you are A conservative sermon of sorts delivered at La Cañada and be proud of it, but don’t tell anyone.” That was the fear talk- School in the northeast suburbs of Los Angeles, “The Passing ing — fear passed down from parents and grandparents who of the Patriot” won numerous awards and was reprinted in remembered when it was still legal to kill Indians in California. Readers Digest, not usually seen as an influential magazine but Ever since he found the graveyard at Mission San Antonio one that was read by Rafferty’s core audience — conservative, de Padua, Castro has carried an image in his head — one white and middle-class. of Native bodies stacked like firewood. Mission tours rarely A product of the California politics that later brought mention this history, but even more troubling is the fact that Ronald Reagan to power as governor in 1967, Rafferty’s speech California’s public schools don’t teach it, despite a 2017 law that blasted educators for failing to teach schoolchildren “traditional requires them to do so. values,” lamenting that the youth were losing their way due to Assembly Bill 738, the Native American curriculum model, “morally unfit teachers” and that “youngsters were growing up was sponsored by Democrat Monique Limón, a former school to become booted, sideburned, duck-tailed, unwashed, leather- board member from Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and jacketed slobs, whose favorite sport is ravaging little girls and passed with strong bipartisan support. “This bill would require stomping polio victims to death.” After his performance at the the commission to develop, and the state board to adopt, modify, La Cañada School, Rafferty’s image as a conservative firebrand or revise, a model curriculum in Native American studies,” the was cemented. legislation reads. In 1962, Rafferty ran for state superintendent of public However, that requirement doesn’t come with funding for instruction, the first year the job was an elected rather than training, development, or even textbooks, leaving teachers with appointed position, and won by 200,000 votes. It was the perfect The Mission San a difficult choice: Comply with the law on their own dime, or opportunity for Rafferty to infuse California’s school system Antonio de Padua continue to downplay or ignore the atrocities committed against with his conservative values. (c. 1934), near Jolon, Indigenous people by settlers and colonists in the foundation of California, like much of the country, was undergoing turbu- California, where what is currently California. lent times. In the 1960s, college campuses became focal points Gregg Castro roamed In other words, the Golden State understands that it has a of protests against the Vietnam War, even as the Civil Rights as a boy, and where problem with what it’s teaching its children. It just isn’t doing movement threatened to overturn established institutions — he first saw the mass much about it. something Rafferty virulently disapproved of. Speaking on televi- burial site for some Today, Castro, a communications technician, activist and sion and through a weekly newspaper column, he pushed back 4,000 Indigenous writer, has banded together with other educators to say they’ve against anti-war protesters and condemned what he saw as vio- Salinan Indians. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, had enough. lence on campus. He opposed teacher strikes in the 1970s, fought HABS CAL; 27-JOLO.V; 1

www.hcn.org High Country News 13 sex education, and advocated against the past, to cherish the traditions of our for short. They also began the Indian legislation designed to provide fair hous- country, to hate communism and its crea- Historian Press, which published Jack ing or busing to better integrate schools. tures, then I say let’s be ugly.” Norton’s Genocide in Northwestern In his 2010 essay “Standing Up to Sugar To create an educational experience California as well as the Native news- Cubes,” Louisiana State professor Zevi unique to the Golden State, Rafferty chose paper Wassaja. The occupation of Gutfreund asserts that under the Rafferty to extol the virtues of the region’s early Alcatraz in 1969 is often framed as the administration, schools were prodded to settlers. The most prominent “leader” was first time an intertribal effort sparked restore “traditional values” in the class- Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan friar social change, but Rose Soza War Soldier, room by creating patriots steeped in the from Mallorca, Spain, often described as professor of ethnic studies at Northern values of great American leaders like the “founding father of California.” Arizona University and a member of Andrew Jackson and George Washington. Serra arrived in what is currently the Soboba band of Luiseño Indians in “Education during the last three decades Mexico in 1749. After a few years of Southern California, contends that The has deliberately debunked the hero,” mission work, as well as a stint with the Society rightly deserves credit: It coor- Rafferty once said. “If it is ugly to teach Spanish Inquisition, he made his way dinated Indian educators and activists children to revere the great Americans of north to what was then known as “Alta across California to force public officials California” to spread the Catholic faith. like Rafferty to listen to Native people. Most accounts and scholarly work about The Society reflected “a broad diversity “There is not one Indian child who has not come home Serra characterize him as practicing a of Indians living in California,” wrote in shame and tears after one of those sessions in which faith that was downright medieval com- Soza War Soldier. “Individuals from the pared to his Franciscan contemporaries; he Blackfoot, Maidu, Navajo, Ohlone, Paiute, he is taught that his people were dirty, eschewed modern comforts like beds and Pueblo, Inupiat, Yakima, and Yurok tribes refused to wear shoes, even when travel- also contributed during the formative animal-like, something less than a human being.” ing the rugged terrain of Mexico or the early years of the organization.” —Rupert Costo, testifying in a 1968 hearing in San Francisco to the Californian deserts, even when injured. “There is not one Indian in the whole Special Subcommittee on Indian Education To purify his spirit, he punished him- of this country who does not cringe self, often practicing self-flagellation with in anguish and frustration because of a chain of sharp iron links when “sinful these textbooks,” Costo said during his thoughts” entered his mind. His time 1968 testimony in San Francisco to with the Inquisition deepened his intoler- the Special Subcommittee on Indian ance of “Indian superstitions,” fueling a Education. Costo made these remarks propensity for violence; he administered after his involvement with the California beatings, whippings and torture to both Curriculum Commission. “There is not Indigenous and non-Indigenous men and one Indian child who has not come home women who refused to work or accept in shame and tears after one of those Christian teachings. sessions in which he is taught that his At the age of 54, Serra left Mexico to people were dirty, animal-like, something oversee the building of what would later less than a human being.” be California’s 21 Catholic outposts. With Despite Rafferty’s deeply conserva- the help of Spanish soldiers, he enslaved tive views, the 1960s put pressure on Indigenous people in order to aid in him, especially when it came to history construction. “The treatment shown to textbooks. As Soza War Soldier wrote, Indians is the most cruel I have ever “He appeared indecisive with the process read in history,” wrote Padre Antonio de of integrating history textbooks, waver- la Concepción Horra, an eyewitness to ing between wanting fact based his- Serra’s actions. “For the slightest things tory and a desire for a mythical history they receive heavy floggings, are shackled promoting absolute patriotism.” In his and put in stocks and treated with so weekly column in the Los Angeles Times, much cruelty that they are kept whole Rafferty described illustrations of African days without a drink of water.” Americans and Mexican Americans as Textbooks paint a rosy picture of the a cause for concern due to depictions of time by depicting Indigenous people as “barefooted, bandana wearing plantation “grateful Indians” receiving the Christian hands or as Olympic athletes” wearing message. In 2015, Serra was canonized “sandals and serapes,” concluding that by Pope Francis despite an outcry from such “racial oversimplifications do consid- Indigenous scholars and activists. erable harm.” But even as Max Rafferty worked to For their part, the Costos had long instill patriotic pride in California stu- bemoaned the lack of accurate repre- dents, others made it their life’s work to sentation in California textbooks. In teach a more accurate history. 1965, the couple contacted Rafferty and Rupert Costo, born in 1906, was a asked to be advisers to the California Cahuilla Indian educator, writer and Curriculum Commission, one of three activist who grew up on the Cahuilla bodies that oversee education in the Reservation near Coachella Valley and state. Rafferty agreed. in Anza in the Imperial Valley. In 1851, Becoming advisory members on the p Rupert and Jeannette Costo, who joined the his uncle was one of the signers of trea- curriculum commission was a big deal: It California Curriculum Commission in 1965, ties that promised California Indians a meant the Costos could exert influence encouraged teaching an accurate history of land base in exchange for land given to over the state’s multimillion-dollar text- California that didn’t start with Columbus. settlers. (The treaties were never rati- book industry. Contracts with publish- UA 282, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE, PHOTOGRAPHS (BOX 10 #764) USED BY PERMISSION OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & fied.) Costo himself played football in his ers meant mandatory, statewide sales UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE college days at Whittier. of books to schools, and the American u Max Rafferty, California superintendent of Two years after Rafferty took charge Indian Historical Society used that power public schools from 1962 to 1970. of the public education system, Costo and to push textbook writers to correct mis- CALIFORNIA HISTORY ROOM, CALIFORNIA STATE LIBRARY, FROM his wife, Jeannette, formed the American information and stereotypes by rejecting “STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES,” BY ZEVI GUTFREUND Indian Historical Society, or “the Society” books and contracts.

14 High Country News April 29, 2019 Helen Bauer’s 1954 text, California organize a revolt; accept what has hap- state Senate seat. Two years later, he lost Kizh Nation tribal Gold Days, was roundly rejected due to pened to you and do the best you can; his job as superintendent of public instruc- members, led by its framing of gold miners as heroes and or poison the missionary. Students were tion to Wilson Riles — the first African Chief Ernesto Salas, Indians as ruthless savages crouched reminded that they were not armed American to be elected to a statewide protest at the San behind bushes waiting to attack guileless and that the Spaniards had guns, then office in California. Rafferty was killed in Gabriel Mission in San Gabriel, pioneers. “The romantic aura now adher- encouraged to discuss their choices a car accident in Alabama in 1982. Today, California, near ing to the gold miner should be closely among themselves. The game was never the University of California, Riverside has a statue of Father examined by scholars and teachers,” implemented in classrooms, however. a professorial chair named after Costo. Junipero Serra wrote the Costos. “Above all, this romance A fourth-grade history book called moments after the attaching to the gold miners ought to be The Story of California ended the MONIQUE LIMÓN, who today represents 2015 ceremony in shredded away by the truth.” Society’s relationship with Rafferty and District 37 in the California State Washington, D.C., The Society successfully removed an the California Curriculum Commission. Assembly, remembers her time on the during which the image of two Narragansett Indians scalp- Costo called the book’s portrayal of Ventura County school board. Spanish missionary ing a swooning white woman from one Indians “biased” and said the pictures She’d seen a language dictionary cre- was canonized by textbook on American colonial history. In were “degrading.” Nonetheless, 300,000 ated by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Pope Francis. FREDERIC J. BROWN/ the book Land of the Free, the sentence copies were ordered, prompting the that was given to local libraries. She AFP/GETTY IMAGES “For an even longer time, Indians were Costos to resign. realized schools weren’t doing enough treated as though they were children and But they continued fighting. After to promote the history that was in their were not allowed to vote,” was changed they ended their involvement with the backyard. “One of the important things to “For an even longer time, Indians were California Curriculum Commission, that California has is a rich Native unjustly treated as ‘incompetents.’ They they founded the Institute for Teachers, American history,” said Limón. were not allowed to vote.” Small changes, an alternative school for educators. The When she got to the Legislature, yes, but important ground the Costos idea was to work outside the system she started having more conversations fought for, word by word, year by year. and train teachers, rather than put about Native American studies with her They even devised a role-playing pressure on the California Curriculum colleagues and people in the California game for fourth graders called “It Commission. “When you teach our youth Department of Education. She wanted to Happened in California, You Are There.” that Columbus discovered America in make changes, and she wanted to do it in In the game, students pretended to be 1492, you are teaching the history of a collaboration with tribes. California Indians who were captured, European development which took place “It’s also one that differs from region to forced to live with missionaries and in this land,” said Costo. “You are not region,” she said. “So having an approach given four choices: Run away, because teaching the history of America.” or models where you see local communi- the guards were not always watching; In 1968, Max Rafferty lost a bid for a ties work with their local school is really

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 beneficial to enriching that curriculum.” curriculum, then present it to the state’s and they have their own history in of What do you do when you’re an more than 1,000 school districts to figure itself and it shouldn’t be just centered assembly member with a passion for out how to implement it in the classroom. around the mission,” said Adams. learning and education? You sponsor a That’s a slow process that can take years. Stephanie Gregson, director of “What we also bill. That’s how California Assembly Bill Scott Roark, the communications the Curriculum Frameworks and 738 came to be. officer for the California Department Instructional Resources Division of the want people to The bill requires the state’s of Education, says the State Board of Department of Education, says the depart- know is that Instructional Quality Commission to Education will not take action on any ment has obtained input from listening “develop, and the state board to adopt, kind of guidelines until March 2022, sessions with tribes throughout the state. the California modify, or revise, a model curriculum though “focus groups are being imple- She is quick to note that they’re trying to Native in Native American studies.” Hoping mented right now to review the frame- introduce more critical thinking, asking to ensure quality courses in Native work.” It’s unclear whether those focus questions like, “Why were the Spanish American American studies, lawmakers also voted groups will include Native American here?” and “Who was here before?” and population was for the curriculum to be developed “with educators or tribal members. “Why were the missions built?” participation from federally recognized “Future development of the model cur- But officials who work with teachers there prior to Native American tribes located in riculum will include (1) participation of fac- on how to actually teach a new curricu- the mission and California, California Native American ulty of Native American studies programs lum say it’s difficult because there is no tribes, faculty of Native American studies from institutions of higher education and oversight. The state can pass legisla- they have their programs at universities and colleges (2) representatives of Local Educational tion laying out a new framework that own history in with Native American studies programs, Agencies (LEAs), a majority of whom are instructs school districts to teach more and a group of representatives of local K–12 teachers, with experience in the accurate history and encourages stu- of itself and it educational agencies, a majority of whom study or teaching of Native American stud- dents to ask more critical questions, but shouldn’t be are kindergarten to grade 12, inclusive, ies,” Roark wrote in an email. lawmakers don’t know if the teachers are teachers who have relevant experiences But even if everybody was in full actually implementing it. just centered or education backgrounds in the study agreement about what changes need to Mae Chaplin, an assistant professor and teaching of Native American studies.” be made, the state has not provided fund- in the teaching credentials department around the If you don’t understand Legislature- ing to make it happen. at Sacramento State, says that teachers mission.” speak, that means AB 738 wants to Two of the administrators in charge often have a fear of history because they ensure that students today aren’t learn- of implementing this new framework feel they lack the content knowledge they —Tom Adams, ing what students in the Rafferty era acknowledge that there has been little need in order to teach it well. California Department learned with regard to California Indians. emphasis until now put on history. Tom “They simply don’t know much about of Education administrator working The bill passed, and Gov. Jerry Brown Adams, deputy superintendent for teach- California Indian history unless they to implement AB 738 signed it into law in 2017. But there’s one ing and learning, said he and others in happen to take a course in college,” problem: The work to make it a reality the Department of Education have good Chaplin says. in the classroom won’t really begin for intentions. According to a recent report by First another three years. “What we also want people to know Nations Development Institute, “It is no Limón said the Department of is that the California Native American surprise that non-Natives are primar- Education must first develop the population was there prior to the mission, ily creating the narrative about Native

16 High Country News April 29, 2019 Americans. And the story they adopt is She points to the state of Washington as and the period of colonization better, but overwhelmingly one of deficit and dispar- a model for how to teach Native his- also kind of take that story further into ity.” The report continues by saying the tory. The curriculum called “Since Time the 20th and 21st century,” says Khal “biased and revisionist history” taught in Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Schneider, a Graton Rancheria tribal school leads to the invisibility of Native Washington State” has been endorsed by citizen, professor and member of the people. Between 2011 and 2012, nearly the 29 tribal nations in the state. It asks coalition. “I think there’s been an inter- 87 percent of state history failed to cover thought-provoking questions, such as, est in recent years and a lot of attention Native American history after 1900. And “What is the legal status of tribes who paid to what happens to California once 27 states did not specifically mention negotiated or who did not negotiate settle- it becomes an American state.” Before, Native people in their curriculum at all. ment for compensation for the loss of their he says, California Indians’ only role in Just like students in Max Rafferty’s sovereign homelands?” and “What were history education was that of dutiful ser- day, children exposed to inaccurate cur- the political, economic, and cultural forces vants of the mission system — and that’s Pictured from left: ricula now will one day be running for consequential to the treaties that led to the where their story ended. During a California public office — whether for the Board movement of tribes from long established Castro and others say they’re happy Teachers Association of Education or president of the United homelands to reservations?” the California Department of Education Go! diversity and equity conference States. “The focus is connecting students to wants to teach accurate Indigenous in San Jose in April, the geography of this place, making them history, but he’s not so sure teachers, Rose Borunda GREGG CASTRO AND ROSE BORUNDA, a feel more connected to land and water,” districts and those in charge are ready to of California professor at California State University, says Sara Marie Ortiz, a citizen of New give kids in public schools the full story State University, Sacramento, and other educators and Mexico’s Acoma Pueblo, who worked of what happened in the missions, or to Sacramento, gives activists formed the California Indian closely with the Muckleshoot Tribe and discuss their lingering emotional and a presentation. History Curriculum Coalition in 2014. with students in the Highline Public political impacts on California Indians. In Gregg Castro takes a Much like Rupert and Jeanette Henry School District, just south of Seattle. his opinion, children can handle difficult break to show some Costo, who founded the American Indian Muckleshoot is a close partner in creating truths; it’s the parents who have a prob- of the curriculum Historical Society, Castro and his peers “Since Time Immemorial” with the school lem. He’s heard from parents who said materials endorsed by the California are tired of seeing California’s history system. they knew the true history of the mis- Indian History books ignore Indigenous people and gloss “Since Time Immemorial” does exactly sions, but still wanted their child to learn Curriculum over the Golden State’s ongoing relation- what California’s AB 738 was designed the old way — by reading inaccurate text- Coalition. Below, ship — and violent history — with the to do. books and doing school projects, things Dessa Drake, a land’s first people. And much like his “Relationship-building is everything,” like building models of missions from fourth-grade teacher forebears, Castro is taking a grassroots Ortiz explained. “It has to live in your popsicle sticks. It’s willful ignorance, he in Templeton, approach to create regionally and cultur- heart and mind as a teacher.” She says says. “That’s what makes it harder than California, showed ally specific curricula. that educators in her district are always dealing with the out-and-out racism.” the film Dancing Borunda says that she and others in asking speakers to visit the classroom While the state’s origin story should Salmon Home, and other curriculum the coalition are part of a national move- and that the principals have been very be a part of children’s education, Castro materials developed ment to put more emphasis on a more supportive. says that shouldn’t be the end of it. One by the Winnemem accurate history of Native Americans for “My perspective is (educators) want section of the curriculum, which was cre- Wintu Tribe. both elementary and high school students. to tell the mission story better, for one, ated by the Winnemem Wintu, teaches SCOTT BRALEY

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 the importance of salmon runs and the meaning of place. Another piece from the Kumeyaay examines the cultural and environmental stewardship projects the tribe is working on, while the Ohlone and Yokut have developed a pre-contact map of California tribes for students. From the gold rush to state-sponsored genocide, from unratified treaties to the economic and political influence of tribal nations today, the coalition is deter- mined to educate the next generation of Californians. This summer, educators and activists will converge to discuss lesson plans and fine-tune curricula. Castro says he’s invited the California Department of Education. As of publication, he hasn’t received a response. A model of the Mission San Diego de Acalá, produced by a fourth-grade social studies class studying the mission curriculum. DAVID LOFINK CC VIA FLICKR CASTRO’S FATHER PASSED AWAY several years ago, but he still remembers the chilly air and the smell of smoke as the between Salinan values and Christian one of my ancestors, lived in this house. sun set on the Santa Lucias after those teachings: generosity, kindness, taking More than 10 years ago, under the close childhood hunting trips. Today, he leads care of others. His dad had those values supervision of park rangers, I visited the school tours out at Mission San Antonio, too, Castro says, but unlike his mother, home. Pete Zavalla, one of the few Native and the dry grass cracks and rustles his father never forgave the church. American employees at Los Padres, Allison Herrera is under his feet when he guides students to Castro and I share some of the same showed me the deer grass and tule reeds Xolon Salinan from the wall where some of his ancestors are history. My relatives lived in these val- growing near the house — reeds my the Central Coast of buried. leys, too; they hunted and traveled to the family used for making baskets genera- California and reports Catholicism has always been part Pacific Ocean. An adobe house, now called tions before. It was hot and windy as we for PRI’s The World. of his life, he says, despite the history. “The Indian’s Adobe,” a protected his- walked along a small trail near an apple  @alisonaher His mom taught Sunday school and his torical site, is nestled among the hills of orchard. When we returned to the adobe This story was funded grandfather hosted catechism classes, Las Padres National Forest, its gardens house, a cool breeze drifted by. Zavalla with reader donations though he never became Catholic. In hidden away from hunters and nature remarked that this would have been the to the High Country Castro’s eyes, his mom accepted the enthusiasts who want to explore a place same breeze that Encinales felt more News Research Fund. church because she saw the similarities where “Indians lived.” Perfecta Encinales, than a century ago.

Sporting racism continued from page 7 Some reported incidents against Indigenous sports remains unknown, Barbara Perry high, while federal authorities reported said, “Indigenous communities likely are athletes and spectators at sporting events a 17% increase in hate crimes between among the most vulnerable.” In January 2017, fans from Pryor, Montana, said they were denied 2016 and 2017. Though national rates of bullying have entry to a basketball game at Reed Point High School because they Though it’s clear that racial harass- remained relatively steady in recent years, were Native American. They were supported by a complaint filed by ment happens in many sports, it’s diffi- in 2017, the Centers for Disease Control the Montana ACLU, but the Montana Human Rights Bureau found “no cult to know how frequently other racial found that nearly 22% of Native Ameri- reasonable cause” for discrimination by Reed Point High School. groups are affected, mainly for lack of re- cans and Alaskan Natives were bullied on search. For example: Last fall, a number of school property, higher than the national In early December 2013, Native American onlookers spotted a Sonic black and Latino high school football play- rate of 19%. Yet research into the effects Drive-in sign in Belton, Missouri, that read: “ ‘KC Chiefs’ Will Scalp the ers across the country reported seeing rac- bullying has on Native Americans and Redsk*ns Feed Them Whiskey Send – 2 – Reservation,” referring to ist signs and hearing racial epithets. Nu- Alaskan Natives is “nearly non-existent,” Kansas City’s professional football team. merous studies on race and athletics focus according to the Substance Abuse and In 2013, a Cherokee high school football player in North Carolina on subtle, systematic forms of racial dis- Mental Health Services Administration, a received racist messages from a Swain High School player after the crimination in professional and collegiate government agency devoted to mental and his team lost 32-0. The messages included racial slurs for American sports, as seen in team demographics, me- behavioral health. Indians and African Americans as well as sexually vulgar references to dia representation, and the opportunities Not only is there a study gap in overt the Cherokee player’s older sister. and salaries that athletes receive, though sports racism, but the data High Country mostly for black athletes. Several studies News gathered also suggest that account- In October 2017, the day with small cohorts conveyed a range of ability is an issue: Half of the publicly before Sturgis High School in anecdotal evidence that African Ameri- reported racial incidents against Native South Dakota was about to cans face significant racist treatment by Americans received no disciplinary or re- compete against Pine Ridge coaches, media, fans and teammates. mediating action. High School, an Oglala Lakota An analysis of a 2013 statewide sur- “Racism is everywhere, and it’s about tribal school, social media vey of Minnesota public, charter and nothing that you did wrong,” Justin Poor showed an unauthorized pep rally that ended with students tribal schools may give a possible glimpse Bear told his son after the hockey game smashing a windshield into the scope of the problem for Native incident. “You move past it.” He was sad with sledgehammers and students. The study found that Native because Brendan was so young at the spraypainting “go back to the American students reported being bul- time, experiencing that kind of racism in rez” on a car. lied because of their race over three times sixth grade. Now an athlete like his dad, as often as white students did. Hispanic, Brendan Poor Bear started running cross- black and Asian students reported rac- country as a freshman in high school. ist bullying nearly four times more often “Racism needs to be talked about now, es- SNAPCHAT SCREENSHOT than white students did. While the rate pecially with Natives. Everybody, not just at which each group is targeted by race in Natives.”

18 High Country News April 29, 2019 MARKETPLACE

www.hcn.org High Country News 19 MARKETPLACE

Notice to our advertisers: You can place Web Design and Content Manager Trout Unlimited North Idaho Field Northern Rockies Regional Director classified ads with our online classified We are seeking an experienced designer Coordinator – The field coordinator will work Visit our website for full description and to system. Visit hcn.org/classifieds. April 26 is to be the team lead for web development with TU members, other fishing organizations, apply. No phone calls, please. NPCA is an the deadline to place your print ad in the and digital media. Part creator and part community leaders, businesses and elected EOE. https://www.npca.org/about/careers. May 13 issue. Call 800-311-5852, or email planner, this person should have the officials to build support for actions necessary [email protected] for help or information. ability to understand the big picture and to recover abundant, fishable populations Executive Director — The Flathead Lakers offer creative solutions. 406-570-7044 of wild salmon and steelhead. The position are seeking a dynamic, self-motivated and BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES [email protected]. https:// location is in north Idaho with a preference proven leader to be our next Executive for the Lewiston area. For complete job Director (ED). 406-887-2166. tomcoxmt@ Conservationist? Irrigable land? headwaterseconomics.org/about/job- description, see website, www.tu.org. Send Stellar seed-saving NGO is available to serious openings/. gmail.com https://flatheadlakers.org/. application materials to [email protected]. partner. Package must include financial support. Details: http://seeds.ojaidigital.net. HOME AND GARDEN Director of Business Development and Western Native Seed — Specializing in Borderlands Restoration, L3c, is the CONFERENCES AND EVENTS Sales – native seeds and seed mixes for Western founding organization of the Borderlands states. 719-942-3935. Restoration Network. Borderlands Restoration On the Wild Road with High Country Experiential Education Intern/ News — Join HCN and Black Sheep Network (BRN) is both an independent public Assistant – Actively introduce students to charity and a collaborative of five organizations John Deere Snow Blower 24” — Newly Adventures on an expedition through the experiential education, outdoor recreation refurbished and tuned. Older model, great national parks and monuments of Utah working to build a regional restoration-based and sustainability while engaging and economy in the U.S.- Mexico Borderlands. We condition. Gasoline engine. Chains on and southwest Colorado, Sept. 7-15, 2019. challenging them to learn and participate tires. Heavy duty for mountain snow. Call Author and journalist Jonathan Thompson are looking for an energetic entrepreneur in these diverse opportunities. Room, board, to take responsibility for developing and cellphone and leave message or email. 303- will be the tour leader as we explore Bears 594-7909. [email protected]. Ears, Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef and Grand salary; starts August 2019. Contact: joel. executing business and marketing plans to Staircase-Escalante. For more information, [email protected]. commercialize more sustainably produced visit https://www.hcn.org/advertising/ products developed by our collaborative. MERCHANDISE wildroad-sept2019. Chief Operating Officer/Deputy This position has primary responsibility Lunatec Hydration Spray Bottle — Director – Friends of Cedar Mesa seeks a for the development of products, markets, Clean off, cool off and drink. Multiple spray skilled nonprofit leader to play a crucial role in and sales contributing to the realization of patterns. Better than you imagine. Try it. 3rd Annual Taos Writers Conference protecting the greater Bears Ears landscape. July 12-14, 2019, in Taos, N.M. With over 21 a restoration economy. Email cover letter www.lunatecgear.com. Experience working with government land stating your interest, relevant knowledge and workshops and keynote speaker, poet Arthur managers, passion for public lands, financial Sze. taoswritersconference.org. experience, and your most recent résumé with PROFESSIONAL SERVICES management, and diplomacy skills are key. at least two references who are most familiar Salary $45,000-$60,000 DOE. Apply at with you, your work and ability. Send to Expert land steward — Available now for EMPLOYMENT friendsofcedarmesa.org/hiring. site conservator, property manager. View [email protected]. More information at résumé at: http://skills.ojaidigital.net. Staff Attorney, Alaska — Earthjustice https://www.borderlandsrestoration.org. is hiring for a Staff Attorney. https://app. jobvite.com/j?cj=oL7H9fws&s=High_ Country_News.

20 High Country News April 29, 2019 PUBLICATIONS AND BOOKS Everland Mountain Retreat — 300 acres with mountaintop lodge. Nonprofit relocating. The Book of Barley — Collector’s item! The www.everlandmountainretreat.com. story of barley, the field crop; 50 years of nonfiction research. www.barleybook.com. TOURS AND TRAVEL REAL ESTATE FOR RENT Copper Canyon, Mexico — Ten-day Coming to Tucson? Popular vacation tour from Los Mochis airport. Two nights El Fuerte, train, two nights canyon rim house, furnished, two bed, one bath, yard, hotel, five nights camping. 520-324-0209, dog-friendly. Contact Lee at [email protected] www.coppercanyontrails.org. or 520-791-9246. UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS REAL ESTATE FOR SALE Educators: Help your students unravel the Qualify for California industrial hemp complex issues facing the American West license? Former Northern Sierra winery, with with The HCNU Classroom Program. FREE 2,208-square-foot commercial building, big print and/or digital access. Learn more at lot, room to expand. [email protected] hcn.org/edu. or call 530-256-3233.

40-acre Lamborn Mountain Retreat, Paonia, Colo. — One-of-a-kind gem borders public lands/West Elk Wilderness. Privacy, creek, spring, irrigation, access. $265,000. Info at https://hcne.ws/LambornMT or call 970-683-0588.

Energy-efficient — Unique custom home in Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado near La Veta Pass. Three-bed, two-and-one-half bath, private gated park, two hours from Taos, N.M. Contact: [email protected] or 719-379-3442.

Gila National Forest, N.M. — Beautiful off-the-grid passive solar near the CDT. 9.4 acres, north of Silver City. Sam, 575.388.1921.

www.hcn.org High Country News 21 MARKETPLACE

22 High Country News April 29, 2019 BOOKS What trees can teach us

A big tree can seem monolithic and vanishes. So for her Ph.D., Oakes docu- solitary — several armspans of girth, a ments what happens to some Southeast towering crown. Trees, though, often live Alaska forests after their yellow-cedars in community. Through a network of roots die, and how people respond. Though and fungal threads, they can warn each occasionally bogged in detailed scientific other of danger and even feed a lopped process, Oakes is lovely and lyrical in her stump. They nourish and house countless fieldwork descriptions, and her inter- creatures, which nourish them in turn. weaving of ecological and personal loss. Trees, in other words, embody the power With the help of some tenacious of relationships to sustain life. And form- techs, including Kate “Maddog” Cahill, ing a relationship with trees, two books whose illustrations grace the book, by first-time authors suggest, can lead Oakes thrashes through the rainy woods Big Lonely Doug: people to help do the same on a grand of Chichagof Island and Glacier Bay The Story of One scale — from stumping on behalf of old- National Park, gathering data, falling into of Canada’s Last growth temperate rainforests, to fighting a treewell, talking down a grizzly. Each Great Trees climate change. night, she backs out of her sodden clothes Harley Rustad Journalist Harley Rustad centers his and into her tent, and each morning, exploration of this theme on an unlikely she climbs back into their moldering 328 pages, softcover: catalyst: a single logger meeting a single embrace. She and her crew are so hungry $22.95. Douglas fir. Dennis Cronin was marking at the end of their first two-week stint House of Anansi Press a grove for harvest in 2011 when he came that when they return to town, Cahill Inc., 2019 upon the giant, 217 feet tall. On impulse, bursts into tears over an omelet. he wrapped it with a ribbon that spared Through the coming seasons, a picture it as the rest of the trees fell. So was born edged with complicated hope emerges. Big Lonely Doug, a nickname that Rustad Saplings are alarmingly sparse, and the adopts as the title of his book — a sweep- study forecasts a grim future for still- ing natural and human history of logging healthy yellow-cedars, but a different on Canada’s Vancouver Island, and the forest is growing up around the dead, movement to save its vastly diminished one dominated by Western hemlock. woods. As Oakes prepares to interview As Rustad’s protagonist and care- Alaskans who use yellow-cedar to see fully researched prose show, the battle how they reckon with this change, lines in such fights are rarely clear. The her father dies suddenly in his sleep. Pacheedaht First Nation both defends In her grief, she finds insight in her its ancient forests and logs parts of them subjects’ answers. People like Tlingit for the economic benefit of its people. The weaver Teri Rofkar, who advocates loggers who worked the region’s forests, giving the trees a break even from meanwhile, became as familiar with them harvesting bark traditionally In Search of The as any treehugger. The trees’ size and used in yarn. The loggers who Canary Tree: The steep footing meant that they could only be experiment with cutting standing Story of a Scientist, cut by hand with saws. And in this close- dead yellow-cedar instead of live trees. a Cypress, and a ness, some loggers came to revere them. The ecologists who commit to telling the Changing World Environmental groups built trails and story of change. In the end, she finds Lauren E. Oakes marketing campaigns around the last resilience and new growth here too, 288 pages, hardcover: giants standing to help average citizens beyond the pain — an opening for heal- $27. understand the stakes, winning protec- ing, for new possibilities, for action. tions in the process, but also alienating A Tlingit weaver named Ernestine Basic Books, 2018 First Nations by acting without regard Hanlon-Abel tells Oakes a story that for their deep knowledge of place. sums it up well. It’s about a man running Ironically, Cronin’s fir gives conservation- for office, who comes to see her father. ists their perfect icon: An astounding tree, “See how the mountains are? A lot of marooned in a blast zone of stumps. avalanches, huh?” Hanlon-Abel’s father Rustad’s book is more nuanced asks the man. “You’re gonna have to learn explanation than call to action, though how to hold hands the way those trees do. the implication is clear: The intimacy of … They send out all these roots, and … direct experience draws people to act. pretty soon, the avalanches aren’t gonna Scientist Lauren Oakes picks up this be able to … wipe it out. That’s your job. thread from a more tender vantage and To hold hands.” takes it further in the direction of advo- In this time of environmental crises, cacy. Her book, In Search of the Canary these books imply, maybe holding hands Tree, blends research and memoir, chroni- with each other, and with other spe- cling her own quest to understand global cies, is our job, too. To learn to con- climate change through a single species, nect differently with the growing Alaska yellow-cedar. world. To move beyond “natural Other researchers found that the resource,” as Rofkar tells Oakes, trees were paradoxically freezing to death to “relationship.” at lower elevations because of rising temperatures; spring frosts burn their REVIEW AND ILLUSTRATION shallow roots as insulating snowpack BY SARAH GILMAN

www.hcn.org High Country News 23 ESSAY | BY SHANNON WHITNEY

The s of inequity

At the Gonzales live in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a city put us in the middle of the pack for Community known for its turquoise jewelry, red Santa Fe Public Schools, and so it was School on Santa and green chile sauces and high desert widely celebrated as a big win. When Fe’s west side, 95% I air. In the historic Plaza District, intrepid your state is ranked last in the country of students receive shoppers can score a $400 poncho or a for child well-being — according to the free or reduced- magnificent pair of designer boots. Shop Annie E. Casey Foundation, a private cost lunches. MORGAN LEE/AP IMAGES windows abound with exquisitely crafted philanthropic organization dedicated to squash blossom necklaces, Zuni fetishes education and the welfare of children — and Navajo rugs. On Canyon Road, visi- success is measured on a relative rather tors can browse 100 art galleries nestled than absolute scale. in perfectly preserved adobe compounds. So which schools earned the A’s and And in the shadow of Atalaya Mountain, B’s? A quick look at the map displays a St. John’s College — with its 7-to-1 facul- little fairy ring of four schools along the ty-student ratio — offers a top-notch lib- Plaza and Santa Fe’s wealthy east side eral arts education for $35,000 per year. that are considered effective institutions In Santa Fe, the opportunity gap A mile and a half west of exclusive for learning. St. Francis Drive, the north- manifests as a yawning divide. In the hotels like the El Dorado and La Fonda on south highway that bisects town, divides four elementary schools east of St. the Plaza, I work at a high-needs school, schools that are succeeding from schools Francis that received A’s or a B last year, created in 2010, when several beloved that are not. Four of the five elementary nearly half the student body is white neighborhood schools were collapsed into schools on the east side of St. Francis and one-quarter receives free or reduced- a larger K-8 community school. Since scored an A or a B last year, while only price lunch. Move a few blocks west, and its inception, my school has struggled to three out of 12 on the west side did. And the narrative flips. Ninety-four percent define itself. It has hosted six principals this situation is not unique to Santa Fe. of west-side D or F elementary school in eight years and serves as a rotating It’s Opportunity Gap 101: In almost every students are children of color. Ninety-five door for teachers, some of whom leave for municipal area in the country, where percent qualify for free or reduced-price higher-performing schools in more afflu- students live drives the kind of educa- lunch. The CliffsNotes version: If you are ent areas of town. My students come from tion they will receive and, ultimately, the white or wealthy, you have a significantly neighborhoods the tourists don’t visit. choices they have in life. better chance of receiving a quality public They occupy old one-story stucco buildings along the thoroughfares on the west side, many sharing space with multiple siblings or extended family members. They speak Spanish and English, often a mixture of both. One hundred percent of them qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Until recently, the New Mexico Public Education Department had implemented a controversial evaluation program designed to increase transparency and hold schools accountable for performance. Schools were measured using a formula that took into account student performance, student growth, attendance rates, and parent and student satisfaction. It didn’t account for things like teacher quality, staffing consistency, family engagement, English language proficiency and student nonacademic need, but on a general level, it does tell us which schools are thriving. For the six years the program was in place, my school never earned better than a D. This is not particularly unusual: Last school year, over half of Santa Fe’s public schools received D or F ratings. My school’s “almost C” grade for 2017-2018 La Plazuela restaurant at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe’s affluent Plaza District. ALBERTO VACCARO/CC VIA FLICKR 24 High Country News April 29, 2019 DEAR FRIENDS Yodelers, goats, promotions and other surprises As the last mounds of old headquarters in Paonia, Colo- snow melt in Gunnison, rado. A friendly goat named Colorado, home to our satel- Noodle dropped by to say lite office, spring is ushering hello. Noodle, a triplet — his in some exciting changes for sisters are Ladybug and But- High Country News. terfly — would have been the In early April, we wel- hooves-down most exciting comed Emily Benson into her guest, if not for the arrival new role as associate editor of yodelers Pecos Pete, Lassie for the “West-North desk,” Lou and other members of leading our coverage of Alas- the Cowboy Corral from the ka, the Pacific Northwest and nearby town of Carbondale. the Northern Rockies. Emily The singers, who were in the started working for HCN as area to perform at nursing an intern in 2017 and was homes and a surprise birth- promoted to assistant editor day party, gave us a delight- the following year. We’re de- ful rendition of “Home on the lighted that she’s bringing her Range.” Thanks for the joyful clear thinking and thorough distraction, Cowboy Corral! reporting into this new lead- Meanwhile, longtime sub- ership role. Following in her scriber Tom Casadevall, from footsteps, Carl Segerstrom has Lakewood, Colorado, toured been promoted to the desk’s the office with his Michigan assistant editor. Carl also friend Bill Rose. Both are came through the internship geologists, and Bill’s visit program, in 2018, and has convinced him to invest in a done excellent work covering rock-solid digital subscrip- education, here as elsewhere. Spanish settlers: DeVargas and Baca, public lands and policy and tion. Visiting from Boulder, The story of Santa Fe has been referred Chavez and Lujan and Salazar. Other watchdogging the Depart- Colorado, were Cathleen and to as a “tale of two cities.” The folks liv- students have relatives who attended the ment of the Interior. Both Jeremiah Osborne-Gowey, and ing in neighborhoods like Downtown Santa Fe Indian School on Cerrillos Road editors testify to the quality their children, Jeremiah, 9, and Canyon Road are older, whiter and during the Boarding School Era, when of the training program HCN and Finn, 12. This very gra- wealthier and have three times the median the school operated under the assimila- has created for young and am- cious family moved to Colo- income of people living in many neighbor- tive mission, “Kill the Indian, save the bitious journalists. Congrats, rado from Oklahoma, where hoods west of St. Francis. Neighborhood man.” The story of Santa Fe and Santa Fe Emily and Carl! Cathleen worked as a do- zoning means that students go to school Public Schools, like everything, I suppose, In other news, two mem- mestic violence counselor for near to where they live, but most families is a story of power: who has it and who bers of our editorial depart- the Eastern Shawnee Tribe. simply cannot afford to live near the good doesn’t. ment have been offered The couple started reading schools. And with median home prices in The tangled web of factors that influ- tremendous opportunities for HCN 15 years ago and have Santa Fe hitting record levels in 2018, ence school performance is matched by professional development. been faithful subscribers ever occasions to “cross over” are scarcer than the complexity of statutes and directives Editor-in-Chief Brian Calvert since. Thank you all for your ever before. Add to this the fact that many that compose education policy in our was selected as a cohort support! families don’t know about differences in country. In the last few months, New for the 2019 Institute for school quality, and you get kiddos who Mexico’s new governor, Michelle Lujan Nonprofit News Emerging —Jessica Kutz, for the staff pretty much stay where they are. Grisham, D, has initiated sweeping Leaders Council, which helps I think about this situation every day, reforms to public school education, includ- build business, strategy and as the secretaries at my school scramble ing replacement of the annual statewide leadership skills. And Digital to staff unfilled positions with substi- assessment and changes to teacher Editor Gretchen King earned tutes and teacher’s aides. I think about evaluation processes. I am hopeful this the 2019 Yale Publishing it while reviewing student data that enhanced commitment to public educa- Course’s Innovative Leader tells the same story, standardized test tion at the highest levels of state govern- Scholarship and will attend after standardized test. I think about it ment will empower and inspire admin- courses there this summer. while watching the kids play at recess, istrators and educators to do whatever We’re also pleased to the Jemez Mountains providing a scenic they can to correct the inequities. Time announce that the National backdrop. And I think about it when deal- will tell. What I do know for sure are my Press Association’s Thomas ing with behaviors of the middle-schoolers students: They’re smart, they’re funny, L. Stokes Award for Best who are old enough to realize they’ve they’re full of potential, and they deserve Energy and Environment been dealt a bad hand and are smart so much more than a school that seems to Writing went to Daniel Glick enough to be angry about it. limp by, directionless, from year to year. and Jason Plautz, for their In 1607, New Mexico’s second Spanish So next time you visit Santa Fe, enjoy HCN feature story, “When governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, founded the splendid vistas, and go ahead and your neighborhood goes a “new city” on Indigenous Tanoan buy the boots. But then head west. Take boom” (10/29/18). The judges land at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo a drive down Agua Fria, where students praised the two writers Mountains. From that moment of chris- inevitably and intimately learn the ABCs for weaving “strong local tening, Santa Fe, or “Holy Faith,” became of our state of education, starting with “A reporting into a multimedia a site for struggle, for subjugation, and is for Address.” narrative.” Halfway through his visit, for incredible resilience. The history here The warmer weather has Noodle retired to the back issue is present and ubiquitous. Many of my Shannon Whitney is an elementary brought an assortment of collection for a short nap. La Plazuela restaurant at La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe’s affluent Plaza District. ALBERTO VACCARO/CC VIA FLICKR students carry the names of these early educator in Santa Fe, New Mexico. unexpected visitors to our LUNA ANNA ARCHEY/HIGH COUNTRY NEWS www.hcn.org High Country News 25 PERSPECTIVE

A group of teenage boys roll a log across a clearing at the California State Redwood Park Civilian Conservation Corps camp in 1935. BETTMANN ARCHIVE Socialism? We’ve been here before. he Green New Deal and its proponents aim to People’s Forests, his own radical extension of the Co- T tackle the intertwined issues of social and envi- peland Report, which advocated for public ownership ronmental justice in our age of anthropogenic climate of practically all commercial forests in America. He change. To accomplish this, they believe they must was writing amid an economic catastrophe mirrored deploy the federal government, since it is the only in- in the nation’s wild and rural landscapes, where stitution large enough to coordinate and invest in the bankrupted farmers, out-of-work loggers and drought- necessary policies. But the idea of expanding the role driven refugees were common, not unlike today. of government has attracted critics, who rail against Throughout The People’s Forests, Marshall socialism. To historians, this sounds familiar. showed how private ownership, even when tempered This is not the first time socialism, new deals by public regulation, fell short; only full public own- NEWS and the environment have intersected. During the ership could keep forests and communities healthy. COMMENTARY catastrophe of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the He united a biological and social vision for forestry, BY ADAM M. federal government similarly attempted to amelio- one where human happiness and decent livelihoods SOWARDS rate social and environmental harms by investing in might sprout from robust forests. In articulating that people and places through the New Deal. Then, as vision, he made his socialist case plain: “The funda- now, critics dismissed it as socialism. mental advantage of public ownership of forests over The “socialist” sobriquet stokes ideological fires private ownership is that in the former social welfare but douses historical understanding. One prominent is substituted for private gain as the major objective example — Bob Marshall’s argument for nationaliz- of management.” Much the way today’s Green New ing forests during the 1930s — reveals how socialist Deal seeks to redress both economic and environ- solutions emerge from specific contexts and prob- mental impoverishment, Marshall sought to replace lems, not ideological bunkers. In Marshall’s case, the private profit with a broader public spiritedness that dire state of private timberlands in the early 20th aimed for long-term stability, ending cut-and-run century prompted his call for reform. When massive practices and ultimately strengthening communities. problems develop, cross jurisdictional lines and are Marshall’s call for reforms reflected an accelerat- associated with market failures, big government ing trend of expanding public lands in the 1930s, responses can seem like the only possible solution. when the federal government acquired millions of acres for national parks, national forests and wildlife y the early 20th century, hundreds of years of refuges. Newly passed laws, like the Migratory Bird B unregulated cutting had ravaged the nation’s Hunting Stamp Act (1934) and the Bankhead-Jones forests, and Americans faced a crisis that demanded Farm Tenant Act (1937), helped the government intervention. “Rocks and mountains may be ageless, fund refuges, acquire property for conservation and but men and society are emphatically of the present, bail out private owners who lived on wrecked lands. WHY BUILD WHAT Dyneema content more and they cannot wait for the slow process of nature Starting around the same time and lasting until the than doubles the fabric’s to retrieve the catastrophe caused by their unthink- 1950s, Forest Service administrators advocated for WON’T LAST? tear strength, and the organic ing destructiveness,” wrote Marshall, a forester for public regulation of logging on private land, princi- cotton is Texas-grown federal agencies throughout his career, a co-founder pally citing concerns about declining timber produc- of The Wilderness Society and the person for whom tion and the threat of fire on poorly managed parcels. Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness Area is named. Though ultimately unsuccessful, those efforts illus- To make the most durable work denim possible, we turned to Hammer loop and large A massive evaluation of American forestry trated a push to establish stability amid unsettling the strongest lightweight fi ber in the world. drop-in utility pockets hold small tools and conducted by the Forest Service in 1932 both shaped crisis, a goal Marshall shared. The newest addition to the Patagonia Workwear line, our Steel larger phones and reflected Marshall’s views. Appearing the next When capitalism stumbles badly, producing ® year, A National Plan for American Forestry, known degraded lands and gaping inequalities, socialistic Forge Denim blends 92% organic cotton with 8% Dyneema , a fi ber that’s light enough to fl oat on water but 15 times stronger as the Copeland Report, showed that private forests solutions rise in popularity, because their incentives Adam M. Sowards Double-fabric knees were failing. (The majority of the nation’s timber are not tied to profits. Marshall’s closing line argues is an environmental than steel. It’s used in crane slings, tow ropes and anchor cables, accommodate knee pads, came from privately held forests, just as it does to- for that perspective: “The time has come when we historian, professor and now it’s helping us fuse a traditional fabric with advanced tech- with bottom openings day.) They burned more often, were not harvested to must discard the unsocial view that our woods are the and writer. He nology to build a more durable material that will withstand years that allow easy cleanout provide a “continual crop of timber,” failed to protect lumbermen’s and substitute the broader ideal that ev- lives in Pullman, of demanding work. watersheds and offered few recreational opportuni- ery acre of woodland in the country is rightly a part of Washington. WEB EXTRA ties compared to public forests. They caused social the people’s forests.” Shouting “socialist” as an epithet  @AdamMSowards Dyed with natural indigo grown in Tennessee, Read more problems, too, with lumber workers doing dangerous, is a tired strategy, a failure to reckon with specific Timber framer Bodie Johansson chisels out fl oor joist housings in the Handcrafted Log “Reckoning with & Timber yard in Ridgway, Colorado. BLAKE GORDON © 2018 Patagonia, Inc. replacing petroleum- from all our transient jobs that resulted in mangled bodies and contexts and problems, whether it’s damaged tim- derived synthetic dyes commentators at left hollowed-out towns behind. As Marshall saw it, berlands in the 1930s or rising sea levels today. The History” is an ongoing series that www.hcn.org “The private owner is thus responsible for almost People’s Forests and the Green New Deal highlight seeks to understand every serious forest problem.” the ways social and environmental harms are woven the legacies of We welcome So, Marshall argued that American timberlands together, a reminder that real solutions require a mu- the past and to your feedback. should be publicly owned. In 1933, four years into tual untangling, and that — despite American history put the West’s Men’s Send letters to the Depression and during the first year of Franklin and politics’ suspicion of true socialism — government present moment in Steel Forge [email protected] D. Roosevelt’s presidency, Marshall published The necessarily holds many of the threads. perspective. Denim Pants

26 High Country News April 29, 2019

PAT_F18_HighCountry-Denim-FP.indd 1 8/2/18 3:32 PM WHY BUILD WHAT Dyneema content more than doubles the fabric’s WON’T LAST? tear strength, and the organic cotton is Texas-grown

To make the most durable work denim possible, we turned to Hammer loop and large the strongest lightweight fi ber in the world. drop-in utility pockets hold small tools and The newest addition to the Patagonia Workwear line, our Steel larger phones Forge Denim blends 92% organic cotton with 8% Dyneema®, a fi ber that’s light enough to fl oat on water but 15 times stronger Double-fabric knees than steel. It’s used in crane slings, tow ropes and anchor cables, accommodate knee pads, and now it’s helping us fuse a traditional fabric with advanced tech- with bottom openings nology to build a more durable material that will withstand years that allow easy cleanout of demanding work.

Dyed with natural indigo Timber framer Bodie Johansson chisels out ﬂ oor joist housings in the Handcrafted Log grown in Tennessee, & Timber yard in Ridgway, Colorado. BLAKE GORDON © 2018 Patagonia, Inc. replacing petroleum- derived synthetic dyes

Men’s Steel Forge Denim Pants

PAT_F18_HighCountry-Denim-FP.indd 1 8/2/18 3:32 PM HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY BETSY MARSTON

THE BORDER ers, hoping to make $30 to $40 a Whatever adjectives you might pick to night by selling his discoveries. “It describe the U.S.-Mexico border wall, just amazes me what people throw reports the HuffPost, “readily stolen” away,” Orta said, showing off designer is probably not one of them. Yet 15 to jeans, Nike running sneakers and 20 people were arrested for stealing a bicycle pump he’d just snagged. concertina wire installed at the Tijuana “You never know what you will find.” port of entry in 2018. The missing razor Orta, raised in Texas with 11 siblings, wire has now been located in Tijuana, spent more than 12 years in the Air where residents are using it to sur- Force, serving in the Middle East, round and safeguard their homes. And Germany and other countries. When who were the thieves? The Mexican he came home, he found his wife government said those arrested were had left him, and he struggled with mostly Mexicans, but one woman told alcoholism. Now 56, he qualifies for the newspaper El Sol de Tijuana that a program that assists chronically the man selling the wire had “blue eyes, homeless veterans, and that sup- blond hair, and didn’t speak Spanish port, plus what he calls his work as well.” On The Daily Show, Trevor Noah a “finder,” keeps him afloat. His beat could not stop laughing, imagining also includes dumpsters, where the Tijuana homeowners bragging, “I built first rule “is to make sure there’s no a wall around my house, and Donald raccoon or possum in there.” This Trump paid for it!” UTAH Run your mouth and our oil. PAUL BONY March, he found a box fill of sterling silver goblets, dishes and plates, “as THE WEST if,” the Times said, “someone had We don’t like to admit it, but when fewer riders have adequate education about and yanked a tablecloth from underneath we hike, mountain bike or take ATVs into the understanding of avalanche dynamics, and the a feast in some European chateau.” He’s also backcountry, we’re invading the homes of wild most vulnerable riders are “out-of-staters.” found lots of phones, three watches, iPads, and animals and causing them stress. Bruce S. sand-covered bikes left over from the Burning Thompson, former education director of the THE WEST Man festival in Nevada. Nick Mazzano, who Teton Science Schools, has been researching rec- One of the more delicious April Fools’ spoofs in publishes a magazine documenting the world reation’s impacts on wildlife in the Yellowstone the Jackson Hole News & Guide featured the of San Francisco trash pickers, says people like area. People think that because they don’t see amazing number of do-gooder groups that have Orta help keep stuff out of landfills. It’s also a animals running away at their approach “there sprung up in Teton County, claiming that so form of entrepreneurship, he adds, because “it’s must not be impacts,” reports Mountain Journal. many have been created that “they exceed the the primary form of income for people who have However, “absence of evidence does not equate to number of actual human beings who live here.” no other income.” absence of impact.” Mountain bikers can travel Yet Charity Warmheart, chief enlightenment farther faster, diminishing spaces where animals officer of the Nonprofit Association of Nonprofit OREGON feel safe, and hikers with dogs “are also formida- Associations, hoped that the rest of Wyoming un- In March, it took “multiple deputies” with guns ble wildlife disruptors,” Thompson says. Habitat derstands that “we’re (not) just rich, weird busy- drawn and K-9 backup on the way to subdue fragmentation caused by human use is a real bodies who spend our time hallucinating new what turned out to be an overly conscientious danger for Greater Yellowstone, he adds, because problems that demand an organization to raise robot. Shadows moving under a locked bathroom once again “we are confronting the old tale of awareness, solicit cash, and invent programs to door had alarmed a resident, who called the dwindling wilderness and natural systems.” solve problems that don’t exist. ...” Washington County Sheriff’s Office. A sheriff’s deputy revealed to NBC News the droll outcome: WYOMING CALIFORNIA “We breached the bathroom door and encoun- In Wyoming, snowmobilers have unexpectedly Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, who lives tered a very thorough vacuuming job being done “outpaced” backcountry skiers as the outdoor in a $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, by a Roomba Robotic Vacuum cleaner.” recreationists most likely to be killed in an probably had no idea that the clothes he throws out occasionally end up on the back of someone avalanche, Wyofilereports. According to the WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see avalanche center at Teton Village, records kept who goes through his garbage. That someone is hcn.org. since 1877 show that 32 snowmobilers have died, Jake Orta, 56, who lives three blocks and a world compared to 26 backcountry skiers. Today’s mod- away in the Mission neighborhood. Orta, who Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and ern, high-powered snow machines come equipped thinks of himself as a “treasure hunter,” told The often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram. with deep-snow paddles that allow riders to New York Times that he regularly patrols the explore more dangerous terrain. But experts say garbage cans of Zuckerberg and other 1 percent-

U.S. $5 | Canada $6

High Country News covers the important issues and stories H igh that are unique to the American West with a magazine and a Country website, hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write News High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or For people who care about the West. [email protected], or call 970-527-4898. 28 High Country News April 29, 2019