Standing up to Sugar Cubes: the Contest Over Ethnic Identity In

Standing Up to Sugar Cubes: The Contest over Ethnic Identity in California's Fourth-Grade Mission Curriculum Author(s): Zevi Gutfreund Source: Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 2 (Summer 2010), pp. 161-197 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Historical Society of Southern California Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41172518 . Accessed: 28/08/2014 14:19

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This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Standing Up to Sugar Cubes The Contestover Ethnic Identity in California'sFourth-Grade MissionCurriculum ByZevi Gutfreund

abstract: In the 1960sand 1970s,Native American and Chicano activists launchedattacks against the romanticizeddepiction of the SpanishPast that wastaught in Californiaschools. Contests within and amongthe reform groups (and the eventualresolution found in today'seducational standards) reveal a complexeffort to shapechildren's perceptions of race and identity.By tracing theevolution of Native American and Latinoactivism on thissubject and the responsesof the stateBoard of Education, this article shows the symbolicsig- nificanceof education debates in statepolitics.

November20, 2006, cbs airedan episodeof The New Adventures ofOld Christinetitled "Mission: Impossible," Christine (played by JuliaLouis-Dreyfus) is a singleworking mom who doesn'thave timeto help her son, Ritchie,build a dioramaof a Californiamission. The dioramawill be on displayat an upcomingopen house at the posh Los Angelesprivate school where nine-year-old Ritchie is a new student, Christinelearns too lateabout the different approaches to theassignment, in whichstudents create a modelmission out of material such as clay,card- board,sugar cubes, milk cartons, Styrofoam, and tennisballs. In writing thisscript, the writers at WarnerBrothers knew very well that the mission-

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This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions IÓ2 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY

ClaireFoster's four th-gr ade missionproject, an elaboratemodel of Mission San LuisRey de España. Courtesyof Ann and WendellFoster on behalfof Claire Foster.

dioramaproject is a formativemoment in thefourth-grade California-historycurriculum. But the potentialfor drama and humordoes not come fromthe childrenfor whom the assignmentwas designed.It is the stress thatChristine feels in anticipationof how the othersnooty class moms willrespond to Ritchie'sproject that makes the mission diorama worthy of a networksituation comedy,1 As the fictional"Old Christine"discovers on television,the mission dioramainevitably sends California parents and teachersinto a frenzy everyspring. As in otherlife-cycle rituals, families go out of theirway to help theirchildren. Several years ago in Menlo Park,for example, a parentdonated dozens of five-gallondrums of sheetrock plaster mud so thatevery student's mission could have stuccowalls. Some schoolshave institutionalizedparent participation in the mission-dioramaproject. In December2006, Mrs. Kyneur of the Berkeley Hall School in Los Angeles senta holidayletter to herfourth-grade parents telling them to save the datefor the mission-dioramaopen house in March- threemonths later.

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES i6¿ She includeda listof diorama supplies, including four large boxes of sugar cubes,and urgedthe familiesto purchaseeverything before Christmas, "sinceevery fourth grader in Californiais buildingsome kind of mission, and thecraft stores sometimes run out-" The dioramais justone waythat adultstake an activeinterest in theirchildren's education, but the Spanish missionsare at theheart of an old battleabout how schools should teach Californiahistory.2 Whatdo studentslearn about the missions while their parents are mix- ingclay or gluingsugar cubes? The emphasison dioramasand fieldtrips teacheschildren a greatdeal aboutthe missions'physical form but very littleabout what happened inside. The pastoralappearance of the reno- vatedmissions, as wellas representationsin dioramas and children'sbooks, has leftgenerations of Californiachildren with the impressionthat the missionswere idyllic sanctuaries for the Catholic padres and Indianswho livedthere- In fact,this idealized image of a Spanishfantasy past was a consciouscreation by Anglos - an imagethat southern Californians have continuallydeveloped and reshapedsince the firstbucolic mission paint- ingsby William Keith and EdwardDeakin in the 1870sand the popular novelRamona by Helen HuntJackson in 1884, Indianand Chicano activistsin the 1960sand 1970sused the fourth- gradeCalifornia-history curriculum to challengethe romanticized impres- sionof history that the missiondiorama creates. The resistancethey met fromAnglo educators, in classroomsand in courts,showed a complexweb ofidentities woven into the fabric of the Spanish fantasy past. In usingthe elementary-schoolcurriculum to staketheir own claimsto eitherEuro- pean or Native Americanancestries, Chícanos and Indiansconverged and clashedin complexways. The contestsover textbook adoption reveal threeconscious efforts to shapeand re-shapeyouthful perceptions about raceand identity.While the romanticizationofmission history remained popularin manyclassrooms, the civil rights era inspiredan effortto recast missionlife as a colonialconcentration camp. More recently,education reformershave sought a middleground by offering a consensus curriculum thatincludes evidence from both the fantasy and victimizationnarratives and encouragesstudents to interpretthe past for themselves. The momentthat each ethnicgroup (Anglo, Mexican, and Native American)turned confrontational in the curriculumcontroversy shows thatCalifornia politics was closelytied to nationalmovements. In 1962, aftertwo decades of whiteflight to the suburbs,California's middle-class Anglosembraced Max Rafferty,the state'snew superintendentof public

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ró4 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY instruction,and his romanticversion of the Spanishmissions as the cor- nerstoneof his promiseto restoretraditional values to the classroom. Emboldenedby the civil rights legislation of the mid-1960s, the American IndianHistorical Society launched the firstpublic protest of California- historytextbooks in 1965. In 1972,the Mexican AmericanEducation Commission,along with a coalitionof otherethnic groups, brought the textbookcase to court.However, as youngerChicano activistsgrew more militant,Mexican Americans became divided over the relative success of the movement.These factionsgrappled with their dual loyaltiesto both Indianand Spanishancestries. By tracing the evolution of Native Ameri- can and Latino activismon thissubject and the responsesof the state Boardof Education,the policy-makingbody in California'sDepartment of Education,this articleshows the symbolicsignificance of education debatesin statepolitics. A closingexamination of recent mission assignments indicates the last- inginfluence of these curriculum debates. Today, teachers have a rangeof alternativesto the stillpopular mission diorama, which casts white Euro- peans as the truefounders of modernCalifornia. Fifty years ago, some MexicanAmericans accepted this romantic rendering to assertthat the fantasypast belonged to theirCalifornio forbears and, in so doing,claimed a commonbond withthe state'swhite majority. Meanwhile, Indian and Chicano activistsaggressively replaced the Anglo missionmyth of pater- nalisticCatholic priests and happyIndians with a revisionisthistory of genocideand therapid devastation of the state'snative population. None ofthese efforts produced a curriculumthat presents a fully accurate view of themission past on itsown. A comparisonof several recent lesson plans, however,explains the recurringcontroversy over Spanish missions in the California-historycurriculum. The classroomremains a battlegroundfor politicalpower, but current textbook content reveals the partial victories of the 1960sprotest efforts. The revisionsproposed forty years ago weremore thanpolitical campaigns; they represented particular visions about ethnic heritagein a pluralistsociety. The voicesbehind these assertions of iden- tityreflected competing attitudes about the bestroute to politicalpower. Currentstandards seek to avoiddebate by offering teachers and parentsa rangeof possible interpretations, from romanticization tovictimization, and byintroducing instruction materials from multiple perspectives to provide morehistorical complexity of racial interaction in mission-eraCalifornia. Historianshave not adequatelyexamined Indian and Chicano responsesto California'sSpanish heritage. Instead, they have focusedon

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES l6¿ the waysin whichsouthern California Anglos shaped that heritage into a foundationmyth that suited their own commercialinterests and sense of superiority.In 1946,Carey McWilliams was the firstto questionthe missions'romantic legacy as "havensof happinessand contentmentfor the Indians,places of song,laughter, good food,beautiful languor, and mysticaladoration of the Christ,"McWilliams credited the rosyimage of thepadres to CharlesLummis' Association for the Preservation of the Mis- sions(the "Landmarks Club"); Frank Miller's Mission Inn at Riverside;and JohnSteven McGroarty's Mission Play. Phoebe Kropp's 2006 work,Califor- nia Vieja,argues that planting Spanish fantasy icons such as redtile roofs and stuccowalls in thebuilt environment helped Americans appropriate southernCalifornia as a sanctuaryfor whites. Using mission-style adobe bricksin metropolitanarchitecture, William Deverell cleverly suggested in 2004,enabled Anglos to literally"whitewash" rapidly expanding cities likeLos Angeles.McWilliams, Kropp, and Deverellmade convincing cases thatthe fantasypast was a tool thatwhite boosters used to distinguish themselvesfrom the nativeheritages of Indiansand MexicanAmericans in California.But theiraccounts overlooked the waysin whichpeople of colorresponded to thissocially constructed myth. As the California- historytextbook controversy will show, by the late 1960sthose two ethnic groupshad obtainedcentral roles in the debateover the Spanishfantasy past,resulting in a missioncurriculum that has roomfor critical thinking and multi-ethnicperspectives.3

Cast of Characters This essaywill follow several activists who wereat the centerof the textbook debates.Although no leadercould speak for an entiregroup, three educatorschampioned ideas thatreflected broader concerns about race relationsand ethnicself-interest. Max Rafferty,the statesuperintendent of publicinstruction from 1962 to 1970,spoke for white suburban values. Raffertyrelied on cold warrhetoric, using scare tactics to call fora returnto patriotismthrough traditional education. Rafferty defended the romanticmission stories that publishers loved to print.Rupert Costo, who foundedthe American Indian Historical Society in 1964,demanded greater emphasison CaliforniaIndians in fourth-gradehistory. Costo's campaign to changethe mission curriculum radicalized after Rafferty refused to work withhim. He cameto viewthe missions as placesof genocide and insisted thatonly Indians could truthfullytell whathad happenedthere. Julian

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l66 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY Nava, the firstLatino elected to the Los AngelesSchool Boardin 1967, was an "elderstatesman" of the state's Mexican American community« As one of the fewminorities in California'seducational administration, he triedto assertethnic identity without alienating his Anglo colleagues» As a textbookauthor himself, Nava turnedto pastoralmission tales that ven- eratedSpanish Catholic priests, who couldbe heroesto whitesas wellas to MexicanAmericans, The MexicanAmerican Education Commission disagreedwith Nava. Representingthe new generationof Chicano mili- tants,the MAECprotested traditional textbooks for demeaning minority groups.The multipleinteractions between Rafferty, Costo, Nava, and the MAECrevealed each group's approach to enhancingits status and authority throughthe discourse of public education»4

Anglos Create the California History Curriculum, 1920-1965 Understandingthese strategies requires background knowledge about the originsof the state history curriculum. The state-approvedtextbooks prior to 1965 reflectedmore about twentieth-century white values than they revealedabout early California history. As FrancesFitzGerald argued in hercritical analysis of history textbooks, America Revised (1979), publishers shiftedthe emphasis on religionin 1800stextbooks to raceand culturein the 1900S.White educators shared patriotic assumptions about American progressthat glossed over racial barriers and inequalitiesstill dividing the nationin thetwentieth century. Phoebe Kropp (2001) and John Pohlmann (1974) examinedhow the Spanishfantasy past influencedstate history textbooksfrom 1920 to 1965.Max Raffertywon the bitter 1962 campaign forstate superintendent because he embracedthe language of the romantic past.His newoffice gave him the powerto appointlike-minded Cali- forniansto the CurriculumCommission charged with compiling the list of textbooksfor the stateBoard of Educationto consider.The recurring themesof civic pride and heroismin statehistory texts facilitated Anglo appropriationofSpanish heritage by promoting patriotism as a whitevalue in suburbanCalifornia during the cold war.5 The statelegislature mandated the teachingof Californiahistory in 1923.Promoting an integratedcurriculum that met the needs of individual childrenwith an arrayof activities,student projects, and fieldtrips, accordingto PhoebeKropp, California called for educators to teachmore localsubjects to generatea senseof citizenship. Thus, in 1925,Los Angeles

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 167^ reformersurged educators to instillstate identity by teachingstudents a "CaliforniaState Pledge"in whicheach childwould declare, "I love the braveold pioneers who made us whatwe are."Perhaps the greatest measure ofstate pride came in theglorification ofJunípero Serra as California'sfirst pioneer.Many textbook authors romanticized Serra, founder of the first Californiamissions, by remindingstudents that he was memorializedin WashingtonD.C.'s StatuaryHall In 1937,one authorinstructed children to "makea listof the good qualities Father Serra possessed" and thenwrite a plan to incorporatehis admirabletraits into their daily lives at school Educatorsin the 1920sand 1930sseemed more interested in teachingchil- drenhow to behaveas goodcitizens than they were in teachingabout the past.In doingso, theirlionization of Serra confirmed the cheery image of theSpanish fantasy heritage that students saw in red-tileroofs.6 JohnPohlmann's 1974 dissertation traced California's mission myth into the textbooksof the civil rightsera. Althoughpolitically correct textbookauthors in the 1960swere more sensitive to Indianexperiences thanearlier educators, they still romanticized the past. Pohlmann argued thatDavid Lavender'sThe Storyof California, which became the official state-adoptedtext in 1971 (and laterthe focus of a courtcase aboutracial stereotypes),was moresympathetic to Indiansthan to the Spaniards.But Lavenderstill devoted forty-five pages to missionsor padres,and, while he referredto the neophytesas slaves,he mentionedonly in passingthe diseasesthat had devastatedCalifornia natives. Even ucla historianJohn Caughey,who promotedcivil liberties for blacks, embraced the Spanish fantasypast. Writing for fourth graders in his 1965California's Own His- tory,he describedthe missions as thestate's "first schools," where Catholic padres"Christianized" the neophytes. Pohlmann postulated that Caughey wrotethe "first schools" section out of "special care not to offendthe many Californianswho stillcherish" the missionmyth. While Lavender'sslave comparisonsshowed how protestmovements influenced children's books in the 1960s,Caughey's mission school analogy was a reminderthat textbookauthors still had an obligationto quenchthe thirst for stories of adu- lationof the state's white pioneers.7 The mostoutspoken advocate for hero worship in schoolswas Max- wellRafferty. He starteda public-educationcontroversy in 1961,just three monthsafter becoming superintendent ofthe suburban La Cañada School District,with a speechtitled, "What's Happened to Patriotism?"Rafferty claimedthat schools were obligated to preparechildren to navigatethe dangerousuncertainties of the cold war.They could learn those skills by

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l68 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY

Max Rafferty,California State Superintendentof Public Instruction, 1962-1970.Courtesy of the California HistoryRoom California State Library, Sacramento,California.

studyingthe examplesof past militaryleaders like John Paul Jonesand AndyJackson, Recalling earlier "Mugwump" histories and theirempha- sison famousindividuals, Rafferty lamented, "[Education during the past threedecades has deliberatelydebunked the hero ." Applyingcolorful lan- guageto post-Sputnikscare tactics, he insisted,"[I]f it is uglyto teachchil- drento reverethe greatAmericans of the past,to cherishthe traditions of our country,to hate communismand itscreatures, then I saylet's be ugly."Although he didnot address California history in particularin this speech,Rafferty 's plea for patriotic history lessons strikingly resembled the romanticizedmission curriculum. Proudly declaring his membership in the Societyof the Sons ofthe American Revolution, Rafferty may have struck a chordwith Californians who promoted Spanish mission monuments to replaceall evidenceof the Golden State's history as a multi-ethnicfrontier witha whitewashednarrative celebrating Catholic priests with the patri- oticreverence often reserved for the heroes of the Revolutionary War. For example,Rafferty referred to the Revolution'smost famous spy when he recalledthe recent trial of an Americanin "SovietRussia" in thecontext

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES IÓ£ of "theDream for which Nathan Hale died,"While padreslike Junípero Serrawere absent from such connections between military heroes and cur- rentcold warevents, Rafferty used other romantic pasts (in thiscase, the RevolutionaryWar) to stirup a rousingpatriotism that turned the forty- four-year-olddistrict superintendent into California'sleading right-wing educationalreformen8 Rafferty'srole as conservativespokesperson swelled after he waselected statesuperintendent of publicinstruction in 1962. An obscureEnglish teacherjust a yearbefore the election,Rafferty defeated highly favored DemocratRalph Richardson,a ucla professorand presidentof the Los AngelesSchool Board,by twohundred thousand votes- Although Rich- ardsonhad thecoveted California Teachers Association endorsement, he made the mistakeof debatinghis Republicanrival forty-five times, Raf- ferty'sbrash wit not onlywon a narrowmajority with 2.5 millionvotes, it also droveThe Nation'sliberal editors to label him the "New Hope of the Far Right"and the successorto RichardNixon as California'sbest old-fashionedorator Indeed, Rafferty partially owed his electoraltriumph to the state'sreactionary constituents from new suburban regions such as OrangeCounty, where the John Birch Society and other"kitchen-table" radicalsfound his call forpatriotism appealing. Rafferty's election gave Republicansa powerfulvoice in stateeducation and mayhave induced JohnCaughey to includethe traditionalview of the Spanishfantasy past in his 1965textbook.9 In Sacramento,Rafferty found his brand of emotional patriotism chal- lengedin a seriesof California textbook debates. His uncharacteristicpublic silenceregarding another Caughey publication illustrated the racialten- sionsthat plagued textbook adoption during the civil rights era. Although theelected members of the state Board of Education made final decisions on publishingcontracts, they could vote only on a listof textbooks submit- tedby the Curriculum Commission. Appointed by the superintendent, the commissionreflected the ethnicitiesand interestsof Rafferty'ssuburban constituents.The onlytime Rafferty clashed with the CurriculumCom- missioncame in 1966 whenhe opposedLand of theFree, the firstU.S. historytextbook of the civil rightsera, editedby Caughey,John Hope Franklin,and ErnestMay. After reading the textbook'sshort biographies of abolitionists,African Americans, and Native Americans,Rafferty's consultantand friend,use professorEmery Stoops, had expressedcon- cernthat the book was "slantedtoward civil rights." Rafferty ignored the racialimplications of his advisor'scomment and insistedthat he opposed

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 17g SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY the textbookbecause of eighty-one factual errors» When the Curriculum Commissionoverrode his corrections,Rafferty quickly moved to adopt Landof the Free. While it is possiblethat the superintendent took this step becausehe did not shareStoops' suspicions of the civilrights movement, it is also possiblethat he viewedthe incidentas a politicaldefeat- In the ensuingyears, he hardenedhis relationshipwith the CurriculumCom- mission,especially in textbooksabout local history-After allowing the adoptionof Land of the Free as a textbookthat emphasized past restrictions of civilliberties for African Americans, Rafferty resolved that textbooks aboutCalifornia history by Caughey (and otherslater) should emphasize romantictales of Spanish padres and mission"schools-"10 This firsttextbook controversy swung the superintendentfurther to the right-In his 1966reelection campaign, Rafferty concentrated on the conservativeconstituency that Ronald Reagan was buildingin southern California-During Reagan's first successful race forgovernor, the Holly- wood icon casuallycommended the "flourishingmanner" in whichRaf- fertyspoke about education- Reagan's rise to governorand thetriumph of conservatismin Californiapropelled flamboyant politicians like Rafferty to newlevels of popularity among the state's growing suburban population- In fact,Rafferty would later ride Reagan's right-wing coattails to win the Republicannomination for U.S. Senate in 1968 beforelosing to a Dem- ocratin the generalelection. Rafferty's passionate campaign to restore traditionalpatriotism to the classroomdisgusted liberals but made him a darlingof the "New Right-"11 In 1965,however, the superintendent's divisiveness was still uncertain- Beforethe Land of theFree fallout, Rafferty considered participating in an Indian-runtextbook-reform movement- Seeing the politicalbenefit of workingwith minority leaders, as the nextsection will demonstrate,he askedNative American activists to help him changetextbook presenta- tionsof California Indians- As in theLand ofthe Free incident, the super- intendentkept his personal views toward Native Americans to himself-In contrast,the Indians he soughtout attempted to publicizetheir alliance as muchas possible.Much to Rafferty'schagrin, those he recruiteddismissed the Anglonarrative of Californiahistory as passionatelyas he preached patriotism-These activistspressed for a trulyrevolutionary reform of the fourth-gradecurriculum- As peopleof color,the Indianswere not inter- estedin debatingwhich padre was thegreatest hero in earlyCalifornia - theywanted to end theidea of the padre hero once and forall-

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions standing up to sugar cubes 171^ Introducing an Enthusiastic Indian: Rupert Costo Confronts Max Rafferty, 1964-1967 Althoughthe two NativeAmericans Rafferty targeted could not speak forthe entire California Indian community, their shift from integrationist rhetoricto ethnictribalism resembled many other activists of the 1960s. Rupertand JeanetteCosto, a Cahuilla man and Cherokeewoman, were mainstreamliberals when they founded the AmericanIndian Historical Society(aihs) in 1964-The Costoswere urban cosmopolitans who could movein bothwhite and nativecircles. Rupert had playedsemiprofessional baseballand graduatedfrom college in the 1920s.After establishing him- selfas a civilengineer and Cahuillaspokesman, Costo focused his energies towardintegrated education. In the 1950s,he lobbiedfor the University of Californiato establisha campusin Riverside,because, according to a fel- lowfounder, he "appreciatedwhat education could do to removethe bar- riersof race and place."In 1964,one ofthe threeinitial objectives of the aihs wasto "informand educate the public at largeconcerning the history of the AmericanIndians." That year,the Costos recruitedfive academic consultantsto helppublish The IndianHistorian, a for-profit magazine that lastedeighteen years and reachedtens of thousandsof readers.To find even wideraudiences, they published the WeewishTree, a magazinefor Indianchildren, for ten years.When RupertCosto acceptedMax Raf- ferty's appointment as chairmanof the state's Indian History Study Com- mitteein 1965,the Costosappeared to have securedan influentialvoice forNative Americans in theCalifornia establishment.12 In 1965,Rafferty and theaihs beganwhat they hoped would become a mutuallybeneficial relationship. Declaring that California history textbookswere "filled with the grossest misrepresentations and in manycases withlies about our history and ourpeople," Costo urgedRafferty to forma committeeto examine the treatment of Indians in state-adoptedtextbooks. A yearbefore his reelectioncampaign, Rafferty saw thisas an opportu- nityto builda coalitionwith liberals and minorities.Capitalizing on free publicity,he toldThe IndianHistorian that "the history of the California Indians,as reflectedin thetextbooks of our school system, leaves much to be desired."This continuedhis attackon booksthat had "debunked"the heroesof American history. Declaring that "this whole matter has been in myheart for many years," Rafferty gloated that he finallyhad thepower to takeaction. The politiciannot only gave the aihs itsultimate sound byte, he also namedCosto chairmanof the IndianHistory Study Committee, whichconsisted of seventeen Native Americans. Costo was elated that his

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions £72 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY peoplewould have a voicein thetextbook process. But the superintendent had wonsomething as well WhenCosto praised him for making "national history"by creating an alHndiancommittee, Rafferty enhanced his image as a leaderconcerned about justice for all hisconstituents. With civil rights issuesmaking headlines almost daily in 1965,this was an attractivepoliti- cal strategy-13 Whenthe aihs firstconsidered the purpose of textbook reform, itsim- plywanted to affirm the existence of California Indians. The IndianHistory StudyCommittee's 1965 report to the CurriculumCommission proposed "a fullmeasure of absorbing and intellectuallyexciting, provocative, stimu- latingmaterials of Indianhistory ♦ . ♦alive and breathing."The report includedinstructions that textbooks include Indians in "everyphase" of Californiahistory while rejecting widely held misconceptions that Indians were"lazy, immoral, dirty and unsanitary"The Costosdid mentionthat Spanishmissionaries invaded California Indians' land and subjectedthem to forcedlabor, but their report blandly requested that textbooks describe the "truerelationship between the Spanish-Mexican-Americancolonists who came to thisarea, and the Indianpeople who occupiedit." Rather thanargue about misconceptions of missions, however, most of the report's elevencriteria made practical demands, such as a requestthat textbooks citeindividuals by tribe and namerather than generic phrases such as "an Indianled Anza throughthe desert." This criterionallowed Costo to men- tionhis ownancestor, suggesting that authors revise the sentence to read, "Anzawas led throughthe desertby SebastianoCostakik, or Costo, as thewhite man laterwrote the name." Rupert Costo wantedto workwith Max Raffertyto inserthis Cahuilla tribalheritage into the fourth-grade curriculum.This firstattempt at textbookreform did not showsigns of dismantlingthe popular Spanish fantasy past.14 Rafferty'scourtship of the aihs lastedonly through the electionsea- son,enough time for the Costos to see theobstacles blocking the textbook reformsthey desired. During two summermeetings in 1965,the Indian HistoryStudy Committee met Rafferty for an introductionto California's adoptionprocedures. The CurriculumCommission submitted an initiallist oftextbooks for each gradeto theBoard of Education, which voted on the proposals.If textbookswere approved, the superintendentwould finalize contractswith the appropriate publishing houses. Identifying the ultimate powerbrokers, Costo targetedthe politicallyappointed body that con- trolledthe book list. On July16, with kron-tv of San Franciscotaping, the IndianHistory Study Committee adopted Costo's report, which consisted

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NativeAmerican activist Rupert Costo fought to reformhow Indians were portrayed in state-approvedtextbooks and curricula.Used by permission ofSpecial Collections & Archives,University of California, Riverside Libraries, University of California, Riverside, CA.

of eleven"Criteria for the CurriculumCommission of the Stateof Cali- forniaas to the roleof the Indianin State-adoptedtextbooks," The next month,the Curriculum Commission unanimously accepted the eleven criteria.By October 1966, the IndianHistory Study Committee appeared to be makingprogress. One publisherhad pledged to removea paintingof two Indiansscalping a whitewoman and thedirector of publications and textbooksfor the state Department of Education had agreedto checkthat two otherswould revise textbooks adopted for elementary school use. Weeks later,Rafferty blew away his opponent. He wonover three million votes in hisreelection bid, more than twice the total that launched Ronald Reagan to the governorship.As Raffertysettled into his secondterm in January 1967,the AiHS increased distribution of The IndianHistorian to accommo- dateits growing readership. The alliancehad aidedboth parties,15

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 174 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY The Costos' crusadeto reformelementary school history textbooks showshow nativeprotests rapidly spiraled from consensus politics to almostmilitant radicalism. After three years of submitting detailed reviews to thestate Board of Education and sendingrequests for revisions to pub- lishingcompanies, the Costos lost theirearlier optimism in the Indian HistoryStudy Committee. In 1968,they launched their own curriculum campaign.As theygrew increasingly frustrated with theirinability to reacha mainstreamreadership, the Costos' interpretationof California historygrew more extreme. This led themto call the Spanishmissions "concentrationcamps," a labelthat remains controversial today. Although the genocidethesis was not acceptedby mostCalifornia Indians,16 who livedin ruralcommunities with localized economic concerns, the Costos gainedinfluence by mailing their publications to urbanactivists across the country.Living in San Francisco'sHaight-Ashbury district, they inspired theIndians who occupied Alcatraz in 1969to proposean educationcenter on theisland. As educators,they saw the symbolic takeover as an opportu- nityto teachIndians a newversion of California history. The relationship betweenthe aihs, Max Rafferty,and textbookpublishers explains why theCostos, the mostvocal Indiansabout fourth-grade California history, eventuallydecided that changing the mission curriculum was the best way to underminethe Spanish fantasy past. In less than a decade afterCosto's appointment as presidentof the IHSC,he andhis wife had becomepolitical separatists. As withthe activist publicationsof otherminority groups of thatera, the Costos'magazines grewincreasingly radical. In 1973,they introduced Wassaja, a journalrep- resenting"The Indians'Signal for Self-Determination." The IndianHis- torianPress also reprinteda select group of titles, beginning in 1977with The Iroquoisand theFounding of theAmerican Nation, by Donald Grinde, a Yamaseedescendant. Grinde's "Iroquois Influence" thesis had popular- izedthe notion that only Indians could write Indian history. In 1987,the Costospublished their own history,The Missionsof California: A Legacy ofGenocide. This culminatedtheir conversion from integration advocates to tribalself-determinationists. It is no flukethat this evolution coincided withtheir numerous reviews of textbook depictions of the Spanish missions from1965 to 1972.Rafferty's dismissal of all requestsfor textbook revision fromthe IndianHistory Study Committee pushed the Costos towarda moreradical interpretation ofthe mostpopular topic in thefourth-grade curriculum.

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions standing up to sugar cubes 175^ Indians Incensed: The Radicalization of Rupert and Jeanette Costo, 1966-1969 The Costossoon saw that Rafferty had exploitedthe partnership for his own gain.This was the samelesson African American historians had learned in theLand ofthe Free controversy. As the Costosmonitored California's elementaryschool textbooks for the next six years, they found that the direc- torof publications never carried out his promisedrevisions. Realizing that Raffertywas unlikelyto disciplinehis stafffor these oversights, the Costos appealeddirectly to theCurriculum Commission and publishing houses in a fierceletter-writing campaign from 1966 to 1972which they published as The AmericanIndian Reader, a six-volumeseries of educational perspectives. As peoplein powercontinued to ignoreor reject their letters, articles, and cur- riculumproposals, the Costos' tone in thesedocuments grew more strident. Costo'swife, Jeanette Henry, launched a moreaggressive reform agenda byconcentrating her commentary on themission curriculum. In her1967 article,"Our InaccurateTextbooks," Henry reflected on the errorsshe soughtto correctin the forty-threetextbooks from the Indian History StudyCommittee report. Textbooks barely mentioned American Indians, she found,except in termsof their relations to governmentagencies. She vowedto confronttextbook neglect with a comprehensivecampaign. To improvethe curriculum,the aihs wouldpublish "numerous documents, bibliographies,guides for teachers, and suggestionsas to utilizationof bet- termaterials." aihs workedwith linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists, andother native scholars to circulatescholarly knowledge to itsreadership. Henryargued that Indian history was especially suited to elementary-school education."We can givethe childthe proudand uniqueheritage which belongsto thehistory of the American Indian," she insisted. "We can learn muchfrom the Indian philosophy of human relations, the respect for one's elders,and the intenselove forone's historic past." Henry's faith in the powerof her heritage was so strongthat she believedthe aihs couldwin back SuperintendentRafferty and make substantivetextbook revisions. Afterall, the IndianHistory Study Committee was stillworking directly withthe Curriculum Commission and, by extension, the publishers. It was withthis spirit of optimismthat the two civil rightsactivists launched theirletter-writing campaign. The Costos'correspondence about two text- booksreveals an evolutionfrom cordial critiques to darkdenunciations.17 RupertCosto wroteRafferty directly about a fourth-gradetextbook, StoriesCalifornia Indians Told, by Anne Fisher.She dedicatedher book

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 176 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY to "all boysand girlswho like Indiansand animals."Costo pointedout thatFisher's "stories" were coyote legends that California tribes told to instillmoral values in theiradult members. Arguing it was "downright sillyto makea wholebook of phony coyote yarns," he demandedthat the publisherat leastrevise Fisher's demeaning dedication. Costo also asked Raffertyif,as IndianHistory Study Committee chair, he coulduse Depart- mentof Education letterhead for the textbook evaluations he was submit- tingto the CurriculumCommission. This 1966 lettershowed that Costo stillsaw himself in partnershipwith Rafferty. Further, Costo was confident thathe couldmake positive changes within the state bureaucracy.18 Costo was disappointedby the responsefrom Rafferty's associate five weekslater. The superintendentwould not releasethe department'slet- terheadto non-stateagencies for legal purposes. He also attacheda corre- spondencebetween a CurriculumCommission member and thepresident of ParnassusPress, which had publishedFisher's book. The president defendedFisher's dedication as a showof "respectfor all humanbeings and herdeep affectionfor the world of nature." He did not thinkFisher's phrasewas offensive,and it was ParnassusPress policy that the author couldwrite her own dedication. The publisheradded that an anthropology professorhad confirmedFisher's authenticity, and he includedan excerpt froma favorablereview in LibraryJournal This responsesatisfied Rafferty and theCurriculum Commission, which had alreadyadopted Stories Cali- forniaIndians Told, As faras theDepartment of Education was concerned, Costo'scomplaint had beenheard and answered.He wouldhave to usehis ownletterhead to protestfurther.19 Undeterredby Rafferty'shenchmen, Costo took futureobjections straightto publishers.His nexttarget, Helen Bauer,had powerfulbacking in southernCalifornia. After eighteen years with the libraryand textbook sectionof the Los AngelesCity School District,Bauer had secured a lucrativecontract with Doubleday to publishsupplemental books for the fourth-gradeCalifornia history curriculum. Bauer penned the firstthree booksin the 1950s,California Mission Days, California Rancho Days, and CaliforniaGold Days. As thetitles indicate, the California Days series cel- ebratedthe romantic fantasy past. Although it was moredifficult to focus on Spanishheritage in a storyprimarily about Indians, Doubleday found a rangeof experts to promoteCalifornia Indian Days, Bauer's final install- ment,in 1963.With a flarefor romance, a curatorfrom the Santa Barbara Museumof NaturalHistory exclaimed, "Mrs. Bauer's sympathetic study has broughtthe vanishedpicture of aboriginal California vividly to life."

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 177^ An anthropologyprofessor went further, praising her work as "highlyuse- ful,interesting and valuablereading for elementary students," adding, "It evenhas informationofgreat use at thehigh school or college level" Dou- bledayhad investeda lotof money in Bauer'sCalifornia history series, and it intendedto confirmher expertise with these reviews.20 Buttwo roadblocks disrupted Doubleday 's plan.The firstwas funding. Althoughthe Curriculum Commission had adoptedCalifornia Indian Days in 1964,a yearafter publication, the statelegislature did not appropriate sufficientmoney to purchase all supplementarytextbooks. Second, Double- daydid not expect to encounterRupert Costo. In 1966,the Indian History StudyCommittee singled out California Indian Days, because, they argued, Bauerhad writtenwith "misinformation, misinterpretations ofIndian life and culture,and errorsof historic fact." Since thebook had to be re-quali- fiedfor statewide adoption after the 1964funding mishap, the Curriculum Commissionforwarded the aihs complaintsto Doubleday.Bauer made revisions,and CaliforniaIndian Days underwent a second printing in 1968. When the aihs continuedto challengethe book,Doubleday grew concerned.In 1969,the senior editor of Doubleday's Books for Young Readers divisionwrote to Costo.He emphasizedthe effort that Doubleday had put intorevising Bauer's book and askedfor a copyof the report that the aihs wouldsubmit to the CurriculumCommission. This requestput Costo in theposition of power that Rafferty had enjoyedin thedebate over Anne Fisher'sbook, StoriesCalifornia Indians Told.21 Recallinghis frustrationand humiliationregarding Fisher's dedication and sensingthat he had long since lost Rafferty'ssupport, Costo refusedto compromise.Rather than sending the editor an advancelist of complaints,Costo simplysaid thatthe nextissue of The IndianHistorian wouldevaluate California Indian Days and fourother Doubleday books in preparationfor the CurriculumCommission's next state-adoptionmeet- ing.Costo explainedthat a listof errorswould be insufficient,because the aihs objectedto Bauer'stone throughout the book.A fullreview of Bauer'sinaccuracy, Costo warned,"would necessitate an essayon whatis wrongwith almost all booksabout the AmericanIndian in generaland aboutthe California Indian more specifically." Costo explainedthat Bauer needed"close personal knowledge" of anthropology, ethnology, sociology, and historybefore she couldsatisfactorily revise her book. He concluded by chastisingDoubleday for failing to recognizethe scholarlystandards of the aihs. "Ifyou cannot see whatis wrongwith these books," Costo wrote,"then a completesystem of re-educating the publishers themselves,

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 178 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY togetherwith their entire editorial staff, is in order,"Costo knewsuch a statementwould sever ties between the aihs and Doubleday-But he had alreadyconcluded that working with publishers, the Curriculum Commis- sion,or the superintendent ofpublic instruction was getting him nowhere- Withthis harsh renunciation of the textbook bureaucracy, Costo took the aihs intoits most aggressive phase: curriculum reform-22

Indians Initiate Militant Mission Curricula, 1970-1971 Two textbookcritiques and twocurriculum guides show that Costo had becomemore provocative by the early1970s- Surprisingly, he submitted six pagesof correctionsfor Land of theFree by Caughey,Franklin, and May-It is interestingthat the book thatMax Raffertyhad questionedin 1965for its "slant" toward famous African Americans also failedto satisfy Costo in 1970,who by then was solely concerned with California Indians- He wrotean evenlonger inventory of objections to TheStory of California, byDavid Lavender,which the CurriculumCommission would adopt the followingyear- In additionto his usual list of objections and detailedexpla- nations,Costo denounced Lavender's "absolutely grotesque oversimplifica- tion-"Desperately, he pleadedthat it was an unwiseinvestment to adopt sucha "bad book" forthe state-mandated six-year term- Costo predicted ominously,"[T]his kind of a book is justnot good enough for the children ofCalifornia, and willresult in moremisconceptions, more prejudice, and moreconflict between the ethnic groups of this State, than already exists today"To supportthis claim, the aihs declaredthat the "degradingand derogatorymanner" of Lavender'swriting turned the storyof California into"the story of a POLLYANNA-likeworld, in whichpeople are not real people,but mere dummies jumping to thefoolish and unsuccessfulmaneu- veringsof an unscholarlybook which is tryingto rideall sidesof the road at one time"The Land ofthe Free critiques and the indignantPollyanna referencein 1971 werefar cries from the elevencriteria that the Indian HistoryStudy Committee had submittedto theCurriculum Commission in 1965,when Rupert Costo had hopedhis forbearSebastiano Costakik mightsomeday appear in a Californiahistory textbook-23 Exasperatedwith non-Indianhistorians, the Costos createdtheir own curriculum-Their initialefforts excluded the Californiamissions- When The IndianHistorian published the elevencriteria for the Curricu- lumCommission in 1965,it includeda six-pagesupplement of curriculum suggestionsfrom Rupert's sister Martina Costo, a fourth-gradeteacher in

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 1791 southernCalifornia» Martina's proposals reflected the initial optimism that herbrother and sister-in-lawshared in thewake of their alliance with Max Rafferty.She limitedher lesson plans to activitiesabout California Indians beforethe Spanishand Mexicansarrived- Drawing basket designs, weav- ingmats, and creatingnature myths were fun ways to studya lifestylethat had changeddramatically in the eighteenthcentury. With missions con- spicuouslyabsent, Martina's curriculum guide avoided Indian contact with non-nativegroups and portrayedtribal life in Californiapositively.24 Fiveyears later, however, her brother used the missionsto promotea morecontroversial lesson plan. His role-playinggame, "It Happenedin California:You Are There," had threehistorical settings. Unlike his sister's curriculumguide, each ofRupert's role-playing scenarios was aboutIndian contactwith outside groups. The firsttwo wereabout the missions,and neitherwas verypositive. One gamewas set in a historicsite inland from theSan DiegoMission. The studentsrole-played village Indians who were trickedand capturedby the missionaries and madeto endureforced labor at the mission.Costo remindedstudents that, in additionto demanding backbreakingwork, the padreswould separate Indians from their fami- liesand manywould be vulnerableto disease.The student-Indianshad to selectone offour courses of action:

1.You couldrun away, because the guards are not alwayswatching. 2. You could organizea revolt to overthrowthe peoplewho are controlling you. 3. You couldaccept what has happenedto youand tryto do thebest you can. 4. You couldpoison the missionary. remember:You are not armed.The Spanishhave guns.Discuss among your group.25 All fourchoices had sad outcomes,especially the optionto submit. The "revolt"and "poison-the-missionary"options did not significantly changethe student-neophyteexperience. The onlyway to achievefree- dom was to run away,and thatinvolved risk. This was a cleverway to insertCosto's own interpretationofIndians and the Californiamissions intothe classroom. Althoughthe lesson recreated past moments of tension and indecision forhis nativeancestors, there was nothinguncertain about Costo's present attitudetoward the Departmentof Education.Rafferty 's five years of silencehad driventhe formersemipro ballplayer from Riverside to adopt therevolutionary rhetoric that was becomingpopular in his newHaight- Ashburyneighborhood. For Costo, the traditionalmission curriculum

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l8o SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY

JulianNava, a historyprofessor at San FernandoValley State College (nowCalifornia State University, Northridge),was electedto the Los AngelesBoard of Education in 1967.Julian Nava Collection. UrbanArchives Center. Oviatt Library.California State University, Northridge.

symbolizedthe removalof indigenousidentity from children's studies of California.But not all groupswith native bloodlines objected to thisera- sure.Many Mexican Americans believed that teaching missions tied their heritageto statehistory in a powerfulway.

Mexican Americans Assert a Californio Consensus, 1967-1975 Prospectsfor an Angloalliance were brighter for Mexican American poli- ticiansthan theywere for Rupert Costo. In contrastto the smallIndian population,there were more than fivemillion Mexican Americansin Californiaby 1970.Further, while Costo criticizedthe Spanishmissions, olderMexican Americansglorified them. The California-borngenera- tionsclaimed the heroic legacy of Catholic priests and Californiodons who convertedthe golden valleys from wilderness to agriculturaloases. Latino politiciansbroke into public life by forming coalitions with white liberals, especiallyin Los Angeles,which elected a MexicanAmerican, Edward

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 18^ Roybal,to Congressin 1962,the same yearMax Raffertyfirst won the suburbanvote for superintendent- Two of the community'sdistinguished leaderswere educators: Julian Nava and RodolfoAcuña» These "elder statesmen"wanted to weaveMexican culture into the city'spolitical fabric,but they also clungto thelegend of "Californio" distinctiveness. They believedthat accepting the mission myth forged ties to whiteprivilege that Raffertyhad deniedto Indians,While Nava endorsedthe Spanish fantasy pastas presidentof the Los AngelesSchool Board,Acuña and otherspro- motedthe mission myth in children'stextbooks. In theirefforts to improve publiceducation for Mexican Americans, Nava and Acuña bothinsisted on thevalidity of the traditional mission curriculum.26 Althoughthey romanticized California history as muchas manyother textbooksapproved by Rafferty'sCurriculum Commission, Nava and Acuñanever partnered with the superintendent ofpublic instruction. This was primarilybecause, much like RupertCosto, Max Rafferty'spolitics had growneven less temperatesince his initialoutreach to the aihs. In 1968,his reactionaryrhetoric helped him upset the moderateRepublican incumbentin theGrand Old Party'sU.S. Senateprimary. But that spring and summer,as Californianswatched political assassinations and violent demonstrations,they grew increasingly distrustful of extremistpositions. Raffertylost the generalSenate electionand, in 1970,failed in his bid fora thirdterm as superintendent.Preferring to workwhere his sharpwit wouldbe morewelcomed, Rafferty became dean ofeducation at TroyState Universitya year later. Although he movedto Alabama,he nevermade peace withold opponents.In 1982,a monthbefore he passedaway, Raf- fertyridiculed Wilson Riles, his formerdeputy who had succeededhim as superintendent,bysaying, "[A] cigar store Indian could have done a better job thanhe has."While this comment was notaimed at RupertCosto, its hostiletone reflected Rafferty's decision to rejectall adversaries,including Indianactivists with whom he had brieflyworked on textbookreform.27 In contrastto Rafferty, building inter-ethnic educational alliances came naturallyto oldergenerations of Angelenos who had grownup in diverse communities.Although he becameone ofthe city's most successful Latino leaders,Julian Nava viewedhimself as morethan simply a MexicanAmer- ican teacher.He was bornin BoyleHeights in 1927,before it had become a barriofor Mexican immigrants. Having grown up withJewish, African, and Asian Americansin EastLos Angeles,Nava comfortablyappealed to an arrayof ethnicgroups in 1967 whenhe becamethe firstLatino ever electedto theLos AngelesSchool Board.Then a historyprofessor at San

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l82 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY FernandoValley State College,Nava used the textbookcontroversy to identifywith other ethnic groups,28 While the Costos werefighting for Indianagency in statetextbooks in themid-1960s, the Council on Interra- cial Booksfor Children also beganquestioning the ethnic, racial, and reli- giousbiases in juvenileliterature. Nava participatedin thisunited effort to presenta multiculturalview of American history. In 1970,he wrotean informativebooklet, Mexican Americans: A BriefLook at TheirHistory, publishedby the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (adl)- This alliance,and others,forced "elder statesmen" like Nava to makecertain choices about theirMexican heritage and theteaching of history in California,29 Nava'sfirst political defeat taught him that he neededto marketthat heritageto whiteconstituents. He enteredthe 1970race forsuperinten- dentof public instruction against Rafferty, the highlyvulnerable incum- bent. But the DemocraticParty's white liberal fundraisers threw their financialbacking behind Wilson Riles, Although Nava came in third,he won enoughvotes to forcea Riles-Raffertyrun-off. The electionshowed thatNava had to continuehis mainstreamphilosophies if he harbored futurepolitical ambitions. One likelyreason the Democraticbrass chose Rileswas because, as an AfricanAmerican, he wasbest suited to challenge Rafferty's questionable position on civilrights that had emergedduring the Landof the Free crisis in 1966,Looking for ways to makehis ethnic heritage appealto whiteCalifornians, Nava emphasizedthe Mexican community's religiosityin his textbook.As a predominantlyCatholic people, Mexicans had experiencedreligious discrimination to whichhis Jewish publishers at theadl couldrelate. But he couldalso claimties to the Spanishfantasy pastin appealsto whiteProtestants, Nava hopedthat teaching about Juni- peroSerra and theCalifornio dons would unite Chícanos and Anglosand makehis candidacy more viable in futurestate elections. Toward this end, in 1975he recommendedtwo fourth-grade textbooks that used the traditionalmission curriculum to tellthe story of Mexican Americans,30 One ofthe books, Our MexicanHeritage, by Gertrude Brown, applied Rafferty'splea forpatriotism to Chicano culture.Although she devoted one chapterto provingthat Mexicans were "very proud of theirIndian ancestors,"Brown spent more time on theSpanish fantasy past. She creditedthe origins of modern agriculture in theSouthwest to one ofJunípero Serra'spadres at theCalifornia missions. Brown book-ended her four-page explanationof the missionswith a biographyof FatherSerra, gracefully openingwith his birthon the Spanishisland of Majorca and concluding withthe twostatues of the "GentleConquistador" in WashingtonD,C.

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 183 and Majorca,In a textbookfocused on "ourMexican heritage,"Brown emphasizedthat California citizens raised the funds for these monuments to showthat Latinos shared the legacyof a Spanishpioneer with their whiteneighbors. Singling out herjuvenile readers of Mexican,Japanese, African,and Englishdescent, Brown concluded the book by urging them to be proudof theirimmigrant heritages. Rather than markingindepen- dentpeoples, Brown intended these anecdotes to incorporateMexicans and otherminorities into the American mainstream,31 GertrudeBrown won mixedreviews for her children'stextbooks. In additionto Nava's endorsement,The Latin AmericanResearch Review praisedOur MexicanHeritage as "a textbookin the truestsense of the word"in 1976,Missing Brown's intention of sharing Mexican culture with a multiculturalclassroom, the reviewersrecommended the book forChi- cano childrenlooking for an "appreciationof theirunique past," Rupert Costo,however, did not approve of Brown's textbooks. In his initialreport to the CurriculumCommission, Costo had singledout Brown'sfourth- gradebasic text, California- Our StateToday, which was adoptedfor class- roomuse in 1965,His wife,Jeanette, expressed frustration that Brown describedJewish synagogues, African Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, and missions,but not Indians, She lamentedthat the author depicted "the missionswithout even mentioningthe Indianswho peopledthem, built them,worked for their padres and theSpaniards, and gaveup theirland for them,"Rupert advised the Curriculum Commission to "rewriteor replace thisbook," He mighthave said the samething about Our MexicanHeri- tageseven years later. In herlatter textbook, Brown was willing to writein glowingterms about Mexican contributions to the Spanishfantasy past, butthere was no roomfor Indians in thisstory. As JulianNava's approval showed,that was all rightwith leading Chicano scholars,32 Nava'srespected colleague Rodolfo Acuña wrotehis own elementary schooltextbook in 1969,The Story of the Mexican Americans: The Men and theLand. The "dean"of Chicano studiesexalted another Spanish padre, EusebioKino, Just as Serrawas Brown's"Gentle Padre," Kino was Acuña's "Padreon Horseback,"Acuña glorifiedKino, explaining that, in addition to spreadingthe gospelin what is todayArizona, this "soldierwithout a sword"taught the Indianshow to speak Spanish,raise livestockand plantcrops, and makeclothes and candles.He followedthis section with the loadedcritical-thinking question, "How was a missionlike a school?" Acuña attributedthe poorquality of earlymission architecture to a lack ofbuilding materials, bad weather,and "warlikeIndians," He creditedthe

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 184 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY beautifulchurches constructed amidst such hardships to thefact that "the styleof these churches was brought from Spain«" Even more than Gertrude Brown,Acuña usedCalifornia missions to dismissMexican American ties to Indiansin favorof the Spanish fantasy heritage that Anglos like Brown had cometo admire,33 As he finishedwriting the traditional mission story for children, Acuña wasalso joining the new scholarship of the Chicano movement. He helped foundthe Chicano StudiesDepartment at CaliforniaState University, Northridge(formerly San FernandoValley State College) in 1969,while helpinghis friend Nava runfor state superintendent. The newdepartment tripledthe school'sChicano population- fromfifty to one hundredand fiftystudents - thatyear, but that was still less than 1 percentof the entire studentbody. But Acuña and the fiveother faculty members are not rec- ognizedas thefounding fathers of the departmenton itscurrent website, whichcites the East Los Angeleswalkouts as the inspirationfor the cam- pusChicano movement. The confrontationalstudents who walked out of sevenhigh schools in 1968presented a challengeto thetraditional educa- tionalpolicies of the universityestablishment. Rather than appealingto a widerAnglo audience,as Nava and Acuña did,these Chicano youths angrilyrejected the Spanish fantasy past. Turning to theirIndian heritage as a markerof minority status, Chicano radicals rode the wave of protests thatswept into cities across the country in 1968,34

Chicano Activists Lead a Legal Challenge to the Curriculum, 1968-1975 The factionsin the 1968 walkoutsexplain the disagreementsabout the missioncurriculum that arose within the Mexican American community. The Chicano youthsused confrontation to combatdiscrimination rather thanbuild alliances with Jews and Anglos as JulianNava hopedto do.The MexicanAmerican Education Commission (maec) broughtthe walkouťs revolutionaryovertones to school board meetings.Promoting a history of victimization,the maec followedRupert Costo's model of textbook reformand insistedthat publishers remove European voices from the story ofAmerican minority groups. This starkcontrast to theglorified mission mythin Acuña'stextbook highlights the inherent tensions of the Mexican Americanmestizo heritage in whichIndian and Catholiccustoms com- pete.While the Chicano studentgeneration celebrated Aztec traditions in theirmilitant protests, older Mexicans proudly asserted their Californio

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 185 legacyby endorsingthe Spanishfantasy past. The contrastbetween the alliesthat Chicano activists chose in a 1972court case andNava's conven- tionalcoalitions reveals the Mexican American divisions at theend of the civilrights era.35 When fifteenthousand students walked out ofschool in March1968, theywere protesting the quality of education for Chicanos, who then com- posed23 percentof the students in theLos AngelesCity School District. Theywere convinced that the Los AngelesBoard of Education'sban on Spanish-languagelearning would continue to limittheir English-language readingskills. Although Julian Nava was on the schoolboard, the fact thathe had been electedby a majorityof whitevoters (and thathe had futurepolitical ambitions) prevented him from helping Spanish-speaking students.The Chicano studentswere aware of Nava's limitationswhen theyformed militant groups like the Brown Berets at fiveeastside schools, includingNava's alma mater,Roosevelt High. Duringthe walkouts,one Rooseveltstudent showed disdain for the school board's lone Chicano rep- resentative:"Dr. Nava came to 'look' overour school,took one look at ourgym, turned around and reportedthe new gymis beautiful.But, did ourDr. Nava lookat all ourschool? Did he noticeour crowded classrooms, lousyfood, closed restrooms? Does Dr. Nava stillcondone swats for silly reasons?"36 This directattack on Nava showedthat radicalChicanos wereno longerwilling to waitfor the politicalprocess to runits course. In 1969, the schoolboard hoped to appeasethe protestorsby forming the maec. Althoughthe unelectedcommissioners owed theirappointments to the schoolboard, they were quick to challengethe status quo. Theyidentified socialstudies textbook adoption as one ofthe first ways to reform the public schoolsystem. The buildupto theм aec's textbooklawsuit, Gutierrez, etal v. StateBoard of Education, demonstrated widespread interracial solidarity ofethnic minorities against the Anglo Curriculum Commission. However, whenthe Gutierrezdecision ruled against the maec, the Chicano com- missionersand theschool board had verydifferent reactions. Julian Nava's reluctanceto supportthe ambitiousagendas of the advisorycommittee he himselfhad appointedshowed that the Chicano communityremained dividedover the state of education in California.37 The maec formeda coalitiondifferent from the one Nava had tried to buildduring the 1970 superintendentrace. In thatcampaign, Acuña had accompaniedhis colleagueto appeal to a committeeof whitelib- eralphilanthropists who wanted to nominateWilson Riles instead. While

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l86 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY Nava and Acuña failedto fosterelite Anglo support, the maec's alliances reflectedthe demography of the nation's most diverse city- A monthafter Riles'victory over Rafferty (and Nava), Chicanas Raquel Galan-Gutierrez and Kay Guruleapproached the Black EducationCommission (вес) to plan a surveyof more than five hundred textbooks submitted for adoption bythe stateboard of education. Essentially, they were recreating the sur- veyconducted by the aihs fiveyears earlier, only on a muchlarger scale- The womenfrom the maec and theвес in Los Angelesinvited feedback fromall ethnicgroups, asking for instances in whichthe textbooksvio- latedone of foursections of the stateeducation code. Like the Costos, theypublished and distributedtheir findings widely, only with more success than the Indianactivists had enjoyed.By the end of 1971,the state Boardof Education had formedan EthnicTask Force to reviewfifty social studiestextbooks that the Curriculum Commission wanted to adopt.The twelvetask force members were scholars of Chinese,Japanese, Mexican, and NativeAmerican history. One scholarof NativeAmerican was Dr. LowellBean, an anthropologyprofessor and frequentcontributor to The IndianHistorian. As the taskforce scholars set to work,they believed, as theCostos had in 1965,that their evaluations would effect change in Cali- fornia'ssocial studies classes.38 Theirpower predictably diminished, but, unlike the aihs sevenyears earlier,the network of agencies backing the Ethnic Task Force organized to revivethe reform efforts. Like the militant Chicano youths, these agencies werevoluntary organizations skeptical of the politicallyappointed state Boardof Education. Although there were minorities on the board,there wereno Chicano,Asian, or Native American representatives on theCur- riculumCommission that submitted textbooks for the board to approve.In January1972, the Ethnic Task Force found that the Curriculum Commis- sionhad authorizedonly minor revisions and concludedthat "the underly- ingracism of the bookswas intactand the damagingeffect on children had notbeen diminished."From its Los Angelesheadquarters, the maec mounteda legalattack to halt the textbook-adoptionprocess. In March, maec lawyersfiled Gutierrez, Gurule, Hirano and Salinas v. State Board ofEducation. A superiorcourt judge in Sacramentogranted a temporary restrainingorder to preventthe boardfrom signing contracts with the publishers.After three continuations of the restrainingorder, the state assignedthe case to anotherjudge, who ruled that the state Board of Edu- cationhad ultimatejurisdiction on textbookadoption. Thus, the board adoptedthirteen of the forty-fivetextbooks proposed by the Curriculum

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 187^ Commission,As had theaihs, themaec ultimatelylost its bid to reform California'shistory textbooks- But the efforts it madeto mobilizethe Eth- nic Task Forcerevealed a broadmulticultural initiative that the Costos had not had in 1965.In blockingthirty-two of the forty-fivebooks from adoption,the maec had gaineda degreeof influenceover state curricula thathad eludedearlier reform efforts by Julian Nava and RodolfoAcuña, and eventhe Costos,39 The guidelinesthat the maec proposedfor publishers to followhad implicationsfor classroom instruction that went beyond textbook content. These stipulationsstemmed from the generalprinciple that "no material shouldbe demeaningfrom the Mexican-Americanchild's point of view" because"his identity as a worthwhilehuman being must be affirmed,"This meantthat Latinos needed to learnabout their communities in theSouth- weston positive,sensitive terms that did not obscure or isolatethe realities ofLatino life from other peoples in America,But the maec wentbeyond thetextbook changes that Rupert Costo had advocatedfor seven years. It also foundthat teachers, by clingingto a "mythof Americanrighteous- ness,"were even more responsible for projecting a negative image of Latinos ontotheir students. It urgedteachers to undergo"attitude retraining," visit theirstudents' homes, join communitygroups, and learnto speakSpan- ish,It suggestedthat teachers draw on thepeople, parks, and resourcesin theirschool districts to integrateChicano prideinto the schoolcurriculum.These diverseteaching methods represented a radical turn away from thehero worship that Max Raffertyhad preached,40 While the maec set loftygoals for classroom education, its attorney used the stateeducation code to provethat textbooks that did not meet suchcriteria were not only unjust but unlawful as well.The twomost impor- tantsections of the California Education Code were9035 and 9002,which requiredthe board to approveonly "textbooks which correctly portray[ed] the roleand contributionof the AmericanNegro and membersof other ethnic groups"and preventedit from"adopting any textbookwhich contained]any matter reflecting adversely upon persons because of their race,color, creed, or nationalorigin of ancestry," Citing these laws, maec lawyerJoseph Ortega argued that reading unfavorable descriptions of their ethnicheritage gave children "concepts of worthlessnessof theirgroups, a lossof self-esteemand as a consequencesquelche[d] and lessen[ed]any motivation"students had "tolearn and to becomepart of the mainstream ofAmerican life." To avoidsuch damage, the stateeducation code com- pelledthe board to makeall Americanhistory textbooks up foradoption

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions l88 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY availablein twohundred public libraries across the statefor at leastsixty days.The lawprovided a two-monthwindow of opportunity within which to launcha concertedattack on the CurriculumCommission's proposed textbooks,and Chicanoactivists led theway in seizingthe moment.41 The maec's Kay Gurule coordinatedthe effort,mailing textbook evaluationsto otherethnic agencies, including the Costos'aihs. Gurule attacheda memofrom Joe Ortega informing the scholars how to findfault withsections 9305 and 9002,Ortega wanted specific details, and he sug- gesteda fewgeneric examples. To provethat a minoritygroup's contribu- tionwas inaccuratelyportrayed (section 9305), he wouldwrite, "Textbook Y in Chapter1, pp. 13-26 ♦• . portraysthe Indianincorrectly in thatit statesthey were uncivilized and had no religionor governmentwhen in factthey had religionand government."To demonstrateadverse reflection on a particularheritage (section 9002), Ortega could argue, "Textbook Z at page 13contains a statementthat Mexicans were lazy and bloodthirsty." Ifhe couldshow these conditions, the textbookswould violate the state educationcode and thusrender the board's publishing contracts "an illegal expenditureof the tax money."Using thissystematic approach, Ortega tookthe radical fault lines found by the Ethnic Task Force scholars further intothe legal process than Rupert Costo had evergone.42 The combinedcritiques from a diversearray of ethnic scholars made the individualarguments more persuasiveand morallycompelling. WhereasRupert Costo's view of the Spanish missions greatly differed from RodolfoAcuña's, the new Chicano and Native American scholars comple- mentedeach other'sprotest points. In his deposition,Mexican American professorPorfirio Sanchez lamented the "irreparable harm" done to society whena textbook"leaves majority and minoritychildren culturally isolated and thereforeis a majorcontributing factor to themaintenance of ethnic prejudices."Building on Sanchez'sympathy for minority children, Native AmericanStudies professor Jack Forbes laid the burdensquarely on the shouldersof adult educators when he addressedthe board directly in Janu- ary1972. He angrilyreported that teachers tended to "recoilin hostility" whenpresented with the latesttheories in multiculturalstudies because theyhad neverlearned them in school,"and when new information" emerged,they didn't know "how to fitit intotheir previous knowledge." Forbes'condemnation of teacher"mis-education" and Sanchez' "children-as-victims"theme seemed more persuasive when presented together. UnlikeAcuña and Nava, whowere trying to reachthe mainstreamfrom withinthe educationalinfrastructure, or the aihs, whichhad triedto

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 189^ reformthe systemby itself, these militant scholars got their opposition to state-adoptedtextbooks into the public record by launching a jointassault on thepolitically appointed state Board of Education,43 Such forcefullanguage would become the legacyof Gutierrez v. Board ofEducation. But whena superiorcourt judge granted ultimate jurisdic- tionto the Boardof Education, the maec viewedthe lawsuitas a failure. Althoughthe case was a lameduck, Joe Ortega filed a writof mandate in theCalifornia Supreme Court, and KayGurule threatened to fileanother petitionif the firstwere rejected. However, if the ethnicadvisory com- missionviewed the Gutierrezdecision as a letdown,the case seemedlike progressfrom Julian Nava's seat on the Los AngelesBoard of Education, While Nava had supportedthe Spanishfantasy myth in his own textbook publications,he was also sensitiveto the politicalambitions of the Chicano activists.He stressedthat three continuations of the restraining orderwas thefurthest anyone (including Rupert Costo) had cometo halt- ing approvalof social studiestextbooks. Nava notedthat the National EducationAssociation was pickingup on the trendsstarted by the aihs and maec and expectedpressures to buildat thelocal and nationallevels. The localschool board's only Chicano knew that he couldnot reform text- booksor bring about Spanish-language learning on hisown, but he viewed themaec's effortsmore optimistically than Kay Gurule did,44

Epilogue: Evaluating the Modern Mission Curriculum, 1978-2006 Nava'scheery review of the Gutierrezlawsuit exposed the complexracial discoursewrapped up in the Californiahistory curriculum. The maec had emergedout of the crisiscreated by the East L,A, walkoutsin 1968, whena Chicana studenthad publiclycriticized Nava at his alma mater. Sevenyears later, the school board president praised the maec formount- ing a legal challengeto the state'stextbook-adoption process. On what reformsdid Mexican American statesmen and Chicanoactivists agree and disagree?How did theirplatforms differ from earlier protest movements launchedby Indianmilitants? What rolesdid ethnicidentity and political powerplay in reshapingthe fourth-gradehistory program? A look at currentclass projects and textbooksabout the Californiamissions shows thatthe curriculumdebates of the 1960sand 1970sleft multiple legacies, all of whichare accommodatedby the state'srevised social studiesstan- dards.Some studentstoday learn that missionswere horrifying places

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions I£O SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY wherepriests supervised forced labor and genderseparation- But due to themany classrooms that continue to assignthe mission-diorama project, manystudents leave fourth grade with sugar-coated images of colonial life in SpanishCalifornia» These lessonsteach more about current conflicts overindigenous heritage than theydo about the historicaltime period thatstudents are supposed to be studying.45 In thelate 1970s,some Mexican American educational advocates continuedto promotethe Spanishfantasy past throughhands-on activities likethe missiondiorama. In 1978,Rueben Aguirre published Teaching the Chicano/MexicanAmerican Cultural Heritage in theElementary School Two projectshe suggestedwere making guacamole and building mission models. Justas he includedeverything from avocadoes to tortillatriangles, Aguirre advisedteachers to have students work in sandor dirt boxes and design missionsthat showed "Indian quarters, missionaries' residence[s], barracks for Spanishsoldiers, church[es], cemeter[ies], and garden[s] ."Similarly superficial missiondepictions appeared in LatinoMaterials: A MultimediaGuide for Childrenand Young Adults, written by librarian Daniel FloresDuran. In his Guide,intended as a resourcefor Latino families, Duran endorsed the writ- ingsof Leo Politi,who had earlierlionized Junipero Serra in his 1953pic- turebook, The Mission Bell Duranrecommended the Spanish translation of anotherPoliti book, Pedro, the Angel ofOlvera Street, because, as he remarked, "pD]espitethe argument of some critics that the story is stereotyped,itcon- tinuesto delightadults and childrenalike." Pedro was set in OlveraStreet, a romanticized"Mexican village" built, in the 1920swith Anglo civic leaders' support,as a touristattraction. Without denying that some Chícanos criticizedthe romanticstory of SpanishCalifornia, Duran insistedthat those imageswere still popular in theMexican American community. Even seven yearsafter the Gutierrez lawsuit, Latino educators still promoted stories and activitiesthat would teach children the samemission myths that Rodolfo Acuñaand GertrudeBrown had toldin theirtextbooks.46 Today,Indian historians tell an entirelydifferent story. Edward Cas- tillo,a Cahuilla-Luiseñomission neophyte's descendant and authorof sev- eralarticles for the aihs in the 1970s,has becomethe mostvocal native missionscholar. In the prefaceto a 1996 children'sbook, Missions of the Los AngelesArea, by Diane MacMillan,Castillo advocated a newway of teachingthe mission period to students."Perhaps one ofthe key lessons to be learnedfrom an honestand evenhandedaccount of California'smis- sions,"Castillo suggested, "is thatthe Indianshad somethingimportant to teachthe Spaniards."MacMillan's book describesthe samestory that

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 19^ HelenBauer told forty years earlier, but it emphasizes the experience of the neophytesmore than the padres.It describesa plannedIndian revolt in 1785led byneophyte Nicolas José and a femaleshaman, Toypurina, who enduredyears of punishment after being caught by Spanish soldiers. Fur- thermore,the closing chapter, "The Missionsin ModernTimes," discusses howHelen HuntJackson and CharlesLummis used the restorationproj- ectsat missionsSan Gabrieland San Fernandoto appropriatethe Spanish fantasypast for Anglo Angelenos. It even refers to thedebate that stemmed fromRupert Costo's "concentration camp" version of the missions. Castillo appearsto approvethe book'sconclusion that "many Native Americans viewthe missionsnot as monumentsbut as placesthat caused death and sufferingfor thousands of Indians." A lifelongradical who was inspiredby Costo to occupyAlcatraz in 1969,Castillo was happyto endorsea book thatshowed children images they would not see in dioramaprojects or picturebooks about mission bells.47 The persistenceof Aguirre's lesson plans as wellas Castillo'spublica- tion showsthat California educators are stillarguing about whether to rememberthe missionsas places of romanticizationor of victimization. Unlikethe heated debate between Max Raffertyand RupertCosto, however,these two interpretationscurrently coexist more peacefully in the classroom.In 1998,the state Board of Education revised the fourth-grade standardsof the "Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods" to combine thestories of the Indians,Mexicans, and Spaniardswho had peopledthe region.The standardslargely avoided controversial questions with sugges- tionsto describe"the Spanish exploration and colonizationof California, includingthe relationshipsamong soldiers, missionaries, and Indians"as wellas "thedaily lives of the people, native and nonnative,who occupied thepresidios, missions, ranchos, and pueblos."These statementsincluded nativepeoples in newways, but their neutral tone also allowededucators to interpretthe standardsmore loosely. Under these standards, for example,the traditionalsugar-cube mission-diorama project was as acceptable as a dioramathat depicted Indian labor and otherscenes of daily life at the colonialmissions. By writing the new standardsin genericlanguage, the stateBoard of Education created an amorphouspolicy that was not guar- anteedto producea curriculumabout multiculturalism.However, there have been successfulattempts to teachboth the romanticand victimiza- tionversions of mission history at thesame time. One lessonguide in particularshows that it is possibleto place the "concentrationcamp" mission narratives in directdialog with the more

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions i£2 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY traditionalromantic interpretation. In November 2006, ucla's National Centerfor History in the Schools (nchs) publishedNew Perspectiveson theCalifornia Missions. In justifyingyet another fourth-grade mission unit, thenchs statedits intent to go beyondthe diorama assignment, because learning"how the Californiamissions changed California's future and how theyaffected the livesof theNative American people" entails more thanan artproject. The nchs usedprimary sources to letfourth graders takeon therole of mission historians. Rather than ignoring stereotypical images,the curriculumguide presented postcards and promotionalmate- rial"to explorethe romanticview of the Californiamission period" with a criticaleye. Following the "romantic"images, the nextlesson included primarysources about the Spanish occupation of mission land. The third lessoncombined a reportby Junípero Serra about Indian life at Mission San CarlosBorromeo with images of the different buildings and fieldsthat Serradescribed. This activityencouraged students to designa "mission landscape"out of a papergrocery bag and providedoutlines of mission buildingsand fields.Although this bordered on the traditionalmission diorama,it was reallyan assessmentto help students"translate" Father Serra'sreport about one missiononto a physicalmap. The fourthlesson gavestudents six original documents (three by Indians, two by priests, and one bya Mexicanranchero) and askedquestions to helpthem "consider the missionperiod from different perspectives." This effortto includeso manyperspectives makes the nchs guidebookless accessible to teachers who tryto rushthrough the Californiamission curriculum in onlya few days.However, for those who still make the missionproject a centerpiece ofthe fourth-grade experience, the nchs blendof primary-source analysis and hands-onactivities presents the mission experience in a waythat does notreflect the identity politics of any individual ethnic group.48 nchs is just one of severaldistinguished institutions involved in a broadereffort to reformthe fourth-gradecurriculum. While nchs con- sultedthe authors of the two most recent histories of California missions, StevenHackel (2005) and JamesSandos (2004),49for its New Perspec- tivesmanual, the state has givenofficial educational authority to a former IndianHistorian contributor. While nchs waspublishing New Perspectives, EdwardCastillo was revisingthe fourth-gradeIndian curriculum for the CaliforniaState Librarian and theS.B. 41 AdvisoryCommittee. The com- mitteereportedly rejected the firstrevision as beingfull of factual errors, contradictorypositions, and littlenew scholarship.Apparently, the only innovativeaspect it accepted was a strongemphasis on the1850 California

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions "Thanks, Mom" A gratefulacknowledgement ofthe hands-on involvement of parents in the traditionalfourth-grade mission project. Courtesy of Ann and WendellFoster on behalfof Claire Foster.

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This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 194 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY IndianAct as proofthat California Indians were subjects of legal slav- eryunder the Americansystem. It maybe ironicthat, forty years after Max Raffertyand theCurriculum Commission "corrected" Rupert Costo's elevencriteria about the treatmentof Indians in state-adoptedtextbooks, politiciansin Sacramentoare stillsnubbing the revisionsof Costo'spro- tégé.On theother hand, the fact that both parties are stillin dialogafter fourdecades reveals the enduringimportance of the Spanishmissions in theCalifornia history curriculum.50 The evolutionof the mission curriculum suggests the relative success of theprotest movements that emerged in thelate 1960s.Latinos and Native Americanstoday can wieldtheir identity for political purposes in ways thatwere unimaginable four decades ago. The radicalizationof Rupert Costo as an indigenousscholar made future revisionist interpretations of missionhistory seem less extreme. Publishers who used to ignoreCosto's complaintsnow accept his disciple'sclaim that mission Indians were vic- timsof slave labor. Julian Nava, the first Latino elected to theLos Angeles Boardof Education, may have finished third in the 1970election for state superintendent,but the romantic impressions that he and RodolfoAcuña promotedpersist in dioramaprojects and Spanish-languagepicture books. ManyChícanos embrace these representations as passionately as Anglos do,but there are also manywho do not.These militantshave as muchto celebrateas theIndian activists. Although the Mexican American Educa- tion Commissionlost its textbook-adoptionlawsuit in 1972,the maec, aftermore than four decades of existence, can nowpoint to a spectrumof Californiahistory books that give children multiple perspectives about the missionperiod. The convergencesand discrepanciesbetween these three curriculumcrusades capture the conflicting themes that triggered the text- bookdebate in 1965:power and identity. The educatorsin thisstudy believed that ethnic identity determined politicalpower in the 1960s.All reformerssought access to the Anglo administratorwho had the ultimateauthority to adopttextbooks, Super- intendentMaxwell Rafferty. Their curriculum proposals revealed different strategiesto catchRafferty's attention. Mexican Americans who wanted representationon the stateBoard of Educationconsidered the Spanish fantasyheritage the perfectway to mergetheir ethnic pride with Ang- los'patriotic sense of white superiority. By the 1970s,Indian and Chicano campaignsrejected the romanticpast in a distinctdeparture from ear- lierpromises of racial integration. The militantsendorsed mission stories thatpresented their ancestors as victimsand made theircultures more

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions STANDING UP TO SUGAR CUBES 195^ authentic.All ofthese visions now appear together in newCalifornia historytextbooks, sugar-cube diorama projects extended to includemission worksites, and multiple-perspectivemission lessons and activities.Like the fictionalRitchie in TheNew Adventures ofOld Christine,it may not occur to fourthgraders when they build mission dioramas, but this assignment makesthem part of a politicalprocess that has unitedand divideddiverse communitiesin Californiafor generations.

Notes 1 Linda Lyngheim,California Junior Heritage Series: California Mission Projects & Activities(Chatsworth, CA: LangtryPublications, 1993), 31. It is worthnoting that all the charactersin the episode were white. 2 ErikWessler, interview with the author, October 25, 2006; Mrs.Kyneur to FourthGrade Parents, Decem- ber 2006. BerkeleyHall School, N to 6th Grade Assignments,http://www.berkeleyhall.org/education/ homework_1to6.html(accessed January 15, 2007). 3 CareyMcWilliams, Southern California Country (New York:Duell, Sloan & Pearce,1946), 70; McWil- liams,Southern California: An Islandon theLand (Santa Barbara,CA: PeregrineSmith, 1973), 21-22; PhoebeKropp, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a ModernAmerican Place (Berkeleyand Los Ange- les: Universityof California Press, 2006); WilliamDeverell, Whitewashed Adobe: The Riseof Los Angeles and theRemaking of its Mexican Past (Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 2004). 4 JulianNava and Bob Barger,California: Five Centuries of Cultural Contrasts (Beverly Hills, CA: Glencoe Press,1976). 5 FrancesFitzGerald, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in theTwentieth Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979),76; PhoebeS. Kropp,"Sugar Cube Missions:Bringing the SpanishPast intothe CaliforniaClass- room,"paper presented at the94th Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting,Los Angeles, April2001; JohnO. Pohlmann,"California's Mission Myth," (PhD diss.,University of California,Los Angeles,1974). Evidence of Rafferty's position is to be foundin his 1961speech, "What's Happened to Patriotism?"which I discusson p. 8 [pegto whereverline 1 ofp. 8 mentionends up, page-wise] . Although thiscame beforeRafferty entered the race forstate superintendent, I believe this controversial speech gavehim the visibility and reputationhe neededfor a successfulcampaign. 6 Kropp,"Sugar Cube Missions,"3-7. 7 Pohlmann,"California's Mission Myth," 507-12; David Lavenderand the editorsof American Heritage, The Storyof California (New York:American Heritage Publishing Co., 1970);John and LaRee Caughey, California'sOwn History(Sacramento: California Department of Education,1965). John Caughey, who wroteCalifornia's Own Historywith his wifeLaRee, was Pohlmann'sdissertation advisor. 8 MaxwellL. Rafferty,"What's Happened to Patriotism?"The Reader'sDigest (October 1961), 108-10. For an accountof "Mugwump" and othertextbooks, see FitzGerald,America Revised, 149-218. 9 LawrenceT. King, CaliforniasFourth R, The Commonweal(December 14, 1962),306; Oene Marine, "New Hope of the Far Right,"The Nation(January 27, 1964),89; Lisa McGirr,Suburban Warriors: The Originsof the New American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 6. 10 "Rafferty'sDisavowal in the TextbookCase," San FranciscoChronicle, May 17, 1966, RupertCosto Archiveof the American Indian, Department of Special Collections,University of California, Riverside (ucr), Box 104. 11 McGirr,203-204. 12 Costo Libraryof the American Indian, http://www.americanindian.ucr.edu/uniquejieritage/costo. library/index.html(accessed February 26, 2007); "Minutesof the AmericanIndian HistoricalSociety BoardMeeting," July 14, 1964,Costo Archive,ucr (Box 12,Folder 9.1); CherylA. Metoyer-Duran,"Col- lectionOverview: The RupertCosto Archiveof the American Indian," December 17, 2002, vi-xi, http:// microformguides.gale.com/Data/Download/9O22oooC.pdf (accessed February 27, 2007).

This content downloaded from 139.182.19.92 on Thu, 28 Aug 2014 14:19:53 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1£б SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA QUARTERLY

13 RupertCosto, "Indians & Books,"The IndianHistorian 2.8 (October1965): 3; "Indiansto Lead in Study," The IndianHistorian 2.5 (May-June1965): 2. 14 The IndianHistorian 2.7 (August-September1965). 15 Ibid.The AiHS dedicatedthis un-paginated edition to "teachersof America"; Costo, "Programfor Cor- rection"in TheAmerican Indian Reader: Education, ed. JeanetteHenry (San Francisco:The IndianHisto- rianPress, Inc., 1972),150-51; Mark Harris, "Gadfly on theRump of Education," The Atlantic (December 1967),96. 16 It is certainlypossible that many Native Americans believed in the genocidalpast and at the sametime heldconcerns about the present and future.But the onlyCalifornia Indians I have foundwho explicitly embracedthe "concentrationcamp" thesis were Costo, his wife,and, later,Edward Castillo. In October 2006, 1 correspondedwith Professor Paul Apodaca ofChapman University on thissubject. He wrote,"As I was raisedand schooledin SouthernCalifornia, I am awareof the diorama and missionprojects used in schoolsfor the past half century. These are largelythe result of Anglo Protestant descriptions of Hispanic Catholichistory and haveresulted in stereotype^].California Indian populations with whom I have lived and workedfor the past fifty years generally take pride in themissions as productsof their ancestors' efforts and workto maintainthem to thisday and seekways of being involved in touringand informationdisper- sal. Therehave been radicalapproaches that have soughtto createnew stereotypes of California Indians and missionsthat have comefrom many sources and giveyet another layer to thetelling of this history." 17 JeanetteHenry, "Our InaccurateTextbooks," The IndianHistorian 1.1 (December 1967): 23-24. 18 RupertCosto to Dr. Max Rafferty,January 24, 1066,Costo Archive»ucr (Box 104,Folder 1.1). 19 HermanSchein to Dr. SamuelС McCulloch,February 18, 1966,Costo Archive,ucr (Box 104,Folder

20 Quoteson bookjacket of Helen Bauer,California Indian Days (GardenCity, NY: Doubleday,1968). 21 EllsworthChunn to RupertCosto, February16, 1966; ExecutiveCouncil, American Indian Historical Society,to Dr. SamuelC. McCulloch,February 17, 1966;Thomas G. Aylesworthto RupertCosto, July 25, 1969.All threeletters in Costo Archive,ucr (Box 104,Folder 1.1). 22 RupertCosto to ThomasG. Aylesworth,August 4, i960, Costo Archive,ucr (Box 104,Folder 1.1). 23 Officersof the American Indian Historical Society, "Objections to theFourth Grade Textbook The Story ofCalifornia bv David Lavender,"n.d.. Costo Archive,ucr (Box 42. Folder7.1). 24 MartinaCosto, "An Exampleof TeacherAid: To Learn About Indian Lifeand How It Influencedthe Developmentof Early California," The IndianHistorian 2.7 (August-September196s): 1-6. 25 "It Happenedin California:You Are There,"n.d., Costo Archive,ucr (Box 31,Folder ил). 26 RodolfoAcuña, OccupiedAmerica: The Chicano1s Struggle Toward Liberation (San Francisco:Canfield Press,1972), 17. 27 Ted Thackrey,Jr., and Judith A. Michaelson,"Alabama Car CrashKills Max Rafferty,"Los Angeles Times, June14, 1982,Bi; David G. Savage,"Max RaffertyReturns to BattleRiles," Los AngelesTimes, May 22, 1982, 22. 28 The collegeis nowknown as CaliforniaState University, Northridge. 29 FitzGerald,America Revised, 39. 30 WhileNava endorsedchildren's books that told the romantic story, he wrotea moreacademic account in his 1976textbook, California: Five Centuries of Cultural Contrasts. In chapterfive, "The SpanishMission Period,"Nava describedboth the accomplishments of thepadres in modernizingCalifornia as wellas the diseaseand maltreatmentexperienced by the Indians.This accountwas moreinformative than fourth- gradetextbooks, but photos of mission bells and FatherSerra statues were remnants of the Spanish past. 31 GertrudeS. Brownwith the advice of Dr. ManuelGuerra, Our MexicanHeritage (Lexington, MA: Ginn, 1972),31, 89-92, 124. Dr. Guerra,a Chicano whogrew up in San Diego,wrote the introduction. 32 MiriamWilliford and PollyTimberlake, "Latin American Studies in the Schools:A Reviewof Materi- als,"Latin American Research Review, ил (1976): 234; CriticalReview oí California-Our StateToday in "Textbooksin the PilotSurvey," The IndianHistorian 2.7 (August-September1965); Jeanette Henry, "Our InaccurateTextbooks," The IndianHistorian 1.1 (December1967): 23-24. 33 RudolphAcuña, The Storyof the Mexican Americans: The Men and theLand (New York:American Book Co., 1969),36, 24, 129. Interestingly,on page 45 Acuña askshis readers,"In whatways is a missionlike a space station?"A yearlater, Acuña cast Chicanos and Indiansin totallynew perspectivesin another children'stextbook, Cultures in Conflict:Problems of the Mexican Americans. Rather than writingabout history,Cultures in Conflictaddressed how contemporarystudents might confront racial stereotypes in

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the Southwest.Acuña used a seriesof case studiesto showhow Anglo teachersconfronted Chicano and Indian stereotypeswith their students. While he was willingto includeIndians in contemporary conflicts,Acuña's earlier textbook argued that the Mexicansheld a uniqueplace in the missionsof the Spanishfantasy past. 34 Forthe history of Acuña's Chicano studiesdepartment, see http://www.csun.edu/~hfchsoo6/historyofthe department.html(accessed September 14, 2009). It is noteworthythat Acuña and Nava are stillconsid- eredheroes to manyChicanos today.Nava became the firstMexican American Ambassador to Mexico in 1980 and servedas pallbearerat Cesar Chavez'sfuneral. Acuña's seminal book, Occupied America: A Historyof Chicanos, entered its sixth printing in 2006. Acuña startedanother debate in a 2003 lecture titled,"Is AntonioBanderas Latino?" 35 RudyAcuña, Cultures in Conflict: Problems of the Mexican Americans (New York:Charter School Books, 1970),17. 36 Quoted in JuanJ. Inda, "La Comunidaden Lucha: The Developmentof the East Los Angeles High School Blowouts."Paper presented at the 29th StanfordCenter for Chicano ResearchWorking Papers Series,Stanford, CA, March 1990, 15. 37 Acuña,Occupied America, 249; Inda,3; The tensionbetween Nava and the BrownBerets plays a minor rolein the 2006 Home Box Officefilm, Walkout. Edward James Olmos, who directedthe film,plays the partof Julian Nava. 38 Acuña,Occupied America, 247-48. 39 KayGurule, "Truthful Textbooks and MexicanAmericans," Integrated Education (March-April 1973), 42. 40 Gurule,"Truthful Textbooks and MexicanAmericans," 38-39. 41 JosephC. Ortega,Raquel Gutiérrez, et al. v. StateBoard of Education 1972, 3, 9, Costo Archive,ucr (Box 42, Folder5.2). The maec was representedby Ortega,an attorneywith the Mexican AmericanLegal Defenseand EducationFund (maldef). 42 Memorandumto School TextbookLawsuit Participants from Joseph С Ortega,April 12, 1972;Urtega, Gutierrez,et al. v. StateBoard of Education, 5. Both sourcesin Costo Archive,ucr (Box 42, Folders5.6, 5-2). 43 Ortega,Gutierrez, et al. v. StateBoard of Education 1972, deposition, 3-4; 'Statementto State Boardof Educationby Jack Forbes," January 4, 1972.Both sources in Costo Archive,ucr (Box 42, Folder5.2). 44 Gurule,"Truthful Textbooks and Mexican Americans, 42; JulianNava, EducationalChallenges in Elementaryand SecondarySchools" in Mexican-AmericansTomorrow: Educational and EconomicPer- spectives,ed. Gus Tyler(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,published in cooperationwith theWeatherhead Foundation, 1975), 131. 45 Standard4.2 in "California:A ChangingState," History-Social Science Content Standards for Califor- nia PublicSchools, Kindergarten through Grade Twelve,ed. Bob Klingensmith(Sacramento: California Departmentof Education Press, 2000), 13. 46 RuebenE. Aguirre,Teaching the Chicano/Mexican American Cultural Heritage in theElementary School: A Teacher'sGuide (San Francisco:R and E ResearchAssociates, 1978), 46-48; Daniel F. Duran,Latino Materials:A MultimediaGuide for Children and YoungAdults (Santa Barbara,CA: AmericanBiblio- graphicalCenter-City Press, 1979), 74. 47 Dianne MacMillan,Missions of the Los AngelesArea (Minneapolis:Lerner Publications, 1996), 9, 38, 73. 48 DoloresHendricks, et al., New Perspectiveson theCalifornia Missions: A Unitof Study for 4th Grade (Los Angeles:National Center for History in the Schools,ucla, 2006), 1, 11,24, 29. 49 StevenW. Hackel,Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis: Indian-Spanish Relations in Colonial California,1769-1850 (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press,2005); JamesA. Sandos,Con- vertingCalifornia: Indians and Franciscansin theMissions (New Haven,CT: Yale UniversityPress, 2004). 50 Paul Apodaca, interviewwith the author,November 2, 2006. Castillo is workingwith American Indian historianCliff Trafzer of the Universityof California,Riverside. The books by the two nchs consul- tantsare Hackel,Children of Coyote and Sandos, ConvertingCalifornia. In additionto the nchs' New Perspectives,another mission unit withmultiple viewpoints is "EarlyCalifornia Settlements: Rancho and MissionLife," a "teachertrunk" available from the Natural History Museum of Los AngelesCounty, EducationDivision. Readers who wantto see morerecent traditional "sugar-cube" mission projects by Angloeducators can consultLinda Lyngheim, California Junior Heritage Series: California Mission Projects & Activities(Chatsworth, CA: LangtryPublications, 1993) and RandallA. Reinstedt,Hands-On History Series:Tales and Treasuresof California's Missions (Carmel, CA: GhostTown Publications,1993).

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