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 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of California Press and Historical Society of Southern California are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Southern California Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org 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- 161 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-his- torycurriculum. 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 Latinoactivism on 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