Brown erasure: Mexican Americans and the teaching of history in cold war Texas

Abstract

This dissertation explores the white architects of curriculum and instruction in Texas, the Mexican experience and resistance to that curriculum, and the effect on identity and community formation that schooling played on Mexican-origin students throughout the twentieth century. Through theorizing curriculum as the whole experience a child has at school from their relationships with their teachers to the school's relationship with the community, I posit that schooling has served as a mechanism to maintain white supremacist social hierarchies. I argue that local and state governments in the US have always used curriculum as a political tool; it is not neutral. Whether unilaterally deciding what knowledge is worth learning, sorting children by assumed future abilities, devaluing non-white cultures, and implementing assimilationist strategies into the classroom, educators and politicians have delivered curricula that reinforce America’s social order and silenced those deemed unworthy of inclusion. Altering and erasing the memory of historical events and people in textbooks and classrooms is a powerful tool in the creation and maintenance of white supremacy.