CA wants to correct underreporting of Indian students

from Carolyn JonesCalMatters

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When Celestina Castillo filled out the ethnicity forms at her children’s school, she always checked Hispanic and Native American. After all, the family is proud of both of its heritages.

But because of a loophole in the state’s data collection system, checking for Latino or Hispanic meant her children’s Native American identity was not respected at all, and they would not receive the extra services they were entitled to. When Castillo found out about it, she stopped checking the Latin box

According to the arcane way California counts its 5.8 million students, students who say they are Hispanic and Native American only count as Hispanic. Native American students who also identify as another race, such as Black, White, or Asian, are considered “two or more races” and not Native American.

The problem affects all students of different races, but it is particularly pronounced among Native Americans because the majority are of different races. That resulted in fewer Native American students by as much as 90 percent, advocates said.

“If someone is black, or Asian, or white, they count that way,” said Castillo, a college tutoring center director who lives in Los Angeles. “Why doesn’t it count if someone is Native American? That’s not good. It feels like erasure.”

More services, less stereotypes

Last year, California schools said they had 24,822 Native American students, but the actual number could be as high as 156,000, according to an Assembly report on a new measure, Assembly Bill 1581which seeks to solve the problem. If these students are identified, they will be eligible for cultural services and other programs that can help them succeed in school.

A more accurate count could also change public perception of Native Americans in general, according to Assemblyman James Ramos, the San Bernardino Democrat who authored the bill. Instead of being considered rare or even extinct, the public can see that Native Americans are everywhere, Ramos said.

“We’re going to start seeing the true picture of Native Americans in California,” said Ramos, a member of the Serrano/Cauilla tribe. “Native American students should be able to stand up in the classroom and say who they are and be proud of it.”

US Census Changes

There is a long history of the government marginalizing Native Americans in California, especially in schools. In the late 19th and 20th centuries, not long after 90% of California’s Native American population was killed or killed by diseasethe federal government forced thousands of Native American children into California boarding schoolswhere they were forced to speak English and abandon their cultures.

Things began to change in 1970 when the US Census Bureau began to improve the way it counted Native Americans. Native Americans can now write in their tribal affiliation or list themselves as multiracial and still be considered Native American. Although the Indians are still underrated more than any other ethnic group, census changes led to a tenfold increase in the official number of Native Americans in the United States. In 1960, Native Americans made up only 0.3% of the population. In 2020, they were almost 3%.

The improved census data also revealed that California has more Native Americans than any other state. More than 760,000 people in California identify as Native American, with most living in urban areas such as Los Angeles.

Ramos’ bill would allow Native American students to write their tribe’s name on school forms and identify as Native American plus another race, if applicable. The hope is to provide a more comprehensive, more nuanced view of California’s Native American student population, allowing them to receive additional services regardless of their electoral identity. So far, the bill has no opposition.

“We are also in the modern world”

Shannon Rivers, who works on education issues for the Los Angeles-based California Native Voting Project, said an accurate Native American census is essential to dispel stereotypes and raise public awareness of issues affecting Native American communities.

“In the eyes of many Americans, there’s still this image of Native American people from the past, from the 1800s,” said Rivers, who is a member of the Akimel Oodham tribe in Arizona. “This history is important, but we are also in the modern world. We are doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, educators.”

He hopes Ramos’ bill will improve conditions overall for Native American students in California schools. With a more accurate student count, schools could get more federal and state funding to provide additional services, such as education, to Native American children. More schools could host events and curricula focused on Native American history and culture.

When Ramos was growing up in San Bernardino, he remembers staring at the ethnicity form in school and not knowing what balloon to fill out. His mother was Native American, but was listed as “white” on her birth certificate. His father, also a Native American, was called “the Spaniard.”

“Were we white or Hispanic? I didn’t know. We had to accept whatever the school told us we were,” Ramos said. “I’ll go home and ask, ‘Are we Caucasian?’ That started a whole other conversation. It was confusing.

Castillo, a descendant of the Tohono O’odham tribe in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, said as a child she thought everyone was Native American. But when she started school, she realized that very few people identified as her, and even worse, it was stigmatized.

Years later, she saw her own children label them as oddities. One day her son, who had long hair, was dressed for an Indian dance, and another child pointed to him and said, “Look, Mom, that’s an Indian!”

“My son felt like a dinosaur or a unicorn, like we didn’t exist,” Castillo said.

By leaving the ethnicity question blank on school forms, Castillo knew it meant her children would not receive additional services they were entitled to, either at the charter school they attended or through Los Angeles Unified.

“It pissed me off,” Castillo said. “I hope this bill will help make local students visible on local and state education policies.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.