A must read essay from Tony Horwitz includes this:
This national amnesia isn’t new, but it’s glaring and supremely paradoxical at a moment when politicians warn of the threat posed to our culture and identity by an invasion of immigrants from across the Mexican border. If Americans hit the books, they’d find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today’s immigration debate.
Amen.
Howdy! In 1958, in the third grade in Ohio, we learned about the Cabot, Pilgrims and the Iroquois Nation. Much to the curriculum’s credit, the Iroquois Nation was given its due, or more. Then I moved to Los Angeles, CA, where History was about Cortes, Pizzarro, and especially Cabrillo. We studied the Mission network and idolized Serra. A completely differing point of view; the commonality being the White Man inevitability and gloriousness of it all, no evil done here! Or there !
Later, in Minneapolis ( still in public schooling) I saw that their history emphasized the French middle-continent explorations.
I wish the USA had a LITTLE bit of standardization. It would be better that all people had a similiar understanding of how we got here. ESPECIALLY in the South, where people still get mad about the Civil War! Hey! United we stand. This confederate flag crap, and this Southern indignation has to go. I think a better understanding of history would help.