Misrepresentation in Educational Media (1954–1999)

Abstract

In this chapter, eight textbooks are analyzed from the years 1954 through 1999. From dissecting quotes, images, and maps within the textbooks, the textbook rhetoric is highly steeped in themes of White glory, White superiority, and White supremacy. There is excess justification on why White colonizers had to take over Native land, and very little mention on the plights of Mexican or Mexican American experiences in the 1800s Mexican-American War. Textbooks of this time were highly inaccurate and avoided the hard truths. Beginning in the 1980s, though, some of the analyzed textbooks started to improve by providing more accurate representations of the plights experienced by Native Americans, but the textbooks remain problem-ridden.