Minorities, in Schools

Velma D. Menchaca

Small or different groups of students have posed a problem and a threat to majoritarian school practices ever since Irish immigration brought huge numbers of Catholics into the public, largely Protestant schools on the East Coast. The humiliation of Catholics exposed to Protestant Bible readings and other pejorative practices helped create a separate school system. In the Southwest, missions and presidios were the institutions providing informal education for the Indian population. The purpose of schooling this population was to replace the Indian identity with a Spanish identity and to inform them of their subordinate place in society. The intent was to smother or destroy their “indigenous religious and social beliefs” by teaching the Catholic ideals, Spanish customs, music, and literacy. Some Indian groups resisted the rule of the Spanish by engaging in significant battles over who controlled the Southwest. Others rejected the Spanish by leaving the missions or killing missionaries. ...

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