The curriculum was about to be implemented after years of review. Then the chair of the state Board of Education said he needed more time to assess it without “drama or controversy.”
According to Texas’ fourth-grade social studies standards, Indigenous peoples from Texas, including the Lipan Apache, Comanches, and Caddo, exist only in the past tense. Students study their way of life when the tribal nations “lived” in the different regions of the state before Europeans arrived to “explore” the land.
Growing up, Tudor and her family had been called “Prairie N—.” School teachers called her family “stupid” when her sister attempted to correct false information about American Indians being taught from the textbook. Even after she became a curriculum consultant and indigenous educator, teaching both young students and other teachers about American Indians, Tudor says she’s been asked if she lives in a tepee or if she uses electricity.
“The American Indian Native studies course that we’ve developed is heavily focused on modern indigenous people, both in Texas and beyond because we do still exist,” Tudor said. “We are contemporary people, are we still have our cultures and our languages and our traditions, and those still influence and inform who we are as people today. It’s important to understand that this isn’t just about history. When people only learn about our histories, they have no modern context to connect us to.”