The lack of multi-cultural representation in our history textbooks that occurs in the school system breeds a disconnect of minorities from their culture and heritage. Therefore, students have no choice but to Americanize their politics and understanding of history until it becomes a false, unhealthy sense of patriotism. This would be no different than the skewed, mythical  idea of “communism is so scary because it’s full of propaganda!” Would this not qualify as propaganda – the diversity of struggles being completely unmentioned from history unless the book is bought from sources outside of school?

And still, as a senior in high school, I do not know my own people.

Coming from Chinese descent, I cannot name you anything about the Chinese American struggles except for the railroads and Chinese history itself except that there’s something called the Great Wall of China and my teachers told me that Mao Zedong was bad and made lots of people starve. I know of something about the Rape of Nanking and that my people are currently under constant exploitation working for unsurvivable wages while the CEO reaps the benefits of their labor.

I was 17 when I learned about the Chinese Massacre of 1871 in which a mob of 500 white men invaded Chinatown in Los Angeles and as a result, 17-20 Chinese victims were tortured and hanged with some victims missing fingers and clothing. This gunfire was fueled by two Chinese factions over the abduction of a Chinese woman with a white man running into the crossfire. The white man was the owner of a notorious business (guilty with about 35 lynchings) that took matters into his own hands and hearing of this dispute, decided to barge into the scene, entered a dark room alone, and fired blindly. He was shot, and the white mobs decided that he was a victim of Chinese brutality. Nearly every store in Chinatown was robbed or vandalized in some way or another. Bodies were dragged in the dark and soon, lynched in a racially named alley of “Calle de los Negros.” White terror had made this event the largest recorded mass lynching in the U.S.

Mao Zedong was demonized in my eyes until I had begun to seek education other than what the school had forced me to digest- and this education came from reading about communism. In history, he was the ultimate dictator that had caused millions of people to starve from the Great Famine. He was said to have had poor leadership and as a result, the people suffered. I had not learned that the Great Famine was caused by extreme weather conditions with several sources proving that famines were prevalent in periods across China and that Mao had actually increased agricultural production, hence alleviating the effects of the natural famine.

These are only two things that I had learned to correct in the span of nearly over 14 years of education, and it was taught through independence. I no longer rely on the American education system to rightfully teach me truth when history is, repeatedly, manipulated into propaganda. More diversity allows for more perspective and connection for students to truly understand their history and ultimately, themselves. A one-sided writing of history suppresses the expansive knowledge of students. Education must be broad, unbiased, and emphasize critical thinking. 

This unlearning of history will be a long process into my adulthood as I watch other students learn about how Christopher Columbus happily sailed into the Americas and suddenly claimed it as his.