Minorities, in Schools

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. Others were willing to learn the ways of the Spanish and accept their religion, rules, and customs. This provided them the opportunity to learn to read and write in Spanish, which brought forth the knowledge needed to inform other Indians of the Spanish culture.

With the decline of the missions and presidios in the early nineteenth century, the importance of educating the Indian population shifted to educating the Spanish settlers. Education became important in settlements that had large numbers of Spanish-speaking settlers such as Los Angeles, Santa Fe, and San Antonio. The purpose for educating them was to transmit the “social and cultural status” of the Anglo population by teaching literacy, religious ideals, and social order.

Between 1836 and the early 1850s, the United States annexed Texas, Arizona, California, and Colorado, and the Mexicans became subordinate to the Anglos. Catholic churches began to establish formal schooling for Mexican children. These schools had been established to maintain the Catholic ideals and beliefs, to learn about the Anglo traditions, and to acquire a place in the social order in American society. Later, Anglo officials began to establish public schools for Mexican American children. These schools were established to assimilate the growing numbers of racial minorities into the Anglo culture.

Between 1825 and 1870, the states began funding public education with trained staff and managed by a central organization. It was during this time that the organization, scope, and role of schooling became transformed and solidified. Schools became age graded, often compensatory, taught by trained teachers and led by full-time experts. Yet, minority students were excluded from these formal educational environments for Anglo children. In the South, most Blacks were denied schooling, while the North had a few pockets of Blacks attending public schools in [Page 668]segregated classrooms or informal settings. Laws were passed to prevent racial minorities from attending public schools

A similar dilemma faced Asians who came to America, particularly in the West. The discovery of gold in California brought Chinese adventurers like so many others. Later, Chinese were sought to help lay railroad beds and track. The image of Chinese “coolies” was established in textbooks and the public mind; the Chinese later became the subject of virulent attack by Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor. Asiatics were considered inferior to Whites, which led to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts of 1882. In San Francisco, Chinese children were prohibited from attending the public schools. Later, when the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese students could not be barred from attending school, a separate school for them was constructed. Racial segregation lasted until 1946, following the Mendez v. Westminster school case in which it was prohibited.

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