Foundational Fairytales and the Lies They Tell On Books, Children and Truth by Oriel María Siu, PhD

Only four books survived

There used to be a time in occupied America when only whites were allowed to write, read, and publish books. In fact, when Europeans started occupying the continent in 1492, one of the first things they did was burn the thousands of existing books Indigenous people had written in an attempt to destroy peoples' existing relationship with books and their contained knowledges. According to those initial colonizers, destroying the written ensured we lost access to writing, to our ways of thinking, and to centuries-old acquired knowledges on mathematics, medicine, astronomy, maps, history, plant science, poetry, literatures, and even tax-records. Only four books survived the first 100 years of the occupation, in the entire continent. This was a process Europeans paired with genocide of Indigenous populations, bringing the then existing population of Abya Yala (termed "America" by the colonizers) from an approximate 100 million people in 1492, to 2 million by 1592, a fact we hardly ever get to learn at schools or universities.

One of four surviving books of the Americas | Mexico Maya Codex made between 1021 and 1154 A.D.

Later, through a series of anti-literacy laws that made it illegal for enslaved and free people of color to read or write, -and through the systemic exclusion of Indigenous, Black, Brown and later Asian lives from spaces of learning and knowledge production (as well as reproduction)-, Eurocentric frameworks of thought and white supremacy ensured themselves long lasting life in books published and circulated in the Americas -all types of books.  With some exceptions, from the 1500s to the 1960s, whites, and more specifically, white males, wrote an abundance of racist and sexist science books, geography books, philosophy, medical journals, scholastic magazines, the first world encyclopedias, novels, short stories, plays, nursery rhymes, and school textbooks, setting the foundations and theoretical frameworks for the academic disciplines that structure our school and university curricula to this day: the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and the Sciences.

Masked as objective, "universal" disciplines, these areas of study are actually grounded in white supremacist and patriarchal thought, frameworks, and content.

Guiding the excessive production of books by white males during those first 450 years of white settler colonialism in the Americas, was the very concept of race. Invented by whites post 1492 to justify genocide against Indigenous populations, the taking of lands, the systemic oppression of Indigenous knowledge-worlds, and later to give logic to slavery and other forms of oppressions against people of color, the made-up concept of race is based on the idea that there is one superior race that can possess, write, study, think of the world, and thus control it, and four other "inferior" races who, "lacking the intellectual" or "civilizatory" "capacities" of whites, can only be owned, studied, be written about, be thought of, and thus, be controlled.

Frantz Fanon described the ensuing system of racism as a hierarchy that can best be understood along the line of the human. Placed above the line, are those classified as fully human. Below it, are those classified as sub-human, or non-human. Whereas the humanity of those considered fully human is always granted and recognized, that of the sub-human is not. Instead, their humanity is continuously negated, questioned, and/or diminished. 

From Crania Americana, 1839. Samuel Morton's research was used to maintain the status quo in the United States,

which directly meant sustaining the system of slavery and racialized hierarchy.

During the 1800s and early 1900s, these so called "men of letters," as these white pseudo-scholars called themselves, even went around the world measuring people of color's skulls and brains with the intent of proving that whites had larger skulls, and thus a higher intellectual capacity than any of the other so called four "races." Their publications were used to justify not just continued land theft in Turtle Island (North America), but also further genocide and oppression of Indigenous populations worldwide as the United States invaded and colonized territories in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, meanwhile internally continuing genocidal policies against First Nations of Turtle Island through massacres and the American Indian Boarding school system existing all the way into the 1970s, a system which is well known to have been studied and revered by Adolf Hitler.

“School Begins” Puck Magazine, January 25, 1899 | Depiction of Spanish American War as U.S. establishes itself as new imperial force in the Americas directly taking over Spanish ex-colonies| Image also depicts U.S. educational policies of the time, a period in which children of color were seen as less than human, animalized as non-intellectual beings, and were clearly excluded from spaces of learning. In the image, children of color appear either as complete outsiders, as beings who lack intellectual capacities, or as white peoples' servants, manifesting the dominant thought of the time.

The 1886 textbook Children’s Stories of American Progress condemned slavery as immoral

but also portrayed Africans as inferior to Europeans. The myth of discovery is also inscribed in this passage. Library of Congress

White males wrote a lot during those first 450 years of occupied America, all the while illegalizing and/or limiting the capacities of Indigenous people and people of color to write and publish.

As a result, the representation of white patriarchal histories, stories, knowledges, experiences, perspectives and imaginaries became centered in books produced in the Americas, while Indigenous and people of color's experiences, histories, stories, knowledges, perspectives, and imaginaries became decentered, when not entirely omitted, or as it has also been the case, distorted. The realm of children's literature and school textbooks have been no exception to the expressions, manifestations and developments of white supremacist patriarchy in the United States.

A Child's Garden of Verses

Written by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Charles Robinson

published by London J. Lane in 1909

Inclusion or illusion?

The U.S. Civil Rights moment allowed for more voices of color to start entering the realm of the published word, resulting, however, in slow change. In 2020, for example, a New York Times study found that between 1950 and 2018, 95% of all the authors published by major editorial houses like Penguin Random House and Simon and Schuster were white. In the world of children's literature, more specifically, according to the Cooperative Children's Book Center's data, between 1985 and 2014, children’s books by African American authors or illustrators did not surpass 3.5 percent of annual publications. Much sparser even, were children's books by and about Indigenous people, Asian-Americans, Chicanos, Caribbean Americans, and U.S. Central Americans, despite the majority of children older than one born in the U.S., already being children of color. And as of 2020, U.S. editorial boards, which decide what gets published, and what does not, were still over 75% white.

 Quite fortunately, however, during the last five years a small yet substantial change has been underway in the world of children's literature. As we near 2023, children whose histories have been historically omitted from books and educational institutions in occupied America can finally see themselves, and their experiences, in the books they read. Insistent Indigenous authors, writers of color, and other marginalized voices, have as of lately been putting themselves on the line, creating and publishing inspiring stories that deviate away from invisibilizing and perpetuating stereotypical representations of children of color and LGBTQ children in spite of the publishing industry's many obstructions, the racism, and the patriarchy.

Thus, LGBTQ, Indigenous, Black, refugee, and all children of color in Turtle Island today can find characters that look like them in stories that best speak to theirs. It is a small change because we are worlds away from fully shattering the 530 years of white supremacy embedded in both the U.S. book publishing industry and the K-12 public school curricula, with whiteness and Eurocentric worldviews still being the default in children's books', textbook imaginaries, curricula and teaching approaches. Yet it is a significant change because at least now, you and I, -as a parent, educator, or as a reader- can find books by Indigenous authors, writers of color and other historically marginalized voices in most children's sections of our public libraries, bookstores, and/or required school reading lists. 100 years ago, this was unimaginable. 60 years ago, this was still not the case. Even 10 years ago, this was not the norm. 

This inclusion, however, becomes but a mere illusion when we cannot accompany these added voices and books with sustained spaces where children and young ones can critically and truthfully talk and learn about the very issues and experiences these books and voices bring to the fore.

Classroom discussions explicitly pertaining to racism, the history of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and heteropatriarchy, continue to be as contested and politicized as ever, with book challenges and bans rising at unprecedented levels throughout the United States in the last year alone, and at least 137 state bills currently pushing for the explicit prohibition of classroom discussion on sexual orientation, gender identity, history, and race at both the K-12 and college levels. Teachers and educators throughout Turtle Island are losing their jobs for leading conversations on these topics, some are being threatened with fines, others are choosing self-censorship, while others are left with no other choice but to teach in fear.

But the settler nation has also necessitated the invention, inscription, and continued dissemination of certain fairytales in order to negate, hide, and distort its actual history. Such fairytales make up the core of the history and social studies curricula of most K-12 classrooms in the U.S, guiding learners and educators away from critical conversations on white supremacy, race, gender constructs, and patriarchy. These fairytales are so cemented in students' imaginaries by the time they graduate high school, that any motivation to question, think outside of them, or even minimally disrupt them becomes simply inconceivable. The fairytales go like this:

"Columbus discovered America"

"We are a nation of immigrants"

"Racism is a fixed problem of the past"

"July 4th marks the birth of our nation"

"Thanksgiving"

Integral to these fictitious tales is a veneration of white settler colonialism, genocide, and patriarchy. And yet they get taught to our children as truths, the textbook conglomerates continue publishing them as history, and we are even required to celebrate each one of them through annual holidays and dedicated monthly school curricula.

The "Columbus discovered America" fairytale ensures all pre-existing life, societies, knowledges, histories, ways of being, existing, and thinking prior to the European occupation of AbyaYala are rendered unimportant to students who learn about the history of the Americas. Under the Discovery myth, Indigenous populations are not just "backwards", "submissive," "savage", and/or "prehistoric," they are also made to be "nomadic," implying Indigenous people had no civilization, no history, and therefore no future. But one cannot discover what already knew itself as existing. And the 100 million Indigenous people who lived in Abya Yala at the time of the 1492 European invasion surely knew they existed. Yet the "Columbus discovered America" fairytale is among the first ones taught to children, often during the Pre-Kindergarten years. It has been taught to my own daughter, for example, during her Pre-K, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Grades. She is about to enter 4th grade and has been schooled in both Los Angeles and now Central America.

 The Columbus discovery myth is certainly a continental myth. With its dissemination, children are taught to glorify white settler colonialism while diminishing the achievements and knowledges of societies that had been here for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Columbus, rendering them invisible. With its dissemination, this October/November standard lesson also cements colonizers' perspectives as universal, "objective" truths, serving to altogether avoid conversation on genocide, Indigenous resistances, Indigenous world-knowledges, and their severed futures. The Discovery myth also feeds straight into yet another myth, that of "Thanksgiving." Both lies render settlers who committed atrocious acts of genocide and stole lands as "heroic" "explorers" or "fortunate, well-meaning individuals" who "befriended" "nomadic," "savages," or "worse than heathen" "Indians." These, in turn, "helped" them get "through a tough winter" in the "New World." Thus, the fact of genocide and the fact of land theft are entirely obliterated by these fairytales.

The "We are a nation of immigrants" fairytale is a grounding lie in America’s classrooms.  Inserted throughout the K-12 social studies and history curriculum, it downright erases the fact of genocide of Indigenous populations, European land theft of a continent they then labeled "America", and the enslavement of millions of African peoples whom were forcibly brought into stolen lands. Neither Africans nor Indigenous peoples "immigrated" into the "nation."

 This grounding lie is also connected to the July 4th myth, which erases the actual foundations of the settler nation, placing it in 1776, as opposed to placing it at its actual birth date: genocide, land theft, and the enslavement of those whom were forced to literally build the nation beginning 1492.

The "Racism is a fixed problem of the past" fairytale is presented every school year through dedicated Civil Rights Era lesson plans mostly centered on the achievements of select Black individuals, "heroes," "heroines," and specific moments from 1954 to 1968 -Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Montgomery bus boycott, sit-ins, and nonviolent black protests. The fairytale selectively omits other moments, organizations, and figures such as Malcolm X's, as well as the transcendental contributions of Natives, Asian-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, white women and men to the period. Furthermore, the fairytale not only presents an existing and deeply rooted structural problem as a solved situation, "a thing of the past," but it also presents the "solved" problem of racism in a limiting Black and white binary, which overlooks the ongoing systemic relationships of white supremacy to the varying communities of color inhabiting Turtle Island, Indigenous communities, white communities, and the land we stand on. From this fairytale, children learn that the U.S. "once made a horrible mistake against the Black community but solved it, first by freeing enslaved people, and then by allowing them to vote and ride a bus" - thus fully negating foundational genocide, land occupation, and the enduring operations of white supremacy.

 Insisting on teaching the fairytales are the same people who oppose teaching the history of white settler colonialism, race, and gender in the classrooms because the former is antithetical to the latter, and vice versa. 

Opponents of teaching these subjects fear that conversation on these topics admonish all white people for being oppressors. They further claim that by avoiding these topics, we "protect" young ones from "harm," "exposure," "indoctrination," "divisiveness," and even avoid them the "discomfort" of "collective guilt" for the wrongs of the past. The claims could not be further away from what actually happens when we have these conversations with students.

“I've been lied to all this time!”

“I never knew this!”

As educator of Ethnic Studies who has mostly taught first and second year white college students 18 to 22 years of age in U.S. classrooms, I have had the opportunity to witness first-hand the results of 12 years of such claimed "protection."

“I've been lied to all this time!” and “I never knew this!” are usually white college students’ first reactions to the material and discussions they engage in the Ethnic Studies classrooms, a space where white students usually have a first opportunity to discuss white settler colonialism, race, patriarchy, and the convergence of these systems in molding our society's power structures. Most white students feel cheated, lied to, and/or troubled for not having been exposed to these essential conversations and pieces of information earlier. "Protected" is not a word they use to describe the experience. Neither is "admonished," "divided," "indoctrinated" or "exposed."  Guilty sometimes - guilty for not having known earlier, a fault not of their own. Yet as we go on to unpack and understand how white privilege, white supremacy and patriarchy are, indeed, not faults of their own, nor their generations', rather well-designed and entrenched systems we are conditioned into upholding since the time we are born, choosing to disrupt these then becomes a newfound purpose for many students. And the kinds of questions students begin to formulate after, unsettle the fairytaled narratives taught to them since the moment they first entered a classroom as children.

For white students, engaging in these critical and informed discussions while breaking away from lies, is liberatory. It allows them the avenues, vocabularies, tools, and critical thinking skills needed to be able to question officialized narratives, disrupt engineered silences, and understand how power works, benefits us, or obstruct us. These lessons help them make more unbiased choices in their present and future lives, -the outcomes of this being truly endless.

For students of color, Indigenous students and other historically marginalized students, being able to openly and safely speak about issues that directly affect their livelihoods and shape their experiences is life-affirming. For one, they feel included in their daily environment and curriculum, helping strengthen their sense of belonging in a space that was clearly not designed for them. And second, these conversations in the classroom help validate them, their histories, their families', their experiences and their lives, often resulting in an assuring sense of self and community.  Simply put, truthful conversations make students of color, Indigenous students, and marginalized students feel seen.  

Studies also show that students who have the opportunity to speak about white supremacy, race, and gender, specifically in the Ethnic or Gender Studies classroom, become more engaged students, resulting in better grades, higher graduation and retention rates, a better school experience for historically marginalized student populations, and enhanced analytical and critical thinking skills for all.

Against silence

The foundational fairytales of the settler nation may be pretty stories, but they are also lies. And as such, they will continue negatively impacting young ones, harvesting harm, and offering us a false sense of self, nation, and land.

As a mother to a Black/Indigenous/Chinese child of the Americas, at stake is always my daughter's sense of value, belonging, and her sense of power.  If I am not consistent with counteracting the fairytales, she loses the opportunity to know the knowledge-worlds of her ancestors, the incredible stories of enduring resistances that allow her to be here today, her infinite potential to be as much a creator of history, as she is a learner, and the realities of the land she and her peers walk on. Knowing history, learning about the ugly of the past, and offering her the tools to connect past with present, empowers her in ways the school curriculum does not. Knowing the past saves her from a sense of unimportance in our world. Because for children of color, for Indigenous children, the curriculum and its many lies can easily equate to damaging invisibility.

For the past two years, while on book tour, I have also had the opportunity to engage thousands of children at schools, libraries, and virtual classrooms on the very topics of white settler colonialism, they Discovery myth, and racism.

What I have found is that yes, indeed, children are perfectly capable of engaging topics pertaining to the past and involving violence. They are used to it, anyway. The Civil War, chattel slavery, World War I and II, and the Holocaust, to name but a few examples, are just some of the already required conversations and lessons of the K-12 core curriculum. And so are celebrations that involve not just the past, but also a commemoration of violence -Veterans Day, Memorial Day.

Why, then, continuing censorship of 1492 in the K-12 curriculum? Why ban critical discussions on race and the role of patriarchy in informing and shaping ideology in the Americas? Why prohibit conversation on the systemic realities of white supremacy and its continued negation of genocide? Why make systemic land theft invisible in textbooks? And why insist on fake narratives while impeding educators from engaging honest ones?

Truth is, an inevitable sense of awareness and justice forms in the mind of children when they are presented with truthful histories, narratives and stories. These stories then influence the way children see themselves, how they make decisions, and how they interact with life around them, and with the land.

Our happily ever after, then, will only begin to occur when we can allow children, and ourselves, the right to know. In the meantime, banning children from these conversations will only continue fattening the fairies' dust-pouches, vanishing all possibility of restorative conversations, and dangerously moving farther and farther away from the possibility of justice, for all.

photo: via twitter @Zelliemani

By Oriel María Siu, PhD

Oriel María Siu, PhD, is a scholar, writer and educator of Náhuat-Pipil and Chinese descent born and raised in Honduras, Central America. She is the author of the award-winning children's book series, Rebeldita the Fearless, a series that disrupts the fairytaled narratives of the foundation story of the Americas and empowers children to become active agents of change through the power of our stories. Christopher the Ogre Cologre, It's Over! and Rebeldita the Fearless in Ogreland, have been recognized as "absolute musts for the classrooms," "literary wonders" and "pioneering" by organizations like the LA Times, Rethinking Schools, Truthout.Org, and others. A strong proponent of Ethnic Studies in every K-12 and college classroom, Dr. Siu's books are helping educators battle institutionalized racism in the K-12 curricula all over occupied America.  For more about the author, visit  http://www.orielmariasiu.com/.