Administrators at Copper Hills High School are getting a lesson in cultural sensitivity after a Disney-themed homecoming parade last week resulted in accusations of disrespect for American Indian history.
In addition to little mermaids, Caribbean pirates, and beauties and beasts, Thursday's parade included a "Pocahontas" float complete with a tepee and cheerleaders dressed as American Indians as portrayed in the animated film.
The next night, during the school's homecoming football game, members of the Copper Hills American Indian Student Association collected more than 190 signatures on a petition calling for cultural awareness and tolerance.
James Singer, a Utah resident who blogs under the title Urban Navajo, wrote a post that criticized the parade float as racist and hypersexualized, similar to what he called the "PocaHotties" costumes sold during the Halloween season.
He said the issue of cultural appropriation is "systemic" and larger than a single school's homecoming parade.
On Monday's Access Utah we share ideas about cultural appropraition and the decolonization of education with blogger James Singer and Utah State University professor Dr. Cinthya Saavedra.
James Singer is a 3rd year Ph.D. student at Utah State University, in the labor markets and social policy concentration - working under the advisement of Dr. Christy Glass. For his dissertation he is researching education and economic policy for the Navajo Nation in the new labor economy. He has previously done research on living wages in Utah.
James has worked in public policy with the Diné Policy Institute in Arizona and in economic development with Salt Lake City and NeighborWorks Salt Lake. He previously sat on the board of directors for Local First Utah and also chaired the Subcommittee on Human Rights for Salt Lake County's Committee on Diversity Affairs. He has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at Westminster College, Salt Lake Community College, and Utah State University.
Dr. Cinthya M. Saavedra received her PhD in education from Texas A&M University. Currently she is an associate professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Diversity Education at Utah State University in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership. She was born in Managua, Nicaragua and moved to the United States with her family at the age of 8. It was her experiences as a transnational, immigrant and second language learner that led her to take an interest in the education of minoritized students in the U.S. Her scholarship is an intersection of Chicana/Latina feminism, critical pedagogy and decolonial and lenses in the education of emergent bilingual students and immigrant/transnational educational experiences.
Suggested Reading List:
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous People's History of the United States
Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus
Joe Feagin, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America
bell hooks, Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom
Jane Yolen, Encounter
