Learning in class the conquered peoples perspective is completely different to what I learned learned in school. To be completely honest I don't remember ever learning about the Treaty of Gualdalupe HidalgoI learned about it from my friend mark! when I was helping organize summer workshops at Communities for a Better Environment. My elementary education was the worst and I had teachers who spent the class time behind computers or just throwing chairs at students (yes I am serious). In 5th grade was the year we were suppose to learn US History and we focused so much on WWI and WWII that we did not talk about the Alamo and in high school World History class we focused so much on Europe and agriculture hahaha. So now learning in depth of the history that happened I am absorbing so much information that puts the pieces of my blurred history together.
Mainstream U.S. culture and education is very structured with curriculums full of stories that make the U.S. seem like the winners and the ones who are always right. A funny example is an episode of King Of the Hill when Hank gets really mad that the history textbooks don't have a full chapter on Remember the Alamo, Hank makes it seem like people of the U.S were so amazing for doing what they did. (Shout out to Selena in this grainy YouTube video)
On a scale 1-10 my historical amnessia would be at a 7 because I still feel very lost about understanding our stories and trying to understand where my roots are. I definately feel like I feel less lost then I did when I was in middle school/ high school falling asleep in history class because learning about Franz Ferdinand and King Louis just seemed so irrelevant.
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