Did you know we deported Mexican-American American citizens in the early 1900’s?

Colonial history was not exactly a focus during school.
Is it not interesting that your country constantly touts ideals and values that it consistently fails to adhere to?

@ragingloli It’s very well known we fall short of what is supposed to be American ideals. What troubles me a lot is a whole section of our country seems to not even have those ideals to begin with. They define America differently.

@JLeslie
If it is any consolation, you are not alone with that.
One of Japan’s Prime Minister’s goals is a constitutional amendment, that would enable them to purge all their WW2 atrocities from their school history curriculum.

As do most countries…..

@ragingloli I know we are not alone in any of the horribleness that has been done, and is being done. As far as Japan, when I was in Tokyo I we t to a history museum and it hit me how WWII was one small display. I guess I should be glad they had anything there at all maybe. It didn’t talk about their part in it really.

There are always racists in every country, but when the government is racist, and laws are past taking away the rights of residents and citizens, that’s when it gets really scary.

I feel like the US media doesn’t report enough on racist acts being punished by our authorities. People do get arrested, do get thrown in jail, do get ordered to make restitution, sometimes paying significant money and property. I’m not asking for it to be reported and taught in schools to get credit for doing the right thing, I want people to know as a deterrent, and for the message that it’s unacceptable.

Just two days ago, I went for a hike on Angel Island, the “Ellis Island” of San Francisco. A tour through the remains of the Immigration Station is heartbreaking, people held for months, sometimes years, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

My grandparents migrated from Chihuahua to Southern California in 1914, and got their citizenship naturalization as quickly as possible. The threat of deportation for failure to work or for committing a crime was always in the background.

@zenvelo Even as citizens your grandparents felt that threat? I can understand it. In the article I linked it mentions carrying their passports all the time, and I always tell people they should get a passport. I’ve thought about getting the passport card in addition to my passport book.

I recently did a presentation on birthright citizenship, and spent several minutes on the Chinese Exclusion Act, and how it was a Chinese American court case that basically solidified the very broad definition we have for birthright citizenship today in America. It’s awful what we did to the Chinese. When I studied it for my presentation I had a vague memory of learning about it in high school.

History was my worst subject, as I’ve said on many Q’s, my memory is terrible with history facts. Although, I have to say that I seem to know more than a lot of people, but much less than a lot of other people.

@JLeslie Yes, even with citizenship it was a worry. They didn’t really feel comfortable until the late 1930’s when my mom (who was born here) became old enough to advocate for them if necessary.

We can’t teach every single little thing that ever happened in history in the short 7 hour days, 5 days a week, 9 months out of the years we have to teach stuff.

No, being born & raised in the South, we never got past the Civil War in our history classes!!!

So you never learned about the civil rights movement @LadyMarissa???? Never learned about MLK????