The absence of Black History Month representation at CATS

By Gehenna N.

Ms. Maria Salcido teaches African American History during the fall semester. As a teacher of Latinx identity, she takes her role seriously.

“Ideally, I think people should be able to teach their own history,” she said. “But if someone is going to teach history that’s not theirs, they have to approach it with respect and that is something I was very conscious about when teaching Black History as a non-Black person.”

She said she wanted to expose to her students the Black history content that she had the opportunity to learn.

The question is: are students at CATS learning enough about Black history, a fundamental part of U.S. history? 

No, according to senior Yeshua P.

“I don’t think students are learning enough about African American history,” he said. He talked about Ms. Salcido’s African American class and how her class is still considered an elective after holding such important content that most students have not been introduced to.

“I don’t think students are learning enough about African American history”

Yeshua P., Senior

“So many people probably won’t take it,” he said. He claims that students are very uneducated when it comes to African American history. “The students amongst me show no interest in wanting to learn it.”

According to Ms. Michelle Suarez, Science teacher, this happens because students are being introduced to this content until years later. She shared how throughout her school years, African American History was very briefly explained to her and that she only learned the importance of Black history until years later in college.

“Adults specifically tend to shy away from really difficult topics,” she said. “It takes a lot for people to recognize how messed up it is that they haven’t questioned within themselves.”

Ms. Suarez said we have to “dig really deep into all of this history that was purposely not brought up to the surface and purposely kept in the shadows.”

According to her, students in her advisory class were questioning why the school didn’t spend much time celebrating Black History Month this year.

“When we were watching CATS News, only a second was spent on Black History Month and the other chunk of minutes in something else” she said. Students started wondering why was this happening and why there was zero attention to this important month. 

Ms. Suarez had her students work on posters to honor Black History Month. “Students wanted to have posters that reflected important Black historical figures and Black Lives Matter to have it in big letters in a poster,” she said.

Ms. Salcido explained how she felt very disappointed for the lack of honoring the Black community in our school this Month. “I think collectively as a school we didn’t do justice for Black History Month.“

“I think collectively as a school we didn’t do justice for Black History Month.“

Ms. Maria Salcido, History teacher

She mentioned how there was a lack of visual representation in our schools. “If you walk through our hallways,” she said “it seems like every other month.”