Community Message

Dear Dragon Community,

Monday, October 12th is an important day, Indigenous Peoples’ Day, formerly recognized as Columbus Day. This holiday is in place to honor the real history of our nation, and to celebrate the lives, traditions, and stories of Indigenous people. This holiday gives us great hope and joy to celebrate and learn more about the tribes who steward the places important to us all.

It is important that we acknowledge the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European colonists inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities. For Native Americans, western exploration ushered in a wave of devastation: violence perpetrated against Native communities, displacement and theft of Tribal homelands, the introduction and spread of disease. As a community committed to becoming antiracist educators, we recognize this painful past as we pursue a brighter future centered on dignity, respect, justice, and opportunity for all people.

When I grew up, like many of you, I learned Christopher Columbus discovered America and this was ingrained in my memory with song. As a child, I knew Christopher Columbus’s name, yet I did not know anything about the nationality of the people who were here long before his ships landed upon the shores in the Caribbean.

This erasure of huge swaths of humanity is a fundamental feature of our society. Many of us think about the curriculum in terms of representation. It is important to focus also on what is not taught, which includes the lives rendered invisible. For the Taíno people of the Caribbean, their erasure began with Columbus’s arrival.

As Isabella Bird Dragons, we are proud of our multicultural community, which includes race, national heritage, and myriad expressions of religion, culture, history, and other forms of human diversity. We welcome every opportunity to learn about, and from, people who are different from us. We see this as an asset and one of the parts of our community we treasure.

If you are interested in learning more, there is a wonderful documentary titled Columbus in America. This film explores the history of what transpired in 1492 and after, and how “Columbus” has been used throughout U.S. history to legitimate the marginalization of Indigenous peoples. The film is also hopeful, as it focuses on how the victims of Columbus and those who came after have themselves targeted “Columbus in America” to assert their humanity, their history, and their rights.

Have a wonderful, restful weekend and I will see many of you at Harvest Fest on Sunday afternoon.

In partnership,

Principal Mercer