“Migration of the Golden People” by Judith F. Baca (c) 2002, a collaboration between CARECEN & SPARC. Image courtesy of the SPARC Archives, sparcinla.org.
Teaching for Change summer interns Olvin Abrego Ayala and Eli Hertzler-McCain collaborated on a critique of U.S. history textbook coverage of Central America which was published in the spring 2025 edition of Rethinking Schools magazine.
This is the first critique of its kind published in the last 40 years and is a valuable contribution to the Teaching Central America campaign.
Six Ways U.S. History Textbooks Mislead Students About the History Between Central America and the United States
By Olvin Abrego Ayala and Elizabeth Hertzler-McCain
Central America has long been an overlooked target of U.S. exploitation. Over the last 200-plus years the United States has conducted countless invasions and massacres, funded and trained military regimes and death squads, and extracted maximum capital from the isthmus. The United States claimed Central America as its “backyard,” fostering a sense of entitlement to control and profit from the region. U.S. history textbooks do not properly explore this history, or they misrepresent it. Without this history, it becomes harder to understand the United States’ role behind current and historical waves of migration and the economic and political complexities from and in these countries.
Central Americans are the second largest Latinx group in the United States, with Salvadorans alone making up the third largest country group. This means that Central American students are in the classroom, reading these textbooks, and learning misleading narratives about themselves and the U.S. role in bringing them here. Textbooks also silence the U.S. government’s role in creating the immigration crisis, stoking xenophobia. History is made daily, so not righting the wrongs of the past allows for similar or even worse atrocities to be repeated. These legacies continue unless we recognize the patterns.
We reviewed 10 U.S. history textbooks with publishing dates ranging from 2012 to 2023 from well-known publishers such as Pearson, Cengage Learning, Holt McDougal, Prentice Hall, and Norton Publishing. These books revealed the following failings:
New Textbook Critique on Central America
Teaching for Change summer interns Olvin Abrego Ayala and Eli Hertzler-McCain collaborated on a critique of U.S. history textbook coverage of Central America which was published in the spring 2025 edition of Rethinking Schools magazine.
This is the first critique of its kind published in the last 40 years and is a valuable contribution to the Teaching Central America campaign.
Six Ways U.S. History Textbooks Mislead Students About the History Between Central America and the United States
By Olvin Abrego Ayala and Elizabeth Hertzler-McCain
Central America has long been an overlooked target of U.S. exploitation. Over the last 200-plus years the United States has conducted countless invasions and massacres, funded and trained military regimes and death squads, and extracted maximum capital from the isthmus. The United States claimed Central America as its “backyard,” fostering a sense of entitlement to control and profit from the region. U.S. history textbooks do not properly explore this history, or they misrepresent it. Without this history, it becomes harder to understand the United States’ role behind current and historical waves of migration and the economic and political complexities from and in these countries.
Central Americans are the second largest Latinx group in the United States, with Salvadorans alone making up the third largest country group. This means that Central American students are in the classroom, reading these textbooks, and learning misleading narratives about themselves and the U.S. role in bringing them here. Textbooks also silence the U.S. government’s role in creating the immigration crisis, stoking xenophobia. History is made daily, so not righting the wrongs of the past allows for similar or even worse atrocities to be repeated. These legacies continue unless we recognize the patterns.
We reviewed 10 U.S. history textbooks with publishing dates ranging from 2012 to 2023 from well-known publishers such as Pearson, Cengage Learning, Holt McDougal, Prentice Hall, and Norton Publishing. These books revealed the following failings:
Posted: April 3, 2025