5 Since Time Immemorial
Washington State is home to twenty nine federally recognized Tribes, and a significantly greater portion of land is dedicated to these Tribes’ reservations than in Michigan. Additionally, Washington’s American Indian and Alaska Native peoples make up 2% of the total population with another 0.8% identifying as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, compared to Michigan with a 0.7% population of American Indian and Alaska Natives, and such a small population of Native Hawaiians that this number is not included in the 2022 census (US Census Bureau 2022). Possibly because of Washington’s larger Indigenous population, the State Legislature passed a curriculum in 2015 entitled Since Time Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty in Washington State which was included in Senate Bill 5433, a revision of the similar original legislation from 2005. This curriculum was created in partnership with the state’s federally recognized Tribes and includes a local focus component in order to educate students with an emphasis on the Tribes’ which have historically inhabited their specific lands.
It is important to note this approach excludes landless Tribes and those without federal recognition such as the Duwamish, a prominent unrecognized Tribe which has historically inhabited the land now known as Seattle, where I now live and attend the University of Washington. Because the bill implementing the curriculum specifically states that a, “school district is encouraged to include in its curriculum information about the history, culture and government of any tribe whose reservation lands, in whole or in part, are within the boundaries of the school district,” Cecile Hansen, a descendent of Chief Sealth for whom Seattle is named and the chairwoman of the Duwamish, believes the bill, “discriminates against Native American tribes lacking a reservation,” and expressed her frustration with the bill by asking, “How can you exclude the history of the tribe who gives its name to Seattle…But that’s exactly what this bill does. It excludes the history of all landless tribes,” (Kamb 2005). Hansen and the Duwamish are not alone in their frustration, as there are at least six other Washington Tribes not federally recognized, and even three federally recognized Tribes who are landless.
Besides this controversy, past critics have pointed out the language dilution between the original bill proposed in 2004 and that which was actually adopted, Washington State Substitute House Bill 1495. While the original 2004 bill passed by the Washington State House Education Committee required that the State Superintendent of Public Instruction collaborate with social studies teachers and Tribal specialists to develop a curriculum for teaching Washington Tribal history, and that this curriculum would be required in all Washington schools, the bill faced widespread opposition partially because Washington is largely considered a “local control state.” Opponents to the bill argued that the bill was an infringement on the right of local school boards to decide what to include in their curriculum. “Consequently, an amended and watered-down bill passed in spring 2005 that altered the language of the tribal history initiative from ‘require’ to ‘encourage’ to ‘shall consider including information on the culture, history, and government of the American Indian peoples who were the first inhabitants of the state,’”(Anderson 2012, pg. 501) (Washington State Substitute House Bill 1495).