National Education Association Italian Heritage Discrimination

Aug 07, 2019 2263

BY: Cav. Josephine A. Maietta

The National Education Association (“NEA”) at its 2019 National Convention passed a resolution that states the NEA believes Columbus Day should be renamed and recognized as Indigenous Peoples Day. On July 6-7 2019 in Texas the National Education Association passed the following resolution:

“The National Education Association believes that the history of colonization needs to be recognized and acknowledged in every state. To do so, the Association believes that the name of the current holiday known as “Columbus Day” should be renamed and recognized as “Indigenous People’s Day” in recognition of the early indigenous peoples who were living in the United States before colonization by European settlers.” With the rationale that “As an education association, recognizing, observing, and celebrating factual history is important to maintaining our academic integrity.”

Apparently the NEA resolution committee members failed history and geography since Columbus never landed in continental United States but in historical independent countries of Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rico. The invasion of the colonial continental United States was from Northern Europe not Italy.

National Education Association of the United States claims to be the voice of education professionals. NEA mission is to advocate for education professionals and to unite the members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world. Many of us are tied into NEA through our teachers unions and educational institutions. Yet none of us of Italian Heritage were asked of our feelings and stance on the policy.

The United Sates Census Bureau estimates the number of Italian American educators to total 630,000 teachers from PreK to higher post-secondary education in the United States. The number of Italian American students in the USA from PreK to High School is approximately 5 million students. (4,641,000). In addition with at least one genetic parent more than 11 million Italian Americans are affected The NEA racially bias policy for Indigenous People would have a negative discriminating impact on approximately 65% of the Italian American community rather than being protected by the NEA mission on nondiscrimination.

This is obviously another bulldozing tactic by elite education leaders to impose a policy on public education to suppress the masses in established categories: a problem with public education since Horace Mann in the 1800s.

Isn't it time for Italian Americans to act?

Here you have an extremely important protest that needs the attention and action of every Italian American in the country especially Italian American educators. We need you to state your position on this effort NOW! Send the resolution to us at [email protected].

National Education Association Discriminatory Resolution

Italian American Resolution

Thank you for your support in keeping Italian Heritage in our educational system

SOURCE: AIAE

You may be interested