Through the use of critical thinking skills, it is meant to help students:

1. Interpret evidence, data, arguments, etc. and identify the significance to the assignment question [2]

2. Develop well-reasoned arguments for assignments [3]

3. Use and draw on evidence to justify arguments and ideas [4]

4. Synthesize thoughts and the thoughts of differing authors/researchers/theorists [5]

5. Question and analyze the bias, context, and impact of statements/articles/research etc. [6]

From my education in PAUSD, I further developed my approach and use of critical thinking at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, and specifically learning how to look and think critically at issues surrounding race and identity.

As of the fall semester of 2020 due to COVID restrictions, I opted to study back at home in Palo Alto. Influenced by coming across a small Lawn Jockey structure in the parking lot of Dinah’s Garden Hotel, and the surrounding atmosphere of the Black Lives Matter Protests, I generated those critical thinking skills to form this research project on better understanding the history of people of color in Palo Alto and the wider Bay Area. I realized I had an incomplete history of the city I grew up in. While I knew about the Stanfords and the obscure Peter Coutts castle tower, I knew little about the history of racism, segregation, and political activism, even though these realities directly impacted my own and family’s experience in Palo Alto since their arrival in the 1950s.

As discussed in Howard Zinn’s “A Young People’s History of the United States”:

“Behind every fact that a teacher or writer presents to the world is a judgement. The judgement says, ‘This fact is important, and other facts, which I am leaving out, are not important.’ I thought that some of the things that had been left out of most history books were important.”[7]

While I had a much more diverse and dimension education about US history, especially in high school, I had an incomplete narrative and understanding of my local history. The local history I did grow up learning was isolated in the Elementary School curriculum with minimal representation of people of color. However, as a former Palo Alto High School journalism student, and through the emphasis by teachers and professors, I have come to recognize that local matters. Political activism and advocacy must be turned inwards to local communities. There must be a collective reckoning and analysis of the barriers of racism, sexism, classism, and ableism if communities such as Palo Alto hope to fully support all of their students and inhabitants.

With the guidance of University of Puget Sound professors Gareth Barkin, Nancy Bristow, and Doug Sackman, I have compiled certain popular historical myths and underrepresented histories relating to people of color. I am not a history major, and do not at all consider myself to have the full sensitivities to handle relaying historical narratives and information. I am not an expert. I also do not intend this website to be a fully completed anthology on the history of people of color in Palo Alto. Even though my intentions of the project were (and are) to provide a more diverse narrative, there are still many topics, events, people and narratives that are not included. I would much rather think of this project as an exercise in critical thinking. With these mashed together pieces of history and resources, I hope to provide a starting point for students, teachers, and community members to reflect and build on.

“Thinking is an action. For all aspiring intellectuals, thoughts are the laboratory where one goes to pose questions and find answers. ... The heartbeat of critical thinking is the longing to know––to understand how life works. Children are organically predisposed to be critical thinkers. Across the boundaries of race, class, gender, and circumstance, children come into the world of wonder and language consumed with a desire for knowledge. Sometimes they are so eager for knowledge that they become relentless interrogators––demanding.” -bell hooks [8]