Bill protecting cultural expression at graduation ceremonies passes first committee
A dance group with Elvia Sanchez perform the Hopi Butterfly Dance, at the Santa Fe Indian School Feast Day on Oct. 9, 2023. (Photo by Diana Cervantes for Source NM)
Native students would be free to wear culturally significant items during school ceremonies under two proposed bills making their way through the Legislature.
Co-sponsors Reps. D. Wonda Johnson (D-Rehoboth) and Janelle Anyanonu (D-Albuquerque) presented House Bill 194 to the House Government, Elections & Indian Affairs Committee Monday morning, which unanimously passed the bill. It now heads to the House Education Committee. It is one of the two bills introduced this session to prohibit schools from banning Native American cultural expression at ceremonies.
Specifically, HB 194 makes changes to the Public School Code to restrain public, private and charter schools in New Mexico from restricting Native students from wearing culturally significant items during graduation or promotion ceremonies. The bill is a response to incidents in recent years when tribal regalia was banned or removed during graduation ceremonies. A Farmington High School tribal member had her graduation cap confiscated during a ceremony last year.
'It is very important to the people of New Mexico that we be allowed to express ourselves and our heritage and our culture without any resistance and certainly without any punishment,' Anyanonu said during the meeting.
Representatives from NM Native Vote, ACLU of New Mexico, the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, the Bureau of Indian Education at the Public Education Department and the National Organization for Women all spoke in support of the bill.
'New Mexico thrives off the tourist dollars of our native tribes and pueblos yet steal in educational spaces,' Bernadette Hardy (Jemez Pueblo/Diné), a representative from NM Native Vote, said to committee members. 'Our indigenous youth are denied representation and one of those most important times in their young life.'
A similar proposal, Senate Bill 163, will be presented to the Senate Indian, Rural and Cultural Affairs Committee Tuesday morning.
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