Introduction

There are hundreds of textbooks in circulation every year from English to Science to History to Math. Textbooks set the curriculum for schools around the world, what is in their matters. Students learn from these books and the content that is in them. If they don’t speak about things such as racial injustice students won’t learn about those topics and how they affect our society. History textbooks tell the students everything that has happened in the United States to this point. Overall, these events from the past can help to change the future, so that these events don’t occur again.

The portrayals of race in United States history textbooks can be misleading, and some publishers of textbooks can be biased. Certain events have occurred throughout history that are not published in textbooks. One example of that is the Japanese-American internment camps. Masato Ogawa (2004) outlines the negative treatment that was given to Japanese-Americans that isn’t spoken about. Not everyone knows that this is something that happened in the United States, it is certainly not something that is spoken openly about. Throughout my academic career, I never learned about this event that was an important part of the history of the United States. Americans speak so openly about the ‘progress’ that has occurred and that can be seen in history textbooks (Suh et al. 2015). This can be seen through the content that is present in history textbooks between 1950 to 2020.