Students vote to keep controversial ‘Colonist’ mascot at California high school

Students at a California high school voted this week to keep their school’s controversial mascot — the Colonist.

Students chose among three options: keeping the Colonist name; keeping the name but changing the imagery — a caricature of a man in a pilgrim outfit; or overhauling both the name and the imagery, Spectrum News 1 reported.

The results of the vote were revealed at a town hall on Nov. 10. About 41% of students voted to keep the Colonist name and imagery, 34% voted to keep the name but change the image, and 25% voted to remove both the name and the imagery. More than 2,400 students participated in the vote.

The school currently has 3,099 students enrolled, according to US News’ 2021 rankings of high schools.

The school’s mascot is one of many around the country, including ones from NFL and MLB teams, to be re-evaluated amid increasing concerns about the origins of certain images and words.

Some members of the Anaheim High School community in Anaheim, California, started petitions and organized protests against keeping the mascot, which the school has had for 100 years. One such petition, written by Laura Luevano and signed over 6,500 times, said in its description that the school mantra “once a colonist, always a colonist” was “tone deaf” given that the school has mostly students of Mexican descent.

Another petition that circulated among the school’s community was in favor of keeping the mascot and mantra intact. That petition, which garnered just under 4,000 signatures and was written by J’aime Rubio, accused Luevano and those who signed her petition of wanting to “jump on the bandwagon with all the other history revisionists that want to remove and destroy our history.”

The Anaheim Union School District wanted students at the high school to learn about “the city’s history, founding and controversy of their high school’s Colonist name and mascot” during English and social science classes for one week, Spectrum News reported. Then, the students could vote.

Three students spoke on behalf of each of the possible options at a town hall that was streamed on YouTube.

Daniel Escobar, a junior, said that the mascot had been misinterpreted as a violent colonizer and was instead supposed to represent the German immigrants who came to California to establish a colony, making it “appropriate to call us Colonists.”

“I think it is appropriate to our city’s history and (the) hard work and dedication of both past, present and future students,” he said.

Brianna Gurrola, a senior, said that she supported keeping the name but re-evaluating the imagery because the current mascot “does not look anything like the colonists that settled Anaheim.”

“The name ‘colonist’ is appropriate to our school, but our logo is misleading,” Gurrola said.

And Anahi Rico, a junior, said that getting rid of both the mascot and the name made the most sense because the idea of a more innocuous “colonist” who didn’t cause harm or commit genocide “is no longer valid when you take everything from history into account.”

“When I think of the word ‘colonist,’ I don’t think of kind, respectful students,” Rico said. “I think of mass genocide, murder, the separation of families, the attempt to whitewash and eradicate Native American civilization – and then (the) attempt to hide the truth about what really happened to those that once inhabited this land.”

The school district will ultimately have the final say on whether the Colonist will stick around. The results of the students’ vote will be shared with the Anaheim Union School District Board, which will discuss the matter at a Dec. 14 meeting, The Orange County Register reported.

The Anaheim Union High School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 7:17 PM with the headline "Students vote to keep controversial ‘Colonist’ mascot at California high school."