West County school district to remove plaques after students voice concerns

West Sonoma County Union High School District will pay for the expedited removal of a trio of plaques on the West County High and former El Molino High School campuses, which students and teachers say are symbols of America’s racist history.

The decision was made Wednesday during a district Board of Trustees meeting after several attendees spoke in favor of removing the plaques.

Each bears the name of the Native Sons of the Golden West, a fraternal service organization founded in 1875 that focuses on the preservation and documentation of historic places and buildings in California.

The group also has a history of using anti-Asian American rhetoric and was a vocal supporter of the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in remote camps during World War II, documents from the organization show.

Prompted in 1942 by the executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which was signed two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent were ordered to leave their homes and sent to incarceration camps. The last of those camps closed months after the war ended three years later.

In 1920, the Native Sons of the Golden West Grand President William P. Canbu is believed to have said, “California was given by God to a white people, and with God’s strength we want to keep it as He gave it to us,” according to the 1999 book, “The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion,” by Roger Daniels, professor of history at the University of Cincinnati.

The plaques are located in front of the main building and gym at West County High, as well as at an exterior cafe at the former El Molino campus.

According to language on one of them, which dates back to 1935, the building was “dedicated to TRUTH-LIBERTY-TOLERATION” by the Native Sons of the Golden West. The two other plaques, embossed with the same saying, were added in 1954 and 1964.

The school board’s five trustees voted unanimously Wednesday to pay for the expedited removal of the three plaques at a cost of $4,750, not including the cost of any related permits or inspections.

Trustee Jeanne Fernandes, an alumna of Analy High School, the former name for West County High, thanked students and teachers for bringing attention to the plaques.

“I had no idea that they were even there. I had no idea ... what the Native Sons of the Golden West … ever stood for,” Fernandes said, adding that changes on campus can’t be made by the board unless they’re brought to light.

West County High senior KatieAnn Nguyen was among the group of community members who asked the board to remove the plaques during Wednesday’s meeting.

Co-founder of her school’s AntiRacist Student Committee and editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, West County World, Nguyen authored a March article that explained the Native Sons of the Golden West’s history, and highlighted the plaques’ negative impact on the West County High campus.

“These plaques, seeing them and knowing their history, it feels oppressive seeing them every morning as I enter the main building,” Nguyen wrote. “If the group that donated these very plaques were openly racist towards Asian Americans, then, as an Asian American, how can I begin to feel welcome at this school?”

On Wednesday, she reiterated the need for their removal and urged trustees to issue a statement explaining why that should happen.

“We also want this to be a teaching moment,” Nguyen said.

Gail Seymour, a member of the local chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, told the board that removing the plaques would only be a first step, and alone would not help students feel safe on campus.

Her group attended Wednesday’s meeting, she added, to support efforts “to help heal the generational trauma that the plaques summon.”

No exact date was set for when the plaques will be removed, district staff said during the meeting.

A request for comment from the Native Sons of The Golden West was not immediately returned Thursday afternoon.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @nashellytweets.