A national anti-discrimination group is pressuring Coachella Valley High School to abandon its longstanding mascot — a sneering, hook-nosed “Arab,” sometimes with a single tooth.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee sent a letter on Friday chastising the Coachella Valley Unified School District for “orientalist stereotyping” in school murals, football halftime shows and the mascot in general.
Superintendent Darryl Adams said the mascot controversy will be discussed at the next school board meeting on Nov. 21. Adams would not say whether he planned to recommend a change of mascot, but admitted “the Arab” has given him pause in the past.
“When I first came here, I raised an eyebrow (at the mascot),” Adams said. “Being an African-American from the Deep South, I’m sensitive to stereotyping. But in this context, when this was created it was not meant in that way. It was totally an admiration of the connection with the Middle East.”
According to the Coachella Valley High School Alumni Association, the Arab mascot was chosen in the 1920s to acknowledge the east valley’s reliance on date farming, a traditionally Middle Eastern crop. Another link between the Middle East and the east valley can be seen in the name of the nearby community of Mecca, the association states.
Since it was created in the 1920s, the school’s mascot has evolved from a turban-wearing horseman carrying a lance to a standing figure, wielding a scimitar and wearing a fez, to an older snarling face with a gold tooth and a headscarf.
Somewhere along the line, as the mascot changed, someone should have asked the Middle Eastern community how they felt about the mascot in general, Adams said.
School identity
Today, the Arab mascot is a mainstay at football games, joined by belly dancers during halftime shows. Murals on the high school buildings show an Arabian couple riding a book as if it were a magic carpet and a school logo flowing out of a genie’s lamp.
Adams said the letter from the anti-discrimination group was the first time the school had been criticized for stereotyping since he was hired as superintendent in 2011.
In the letter, Abed Ayoub, director of legal and policy affairs for the anti-discrimination committee, argues that the mascot is an offensive caricature, complete with a “large nose, heavy beard, and a Kaffiay, or traditional Arab head covering.” The anti-discrimination group has also launched an online petition demanding the mascot be changed.
FULL TEXT: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee letter to CVUSD
“The ‘Arab’ mascot image is a harmful form of ethnic stereotyping which should be eliminated,” Ayoub wrote in the letter. “By allowing continued use of the term and imagery, you are commending and enforcing the negative stereotypes of an entire ethnic group, millions of whom are citizens of this nation.”
The current mascot is based on an “angry Arab” design that was unveiled in the 1950s. The scowling face was meant to be a fearsome front for the football team, said Art Montoya, 74, one of the directors of the alumni association.
But that was decades ago. The context of the design has faded, and it is easy to see why this unflattering “cartoon character” could be seen as offensive today, he said.
“Times are changing, and we have to understand that,” Montoya said. “I think they need to look at it again. If they want to keep that Arab name, they need to make it a bit more acceptable. Only, I don’t know what that would look like. I don’t know how you could make a face that would be acceptable to everyone in the world.”
Not all the alumni feel a change is necessary. David Hinkle, who graduated from the school in 1961, defended the mascot, which he called a matter of pride for the school. The “angry arab” was introduced when he was a freshman.
“There was no intention to demean Arabs or be discriminatory in any way. It was created as a proud mascot of Coachella Valley High School, and it’s been that way ever since,” Hinkle said. “I don’t think it’s right to decide now that you can’t do that anymore. It is political correctness run amok, I would say.”
Like the alumni, current students were also divided over the mascot controversy. After the final bell rang at the school on Wednesday, some grumbled about the threatened mascot even as they hung a handpainted banner, celebrating their upcoming rivalry game against the Indio High School Rajahs, another desert school with a questionable mascot.
Two sophomores, Adrian Martinez and Eric Bautisa, questioned the timing of the controversy. If the Arab mascot was so offensive, why had it been allowed to stand for so decades without issue, they asked.
“Why be offended now?” Martinez asked.
Another student, senior Polette Zavala, felt Coachella Valley High was being singled out for a widespread sin. Although she did not defend the Arab mascot, she insisted it was no worse than other mascots featured at other schools.
“It is offensive — and I understand that — but there are so many other schools that do the same thing,” Zavala said.
Other mascots
It is true that Coachella Valley High is not the only desert school to use an ethnicity as a mascot, but none of the other mascots have prompted the same level of controversy.
In addition to Indio High’s “Rajah,” a turban-wearing Indian prince, the Desert Sands Unified School District includes the Palm Desert High Aztecs and the La Quinta High Blackhawks — a predatory bird easily confused with Chief Blackhawk, a historic Native American leader. None of these mascots have ever prompted a complaint, said Sherry Johnstone, an assistant superintendent of the district.
The Palm Springs High School mascot is the “Indians” — an often controversial mascot — but the school has the blessing of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. The tribe helped design the mascot, said Joan Boiko, a spokeswoman for the district.
The controversy comes as the Washington Redskins NFL team faces increasing pressure to change its mascot, which some groups have deemed offensive.