An Olive Tree in the Borderlands

Teaching Palestine in a New Mexican High School

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the path of teaching about Palestine in two charter high schools in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. Teaching about Palestine became critical to me as a person with ancestral ties to genocide, as a human rights accompanier, and as a teacher seeking to guide students towards liberation. Tying together the healing medicines of the mesquite tree of the borderlands and the olive tree of Palestine, this work encapsulates the power of turning grief, disillusionment, and overwhelm into action in classrooms.

As I share how my liberatory pedagogy, sprouting from Indigenous teachings, comes to life within my classroom, I describe the lessons that I learned and the changes I have had to make over the years to teach about Palestine in a way that empowers students instead of discouraging them. In learning about Palestine, students can understand their own lived experiences of colonial violence as peoples in the borderlands and use their learning to build futures as changemakers. Alongside coursework about Palestine, students created and painted a collective mural with the theme of “liberation.” The mural represents Palestine, and the process for the mural demonstrates the liberatory work we did together.

Each section begins with excerpts from the poem “The Second Olive Tree” by Mahmoud Darwish to honor how olive trees accompany the Palestinian liberation movement. I will continue to teach about Palestine and grow the lessons in response to students, the land that we spring from, and the ever-changing context of all our relations seeking liberation. My teaching is dedicated to building relationships with the two-legged, four-legged, and winged ones, the ones that grow green, the earth, the water, and the celestial beings.