Ramos seeks tribal counts to end Native invisibility

AB 1581 – Assemblymember James Ramos is pushing a California bill to require schools to collect and report students’ tribal affiliations, arguing that Native American students are significantly undercounted under the state’s current enrollment system—hurting access to t

On a preschool playground at Redding Rancheria, children play close to a traditional bark hut—small moments of life that, for many Native students in California, can still collide with a larger, bureaucratic blind spot.

Assemblymember James Ramos remembers how that blind spot feels. Growing up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation in San Bernardino County as a member of the Serrano/Cahuilla tribe, he says a teacher once asked students to stand up if they were Native American and interpret a drum song for the class.

“That’s not our culture,” Ramos recalled telling the teacher. His tribe, he said, uses gourd rattles, not drums, for music.

“Well, sit down,” he remembered the teacher replying. “You must not be Indian enough.”

For Ramos, that childhood moment has never stayed in the past. He says it reflects a wider problem in California schools, where he argues that most Native American students—and their diversity—go unrecognized.

Now the San Bernardino Democrat is championing legislation aimed at changing how the state counts Native students. His bill. Assembly Bill 1581. would require California to collect students’ tribal affiliations as part of the state’s annual enrollment data-gathering effort. Ramos frames the goal as making sure Native students do not have to feel unseen in Local Education Agencies. a term he uses to describe school districts. charter schools and county offices of education.

“We’re hoping that by pushing pieces of legislation, our tribal members will not have to go through that type of experience,” Ramos said.

The case for change rests on numbers showing how wide the gap already is. A 2023 report by the American Institutes for Research and the Indigenous Education State Leaders Network found that Native American students are undercounted by 70% nationwide.

In California, the report found the undercount is even higher—89.8%. It estimates that 155,855 American Indian and Alaska Native students are not counted as such.

The discrepancy shows up in how the state currently reports enrollment. The California Department of Education says there were 24. 130 American Indian or Alaska Native students enrolled in TK-12 schools in 2025-26. representing 0.4% of the total student population. But based on the report’s estimates. that number would be closer to 180. 000—about 3% of the student population—if all Indigenous students were counted.

Supporters of AB 1581 say the problem is not that schools try to be inaccurate; it’s the structure of the system itself. Under California’s current approach, schools are asked to report all Hispanic or Latino students, no matter their race, as Hispanic or Latino.

At the same time, students who identify as more than one race—such as American Indian and white, or American Indian and Black—are counted as “Two or more races.” Only students who identify solely as American Indian or Alaska Native are counted under that category.

AB 1581 would require schools and the state to collect and report the tribal affiliation of every student who identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, including those who also identify as another race or ethnicity.

Ramos and backers argue that the undercount can have real consequences beyond statistics. When Native American students are undercounted. Ramos said schools may not receive federal or state funds meant specifically for Indigenous students—funds that can support Native American language classes and tutoring. as well as Title VII programs intended to boost Native American students’ academic achievement and help ensure their classes are challenging and high quality.

The problem also makes it harder to track how schools serve these students. California reports how American Indian and Alaska Native students perform on standardized tests, graduation rates and suspension rates—but Ramos said these measures may be inaccurate if not all students are being counted.

Then there is the question of visibility itself: what educators believe about who they teach. California is home to 109 federally recognized tribes, and many more are petitioning for recognition. Backers also point to thousands of students in California whose families come from Indigenous communities from Mexico and Central America.

Marcos Aguilar. project director of the American Indian Resurgence Initiative and co-founder of a Los Angeles charter school that teaches students in Nahuatl and Spanish in addition to English. said undercounting translates into a classroom reality that can be missed even by adults tasked with advising students.

“Indigenous students are ‘invisibilized.’ Any major school you go to in Los Angeles Unified, or across L.A. County, if you ask any college counselor if they have American Indian students, almost 100% will say no,” Aguilar said.

At Anahuacalmecac International University Preparatory of North America, where Aguilar serves as executive director, more than 65% of students identify as American Indian. Ramos’s proposal is partly about reflecting that reality more faithfully—across districts large and small.

Aguilar said those students come from several Indigenous peoples, including Nahua, Zapotec, Wixarika, Cherokee and Kanaka, among others.

For supporters, the bill is also meant to change how educators think about Indigenous students and what they offer them. Rafael Vasquez. co-author of the book “Culturally Responsive Schooling for Indigenous Mexican Students. ” said collecting tribal affiliations could reduce the deficit lens that can shape how schools view Native communities and Latinx communities.

“I think this would be an opportunity to make less of a deficit perspective of Native American communities, and also Latinx communities, because it would no longer be seen as a monolithic group,” Vasquez said.

He said better understanding the scope of Indigenous students can help schools provide better translation in Indigenous languages for parents and incorporate Indigenous cultural practices into curriculum.

“Data can be powerful in informing policies and practices,” Vasquez said. “Schools may know of Indigenous students, but oftentimes they guide themselves by data.”

Vasquez described one example involving Lynwood Unified School District. He said he worked with the district to interview parents from a Zapotec Indigenous community in Oaxaca. and the district used that data to incorporate Zapotec brass band music into the school through an after-school program and performances at school events.

“For many of these students, the more they feel attachment or strength to their Indigenous identity, there’s a correlation to academics,” Vasquez said. “This isn’t just a cultural activity but can be a driving force in their academic success.”

By turning tribal affiliation into enrollment information rather than an afterthought, AB 1581 aims to make Native students harder to overlook—on paper, in funding decisions, in accountability data, and, perhaps most personally, in the day-to-day assumption of who classrooms are for.

James Ramos AB 1581 California Department of Education Native American students tribal affiliation Indigenous invisibility American Indian and Alaska Native undercount Title VII TK-12 enrollment Indigenous education policy