Right out of 1984, common terminology is being redefined, even in Texas

ROUND ROCK, TX - In the dystopian George Orwell novel 1984, Orwell coined the term “newspeak,” described as “propagandistic language that is characterized by euphemism, circumlocution, and the inversion of customary meanings,” according to Brittanica.

Newspeak in Orwell’s novel eliminated certain words or the removal of unorthodox meanings from certain words. As it turns out, Orwell was something of a prophet. 

Over the past several years, we have seen our language change, and not necessarily in a good way. Up until about a decade ago, people who entered the United States illegally were referred to as “illegal aliens.” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor changed the term in her first opinion as a justice when she referred to illegals as “undocumented.”

It wasn’t long before the mainstream media, including The Associated Press and USA Today, stopped using the term “illegal.” A few years later, The Washington Post and The New York Times followed suit. 

According to Just the News, however, even the term “undocumented” appears to be falling into disfavor. Even in bright-red Texas, students are now being told that neither “illegal” nor “undocumented” are acceptable, according to a public records request from Parents Defending Education. 

The Round Rock Independent School District in Texas now offers an elective high school course, “Advanced Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies,” which warns students about using the above two terms. 

Ethnic studies courses are becoming the norm in primarily blue states, including California, which mandates high schools to offer such courses by 2025 and implement a graduation requirement requiring such a class to be taken by 2029. Requirements “include racially segregated playdates at an elementary school and prayers to Aztec and Yoruba gods in the state model curriculum itself,” Just The News wrote. 

The lesson in Round Rock, “Analyzing Identity Nomenclature,” teaches students that the terms illegal and undocumented refer to “individuals who have entered or are residing in a country without proper legal authorization” but warns that the terms “can carry negative connotations and may perpetuate stereotypes.” 

One issue with the lesson is that it includes both the terms “illegal” and “undocumented” in a list of terms that “help us recognize the diverse backgrounds of individuals.” At the same time, other materials use the term “undocumented” without judgment. For example, one speaks about a progressive Texas advocacy group, Jolt Action, whose mission speaks about mobilizing voters against the “criminalization of undocumented immigrants.” 

There is also the use of the term “American Indian,” which, many years ago, was determined to possess a negative connotation. The lesson goes as far as to define “American Indians” as the “indigenous peoples of the United States.” 

In fact, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian [emphasis added] speaks about the consensus of American Indians as preferring to use the ‘specific tribal name” when possible; however, they believe the term American Indian is preferable to Native American,” which (primarily) white academics and politicians think is the politically correct term. 

Read the mainstream media today and try to find the foreign invaders crossing our southern border as “immigrants,” the previous acceptable term. Instead, they are now referred to as “migrants,” an attempt to soften Americans’ perception of those who are breaching our borders, including over 21,000 Chinese that have been apprehended in just one border sector–San Diego–since Oct. 1, 2023, according to Just the News. 

Why the change? It was suggested it was done to help “shape public opinion on contentious issues,” likening the foreign invaders to be more like migrant farm workers coming to the U.S. to pick fruits and vegetables. 

Even the dictionaries have jumped on the Newspeak bandwagon, with Merriam-Webster adding another definition for the word migrant in the past year that is the same as the first meaning of immigrant: “a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.” See how that works? 

According to the page archives, the definition of migrant changed between April 5, 2023, and Jan. 11, 2024. 

Round Rock has also jumped on the sex and gender bandwagon, with Parents Defending Education providing Just the News with several documents, including a “Social Identity Wheel” that attempts to distinguish “sex” from “gender,” taken from an inclusive teaching initiative at the University of Michigan.  

Where it concerns the border crisis, the Round Rock School District includes lessons like “Systems and Powers of Oppression,” which blames “strengthened immigration laws” implemented since 1975 as an example of oppression against Mexicans seeking to cross the border legally. An example is also included in a teacher training slide. 

On a “Famous Mexican American Quotes page,” political radicals are highlighted prominently, including Luis Urrea, which reads: “Illegal Alein, adj./n. A term by which An invading colonial force Vilifies Indigenous cultures By identifying them as An invading colonial force.” 

Another unit called “Resistance and Liberation” teaches students about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which a federal court declared illegal in 2021, and the “Texas Dreamers [sic] Act”—events that “resisted systems of oppression against Mexican Americans.” The unit also mentions “systems of oppression.” 

A presentation from “Ethnic Studies Cohort 2021-2022 Meeting #1” includes a portion on developing the “ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems” while also identifying something called “race esteem.” 

Resources also include external material from radical organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, where two lessons, “Learning for Justice” and “Creating Classrooms for Equity and Social Justice,” are among the offerings. Those lessons claim instruction must be “anti-racist” and encourage children to become “activists” through “a rainbow of resistance.” 

It continues that they should see “how children’s literature and textbooks tend to value the lives of Great White Men over all others” and that “[i]mplicit in many traditional accounts of history is the notion that children should disregard the lives of women, working people, and especially people of color.” Instructors are also encouraged to teach students songs such as “Strange Fruit,” which speaks about the lynching of blacks. 

Just the News reached out to the Round Rock School District to get a response to Parents Defending Education's characterization of the documents; however, no response was received.