Schools in the United States, according to James O. Fabionar, struggle to teach in a humanizing manner about the brutality experienced by indigenous people in North America and the Pacific. Many "white-wash" this history, downplaying unsavory aspects of colonization by painting the United States as a savior or liberator, or by emphasizing so-called "good intentions." Yet the traumatic legacy of violence, disease, displacement, exploitation, and forced assimilation as manifested in the present-day struggles. The assumption embedded in curricular framings like this is that the perspectives of the colonized are somehow separate from the national story, as opposed to an integral part of it. This keeps indigenous realities in the Pacific hidden from popular view. However, colonized peoples are part of the national story, as residents and citizens of states and territories and as migrants propelled to the "mainland" after colonization destabilized their homelands.