What you learned in school
Western history textbooks and popular culture depicted cowboys as almost exclusively white American men. Students learned about rugged individualists conquering the frontier, with textbooks rarely mentioning Mexican vaqueros, Black cowboys, or Native American cattle workers. Hollywood westerns reinforced this whites-only image of the American cowboy.
What we know now
Western history and popular culture depicted cowboys as almost exclusively white men, reinforcing stereotypes about the American frontier. Textbooks and media rarely mentioned the diversity of cattle workers. Historical records show that about 25% of cowboys were Black, many were Mexican vaqueros, and Native Americans also worked cattle. The mythologized "cowboy" of popular culture erased the significant contributions of people of color to the cattle industry. The real American West was far more diverse than Hollywood westerns suggested.