Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 424
February 6, 2012
February 6, 2012: Remembering Lucille Clifton
[In honor of Black History Month—which was created by my first Memory Day nominee!—this week I'll be remembering amazing African American writers who should be a more central part of American literature and identities. This is the first in the series.]
Remembering a poet whose best works do the two very different, and equally important, things that poetry can do best.
It seems to me that when we think about poetry, here in the early 21st century, we tend to think about it as a profoundly individual and intimate genre, an expression of personal experiences and perspectives that, if they are not explicitly the poet's, at least feel as if they could be. That kind of confessional tone is indeed one of the styles and effects poetry is best suited to capture, and can create understanding of and empathy for identities and perspectives in very powerful ways. Yet if we date the origins of poetry back to texts such as the works of Homer or The Aeneid, then it's fair to say that poetry has also been particularly strong as capturing communal historical experiences, at representing how groups of people are affected by and affect historical events and changes.
I don't know too many poets who are equally adept at both of those elements, especially not in this era of more specialized genres and subjects. But then there's Lucille Clifton. In her best confessional poems, such as the raw and heart-breaking "The Lost Baby Poem," Clifton got as close to lived experiences and genuine identities as any American poet ever has; I don't have any idea whether Clifton herself had to abort or otherwise lost a child in the complex and painful circumstances and moment which her poem describes, but the poem is equally honest, and its effects equally shattering and yet productive of connection and empathy, in any case. And the speaker's final perspective, her promises to that lost child about the future she must and will make beyond, and through, that loss, is similarly as compelling and real as any poetic voice I know.
No less compelling and real, nor indeed any less intimate and personal, are Clifton's historical poems. In a poem like "At the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina, 1989," Clifton within the first fourteen lines engages both with histories of slavery and race and with questions of collective and public memory as well as any history textbook could, capturing in a few lines both the identities of those distant historical ancestors (of us all) and their complex absence and presence at a historic site. And in the subsequent twenty lines, she makes a profound and powerful case for her own voice and role, in remembering these histories and identities, in telling and writing of them, and in bringing them to an audience that might otherwise have lost them. When she told Bill Moyers, in a conversation about this poem, that "the past isn't back there, the past is here too," she defined not only the poem's historical vision, but the perspectives on experience and identity that both her confessional and her historical poems so perfectly capture.
This February (and beyond), share some Clifton with those around you, if you could. Next in the series tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any inspiring folks—writers or otherwise—you'd like to nominate for inclusion in the series?
2/6 Memory Day nominee: Aaron Burr, certainly a controversial choice—I don't anticipate any other nominees having been tried for treason or having killed another prominent American in a duel—but a voice and perspective that can, as Gore Vidal so brilliantly recognized, shed a very different and crucially important light on the Revolutionary and Early Republic era, on the Founders and their legacies, and on America's origins and meanings.
Remembering a poet whose best works do the two very different, and equally important, things that poetry can do best.
It seems to me that when we think about poetry, here in the early 21st century, we tend to think about it as a profoundly individual and intimate genre, an expression of personal experiences and perspectives that, if they are not explicitly the poet's, at least feel as if they could be. That kind of confessional tone is indeed one of the styles and effects poetry is best suited to capture, and can create understanding of and empathy for identities and perspectives in very powerful ways. Yet if we date the origins of poetry back to texts such as the works of Homer or The Aeneid, then it's fair to say that poetry has also been particularly strong as capturing communal historical experiences, at representing how groups of people are affected by and affect historical events and changes.
I don't know too many poets who are equally adept at both of those elements, especially not in this era of more specialized genres and subjects. But then there's Lucille Clifton. In her best confessional poems, such as the raw and heart-breaking "The Lost Baby Poem," Clifton got as close to lived experiences and genuine identities as any American poet ever has; I don't have any idea whether Clifton herself had to abort or otherwise lost a child in the complex and painful circumstances and moment which her poem describes, but the poem is equally honest, and its effects equally shattering and yet productive of connection and empathy, in any case. And the speaker's final perspective, her promises to that lost child about the future she must and will make beyond, and through, that loss, is similarly as compelling and real as any poetic voice I know.
No less compelling and real, nor indeed any less intimate and personal, are Clifton's historical poems. In a poem like "At the Cemetery, Walnut Grove Plantation, South Carolina, 1989," Clifton within the first fourteen lines engages both with histories of slavery and race and with questions of collective and public memory as well as any history textbook could, capturing in a few lines both the identities of those distant historical ancestors (of us all) and their complex absence and presence at a historic site. And in the subsequent twenty lines, she makes a profound and powerful case for her own voice and role, in remembering these histories and identities, in telling and writing of them, and in bringing them to an audience that might otherwise have lost them. When she told Bill Moyers, in a conversation about this poem, that "the past isn't back there, the past is here too," she defined not only the poem's historical vision, but the perspectives on experience and identity that both her confessional and her historical poems so perfectly capture.
This February (and beyond), share some Clifton with those around you, if you could. Next in the series tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Any inspiring folks—writers or otherwise—you'd like to nominate for inclusion in the series?
2/6 Memory Day nominee: Aaron Burr, certainly a controversial choice—I don't anticipate any other nominees having been tried for treason or having killed another prominent American in a duel—but a voice and perspective that can, as Gore Vidal so brilliantly recognized, shed a very different and crucially important light on the Revolutionary and Early Republic era, on the Founders and their legacies, and on America's origins and meanings.
February 4, 2012
February 4-5, 2012: A Key Question about Muhammad Ali
[For this Super Bowl week, I'll be blogging about interesting American Studies moments, texts, and issues related to the history of sports in America. This is the fifth and final entry in the series.]
In which I ask a critical question (of you, dear readers!) about one of America's most talented, compelling, and above all socially significant sports figures.
I wrote a couple weeks ago, in this Martin Luther King Day post, about the ways in which popular narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., have elided his more angry and aggressive positions in favor of his peaceful and optimistic ones; those ideas of mine are certainly complemented by the work of historian Rick Perlstein, who has developed at length a theory about the "Santa Claus-ification" of King and has pushed back by emphasizing the many Americans who expressed bigotry and hatred toward King in his own era (and beyond). The same case could be made, to connect to my last week of posts on sports in American Studies, for figures like Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron—not that they were as divisive (nor as influential or inspiring) as King, but certainly that the death threats and abuse they received in their respective careers have given away to almost universal public adoration in our own moment.
There's no question that Muhammad Ali is similarly adored; in fact, I would argue that he is on the short list for our most celebrated American athlete (both today and of all time), as evidenced by the 1996 Olympic torch/cauldron lighting, the recent and extensive 70th birthday celebrations, and much else besides. Yet there's also no question that during his boxing career, at least the first couple decades of it, Ali was known as much for controversial political and social choices as for his phenomenal talents: principally the 1965 choice to convert to Islam and change his name from Cassius Clay (which he called "the name of the white slave master") and then the subsequent and related 1967 draft resistance and refusal to serve in Vietnam (which Ali framed not as a choice between the military and jail, but through the third option of "justice"). These choices were, in their era, significantly more striking and potentially divisive than (say) Aaron's pursuit of Ruth's home run record, during the course of which Aaron got those death threats.
So my question is this: was Ali as hated and attacked as Robinson and Aaron? Did he receive the kinds of threats and attacks to which King was subjected? Has he, in short, been Santa Claus-ified in similar ways? Or was there something about Ali—his singular talent, his charm and charisma, his sense of humor and style, his particular sport—that allowed him to navigate the troubled waters of his own decisions and the 1960s without the same responses; not without controversy or critique, but without that level of vitriol, maintaining his status as a generally beloved and idolized athlete and figure? I'm sure I could learn the answers—or at least how certain historians and writers have answered those questions—through extended research, but this blog and site are nothing if not, in their purposes at least, crowd-sourced. So I ask you, those of you with experiences, a perspective, or a sense of these questions—which was the case with Ali?
More this coming week, a series celebrating Black History Month to which this post can definitely be connected as well,
Ben
PS. I'll just ask again for your input!
2/4 Memory Day nominee (national): Betty Friedan, the scholar, author, and activist whose book The Feminine Mystique (1963) is one of the 20th century's most significant works, and whose efforts in founding the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (Naral), and the National Women's Political Caucus transformed every aspect of American society and life in the 1970s and beyond.
2/4 Memory Day nominee (special): I'll let the nominator, Ilene Railton, do the honors: "Herman Fine, born in Boston in 1913, died in Florida in 1989. He was the youngest of 10, son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His mother's family was wiped out in a pogrom, and she hid in a soap barrel, was adopted by a family and eventually came to America where she met her husband. He was a junk dealer, who drove a horse and cart. Herman, or Bob as he was called most of his adult life, was spoiled by his sisters, and loved to tell a joke. He went to night school at Boston University and became a pharmacist, and for a while owned the drug store in the Ritz Carlton Hotel by the Public Gardens. The war ended that episode in his life, but he always remembered it fondly. Bob was an avid reader and a lover of opera. He often spent Saturday afternoons listening to opera on the old Motorola record player, sitting with the libretto, humming along. He passed his love of reading on to me, his only child, and I was undoubtedly the rare girl in the 1950′s whose favorite books were Stevenson's adventures."
2/5 Memory Day nominee: James Otis, the lawyer and firebrand whose eloquent and impassioned opposition to both the Sugar Act and writs of assistance in the early 1760s helped set the stage for the American Revolution; even though a 1769 fight with an angered royal customs commissioner left Otis disabled and unable to take full part in the Revolution itself, his words and arguments were instrumental to every stage of colonial resistance and independence.
In which I ask a critical question (of you, dear readers!) about one of America's most talented, compelling, and above all socially significant sports figures.
I wrote a couple weeks ago, in this Martin Luther King Day post, about the ways in which popular narratives of Martin Luther King, Jr., have elided his more angry and aggressive positions in favor of his peaceful and optimistic ones; those ideas of mine are certainly complemented by the work of historian Rick Perlstein, who has developed at length a theory about the "Santa Claus-ification" of King and has pushed back by emphasizing the many Americans who expressed bigotry and hatred toward King in his own era (and beyond). The same case could be made, to connect to my last week of posts on sports in American Studies, for figures like Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron—not that they were as divisive (nor as influential or inspiring) as King, but certainly that the death threats and abuse they received in their respective careers have given away to almost universal public adoration in our own moment.
There's no question that Muhammad Ali is similarly adored; in fact, I would argue that he is on the short list for our most celebrated American athlete (both today and of all time), as evidenced by the 1996 Olympic torch/cauldron lighting, the recent and extensive 70th birthday celebrations, and much else besides. Yet there's also no question that during his boxing career, at least the first couple decades of it, Ali was known as much for controversial political and social choices as for his phenomenal talents: principally the 1965 choice to convert to Islam and change his name from Cassius Clay (which he called "the name of the white slave master") and then the subsequent and related 1967 draft resistance and refusal to serve in Vietnam (which Ali framed not as a choice between the military and jail, but through the third option of "justice"). These choices were, in their era, significantly more striking and potentially divisive than (say) Aaron's pursuit of Ruth's home run record, during the course of which Aaron got those death threats.
So my question is this: was Ali as hated and attacked as Robinson and Aaron? Did he receive the kinds of threats and attacks to which King was subjected? Has he, in short, been Santa Claus-ified in similar ways? Or was there something about Ali—his singular talent, his charm and charisma, his sense of humor and style, his particular sport—that allowed him to navigate the troubled waters of his own decisions and the 1960s without the same responses; not without controversy or critique, but without that level of vitriol, maintaining his status as a generally beloved and idolized athlete and figure? I'm sure I could learn the answers—or at least how certain historians and writers have answered those questions—through extended research, but this blog and site are nothing if not, in their purposes at least, crowd-sourced. So I ask you, those of you with experiences, a perspective, or a sense of these questions—which was the case with Ali?
More this coming week, a series celebrating Black History Month to which this post can definitely be connected as well,
Ben
PS. I'll just ask again for your input!
2/4 Memory Day nominee (national): Betty Friedan, the scholar, author, and activist whose book The Feminine Mystique (1963) is one of the 20th century's most significant works, and whose efforts in founding the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (Naral), and the National Women's Political Caucus transformed every aspect of American society and life in the 1970s and beyond.
2/4 Memory Day nominee (special): I'll let the nominator, Ilene Railton, do the honors: "Herman Fine, born in Boston in 1913, died in Florida in 1989. He was the youngest of 10, son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His mother's family was wiped out in a pogrom, and she hid in a soap barrel, was adopted by a family and eventually came to America where she met her husband. He was a junk dealer, who drove a horse and cart. Herman, or Bob as he was called most of his adult life, was spoiled by his sisters, and loved to tell a joke. He went to night school at Boston University and became a pharmacist, and for a while owned the drug store in the Ritz Carlton Hotel by the Public Gardens. The war ended that episode in his life, but he always remembered it fondly. Bob was an avid reader and a lover of opera. He often spent Saturday afternoons listening to opera on the old Motorola record player, sitting with the libretto, humming along. He passed his love of reading on to me, his only child, and I was undoubtedly the rare girl in the 1950′s whose favorite books were Stevenson's adventures."
2/5 Memory Day nominee: James Otis, the lawyer and firebrand whose eloquent and impassioned opposition to both the Sugar Act and writs of assistance in the early 1760s helped set the stage for the American Revolution; even though a 1769 fight with an angered royal customs commissioner left Otis disabled and unable to take full part in the Revolution itself, his words and arguments were instrumental to every stage of colonial resistance and independence.
February 3, 2012
February 3, 2012: The Growth of an American Sports Studier
[For this Super Bowl week, I'll be blogging about interesting American Studies moments, texts, and issues related to the history of sports in America. This is the fourth in the series.]
How three very different but equally talented American authors can reveal the stages of an American Studier's perspectives on sports, America, and life.
When I was a kid, my growing interest in the stories and dramas of sports, and especially baseball, found literary expression in the novels of Matt Christopher. Christopher's novels focus on very believable and universal conflicts as faced, and eventually overcome, by their youthful protagonists; as illustrated by my favorite baseball book of his, Catcher with a Glass Arm (1985), such conflicts include the psychological effects of being beaned and peer teasing over an athletic weakness. While there may have been occasional details that revealed the particular setting or time period of the books, I don't remember any, and my instinct is not: Christopher's explicit goal was to create books that spanned places and times, to which any reader could connect with equal interest and meaning.
As I started to develop into a teenage American Studier (kind of like a teenage werewolf, but more consistent and less scary), I started to want sports and baseball novels that engaged with those historical and social questions, that felt as if they were a part of our national narratives and stories. A book like Philip Roth's The Great American Novel (1973) was funny and over-the-top and compelling, but the baseball was a bit too metaphorical for it to qualify as a sports novel; Ring Lardner's You Know Me, Al (1916) was extremely realistic and biting but a bit too cynical for my young taste. For me, as apparently for many teenage American Studiers, the pinnacle of these contextualized, real world baseball novels were the works of John Tunis, and specifically his classic The Kid From Tomkinsville (1940). Tunis's novel exists in, and more exactly captures, its Depression-era America quite fully without losing a bit of its narrative excitement; indeed, by the end the Kid's baseball story and the story of a damaged but resilient America seem very much to have merged.
I haven't outgrown my love for Tunis—this post makes me want to reread Kid right now, actually—but I have to admit that I have in the years since discovered an author and novel that even more impressively exemplify what an American baseball story can be and do. David James Duncan's The Brothers K (1992) might seem to be about much more than baseball—it's a rewriting of The Brothers Karamazov that's also a multigenerational family saga of the 1950s and 60s, Vietnam, the counter-culture, religion, writing, Eastern spirituality, sibling rivalries and bonds, humor, love, and more—yet at the same time it's entirely about baseball, not as metaphor so much as metonym, as a representation of the worst and best of American dreams and identities and histories and possibilities. It might be both the great American novel (it's definitely one of the greatest under-read ones) and the greatest baseball novel, and for this American Studier that combination is most definitely, yes, a grand slam.
One more sports post this weekend,
Ben
PS. Any great baseball or sports books you'd highlight?
2/3 Memory Day nominee: A tie between Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to receive an MD, founder of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, and an author who translated her own pioneering and inspiring life into multiple volumes of advice and support for future female doctors; and Norman Rockwell, perhaps the most iconic American artist and one whose works could capture both our highest ideals and our most troubling realities.
How three very different but equally talented American authors can reveal the stages of an American Studier's perspectives on sports, America, and life.
When I was a kid, my growing interest in the stories and dramas of sports, and especially baseball, found literary expression in the novels of Matt Christopher. Christopher's novels focus on very believable and universal conflicts as faced, and eventually overcome, by their youthful protagonists; as illustrated by my favorite baseball book of his, Catcher with a Glass Arm (1985), such conflicts include the psychological effects of being beaned and peer teasing over an athletic weakness. While there may have been occasional details that revealed the particular setting or time period of the books, I don't remember any, and my instinct is not: Christopher's explicit goal was to create books that spanned places and times, to which any reader could connect with equal interest and meaning.
As I started to develop into a teenage American Studier (kind of like a teenage werewolf, but more consistent and less scary), I started to want sports and baseball novels that engaged with those historical and social questions, that felt as if they were a part of our national narratives and stories. A book like Philip Roth's The Great American Novel (1973) was funny and over-the-top and compelling, but the baseball was a bit too metaphorical for it to qualify as a sports novel; Ring Lardner's You Know Me, Al (1916) was extremely realistic and biting but a bit too cynical for my young taste. For me, as apparently for many teenage American Studiers, the pinnacle of these contextualized, real world baseball novels were the works of John Tunis, and specifically his classic The Kid From Tomkinsville (1940). Tunis's novel exists in, and more exactly captures, its Depression-era America quite fully without losing a bit of its narrative excitement; indeed, by the end the Kid's baseball story and the story of a damaged but resilient America seem very much to have merged.
I haven't outgrown my love for Tunis—this post makes me want to reread Kid right now, actually—but I have to admit that I have in the years since discovered an author and novel that even more impressively exemplify what an American baseball story can be and do. David James Duncan's The Brothers K (1992) might seem to be about much more than baseball—it's a rewriting of The Brothers Karamazov that's also a multigenerational family saga of the 1950s and 60s, Vietnam, the counter-culture, religion, writing, Eastern spirituality, sibling rivalries and bonds, humor, love, and more—yet at the same time it's entirely about baseball, not as metaphor so much as metonym, as a representation of the worst and best of American dreams and identities and histories and possibilities. It might be both the great American novel (it's definitely one of the greatest under-read ones) and the greatest baseball novel, and for this American Studier that combination is most definitely, yes, a grand slam.
One more sports post this weekend,
Ben
PS. Any great baseball or sports books you'd highlight?
2/3 Memory Day nominee: A tie between Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to receive an MD, founder of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, and an author who translated her own pioneering and inspiring life into multiple volumes of advice and support for future female doctors; and Norman Rockwell, perhaps the most iconic American artist and one whose works could capture both our highest ideals and our most troubling realities.
February 2, 2012
February 2, 2012: The Three Acts of John Rocker
[For this Super Bowl week, I'll be blogging about interesting American Studies moments, texts, and issues related to the history of sports in America. This is the third in the series.]
What the three distinct and even contradictory stages of John Rocker's public disintegration reveal about contemporary American sports and society.
As a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, I was, in the fall of 1999, a John Rocker fan as well—Rocker was the young relief pitcher with the near-100mph fastball who had blazed onto the scene during that season, helping the Braves reach the World Series in the process, and it was hard not to like the kid (despite, or perhaps even partly because of, his over-exuberant mound presence and antics). And then came the December Sports Illustrated profile piece, an article on Rocker's extreme personality and perspective that included some of the most bigoted and disgusting quotes (about New York City, about one of Rocker's own teammates, and more) I've seen outside of an anonymous internet comments thread. The article tore away any pretense that sports or America were free of old-school bigotry and hatred (such as that faced by Aaron during the home run chase) at the turn of the new millennium.
Rocker was suspended by the Braves for a good bit of the next (2000) season, but during that same period a second, very different and even contradictory set of stories and narratives about Rocker began to emerge.
Rocker went on to a brief and undistinguished career with the Braves and a couple subsequent teams, but the real third stage of his American sports narrative has only begun unfolding. With a book on his social and political views (seriously) in the works, Rocker has begun speaking out again, and in so doing has admitted not only to using steroids in the 1999 and 2000 seasons, but to Major League Baseball having tested him and known about (and thus covered up) his steroid use. The story indicates in part that Rocker has not learned from his prior experiences the value of holding back, although I suppose this honesty is at least as self-critical as it is generally belligerent (not expecting to say the same about the forthcoming book ,but I'll try to keep an open mind). But it also reminds baseball and sports fans that the true outrages of baseball at the turn of the 21st century were not the bigoted beliefs of individual athletes, but the widespread and dangerous deceptions in which even far more well-spoken and admirable players played an equal role.
One more sports post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
2/2 Memory Day nominee: Solomon Guggenheim, the son of Swiss immigrants and very successful businessman whose love for and relationships to the world of modern art led him both to contribute to the creation of some of the 20th century's most innovative museums and to start a hugely influential and ongoing foundation for art and education.
What the three distinct and even contradictory stages of John Rocker's public disintegration reveal about contemporary American sports and society.
As a lifelong Atlanta Braves fan, I was, in the fall of 1999, a John Rocker fan as well—Rocker was the young relief pitcher with the near-100mph fastball who had blazed onto the scene during that season, helping the Braves reach the World Series in the process, and it was hard not to like the kid (despite, or perhaps even partly because of, his over-exuberant mound presence and antics). And then came the December Sports Illustrated profile piece, an article on Rocker's extreme personality and perspective that included some of the most bigoted and disgusting quotes (about New York City, about one of Rocker's own teammates, and more) I've seen outside of an anonymous internet comments thread. The article tore away any pretense that sports or America were free of old-school bigotry and hatred (such as that faced by Aaron during the home run chase) at the turn of the new millennium.
Rocker was suspended by the Braves for a good bit of the next (2000) season, but during that same period a second, very different and even contradictory set of stories and narratives about Rocker began to emerge.
Rocker went on to a brief and undistinguished career with the Braves and a couple subsequent teams, but the real third stage of his American sports narrative has only begun unfolding. With a book on his social and political views (seriously) in the works, Rocker has begun speaking out again, and in so doing has admitted not only to using steroids in the 1999 and 2000 seasons, but to Major League Baseball having tested him and known about (and thus covered up) his steroid use. The story indicates in part that Rocker has not learned from his prior experiences the value of holding back, although I suppose this honesty is at least as self-critical as it is generally belligerent (not expecting to say the same about the forthcoming book ,but I'll try to keep an open mind). But it also reminds baseball and sports fans that the true outrages of baseball at the turn of the 21st century were not the bigoted beliefs of individual athletes, but the widespread and dangerous deceptions in which even far more well-spoken and admirable players played an equal role.
One more sports post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
2/2 Memory Day nominee: Solomon Guggenheim, the son of Swiss immigrants and very successful businessman whose love for and relationships to the world of modern art led him both to contribute to the creation of some of the 20th century's most innovative museums and to start a hugely influential and ongoing foundation for art and education.
February 1, 2012
February 1, 2012: Tebow and Abdul-Rauf
[For this Super Bowl week, I'll be blogging about interesting American Studies moments, texts, and issues related to the history of sports in America. This is the second in the series.]
How two of the more controversial recent American athletes can help us analyze fault lines of religion, patriotism, and communal identifications.
As I wrote in this post from last summer, one inspired by the success of the American women's soccer team at the World Cup, one of the most inspiring aspects of sports—it's ability to connect people across a community through their shared embrace of a team or athlete—is also a double-edged sword, helping to amplify "us vs. them" communal identifications that are as exclusionary as they are inclusive, as divisive as they are unifying. Perhaps exhibit A in the case for those downsides would be the hate mail and death threats that Hank Aaron received as he closed in on Babe Ruth's home run record, and thus the ways in which (presumably) white Americans identified with Ruth's race in direct opposition to Aaron's. Yet in their own ways the recent and ongoing responses to Tim Tebow's NFL successes and unique identity and perspective are even more illustrative of the complex communal identifications prompted by American sports.
Ever since his national championship and Heisman Trophy-winning days at the University of Florida, Tebow's fame has been due to a complex combination of athletic prowess and personal identity/perspective; similarly, his rapid return to prominence during this past NFL season (as evidenced by his ascension to the top of an ESPN poll focused on the most popular athletes) depended both on the late-game heroics through which his Denver Broncos continued to win and the religious celebrations with which he greeted those victories. Yet while it's impossible to quantify which of those aspects was more inspiring to each fan or even to communities as a whole, there's no question that Tebow's overtly and centrally Christian identity and perspective were at the heart of many Americans' identifications with him. It was to amplify and benefit from such connections, after all, that the Christian conservative organization Focus on the Family (with which Tebow has been connected for many years) aired a television ad in which kids recite the words of John 3:16, the scriptural verse that has frequently adorned Tebow's eye black.
While an American Studier might connect such identifications to a number of complex national histories and narratives, I think it's particularly interesting to do so by considering a very different case of a prominently religious athlete and the responses to him: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, the Denver Nuggets basketball player who famously refused to stand during performances of the national anthem. As Abdul-Rauf argued, his stance (for which he was suspended by the NBA) was due first and foremost to his Muslim faith and his perspective on how that faith forbids "nationalist worship"; but he also made an explicitly political secondary argument, one focused on the Iraq War and other American engagements with the Middle East and Muslim world. That explicitly political stand might seem to differentiate Abdul-Rauf from Tebow, and similarly one could argue that the much more consistently critical communal responses to Abdul-Rauf were due to that political perspective and the kinds of patriotic responses it prompted; but I would push back a bit on both of those claims: arguing first that the responses to Tebow's religious displays would be very different if he were producing a Muslim prayer mat and praying toward Mecca after each victory; and second that there is indeed a political component to the responses to Tebow, one connected to communal identifications of America as a "Christian nation."
Plenty more to analyze with these complex athletes and cases, of course—so what do you think? Next sports post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Again, I'd love to hear your takes and thoughts. How would you analyze these cases? Other divisive athletes you'd highlight?
2/1 Memory Day nominee: Langston Hughes, one of America's most talented poets and writers, and the only one equally adept writing about himself, entire communities, racial and historical issues, the more humorous and human side of relationships, music, and America's most defining ideas and identities (among other things).
How two of the more controversial recent American athletes can help us analyze fault lines of religion, patriotism, and communal identifications.
As I wrote in this post from last summer, one inspired by the success of the American women's soccer team at the World Cup, one of the most inspiring aspects of sports—it's ability to connect people across a community through their shared embrace of a team or athlete—is also a double-edged sword, helping to amplify "us vs. them" communal identifications that are as exclusionary as they are inclusive, as divisive as they are unifying. Perhaps exhibit A in the case for those downsides would be the hate mail and death threats that Hank Aaron received as he closed in on Babe Ruth's home run record, and thus the ways in which (presumably) white Americans identified with Ruth's race in direct opposition to Aaron's. Yet in their own ways the recent and ongoing responses to Tim Tebow's NFL successes and unique identity and perspective are even more illustrative of the complex communal identifications prompted by American sports.
Ever since his national championship and Heisman Trophy-winning days at the University of Florida, Tebow's fame has been due to a complex combination of athletic prowess and personal identity/perspective; similarly, his rapid return to prominence during this past NFL season (as evidenced by his ascension to the top of an ESPN poll focused on the most popular athletes) depended both on the late-game heroics through which his Denver Broncos continued to win and the religious celebrations with which he greeted those victories. Yet while it's impossible to quantify which of those aspects was more inspiring to each fan or even to communities as a whole, there's no question that Tebow's overtly and centrally Christian identity and perspective were at the heart of many Americans' identifications with him. It was to amplify and benefit from such connections, after all, that the Christian conservative organization Focus on the Family (with which Tebow has been connected for many years) aired a television ad in which kids recite the words of John 3:16, the scriptural verse that has frequently adorned Tebow's eye black.
While an American Studier might connect such identifications to a number of complex national histories and narratives, I think it's particularly interesting to do so by considering a very different case of a prominently religious athlete and the responses to him: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, the Denver Nuggets basketball player who famously refused to stand during performances of the national anthem. As Abdul-Rauf argued, his stance (for which he was suspended by the NBA) was due first and foremost to his Muslim faith and his perspective on how that faith forbids "nationalist worship"; but he also made an explicitly political secondary argument, one focused on the Iraq War and other American engagements with the Middle East and Muslim world. That explicitly political stand might seem to differentiate Abdul-Rauf from Tebow, and similarly one could argue that the much more consistently critical communal responses to Abdul-Rauf were due to that political perspective and the kinds of patriotic responses it prompted; but I would push back a bit on both of those claims: arguing first that the responses to Tebow's religious displays would be very different if he were producing a Muslim prayer mat and praying toward Mecca after each victory; and second that there is indeed a political component to the responses to Tebow, one connected to communal identifications of America as a "Christian nation."
Plenty more to analyze with these complex athletes and cases, of course—so what do you think? Next sports post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Again, I'd love to hear your takes and thoughts. How would you analyze these cases? Other divisive athletes you'd highlight?
2/1 Memory Day nominee: Langston Hughes, one of America's most talented poets and writers, and the only one equally adept writing about himself, entire communities, racial and historical issues, the more humorous and human side of relationships, music, and America's most defining ideas and identities (among other things).
January 31, 2012
January 31, 2012: January Recap
[The series on sports in American Studies will resume tomorrow; today, here's where this blog has gone in its first month at this new home!]
What's Next: On my plans for this blog and website in the year to come, and (some of) what you can do to contribute.
The Contested Election of 1876: How an American Studies approach can help us analyze our most contested presidential election.
Ron Paul and Race: An American Studies approach to one of this campaign's more controversial questions.
Gaga for American Studies: An American Studies analysis of Lady Gaga.
Mike Mulligan and His America: An American Studies analysis of a children's classic.
American Studiers Needed: Requesting your own American Studies ideas!
Honoring a Great American: A tribute to Gordon Hirabayashi.
Mentors: Leading off a series on American Studies exemplars with a post on my grad advisors.
Outside the Box: American Studies exemplars outside academia.
New England American Studiers: American Studies exemplars I've met through the New England ASA.
International American Studiers: American Studies exemplars around the world.
Transnational American Studiers: Exemplars of our 21st century, transnational American Studies.
The Year Ahead: Four American Studier stories to which I'm looking forward this year.
The Real King: MLK Day post on remembering the real Martin Luther King, Jr.
American Studies in the Literature Classroom: A week of teaching posts starts with my sense of what American Studies can bring to an advanced lit course.
American Studies in the Survey Classroom: What American Studies can bring to an American literature survey.
American Studies in the Senior Capstone Course: What American Studies can bring to an English Capstone.
American Studies in the Grad Lit Theory Course: What American Studies can bring to a lit theory class.
American Studies for Lifelong Learning: American Studies in my newest teaching effort, a course for adult learners.
Mexican American Studies: In support of the Tucson Mexican American Studies program and students.
Mexican American Literature: What Mexican American Studies contributes to contemporary American literature.
Mexican American Wars: What a more accurate understanding of the Mexican American War would mean for American history.
Mexican American Homelands: The complex history of Mexican American land and homes in the Southwest.
Mexican American Migrations: What those histories of war and homelands would mean for our understanding of migrations.
Communal Education: My communal education in Mexican and Latin American Studies, and how you can help it continue to develop!
The Two Naturals: The series on sports and American Studies starts with an analysis of the book and film versions of The Natural.
More tomorrow, as the sports series resumes,
Ben
PS. Anything you'd like to see in this space in February? Any ideas or perspectives of yours to add to the conversations?
1/31 Memory Day nominee: Jackie Robinson, one of the most socially significant American sports figures and a pretty talented baseball player to boot.
What's Next: On my plans for this blog and website in the year to come, and (some of) what you can do to contribute.
The Contested Election of 1876: How an American Studies approach can help us analyze our most contested presidential election.
Ron Paul and Race: An American Studies approach to one of this campaign's more controversial questions.
Gaga for American Studies: An American Studies analysis of Lady Gaga.
Mike Mulligan and His America: An American Studies analysis of a children's classic.
American Studiers Needed: Requesting your own American Studies ideas!
Honoring a Great American: A tribute to Gordon Hirabayashi.
Mentors: Leading off a series on American Studies exemplars with a post on my grad advisors.
Outside the Box: American Studies exemplars outside academia.
New England American Studiers: American Studies exemplars I've met through the New England ASA.
International American Studiers: American Studies exemplars around the world.
Transnational American Studiers: Exemplars of our 21st century, transnational American Studies.
The Year Ahead: Four American Studier stories to which I'm looking forward this year.
The Real King: MLK Day post on remembering the real Martin Luther King, Jr.
American Studies in the Literature Classroom: A week of teaching posts starts with my sense of what American Studies can bring to an advanced lit course.
American Studies in the Survey Classroom: What American Studies can bring to an American literature survey.
American Studies in the Senior Capstone Course: What American Studies can bring to an English Capstone.
American Studies in the Grad Lit Theory Course: What American Studies can bring to a lit theory class.
American Studies for Lifelong Learning: American Studies in my newest teaching effort, a course for adult learners.
Mexican American Studies: In support of the Tucson Mexican American Studies program and students.
Mexican American Literature: What Mexican American Studies contributes to contemporary American literature.
Mexican American Wars: What a more accurate understanding of the Mexican American War would mean for American history.
Mexican American Homelands: The complex history of Mexican American land and homes in the Southwest.
Mexican American Migrations: What those histories of war and homelands would mean for our understanding of migrations.
Communal Education: My communal education in Mexican and Latin American Studies, and how you can help it continue to develop!
The Two Naturals: The series on sports and American Studies starts with an analysis of the book and film versions of The Natural.
More tomorrow, as the sports series resumes,
Ben
PS. Anything you'd like to see in this space in February? Any ideas or perspectives of yours to add to the conversations?
1/31 Memory Day nominee: Jackie Robinson, one of the most socially significant American sports figures and a pretty talented baseball player to boot.
January 30, 2012
January 30, 2012: The Two Naturals
[For this Super Bowl week, I'll be blogging about interesting American Studies moments, texts, and issues related to the history of sports in America. This is the first in the series.]
What the two very different, even opposed, versions of an American classic can tell us about national histories, narratives, and perspectives on sports.
I'm sure every American Studier has his or her list of particularly egregious film adaptations of literary works—mine is definitely topped by 1995's so-bad-it's-hilarious version of The Scarlet Letter—but Barry Levinson's 1984 adaptation of Bernard Malamud's novel The Natural (1952) has to be strongly considered for a category all its own. Both the book and the movie are effective and compelling, full of extreme characters and over-the-top moments and shocking plot twists; and for about two-thirds of their respective lengths they're generally very similar. Yet their final thirds deviate so strikingly, especially in their tones—Malamud's book ends on a note of dark and cynical tragedy, Levinson's film with redemption and victory—that it's almost necessary to consider the film as an entirely different work from the novel. (I don't want to spoil either any further, so won't go into too much detail about the differences—but if you want to learn more the book's ending is described here, and the film's climax prominently includes this moment.)
The first thing an American Studier might do in analyzing those contrasting tones is to connect them to the two works' different historical moments: Malamud's novel was published at the height of McCarthyism, an era in which heroes were being destroyed (or, by testifying against their peers, destroying themselves) on a seemingly nightly basis, and the corruption and fall of his pure protagonist seems of a piece with that trend; while Levinson's film was released in the same year that Ronald Reagan won a landslide re-election with the feel-good campaign slogan of "It's Morning in America Again." Beyond those specific historical contexts, it would also be worth connecting the two works to two very distinct but equally defining American narratives: the novel closely aligns with the jeremiad, a narrative of historic greatness lost due to human sins and failings (just as the novel's Roy Hobbs loses his own "natural" greatness); while the film flirts with that narrative but ultimately embraces instead the Alger-like story of a self-made man whose perseverance and fundamental goodness bring him everything he has ever wanted.
Yet I would argue that the two Naturals can also reveal two complex and interconnected national perspectives on sports, two sets of images around which much of our 20th century sporting life has revolved. On the one hand, it seems that every generation of sports fans pines for a distant era when athletes were purer, nobler, played the game for its own sake, and so on; scandals from the Black Sox to the steroids revelations have consistently seemed to illustrate how far our athletes—and perhaps our nation—have fallen from those ideals. Yet on the other hand, and despite those scandals and persistent laments, we have continued to idolize our athletic stars, to find in them the kinds of heroic victories and identities that seem to exemplify our ideals. Moreover, the latter seems in many cases directly to follow the former in our narratives—a Babe Ruth rises to dispel the Black Sox aura, an Albert Pujols helps us recover from the steroids scandals—making the ending of the film Natural perhaps an inevitable American sequel to the novel's cynical (and equally American) conclusion.
More tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Any American Studies sports stories you'd like to see in this space?
1/30 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Thomas Rolfe, the son of Pocahontas and John Rolfe and so the first prominent mixed race American child (and one whose English and Virginian life is full of both the complexities and the promises of cross-cultural American identity); and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, without whose influence (whatever your political perspectives) 20th century American and world history would have been entirely different.
What the two very different, even opposed, versions of an American classic can tell us about national histories, narratives, and perspectives on sports.
I'm sure every American Studier has his or her list of particularly egregious film adaptations of literary works—mine is definitely topped by 1995's so-bad-it's-hilarious version of The Scarlet Letter—but Barry Levinson's 1984 adaptation of Bernard Malamud's novel The Natural (1952) has to be strongly considered for a category all its own. Both the book and the movie are effective and compelling, full of extreme characters and over-the-top moments and shocking plot twists; and for about two-thirds of their respective lengths they're generally very similar. Yet their final thirds deviate so strikingly, especially in their tones—Malamud's book ends on a note of dark and cynical tragedy, Levinson's film with redemption and victory—that it's almost necessary to consider the film as an entirely different work from the novel. (I don't want to spoil either any further, so won't go into too much detail about the differences—but if you want to learn more the book's ending is described here, and the film's climax prominently includes this moment.)
The first thing an American Studier might do in analyzing those contrasting tones is to connect them to the two works' different historical moments: Malamud's novel was published at the height of McCarthyism, an era in which heroes were being destroyed (or, by testifying against their peers, destroying themselves) on a seemingly nightly basis, and the corruption and fall of his pure protagonist seems of a piece with that trend; while Levinson's film was released in the same year that Ronald Reagan won a landslide re-election with the feel-good campaign slogan of "It's Morning in America Again." Beyond those specific historical contexts, it would also be worth connecting the two works to two very distinct but equally defining American narratives: the novel closely aligns with the jeremiad, a narrative of historic greatness lost due to human sins and failings (just as the novel's Roy Hobbs loses his own "natural" greatness); while the film flirts with that narrative but ultimately embraces instead the Alger-like story of a self-made man whose perseverance and fundamental goodness bring him everything he has ever wanted.
Yet I would argue that the two Naturals can also reveal two complex and interconnected national perspectives on sports, two sets of images around which much of our 20th century sporting life has revolved. On the one hand, it seems that every generation of sports fans pines for a distant era when athletes were purer, nobler, played the game for its own sake, and so on; scandals from the Black Sox to the steroids revelations have consistently seemed to illustrate how far our athletes—and perhaps our nation—have fallen from those ideals. Yet on the other hand, and despite those scandals and persistent laments, we have continued to idolize our athletic stars, to find in them the kinds of heroic victories and identities that seem to exemplify our ideals. Moreover, the latter seems in many cases directly to follow the former in our narratives—a Babe Ruth rises to dispel the Black Sox aura, an Albert Pujols helps us recover from the steroids scandals—making the ending of the film Natural perhaps an inevitable American sequel to the novel's cynical (and equally American) conclusion.
More tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Any American Studies sports stories you'd like to see in this space?
1/30 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Thomas Rolfe, the son of Pocahontas and John Rolfe and so the first prominent mixed race American child (and one whose English and Virginian life is full of both the complexities and the promises of cross-cultural American identity); and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, without whose influence (whatever your political perspectives) 20th century American and world history would have been entirely different.
January 28, 2012
January 28-29, 2012: Communal Education
My Mexican American Studies knowledge has come from, and will continue to depend on, lots and lots of American voices.
As I was completing this past week's series of blog posts on Mexican American Studies and the many ways it can contribute to our national narratives and identities, it struck me that it might have seemed as if I was trying to position myself as an expert in the field or on those questions. Obviously that's a potential (or even unavoidable) danger to public scholarly work in general, and neither do I want to go to the other extreme and pretend that I don't believe I have perspectives and narratives and ideas to contribute to our national conversations (why else would I be here?). But the truth, and one that it's just as important to highlight here, is both that I have learned almost all I know about the field from other impressive voices and scholars and that I very much hope to continue learning from lots more (including, quite possibly, you!).
It most definitely has taken a village to help me understand even some of the histories, voices, and stories that comprise Mexican American and Latin American Studies, and I can only highlight a few of the more influential villagers here. My undergraduate courses in Latin American literature (with the amazing Bruno Bosteels) and history (with the equally inspiring John Womack) were absolutely foundational, as were conversations with my roommate, Latin American historian in training, and Womack's thesis advisee, Chile Hidalgo. More recently, I've learned all that I know about contemporary Mexican and Latin American writers from my American Writers Museum colleagues, including Frances Aparicio and Reg Gibbons. And in the past few weeks, my new connections to and conversations on the #Latism Twitter network, as organized by Elianne Ramos, has exponentially expanded my connections to the many different sides of Latin American Studies and communities.
I can't imagine a worse quality for a public scholar or an American Studier to possess than a certainty that we know enough (or even close to enough) about our fields or topics, though, and I hope that I never come to feel that way. I can and hopefully will continue to learn about Mexican American and Latin American Studies from all of those aforementioned voices, from colleagues and students, and from connections I can't even imagine right now. But I can most definitely imagine you, blog readers, and so I will ask you explicitly to share your knowledge and perspectives, your ideas and voices, with me and with all of us in this space. Add a comment on this post, add a thread in the Forum, email me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) an analytical piece for that page under Resources, send me a Tweet (@AmericanStudier) with your ideas … just, por favor, contribute to my and our continuing communal education in whatever ways you can and want to!
More next week,
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
1/28 Memory Day nominee: José Martí, the Cuban American revolutionary, political and social activist and leader, journalist and translator and essayist and poet, and general transnational Renaissance American whose essay "Our America" makes a perfect case for precisely that transnational American Studies identity and community.
1/29 Memory Day nominee: Edward Abbey, the pioneering environmentalist, naturalist, and activist whose books Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang (among many others) join the works of Thoreau, John Muir, and Rachel Carson at the summit of American naturalist and activist writing.
As I was completing this past week's series of blog posts on Mexican American Studies and the many ways it can contribute to our national narratives and identities, it struck me that it might have seemed as if I was trying to position myself as an expert in the field or on those questions. Obviously that's a potential (or even unavoidable) danger to public scholarly work in general, and neither do I want to go to the other extreme and pretend that I don't believe I have perspectives and narratives and ideas to contribute to our national conversations (why else would I be here?). But the truth, and one that it's just as important to highlight here, is both that I have learned almost all I know about the field from other impressive voices and scholars and that I very much hope to continue learning from lots more (including, quite possibly, you!).
It most definitely has taken a village to help me understand even some of the histories, voices, and stories that comprise Mexican American and Latin American Studies, and I can only highlight a few of the more influential villagers here. My undergraduate courses in Latin American literature (with the amazing Bruno Bosteels) and history (with the equally inspiring John Womack) were absolutely foundational, as were conversations with my roommate, Latin American historian in training, and Womack's thesis advisee, Chile Hidalgo. More recently, I've learned all that I know about contemporary Mexican and Latin American writers from my American Writers Museum colleagues, including Frances Aparicio and Reg Gibbons. And in the past few weeks, my new connections to and conversations on the #Latism Twitter network, as organized by Elianne Ramos, has exponentially expanded my connections to the many different sides of Latin American Studies and communities.
I can't imagine a worse quality for a public scholar or an American Studier to possess than a certainty that we know enough (or even close to enough) about our fields or topics, though, and I hope that I never come to feel that way. I can and hopefully will continue to learn about Mexican American and Latin American Studies from all of those aforementioned voices, from colleagues and students, and from connections I can't even imagine right now. But I can most definitely imagine you, blog readers, and so I will ask you explicitly to share your knowledge and perspectives, your ideas and voices, with me and with all of us in this space. Add a comment on this post, add a thread in the Forum, email me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) an analytical piece for that page under Resources, send me a Tweet (@AmericanStudier) with your ideas … just, por favor, contribute to my and our continuing communal education in whatever ways you can and want to!
More next week,
Ben
PS. You know what to do!
1/28 Memory Day nominee: José Martí, the Cuban American revolutionary, political and social activist and leader, journalist and translator and essayist and poet, and general transnational Renaissance American whose essay "Our America" makes a perfect case for precisely that transnational American Studies identity and community.
1/29 Memory Day nominee: Edward Abbey, the pioneering environmentalist, naturalist, and activist whose books Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang (among many others) join the works of Thoreau, John Muir, and Rachel Carson at the summit of American naturalist and activist writing.
January 27, 2012
January 27, 2012: Mexican American Migrations
[This week, I'll be following up Monday's post on Arizona's assaults on the Tucson Mexican American Studies program and arguing for four crucial ways in which American identity and culture are interwoven with Mexican American Studies. This is the fourth and final entry in the series.]
An argument for two of the many ways in which our narratives of Mexican American migration to the United States should be made more complex and accurate.
Anti-immigrant activists, such as those who compose the core of the repulsive Minutemen operation, have long argued that Mexicans immigrating to the United States (and those who have already infiltrated our borders) are planning a "Reconquista," a reconquest of the Southwest that will take the region back for Mexico. If you've been reading this week's posts, you know how ludicrous the very nature of that idea is, for all sorts of reasons but perhaps especially because it is Mexican Americans whose homes and lives have been the subject of illegal and brutal conquests over the last century and a half; it is for that reason quite fitting that many of the most vociferous supporters of Arizona's racist laws are apparently themselves new arrivals to the state and region, replicating quite blatantly the invasive arrivals of prior Anglo settlers such as Burton's "squatter."
Even if we set aside these "Reconquista" fears as the xenophobic garbage they are, though, the fact remains that it's not quite sufficient to consider Mexican Americans coming into the United States as "immigrants." Certainly that's the overt category for each individual arrival, but the term also serves more generally to elide (or cement existing elisions of) the histories of Mexican American presences and homes about which I wrote yesterday. Fortunately here, as on so many aspects of American history, culture, literature, community, and identity, Gloria Anzaldúa has a better idea: in the opening and closing prose chapters of her Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), she describes both her journeys between Mexico and the United States and the parallel journeys of all Mexican American migrants as "el retorno," the return. This multi-faceted use of the phrase allows her to recognize that the movement is not simply in one direction, neither historically nor in the contemporary moment; and it likewise captures the multiple homes and homelands that define the Mexican American experience.
Perhaps the other most important correction I would make to our national narratives of Mexican American migration would be in the sense that such movement is a relatively recent phenomenon (or at least that it has exploded in recent years). No scholarly work better challenges that perspective, both in its date of first publication and (even more) in its impressively comprehensive historical sweep and coverage, than Carey McWilliams' groundbreaking book North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking Peoples of the United States (1949, although recent editions have updated its histories through the end of the 20th century). For an even more succinct historical lesson, every American Studier should read Congressman John Box's 1928 speech arguing for the inclusion of Mexican Americans among the groups restricted by the exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924, in order to "stop at the border the illiterate, unclean, peonized masses moving this way from Mexico" (which is among the least offensive phrases in Box's speech). Neither Mexican American migration nor xenophobic opposition to it is the slightest bit new or recent in our national history and identity.
The protests and responses in Tucson have continued all week, and my thoughts are with those students and all who support them; a petition to express that support is here. Mexican American Studies and American Studies are entirely and profoundly interconnected, and to reenact the historical attacks on Mexican Americans is to take precisely the wrong lesson from our shared history. More this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
1/27 Memory Day nominee: Samuel Gompers, the Anglo-Jewish immigrant and cigar maker who became one of the labor movement's earliest and most eloquent and committed leaders and advocates.
An argument for two of the many ways in which our narratives of Mexican American migration to the United States should be made more complex and accurate.
Anti-immigrant activists, such as those who compose the core of the repulsive Minutemen operation, have long argued that Mexicans immigrating to the United States (and those who have already infiltrated our borders) are planning a "Reconquista," a reconquest of the Southwest that will take the region back for Mexico. If you've been reading this week's posts, you know how ludicrous the very nature of that idea is, for all sorts of reasons but perhaps especially because it is Mexican Americans whose homes and lives have been the subject of illegal and brutal conquests over the last century and a half; it is for that reason quite fitting that many of the most vociferous supporters of Arizona's racist laws are apparently themselves new arrivals to the state and region, replicating quite blatantly the invasive arrivals of prior Anglo settlers such as Burton's "squatter."
Even if we set aside these "Reconquista" fears as the xenophobic garbage they are, though, the fact remains that it's not quite sufficient to consider Mexican Americans coming into the United States as "immigrants." Certainly that's the overt category for each individual arrival, but the term also serves more generally to elide (or cement existing elisions of) the histories of Mexican American presences and homes about which I wrote yesterday. Fortunately here, as on so many aspects of American history, culture, literature, community, and identity, Gloria Anzaldúa has a better idea: in the opening and closing prose chapters of her Borderlands/La Frontera (1987), she describes both her journeys between Mexico and the United States and the parallel journeys of all Mexican American migrants as "el retorno," the return. This multi-faceted use of the phrase allows her to recognize that the movement is not simply in one direction, neither historically nor in the contemporary moment; and it likewise captures the multiple homes and homelands that define the Mexican American experience.
Perhaps the other most important correction I would make to our national narratives of Mexican American migration would be in the sense that such movement is a relatively recent phenomenon (or at least that it has exploded in recent years). No scholarly work better challenges that perspective, both in its date of first publication and (even more) in its impressively comprehensive historical sweep and coverage, than Carey McWilliams' groundbreaking book North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking Peoples of the United States (1949, although recent editions have updated its histories through the end of the 20th century). For an even more succinct historical lesson, every American Studier should read Congressman John Box's 1928 speech arguing for the inclusion of Mexican Americans among the groups restricted by the exclusionary Immigration Act of 1924, in order to "stop at the border the illiterate, unclean, peonized masses moving this way from Mexico" (which is among the least offensive phrases in Box's speech). Neither Mexican American migration nor xenophobic opposition to it is the slightest bit new or recent in our national history and identity.
The protests and responses in Tucson have continued all week, and my thoughts are with those students and all who support them; a petition to express that support is here. Mexican American Studies and American Studies are entirely and profoundly interconnected, and to reenact the historical attacks on Mexican Americans is to take precisely the wrong lesson from our shared history. More this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
1/27 Memory Day nominee: Samuel Gompers, the Anglo-Jewish immigrant and cigar maker who became one of the labor movement's earliest and most eloquent and committed leaders and advocates.
January 26, 2012
January 26, 2012: Mexican American Homelands
[This week, I'll be following up Monday's post on Arizona's assaults on the Tucson Mexican American Studies program and arguing for four crucial ways in which American identity and culture are interwoven with Mexican American Studies. This is the third in the series.]
The treaty that ended the Mexican American War did far more than that—it also displaced, psychologically but also in many cases physically, an entire, foundational American community.
While there remain many significant gaps in our national narratives about and inclusions of Native Americans, I think we've gotten a lot better in the last few decades at recognizing a couple core realities of Native American experience: the history of unbalanced and broken treaties that defined the government's relationship with native tribes; and the removals from and losses of homelands and homes that said history produced. As I wrote in this post on the Trail of Tears, those narratives don't do anything like full justice to Native American histories, nor do they help us much to engage with contemporary native lives and perspectives; but they're definitely better than nothing. And when it comes to another community that saw their homes and homelands significantly altered by both federal action and encroaching Anglo settlers, Mexican Americans in the mid to late 19th century, "nothing" is about the extent of what our national narratives include.
As I wrote yesterday, the most significant and troubling aspect of our national misunderstandings of the Mexican American War isn't related to the war itself—it's about the longer histories and communities that we fail to recognize and incorporate into our narratives as a result. Without an awareness of the many, longstanding and deeply rooted Mexican American communities and identities in the Southwest and California, homes and homelands that went back in many cases to the first 16th and 17th century arrivals of Spanish explorers and settlers, it's certainly impossible to understand with any complexity the war itself, and specifically how much it pitted American communities against one another, at least as much as it represented two distinct nations in conflict. But without such awareness it's even more difficult to recognize how much the war's conclusion, and the terms and effects of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with which it closed, changed for those longstanding Mexican American communities and individuals.
Far from representing a negotiated peace settlement, the Treaty's terms were mostly dictated by the US representatives—who were occupying Mexico City at the time—and the imbalance is obvious: the treaty is more exactly a land transfer, one equal to the Louisiana Purchase in its immediate and sweeping addition of an enormous area (comprising more than 500,000 square miles) to the United States. When it came to the many communities of Mexican Americans present within that region, the Treaty was in its terms quite generous, granting citizenship to them and expressing support for their maintaining of their lands and homes. Yet precisely as was the case with the aforementioned treaties with native tribes, the Treaty was immediately and consistently broken: both by arriving Anglo settlers who treated Mexican American land as available for the taking; and by subsequent legal decisions and governmental policies, which tended to side with those Anglo settlers. Much of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's historical novel The Squatter and the Don (1885) focuses precisely on that history of broken promises and lost homelands; the book's second chapter, "The Don's View of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo," should be required reading for all Americans if we are to understand the perspectives and experiences of Mexican Americans over these dark decades of displacement.
The story doesn't end there, of course, and in tomorrow's post I'll try to bridge some of the gaps between those 19th century histories and our contemporary moment. More then,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
1/26 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Bessie Coleman, the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator's license and, to my mind, an even more inspiring and pioneering aviator and American than Amelia Earhart (which is no knock on Earhart); and Paul Newman, not for his iconic and impressively long and diverse career in film so much as for his incredibly successful and inspiring work as a philanthropist and activist. So Coleman-Newman Day it is!
The treaty that ended the Mexican American War did far more than that—it also displaced, psychologically but also in many cases physically, an entire, foundational American community.
While there remain many significant gaps in our national narratives about and inclusions of Native Americans, I think we've gotten a lot better in the last few decades at recognizing a couple core realities of Native American experience: the history of unbalanced and broken treaties that defined the government's relationship with native tribes; and the removals from and losses of homelands and homes that said history produced. As I wrote in this post on the Trail of Tears, those narratives don't do anything like full justice to Native American histories, nor do they help us much to engage with contemporary native lives and perspectives; but they're definitely better than nothing. And when it comes to another community that saw their homes and homelands significantly altered by both federal action and encroaching Anglo settlers, Mexican Americans in the mid to late 19th century, "nothing" is about the extent of what our national narratives include.
As I wrote yesterday, the most significant and troubling aspect of our national misunderstandings of the Mexican American War isn't related to the war itself—it's about the longer histories and communities that we fail to recognize and incorporate into our narratives as a result. Without an awareness of the many, longstanding and deeply rooted Mexican American communities and identities in the Southwest and California, homes and homelands that went back in many cases to the first 16th and 17th century arrivals of Spanish explorers and settlers, it's certainly impossible to understand with any complexity the war itself, and specifically how much it pitted American communities against one another, at least as much as it represented two distinct nations in conflict. But without such awareness it's even more difficult to recognize how much the war's conclusion, and the terms and effects of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with which it closed, changed for those longstanding Mexican American communities and individuals.
Far from representing a negotiated peace settlement, the Treaty's terms were mostly dictated by the US representatives—who were occupying Mexico City at the time—and the imbalance is obvious: the treaty is more exactly a land transfer, one equal to the Louisiana Purchase in its immediate and sweeping addition of an enormous area (comprising more than 500,000 square miles) to the United States. When it came to the many communities of Mexican Americans present within that region, the Treaty was in its terms quite generous, granting citizenship to them and expressing support for their maintaining of their lands and homes. Yet precisely as was the case with the aforementioned treaties with native tribes, the Treaty was immediately and consistently broken: both by arriving Anglo settlers who treated Mexican American land as available for the taking; and by subsequent legal decisions and governmental policies, which tended to side with those Anglo settlers. Much of María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's historical novel The Squatter and the Don (1885) focuses precisely on that history of broken promises and lost homelands; the book's second chapter, "The Don's View of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo," should be required reading for all Americans if we are to understand the perspectives and experiences of Mexican Americans over these dark decades of displacement.
The story doesn't end there, of course, and in tomorrow's post I'll try to bridge some of the gaps between those 19th century histories and our contemporary moment. More then,
Ben
PS. What do you think?
1/26 Memory Day nominees: A tie between Bessie Coleman, the first black woman in the world to earn an aviator's license and, to my mind, an even more inspiring and pioneering aviator and American than Amelia Earhart (which is no knock on Earhart); and Paul Newman, not for his iconic and impressively long and diverse career in film so much as for his incredibly successful and inspiring work as a philanthropist and activist. So Coleman-Newman Day it is!
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