June 2011 Recap

June 1 and June 24: Let Me Be Clear: [Later renamed] No, Your (and My) Ancestors Were Not Legal Immigrants: My most overt and blunt thoughts yet on what our national narratives about immigration history get entirely and crucially wrong.June 2: On Speaking Out: On whether and how Southerners opposed lynching and Muslim Americans (and international Muslims) have opposed Islamic terrorism.June 3: Born to Be Misunderstood?: An interesting article on "Born in the U.S.A." and Vietnam gets me thinking once more about the question of audience readings and mis-readings.June 4-5: Common Knowledge: Paul Revere, Sarah Palin, Wikipedia, and the question of communal memory and history.June 7: Public Art: Diego Rivera, Scott Walker, and the roles and meanings of public art.June 8: Summer in the Cities: A very hot summer day gets me thinking about four AmericanStudies connections to the season.June 9: Irony Can Be Pretty Ironic, Sometimes: David Barton and the question of who, exactly, the "revisionist historians" really are, and where they are.June 10: True Confessions: Sarah Plath, Mark Doty, and the power of great confessional poetry.June 11 [Guest post 5]: Rob Vellela's Post: The Americanliteraryblog's host writes about his goals for his own brand of public literary scholarship and performance.June 12: I Really Want to Know!: A disappointing public scholarly moment leads me to ask some questions about what this blog has been and can be—questions on which I'd still love to hear your thoughts!June 13: Ebony and Ivory: Clarence Clemons' illness leads me to remember and celebrate five inspiring interracial American friendships.June 14 [Tribute post]: Collegiality: A tribute to the many amazing communities of colleagues with whom I've been fortunate to work.June 15: For Which It Stands: Flag Day special, a repeat of my late November post on the complex histories behind the Pledge of Allegiance.June 16: No, Love is Not All You Need: The Shirley Sherrod saga leads me to some thoughts on why the Civil Rights movement depended on a lot more than the peaceful and generous attitudes our dominant narratives often associate with it.June 17: On the Other Hand: Following up and balancing the prior day's post with a link to an amazing story about what love can do and mean.June 18: Guest Post in Reverse: A link to my guest post (on Sarah Piatt's marriage and poetry) on Rob Vellela's americanliteraryblog.June 19: Your Dad Did: A Father's Day special, on five American stories that highlight sons learning complex and important truths about their fathers, their own identities, and the past.June 20: Big Goodbye: My heartfelt tribute to Clarence Clemons.June 21: We Need Them: The contemporary and historical needs for a "them" to balance an imagined American "us."June 22: Judge Not?: Our competing and often contradictory narratives of the Supreme Court, and how the current Court relates to them.June 23: An Inspiring Redefiner: Jose Antonio Vargas, the prominent journalist and self-identified illegal immigrant working to redefine our national images of illegal immigration and American identity.June 24: No, Your (and My) Ancestors Were Not Legal Immigrants: A repost of the June 1 post (linked up above), following up the Vargas post with my own bluntest thoughts on immigration history.June 25-26 [Tribute post]: Just a Few More Things: The death of Peter Falk leads me to consider some of the best and most ideally American qualities of his most famous character, Lieutenant Columbo.June 27: The Mysteries of Memory: Jonathan Lethem, Tim O'Brien, and the intertwined natures of memory and mystery.June 28 [Tribute post]: Only Connect!: A tribute to my Mom, Ilene Railton, and the amazing connections she makes every day to some of our most desperate and important fellow Americans.June 29: Fits the Profile: The Amadou Diallo case, racial profiling, and American history, community, and identity.June 30 [Dream-Guest Post]: Bruce on Clarence: Bruce's hilarious, moving, and unsurprisingly perfect eulogy for the Big Man.