The Dark Side of American History - Essay Example

PBS Untold Stories Project February 13, Yosemite Buffalo Soldiers: The Dark Side of American History African American tourists compose less than one percent of the total visitors of Yosemite National Park. Shelton Johnson has a mission of encouraging more African Americans in visiting national parks. As a Yosemite park ranger, he wants every tourist to also remember the Buffalo soldiers who served at Yosemite. With a low visitation rate from African Americans, several ideas can help stimulate them to visit national parks. National parks would be more appealing to African Americans if these parks are connected to their identities through finding and emphasizing the historical presence of blacks and offering academic and economic incentives and opportunities. National parks would be more attractive to African Americans as a tourist destination, if park rangers would do what Shelton Johnson did, to connect the park to African American history and identity in an engaging and personalized way. Rangers can act as Buffalo soldiers, if they are black, or create a historical fictional character of a Buffalo soldier based on a real one. Shelton is right that African Americans would relate more to Yosemite, if they can feel a strong racial connection. This racial connection triggers emotions and memories that can help blacks realize that their history is worth experiencing through visiting national parks. Apart from fictionalizing history in creative ways, national parks can stimulate more African American interest through providing academic and economic incentives and opportunities. National parks can be made more attractive to African Americans, if the trip is connected to their class curriculum, such as history and environment, and if they can get class credits for writing, drawing, or doing anything that provides their reflection or reaction to their national park experience. Having tangible rewards is important in engaging kids. Moreover, for inner-city African Americans, they can be encouraged to visit national parks if they can do so for free and if employment opportunities are offered to those who are interested in working there someday. Economic benefits are powerful motivators, and while they are in Yosemite, further creative educational programs can instill an internal source of commitment too. African Americans are not always aware of their history in national parks. An educated black like Johnson himself did not know about it too. Mainstream history books do not talk about the histories of all races. National parks can be a wonderful experiential educational opportunity to correct the gaps of mainstream education. They are doors to African American history, which lead to the steps of a history-conscious African American identity. Mount Rushmore: Telling Native American’s Stories Gerard Baker is the first American Indian to be Superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. His tribe knew the value of leadership in national parks to correcting misinformation or absence of information about Native American history in mainstream public American history. Some people do not think that the past is relevant, or the past is useful for modern pluralistic democratic societies. Baker is right that, though national parks are recreational and relaxation spaces, they must also be spaces for democratic expressions of histories. Native American history should be interpreted in national parks through having Native Americans tell their side of the story and allowing them to express and use local language, material symbols, stories, dances, art, and rituals of their culture. Native American history should be interpreted in our national parks from the perspectives of Native Americans themselves, wherein they can tell their side of history. Some people might not be interested, but to those who are, to those who want to learn what America was before, they deserve to know who Native Americans are and what their connections to our national parks and national identity is. These tourists, local or foreign, deserve to know that the Black Hills are sacred to Native Americans and that it has been a place of violent armed struggle. Tourists should be exposed to the various interpretations of American history and leave it up to them to determine who, what, and how much to believe in because, just telling them one side of history that might be entirely biased for whoever told it, is an unfair experience of national parks. Furthermore, tourists should be exposed to Native American language, material symbols, stories, dances, art, and rituals of their culture as part of learning Native American history. The hoop dances and other interactive ways that enable tourists to, not only hear about or see Native American culture, are important experiential ways of learning history. By history, it must encompass the whole history of America, including those whom it treats as invisible or unimportant. Manzanar, Never Again Manzanar is like Mount Rushmore and Yosemite- it has a dark, largely publicly unexplored, unexamined side. Manzanar is a site of oppression and racism, and a site for democracy that must be preserved in modern times. In order to prevent the atrocities present in all these national historic sites, Americans should know about them and to be prepared of preventing racism from developing again in society, while also urging their government to balance their civil liberties and the need for national security. American should balance civil liberties and the need for national security by observing the Constitution despite the hardest times. The prioritization of national security has often breached the civil liberties of the innocent, although it has the noble goal of also protecting the innocent. Nevertheless, the government can increase national security measures by arresting and interning/detaining only those who it thinks are most likely to endanger public welfare through providing evidence and acquiring a court order. This period is relevant to our world today because after 9/11, Middle Eastern individuals or even those who looked like Middle Eastern faced discrimination problems. The existence of racism in its various forms and degrees is a shameful reminder that democracy does not exist in a world where people are not free to become who they are, including their racial and ethnic dimensions of their identity. Manzanar shows that if people forget their past, they are bound to repeat it because they are not learning from it. When a country creates a national site to honor a difficult period in the past, it reflects that America is willing to face the horrors of its past as part of its identity, not just the triumphs and non-violent aspects of it. The American national identity is not free from inhumane historical chapters, and people deserve to know about these horrific chapters so that they will appreciate the democracy they have and be conscious of ensuring that Manzanar stays in the past. When tourists visit Manzanar, they should have the story as it is- an appalling chapter of American history. To make the experience balanced, both sides of the story must be presented, and the rangers should let the people decide what to believe in. Also, tourists should learn that Manzanar existed so that it would never happen again. Manzanar is similar to every other site of racial oppression; it something Americans must know for them to forge a more democratic, diverse society. Read More