American History: From Whose Perspective?
Studying American history is not easy for college students; it poses a number of curious challenges and problems. I would categorize these into four main areas:
- Euro-centered history: “Euro” is an abbreviation for European. In this view, America was settled and developed largely by people from Europe: England, Scotland, and Ireland; Germany and France; the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland); the Scandinavian countries (Norway and Sweden); and so forth. There is a particularly strong cultural connection to England which many of the early colonists called “the mother country”.
In a sense, those colonists were, or became, European-Americans. After independence, they then became Americans. Thus, in taking the long view, Europe is seen as the continent where this Age of Discovery and Exploration began; where feudalism and monarchy developed; where nation-states appeared; where cultural periods like the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment occurred; and where the most amazing social transformation of all, the Industrial Revolution, began.
In short, this phrase refers to a European-based approach to events, called Euro-centered history, and normally includes America. This viewpoint has been the hallmark of education for a very long time in our schools: people from Europe make history, create civilizations, conquer other parts of the world, and bring religious and moral values to backward peoples.
These people are sometimes described as “heathens” or “savages”. Generally, the European conquerors are impatient and acquire little knowledge or respect for the cultures and accomplishments of the people they are conquering.
While based on historical fact—the Industrial Revolution did begin in England around 1800—such supremacist thinking also gave rise to chauvinistic and condescending attitudes and racist stereotypes. Especially where outright physical conquest was involved, European conquest involved a tremendous amount of falsehoods and racism to make their own savagery palatable to themselves and to the people back home.
In our own hemisphere, the European viewpoint included arrogant racial superiority toward Native Americans, Black people, and the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca societies: great civilizations of Central and South America before they fell to the soldiers and diseases arriving from Europe.
- A class-based approach that favors the most powerful groups in America in terms of wealth and political power. Wealthy persons are higher up on “the food chain” or social pyramid than ordinary people: the more important you are the more amount of space you get in textbooks. Presidents, military generals, and wealthy financiers get a disproportionate amount of attention. Textbooks focus on persons of wealth, political power, and high social status. It’s a warped view of a nation but a common one.
- Lack of relevance: endless accumulation of facts, dates, names, and statistics—knowledge for its own sake—without making such knowledge relevant to students. While it is indeed necessary for students to have a factual foundation for the study of American history, all too often teachers and authors get stuck in the past with little or no explanation of history’s relevance for the present. This situation is not necessarily unique to a class on American history but we still need to ask: what is the purpose, the relevance of such historical study? Why study history at all?
- Social contradictions not addressed: democratic principles inspired the new American nation but many of these ideals stood in stark contrast to social reality. Example: “freedom” and “slavery”. Our belief in freedom stands next to the reality of slavery. Which represents the true America?
PART 2
For Hispanic students in particular, the study of American history can leave them confused and less than fully engaged, leaving aside the Spanish/English language issue for the moment. In addition to the first four points, they may not find their culture or history well-represented at all. When do they come into the picture? Are they Americans or foreigners? Are they full Americans or just the hyphenated type?
Typically, not much attention is paid to Hispanics (or Latinos) until the 19th century when Texas seeks to break away from Mexico in the 1830’s, followed by the Mexican-American War a decade later. In terms of our own state’s history and that of the nation as a whole, the year 1850 suddenly looms large: the year California becomes a state.
By that time, the new American nation has been in existence about 75 years (since 1776), longer still if we count the colonial period, which stretches back to 1607 or 170 years. California’s entry into the Union is a cause for celebration for the country as a whole—but from Texas to California, the Spanish-speaking population is being forced to adjust rapidly to the changes brought about by the War with Mexico, including citizenship: do they wish to remain Mexican or to become an American citizen?
The West and Southwest appear to be “late additions” to the American nation which really began in 1607 with the founding of Jamestown, Virginia and on July 4, 1776 with the signing of The Declaration of Independence. For those people descended from immigrants from Europe or themselves born and raised in the East, Midwest, or South, this is when and where the “real America” was born. It is where England’s legal doctrines, culture, and the English language itself took deep root.
Some two and a half-centuries later–around 1850–the westward-moving American people had little inclination or skill in dealing intelligently with the established Spanish-speaking populations of Texas, California, and the Southwest.
When the War with Mexico ended and California had been secured, the two cultures then entered an uneasy co-existence: Spanish-speaking Hispanics lived alongside English-speaking Anglos. To make matters worse, the Gold Rush of 1848-1849 triggered a mad rush among tens of thousands of people to get to California’s goldfields as quickly as possible.
In a blind dash of fury they needed to be the first to try and strike it rich: part of the dynamic demographic movement that sped up the American political and cultural take-over of California. The slow peaceful pace of change–as two cultures interacted and adjusted to each other–began to disappear. Without the frenzy of the Gold Rush, who can say?
Today’s schoolchildren learn of the chain of missions that was established and that California was once part of Mexico and before that part of the Spanish Empire. And yet this approach merely scratches the surface of the Hispanic presence and heritage in California and the U.S.
It’s better than nothing but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. In terms of role models, of heroes and heroines, few Hispanic men and women are named other than an occasional explorer and Church figure, such as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo or Father Serra.
When the books do include Spanish surnames, one might be Joaquin Murietta, generally described with the word “bandit” (or bandito) or similar terms: synonyms are robber, thief, and criminal. What a curious way to introduce California schoolchildren to the cultural contributions of Hispanic-Americans!
This is not a new pattern nor unique to the Hispanic experience. From the colonial period onward, Native Americans were described by such terms as heathens or half-naked savages along with other rude and vulgar terms.
Black people, of course, have faced a vicious onslaught of racism like no other group, with even their basic humanity denied them and all semblance of rights trampled into the dust.
Women, too, were kept in a subordinate position vis-à-vis men, lacking many of the basic legal rights taken for granted today.
The list of immigrant groups can be extended, of course, including even sub-groups of whites—such as the Jews, Irish, Catholics—who faced a great deal of prejudice and discrimination.
In general, when discussing the oppressed, we normally are discussing “colored minorities”. When we talk of black people and black history, we are talking of the group that received the worst treatment of all—even though much of that experience occurred with other minority groups as well. However, no other group was enslaved in the same way or faced such brutality as Black people endured over such an extended period of time.
PART 3
Thus, a traditional approach to American history which is full of praise for the nation’s founders, for its democratic ideas and institutions, might leave children of minority groups with more questions than answers. There is indeed a proper historical context in which America can be proud of its struggle against English monarchy and the development of a more democratic form of government with elected leaders and individual liberties written into the new Constitution.
This was a major achievement in the history of mankind and nothing said here is meant to belittle or minimize the great strides forward that were taken at that time on behalf of freedom and the inherent human rights of all people. The American Revolution was truly an amazing accomplishment!
That said, however, it still remains incumbent upon us all to ask more challenging questions: If this is such a great country, why do students know people within their own cultural group with stories of prejudice, mistreatment, and discrimination?
How does it feel to be told George Washington is the best of all American heroes, the ideal role model, and skip lightly over the fact that he also happened to be a slave-owner?
The emphasis on philosophical precepts focuses on ideas that have a beautiful ring to them, certainly, but teachers and writers sometimes forget to compare such lofty language with an honest assessment of day-to-day social reality. When reading a traditional textbook, most students will dutifully conclude:
- “we are the good guys”;
- America was a noble experiment “meant to happen”;
- divine providence was on the side of Washington and his army;
- it was not greed but “manifest destiny” that proclaimed that the whole continent should belong to the Anglo-Saxon race and not France, Spain, Holland, Russia, or Mexico, all of whom once owned or controlled significant pieces of the American continent.
Perhaps the term “manifest destiny” is not exactly the same as “God’s will” but it is so close that at times the distinction shrinks to practically nothing. There is truly a national arrogance that often comes with power and wealth, and this, too, is part of our nation’s story.
Are we America, the champion of liberty and democracy . . . or are we America, the land of slavery of Black people and of genocide against our Native Americans?
Will the real America please stand up?
