Commemoration or Commiseration: How to Represent America Before it was America
Holly Kilgore
HIS 5067
Commemoration of Commiseration: Representing America Before America
Lisa Blee’s, Monumental Mobility:
The Memory Work of Massasoit studies the question of history versus memory regarding
the earliest foundations of what would become the United States. Blee creates a
compelling narrative, featuring voices from Wampanoag Nation, descendants
of the Indigenous peoples that encountered the Pilgrims in Plymouth. The narrative
follows a linear line of ‘storytelling’, while creating factual links with
cities and states outside of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and the broad New England
landscape.
Blee’s work is groundbreaking and
sets the stage for an up-to-date review of the impact of these statues and
historic homes, these visual models of remembrance and commemoration. One point
that came to mind while reading: for Indigenous docents at the Plimoth Plantation,
who daily had to relive the trauma through reenactment, a process “…which
demands a great deal of patience and emotional labor (pg. 232), what impact
would this have on younger generations in the Wampanoag Nation? Blee
noted that even before Europeans arrived the act of remembrance was vital to
the Indigenous groups in the area, and we see that today with this new
discussion of commemoration of the past and commiseration of an ideal past, remembrance
is vital still. This memory, these stories are passed to future generations,
even outside of New England, but what role do the young/younger generations of
the Wampanoag play in ensuring that the history is told and told respectfully?
What influence does modern media have in shaping this new generation alongside
physical sites and boundaries?
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