Thought of the Day: California's Ahistorical Nature

[katster]

A hat tip to Hugo Schwyzer. If you grew up in California, you'll understand this poem. If you're not, let me just say that California has a tendency to be somewhat ahistorical, and leave it at that.

(If you're curious, I once did an essay attempting to explain why history, which touches on some of the same subjects, but it's not very good. I plan to revise it soon.)

The Politics of Memory
Kevin Heard

I was born in a state
where everything had to be named twice
to survive:
where Hangtown became Placerville,
where La Brea couldn’t hold its bones
in Spanish, but had to be redundant
and bi-lingual ---
The La Brea Tar Pits,
redundant, like the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
in name only;

a state so arid in parts
that what has been forgotten
is blown to dust
in the wind across the alkali flats;
a state where you change the name
and all is forgiven:
where Gospel Swamp
loses both its muck and its religion
to emerge the model suburb

Fountain Valley forgives the swamp,
but what of Manzanar?
In a state where everything
has to be named twice
or be forgotten,
who will remember Manzanar
(a place in exile
from the maps)? The detention camp is closed,
but I was born in this state
and, for now, I know the name.

Comments

[bassbone.livejournal.com]

*blink*
You're quoting my history professor's blog. Weird.

[pussreboots.livejournal.com]

Yup that's California.

[the-paulr.livejournal.com]

I went to high school with a guy whose parents had been "relocated" to Manzanar.

And people think it couldn't happen here - but it did.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

One of my history teachers was born at Tule Lake, she revealed to me when I told her my mom had grown up in Alturas. She doesn't tell students, usually, as when she has before, they've accused her of non-neutrality when she covers the forties.

I find myself craving some sort of history or "ethnic identity," as many Americans who are complete mutts call themselves Irish or German or Greek or whatever on the basis of one grandparent, or even great-great grandparent.

My family history, as far as it's been traced (extensively, on one side) is either English or Scottish, almost nothing else, and mostly English. And I'm a fifth generation Californian. Why do I grasp at those? Why do I envy people whose families now live within 500 miles of where their ancestors 1000 years ago lived, whose folk songs are more than 150 years old, who seem to share a common culture? Even Newfoundland (a province of immigrants, indeed, mostly 100-300 years ago) draws me in part because it has an identifiable culture.

[robotmadder.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the poem. And I've visited Manzanar!