he said, "are you an American citizen?" i said, "yes sir, so far..."

[papertigers]

my U.S. history class has already pissed me off; our first (optional/informal) assignment was a brief essay on our personal family history. the questions we were supposed to answer include: What are your family origins (We are all descendents of immigrants, one way or another)? Where did your parents and grandparents come from? How did they get to

Comments

[gerimaple]

yeah, that is pretty pathetic :( *HUGS*

[melebeth]

For that matter, I was close to both of my parents, but neither of them are history nuts and I don't know any of the above either. Stupid prof. You should talk to him.

[dcseain]

I actually can answer all those questions, though in more detail for my mom's side, in part because they're much more recent imigrants.

I always hated in school the 'go home and talk to your grandparents' assignments. My grandparents all live in Cleveland, and back then, we couldn't afford to call them. This was true of much of my class. So we all went to the O'Donnell's house, and spoke with my friend's parents, who are our grandparent's age, due to my friends (twins) being an unplanned accident during marriage two.

In summary, i agree with you. On the other hand, an awful lot of especially white people never give no thought whatsoever to such unless they get an assignment like this.

[auryn29a]

Wow. Eurocentric much?

Yeah, I have almost no contact with my father's family. I know my grandfather was born in Barbados. That's about it. And I really don't talk much to anyone in my family. I know my father fought in 'Nam, 'cause he came back twisted. Or maybe he always was. I think he co-wrote a book about it. Not that I'd know, really.

[papertigers]

i didn't say the questions were Eurocentric; if your reading of them brought that word to mind, that's evidence enough that they are. btw, being Eurocentric doesn't mean being 100% exclusive to non-Europeans, or 100% inclusive to persons of European origin. there are plenty of minorities who could answer them and more than a few White people who couldn't, but the fact remains the questions show a decided bias/assumption of Whiteness.

as a first generation American, three of the last four questions aren't applicable to you at all; other recent immigrants couldn't answer them either. Native Americans and Blacks are also almost entirely excluded, as neither group "immigrated" to the U.S. and most of the events of American history (certainly the ones covered by this class, since it only goes to 1865) were either irrelevant or profoundly negative for them.

[papertigers]

Also I could answer all of the questions.

so could I, but answering "no" or "I don't know" doesn't create discussion of or relevance to early U.S. history. the introductory reading for this assignment, written by the professor, specifically excludes both Blacks and Native Americans from the population of immigrants. so do most U.S. history textbooks and the U.S. Department of State's Outline of American History, the primary text for this class. yet, his wording for this assignment states "We are all descendents of immigrants, one way or another." and then asks, "How did [your ancestors] get to this country?" how is it not obvious he's not expecting either Blacks or Native Americans to be among the respondents?