Curriculum Vitae of Miguel B. Llora,and various other topics

7th Joint Graduate Liberal Studies Conference - The Globalized Citizen
October 1–3, 2004

Globalization and Destabilization in a Confluence of Master Narratives:
Post War Memories of the United States, Japan, and the Philippines
and
the Bataan Death March

Conference Power Point Presentation


	Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States by Laura Elizabeth Hein and Mark Selden: In Censoring History: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany, and the United States Laura Hein and Mark Selden provide a critical investigation of how Japan, Germany, and even the United States recognize, think about, and then articulate their role during times of war. Hein and Seldon place their work within a larger viewpoint and try to concentrate on two main issues: [1] the connection between citizens and the state, and [2] a nation's actions in wartime and its implications vis-à-vis other countries. Censoring History is "really" about what has been left out of the public space in the development or reification a national narrative. The focal point of Censoring History is the many manifestations of such censorship and how it seeps into particular national spaces of memory. Vis-à-vis the Japanese, Germany has made tremendous strides in terms of how it deals with its past. Reading Hein and Seldon one gets the impression that on a "self-reflexivity" scale of 1 to 10 Germany is perhaps an 8 while the Japanese gaze thorough a less critical lens situating themselves in about a 5 position and the United States perhaps at and about the 3 positions. Different angles of war and internal conflict not only create problems within a nation-state, but also increasingly affect the state of affairs between them. Germany not only looks at issues such as textbooks but they also perceive themselves as part of a developing European Community, as per Hein and Seldon a key distinction from how Japan deals with is history, hence its "place" in the region. Compared with Japan, German textbooks contain large segments analyzing controversial issues and creatively augment those entries with projects and field trips. Perhaps unfairly judged and there is movement in this area but vis-à-vis their Japanese counterparts, German textbooks have more of a propensity to motivate students to investigate and explore historical and juxtapose those sites and sounds against present-day similarities and contrasts. Not only that, a student is made to poke and prod and reflect on people's prejudices and such. Kathleen Woods Masalski, an American high school teacher, communicates exchanges between American and Japanese teachers. In a lot of ways, most master narratives can be pegged to a sense of nationalism. Nationalist master narratives are created to make people feel good about being part of that national community. However, historians introduce self-criticism by problematizing histories makes history 'messy' (258). Masalski writes in Teaching Democracy, Teaching War: American and Japanese Educators Teach the Pacific War (258): "National narrative, master narrative, textbook narrative, counternarrative, multiple narratives - the language, though not the ideas behind it, was new to me and to most if not all the high school and college teachers in the audience when our keynote speaker at a National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute in 1994 challenged us to "problematize the national, the master, the textbook narrative ... to make history messy!"" (258). Masalski further writes: "The speaker was Jonathan Lipman (a historian at Mount Holyoke College), one of many scholars in the Five College area in western Massachusetts who has collaborated with social studies teachers throughout New England (and across the country) to bring serious historical thought and controversy into precollege classrooms" (258). Not known to many in the United Stated but to a few interested scholars and teacher is the epic struggle of Ienaga Saburo. In Censoring History such notables as Nozaki Yoshiko and Inokuchio Hiromitsu offer a more sympathetic description of the decade-long effort by historian and educator Ienaga Saburo who challenged the state authority in censoring and sanitizing textbook content in Japan. Understandably in problematizing the hegemony we can expose the limitations contained within the narratives, much to the chagrin of most comfortable unreflective folk. At this point I wish to bring in Edward Linenthal who penned Anatomy of a Controversy in History Wars: The Enola Gay and other Battles for the American Past - who also focuses on issues of pedagogy - when he quotes Michael Kammen, president of the Organization of American Historians and a member of the Smithsonian Council during the Enola Gay controversy, "Historians become controversial when they do not perpetuate myth, when they do not transmit the received and conventional wisdom, when they challenge the comforting presence of a stabilized past. Members of a society, and its politicians in particular, prefer that historians be quietly irenic rather than polemical, conservators rather than innovators" (Linenthal 60). Such is the struggle of Ienaga Saburo. For those interested in pedagogy, Gregory Wegner's article on the Buchenwald Concentration Camp in educating youth is very informative. Turning to a topic of a very different sort, Hein and Seldon present the argument that unlike the two "defeated" countries, the US has somehow managed to escape outside scrutiny and accountability over is "narratives" of its discredited war - Vietnam. The one thing that Censoring History does is drag the U.S. into this circle of examination. Hein and Seldon's research shows how the resulting clashes, wars, etc. have been sanitized, at times even deliberately ignored, when textbooks circulate this part of American history to its young. Taken together, these essays reveal that Japan is far from the only country caught in an ongoing conflict over its past. Masalski's essay reveals some instances of differences among American teachers over an American historians interpretation of World War II. Potential teachers like myself wish to view the work do Laura Hein and Mark Selden (and including, but not limited to, the works of Edward Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt) as unfinished projects. Pedagogical development is something that should be constantly and vigorously attended to, lest we forget.
	History Wars : The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past by Tom Engelhardt (Editor), Edward T. Linethal (Editor): History Wars: The Enola gay and other Battles for the American Past is an extremely thought provoking book. Contained herein are eight essays that explore various issues concerning the fiasco that surrounded the attempt by the Smithsonian to reflect on the dropping of the bomb. History Wars brings up concerns not just about how World War II ended but more importantly how we as liberal and democratic societies confront issues with political implications. Here are the facts of the matter: The National Air and Space Museum (NASM), in the early nineties, decided to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of World War II by working the exhibit around the Enola Gay, the now infamous B-29 used to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. The NASM (which is really part of the Smithsonian Institutions) suddenly finds itself in the middle of a firestorm of controversy. Reading the essays in History Wars one gets the impression that the real battle was one fought by historians and concerned citizens who feared that nothing less than the American past was at stake. With an exhibit title like: The Crossroads: The end of World War II, the Atomic Bomb, and the Origins of the Cold War, the exhibit was ripe for controversy. Asking some rather pointed questions about the bomb and whether or not it really did save lives and if it was the only solution to ending the war (as in Did the Truman Administration have any other options, etc.?) is starting to come a little bit too close to home. One really needs to ask, was the exhibit a commemoration or a celebration? A commemoration is really something or somewhat reflective and includes others. Conversely, a celebration is a process of self-aggrandizement, which really means "I." Air Force Association (AFA) together with the House of Representatives effectively called for a suspension of what was seen as 'revisionism." No doubt that World War II was "the greatest military victory in U.S. history" (2-3). However, what is key to point out is that information comes to light after years of being in the dark and it is our responsibility as good citizens to bring the truth to the surface. In effect, we are all "revisionists." Linenthal writes: "For Representative Sam Johnson, a Republican from Texas and air force veteran who was appointed to the Smithsonian board of Regents by new Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the outpouring of anger at the Smithsonian indicated that "people" were taking history from elites (as code word for the Intelligentsia - addition mine). "We've got to get patriotism back into the Smithsonian," he declared. "We want the Smithsonian to reflect real America and not something that a historian dreamed up"" (59). It needs to be made clear that being self reflective and holding the U.S. accountable for actions in the war does not detract from the bravery of the soldiers that fought the war. However, in an effort to prevent wars in the future, to seek different alternatives, we need to be self-reflective of the past - which is what I think Linenthal and Engelhardt are trying to do in this book. We really need to be reflective of the narratives that inform our actions, our nationalism. In History Wars, Linenthal, et al. do nothing short of re-examining our master narratives. In History Wars we read that criticism was direct towards the NASM focused on them making the exhibit too sympathetic to the Japanese victims of the bomb. Doing so problematizes the narrative that World War II was a "good war." The exhibit as well as the script that went along with it was making the U.S. look like the aggressors and Japan and the Japanese the victims. The War, as 'common-sense' understanding has it, point to America entering the war to protect itself against Japanese aggression. In an interchange of narratives, both governments (mind you all Nationalistic governments do this) posture themselves as victim and the "Other" as villain. Historians, quite fittingly argue, that what they observed was a successful movement by powerful sections of American society to stifle problematizing of "cherished national narratives" (5). As Michael Kammen, president of the Organization of American Historians and member of the Smithsonian Council posits: "...Historians become controversial when they do not perpetuate myths, when they do not transmit the received and conventional wisdom, when they challenge the comforting presence of a stabilized past" (60). The reality of what went on in the air and on the ground is the same - no argument there. Moreover, as good or bad as any war can be the truth on the ground is revealed in pictures and the archive that has spawned around Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The argument about perception is proof positive that "history" is less about the past but more about the present and the future. In the end, all eight writers saw the "mini" version of the exhibit was lost opportunity to be self-reflective of a passing of one age and the dawning of another.
	War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War by John W. Dower: In War Without Mercy John Dower's demonstrates and explains the racial side of the war in the Asia-Pacific. Moreover he deftly explains the ramification or consequences from the dynamics of "othering." Both military and reconstruction policy in the Asia-Pacific, according to Dower were informed by this sense of othering that ultimately resulted in catastrophic misunderstandings on both sides. The sense of othering may have resulted in, at least for the moment, motivation to destroy the other but it certainly did not provide true insight regarding the enemy's. Dower starts the book out by taking a close look at the phenomenon of propaganda and what was produced on both sides. Key in the examination is Frank Capra's documentary, Know Your Enemy - Japan where he pegs the notion of and uncovers the undergrid of race and stereotyping. At the core of the stereotyping on the Japanese side was a sense of the "Pure Self" vs. "The Demonic Other." Conversely, on the American side images of simians and a fluctuating sense of lesser man and superman pervaded the mindset. As per the Japanese the pure self, may have had deeper cultural roots. Dower describes how Japanese came to experience the color white not in terms of color per se but infused with a deeper sense - one of purity. Moreover, the imagery is further complicated in the form of the demonic "Other" and as Dower outlines the Japanese also came to represent the allied powers, in general, as demons. As far as the American side is concerned most of the imagery was less about uplifting oneself but rather putting down others. Imagery of simians and subsequent visions of supermen were presented. There was also imagery of the herd and childish Japanese. With regards to the herd, Dower also examines the public images of the Japanese in American culture during World War II. What is clear is that "Despite such differences, however," Dower writes, "the end results of racial thinking on both sides were virtually identical - being hierarchy, arrogance, viciousness, atrocity, and death." (180) Dower is at his best when he argues that despite the differences in the particulars of the racial stereotyping that fed the Pacific War the functions were the same on both sides. In closing, Dower's "big" book in terms of scope speaks volumes about anti-Japanese racism and vice versa but also about the resilient, ever changing, and malleable phenomenon that is racialization and racialized thinking that all nations have found themselves involved with and the misinformation and disaster that results when we engage with the Other.