Discussion/Posting #3: Video Insights
For this Discussion/Posting #3, you should have viewed the posted videos (via You Tube), Vis-à-vis (PBS Series) “Beyond the Veil” Video and “Who Do You Think You Are?” television series. Please answer the following questions in relation to these videos. Refer to course concepts and material in your response. Please respond to at least two of your peer responses as well.
Total Points: 60 points
Here are my parameters (which will help guide you in terms of what I am looking for):
*Your Initial Post (you have to answer questions in an initial posting on every discussion): This should be 250 words single-spaced.
*How does history and historical memory relate to the “Beyond the Veil” video and the two women?
*What did you find the most interesting about the video? What was the most surprising?
*Which cultural patterns that we learned in Unit 2-Module 2 – seemed to influence the interactions between the two women?
*What would you tell both women in terms of how to better understand one another?
*What insights about history and historical memory did you come away with after viewing the Who Do You Think You Are?” television series?
*Why is it that our knowledge of our past is oftentimes selected, restricted, and “piece-meal”?
links:
Vis-à-vis (PBS Series) “Beyond the Veil”:
“Who Do You Think You Are?”(need part1,2,3):
139139
Historical Memory and
Intercultural Communication
Chapter 7
Learning Objectives
→ To examine how history (and the narratives about the past) shape our
intercultural encounters and relationships
→ To understand the role of historical memory in our intercultural lives,
relationships, and contexts and how what is remembered (and forgot-
ten) as history is largely infl uenced by power
→ To learn about how history represents the power to be able to authorize,
create, and reproduce a version or memory of the past
Introduction: Lisa and
Historical Memory
Lisa, a university student in Dallas, Texas, is
at an important crossroads in her life. She
is about to graduate from college and her
relationship with Doug, also a graduating
senior at her college, is getting serious.
She and Doug have been making plans to
get engaged to be married in the next year.
However, their families have yet to meet one
another. Lisa, a second- to third-generation
Chinese American, has a traditional Chinese
father and mother who were both born
and raised in mainland China. She decides
to talk to her parents during her next visit
home to Houston. Lisa is quite anxious
about this impending conversation because
Doug is Japanese American. While Doug
is a third-generation Japanese American
from California and considers himself to be
American, Lisa’s father has made negative
comments about the Japanese ever since she
was a child. Her father had always pointed
out how cruel the Japanese were to the Chi-
nese in his country and hometown (and to
his own family) during the war. Lisa always
thought her father would eventually change
his mind as he interfaced with a number of
diff erent groups in the Houston suburb in
which they lived since she was eight years old.
In the next month, Lisa approached her
parents with her news of the wonderful rela-
tionship she has with Doug and how serious it
is getting (toward marriage). Lisa’s fears were
confi rmed. Her father remained silent and
then replied, “This cannot be. He is Japanese.
140 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
We don’t want them in our family. They are not
family to us. They are not part of us. This cannot
be.” Lisa grew angry and lashed back, “Dad, that
was so long ago. It’s 2009. Doug is from the United
States. His parents are from the United States. They
weren’t part of the war eff ort. Let it go. I love him.”
Lisa waited for a response from her father. There
was silence. She grew frustrated. Lisa blurted out,
“Why don’t you give him a chance? You focus too
much on the past. He wasn’t even around then.”
Lisa’s father waited and then responded, “You
don’t understand. Japan did terrible things to our
home country. We were under their rule for years.
They banned us from using our language, our tra-
ditions, our names. They took our identity from
us. The Japanese—they did that. He’s Japanese.”
He then asked, “Why can’t you fi nd someone
Korean so you can continue our culture?” Lisa
shook her head. There was no way around the
impact of history and what her family remembers
(and wants to forget) about the past. She stormed
out and drove back to school. She told Doug that
they will have to either wait for her father to come
around or that they will have to become engaged
without her family’s support.
This narrative highlights how history—a
supposed past event, occurrence, memory, or
experience—dynamically moves across time and
is activated in diff erent contexts and by diff erent
generations and carries major consequences for
our present-day relationships and lives. It is indeed
tempting to presume that history was “yesterday’s
business” and that those events and relations
should not enter into or impact what is going on
today. However, historical memory is a powerful
collection of experiences, feelings, sentiments, rela-
tions, and perceptions (memories) that transcend
time and space. Historical memory touches our
lives in consequential and unexpected ways. This
chapter will explain the role of historical memory
in our intercultural lives, relationships, and contexts
and how what is remembered as history is largely
infl uenced by power: the power to be able to autho-
rize, create, and reproduce a historical memory.
What Is History?
Oftentimes, when the concept of history comes up, we immediately think of something
or some event that has happened in the past, a long time ago, and perhaps before our
own time. From a Western-oriented perspective, history takes on this particular conno-
tation as it is framed as distinctive break in time from today’s activities and occurrences.
Residents of the United States have typically thought of the historical past as irrelevant
to today’s state of aff airs and even counterproductive to national progress. Countries
in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa have made history the cornerstone of their
identities and legacies that continue to shape their current governmental, business, and
social practices. For these countries and embedded cultures, history marks a continuous
reality that links yesterday with today and tomorrow.
History as a Field of Power
Th ough it can be viewed in terms of diff erent time-space dimensions and modalities,
history can best be understood as a power-laden collection of events, images, experiences,
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 141
sentiments, relations, and perceptions (mem-
ories) for a specifi c nation, culture, or group.
Th is collection, however, is not neutral or
objective; many presume that history and
historical narratives are completely devoid of
any bias or vantage point (akin to the notion
that our high school history textbooks tell
the complete and unfi ltered truth). Quite the
contrary, as critical scholars Terry Eagleton
(2014), John Th ompson (2013), and Stuart
Hall (1996a), argue, history is shaped from
a specifi c perspective or positionality of
power. In the same vein as this book’s other
chapters, history indeed represents a fi eld
of power that is shaped by dominant struc-
tures and parties (e.g., governmental bodies,
economic interests and corporate powers,
media conglomerates, legal and educational
institutions, reigning majority groups). While
there are many types of histories and some are
articulated by marginalized or oppressed and resistive (to the dominant powers) groups
(as discussed later in this chapter under the notion of collective memory), this section’s
focus on history frames History with a capital “H” to delineate its dominant construction
and reproduction of the past for the majority or ruling power interest. History as a fi eld
of power, therefore, takes on the following characteristics:
History Derives From Power
History is always created from a position of power. A key misconception about the past
(and its recording) is that History is always objective and unbiased, that there is some greater
and purer truth about what really happened. Similar to stories, statements, and claims,
a historical narrative is articulated from a specifi c vantage point and vested position. For
example, when an individual travels abroad and is asked about a specifi c historical event
(a world war, a civil uprising, a riot, the unifi cation of several countries), that person will
describe and explain that event with his or her own interpretation, words, and framing
(aspects that derive from another biased source—a book, person, teacher, written or verbal
account, and national point of view). Th ere is no space outside of history through which an
unfi ltered or pure truth exists. Instead, as standpoint theorists Sandra Harding (2004),
Nancy Hartstock (1983), and Patricia Hill Collins (2000) argue, we are all situated in
specifi c social locations (national, gender, racial or ethnic, socioeconomic, regional, and
sexualized, among others) that in turn frame how we see, understand, articulate, and
re-tell what has happened in the past. In this way, then, all historical re-tellings, especially
that of History, are created and spoken from a specifi c position of power. To understand
We tend to think of “history” as the past,
long ago, and/or information contained within
archival books on a shelf.
142 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
this is to truly open our eyes about how representations of the past are mediated by our
positionalities, identities, and power interests and that we have much to gain and lose by
narrating specific versions of the past. These narrations can solidify a group or national
identity and or vilify a group, nation, or religion as well as hide social injustices and atrocities
or celebrate and romanticize a national myth, tradition, or group. For instance, historical
accounts of the early American pioneers, settlers, and military forces in the West—out to
settle the land and build a community—romanticize the work ethic, sanctity, and virtue
of early American settlers while simultaneously understating the physical, political, and
social decimation of Native American tribes and their way of life. One narrative can, all
at once, celebrate and deny in one fell swoop.
History Advances Dominant Interests
The History that is created, is a version of the past that exclusively advances the interests
of dominant (and status quo) structures and power interests. Meaning, the History that
is created is a construction and specific vested version of the past that exclusively advances
the interests of dominant (and status quo) structures and power interests. Because histor-
ical narratives derive from a specific positionality, it is important to note that History, or
the most articulated version of the past in a particular country, is created and articulated
from and by a dominant structure and power interest. By this, the version of the past that
receives the most air time or play in a culture or country is typically that of History, the
dominant perspective of what has happened. For example, in all its Historical accounts,
China continuously stresses that Tibet, a once autonomous country, is part of China.
China, as a dominant power structure, therefore, insists that they have owned Tibet
(and that it is part of China) all the way back to the Chinese Tang Dynasty when a Chi-
nese princess was offered to the Tibetan king to civilize the Tibetan people. This claim,
however, is heavily refuted by the Tibetans who claim that they are a sovereign people
with their own entitlement of human rights. As a dominant structure, China continues
to reproduce a nationalist history of inclusion of and ownership over Tibet (politically,
legally, culturally) in order to sediment and proclaim its nationalist authority over all
deemed territories of China (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and Macao, among others) (and
prevent the possibility of ethnic and political separatism of these territories). To do so
legitimates and exercises this country’s role as a supreme ruler over everything deemed as
China’s territories. Whether in textbooks, verbal accounts of the past, or the larger public
consciousness (in China and all over the world), this version of China-Tibet History comes
from and advances a dominant governmental/national structure and power interest, that
of China. History from a dominant position promotes and secures the existing status
quo of ruling parties, groups, and interests. It does so by excluding and thus denying or
effacing any other interpretations of the past that do not coincide with its own version,
its own History. Such a power is daunting because it legitimates one group’s account of
the past on a continual basis (leading to a cycle of historical naturalization).
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 143
It Takes Work to (Re)Produce History
Much work and eff ort are taken to continually
and subtly reproduce the dominant version of
History and the embedded power interests.
History from a dominant position comes into
being because of its proximity to and origin
from a reigning power—a power that provides
media and cultural access to its own version of
the past. A dominant structure or interest pos-
sesses the means and resources to reproduce
History in major newspaper or other media
outlets, textbooks across an entire educational
system, displays and wordings in national muse-
ums, and verbal accounts and memories are
passed on to the people of a territory, country,
or community. Th is power is not aff orded to
other communities or groups with less means
to reproduce their confl icting narratives and
versions of history. Th us, History can become
a dominant truth because of the surrounding
power and resources that make it so; in some
countries, other confl icting historical narratives
can be suppressed by their removal or prohibi-
tion of certain accounts from reigning and dominant-aligned media outlets and social
media (including YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instragram, and Twitter). Th is, however,
takes a great deal of work and vigilance on the part of dominant structures and interests
to continually articulate History on all fronts. Such work is safeguarded by linking the
promotion and investment in History to the ideology of national and cultural patriotism.
To not accept these narratives is to be a cultural or national traitor; to reveal any other
version is to be a heretic and naysayer of the culture. Th e focus shifts to the dissenting
individual or party and not on the dominant structure who relentlessly defends History,
which reveals the seductive nature of dominant structures in the production and repro-
duction of History.
History Mostly Speaks From a Male, White, and Upper-Class Voice
Th e dominant accounts of History are most often biased perspectives from reigning
male, White, upper-class-oriented positionalities. Feminist scholars have long argued
that accounts of the past are deemed as “his story” for a reason; they emanate from a
patriarchal point of view. Male explorers, rulers, leaders, and movements across the world
are documented in world histories; very few highlight the achievements and movements
of women in this regard. Th is is largely due to the long-established presence of patriarchal
power across the globe and how this larger colonial force (as male) has shaped histories
Tibetans refute the offi cially and widely
reproduced narrative that Tibet is under
the sovereign control of China. They see
themselves as a sovereign people with
their own rights and identity.
144 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
throughout the world. Th is can be seen not only in the male leanings and bias in most
cultures, but also in the privileging of male information for birth certifi cates, identity
documents, and cultural and familial genealogies at the expense of unnamed and forgotten
female relative names and information. Many individuals who go through the process
of fi lling out their family genealogies notice how completion of family histories relies on
knowing male surnames and birth dates at the expense of female names and dates. Critical
scholar Anne McClintock (2013) takes this further by tracing how representations of
history via maps, political cartoons, and product advertisements from the 1900s privilege
the male perspective. Maps delineate explorers and places by male names only and ships
and territories that are conquered are named after women. She argues that, in fact, it is
This 1900s product advertisement speaks to and refl ects a male, White,
and upper-class privileged account. It also projects the need to “clean”
and “civilize” colonized/dark native groups.
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 145
not only the accounts of and about White males, but affluent White males in different
societies that dominate the representations (McClintock, 2013). Because History derives
from a dominant position, it articulates the voice and perspective (and bias) of those his-
torically in power: males who are White/European and of upper socioeconomic standing.
Thus, being exposed to History will mostly frame, for us, these dominant positions as
the real and objective truths of what actually happened in the past.
Understanding History as a field of power is important to re-conceptualize History as a
power-laden collection of memories about the past for a specific nation, culture, or group.
Historical Memory
How do structures and groups remember and forget the past? Indeed, while the creation
and reproduction of History is always situated in power, the notion of memory stands
as a key component for how History embeds our thoughts, perceptions, viewpoints, and
identities.
Historical Memory
Historical memory (also termed as collective memory) refers to a remembrance of the
past as shared by a group or nation (Olick, 2013). How we see and understand the past
is largely a construction created, maintained, and circulated by a group or collective.
Critical scholar Benedict Anderson (2006) explains historical and collective memory
as important for the creation of a nation. Specifically, he argues that through historical
memory, a nation forms itself as an imagined community, a nation that comes into being
through a unified vision of who it is and where it came from. Think about the ways in
which the country you come from (and the countries of your parents) delineate or nar-
rate its historical past. Is it a seamless narrative of unity among all citizens? Does a tale
of struggle over foreign influences prevail? Is there one deemed hero or glory period to
be hailed by your culture? (questions for you to answer in the reflection activity for this
chapter.) The answers to these questions will vary but reveal how what we know about
our cultures, countries, and ourselves is largely memories created, crafted, and spread
by a collective or group and one in context of a hierarchy of power.
As another example, in his national bestseller, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong, sociologist James M. Loewen (2008) argues that
what Americans learn in their history classes and from their history textbooks are inaccu-
racies and slanted representations that promote the positive (and innocent) image of the US
government. He contends that the image of America as benevolent, modern, progressive,
and heroic dominate outdated historical narratives in textbooks and serve as a vehicle of
nationalism, patriotism, and investment in the ideologies of meritocracy and opportunity that
pervade the United States. Why is it, according to Loewen (2008), that American history
textbooks do not discuss the following, as noted through historical documents and interviews:
146 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
• “Th e United States dropped three times as many tons of explosives in Vietnam as
it dropped in all theaters of World War II, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Woodrow Wilson, known as a progressive leader, was in fact a white supremacist
who personally vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League
of Nations.
• Th e fi rst colony to legalize slavery was not Virginia but Massachusetts.
• Helen Keller was a radical socialist.
• People from other continents had reached the Americans many times before 1492
(the year of “discovery” by famed explorer Christopher Columbus).
Loewen (2008) argues that these details are not in the public consciousness of
Americans because they were not part of the historical memory of who we are. Such
remembrances are key to shaping our identities as a nation and people. While most
Americans will not remember most historical facts well, the memories of America as a
defender of freedom, independence, progress, and equality stay intact and persist in our
mind and consciousness. Th is is the power of historical memory.
Historical or collective memories function as
strong vehicles of power because they are based
on perceptions or sentiments that transcend all
demographics and communication forms to embed
in our minds, hearts, and identities how we are as a
people and as a nation. Th us, the real power comes
from these memories personalizing history to us,
to the collective we—how we are a people and not
some nation as a separate, outside entity to our-
selves. Th e personalization of memories and their
attachment to our cultural, national, and religious
identities make them hard to distinguish and cri-
tique or question. After all, our memories are sacred
and true; they are also about us.
Historical memories of the past—especially
brutal injustices against cultural groups—are not
remembered and/or selectively forgotten. However,
traces of that forgotten or eluded past do linger.
Th ink about the controversy from the 2018 Winter
Olympics in South Korea when an NBC commen-
tator highlighted Korea’s strength and how it was
due to the “cultural and technological example” of
Japan. South Korean viewers were horrifi ed, given
the long occupation of Korea by the Japanese from
1910 to 1945 (Qin, 2018). An apology petition
Our understanding of the past and “History”
derives from what we were exposed to in history
textbooks during our childhood years.
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Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 147
circulated among thousands of South Koreans with the following words: “Any reasonable
person familiar with the history of Japanese imperialism, and the atrocities it committed
before and during WWII, would find such a statement deeply hurtful and outrageous.”
It appeared then that not many fully knew of the historical occupation and coloniza-
tion of Korea by Japan in the 20th century. Korea was annexed into the empire of Japan
in 1910 after years of war and aggression and remained under the control of Japan until
1945 (Dudden, 2006). During those 35 years, many vestiges of Korean culture were
intentionally stamped out by the Japanese government (Cumings, 1998). The Korean
language was prohibited to be spoken. Only the Japanese language was to be used. Korean
historical documents and histories were replaced with Japanese historical narratives. In
fact, over 200,000 of Korean historical documents were burned by the Japanese empire,
thereby literally extinguishing Korean historical memory. Koreans were also forced to
work in Japan and its other colonies, which pushed them into harsh conditions, especially
for Korean women who were socially and sexually enslaved. This historical memory (one
that informs the reaction of Lisa’s father toward her Japanese boyfriend) is one that is
not fully known in larger public society (and even in the United States) but one that still
lingers and hurts a cultural group.
The notion of which elements of historical memory are preserved and which fall
to the wayside and are forgotten is tricky at best. In recent years, students and public
citizens have protested the names of buildings and statues at universities in the United
States (Chan, 2016). For example, in 2015, students at Princeton University demanded
that it rename its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs because
Woodrow Wilson was known to be a vigorous racist in the South. Likewise, students
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demanded that a building named
after William Saunders—a Ku Klux Clan member since 1922—be renamed. At Yale
University, law students argued for the stripping of the name of one of its residential
undergraduate colleges—Calhoun College—which bears the name of a well-known seg-
regationist. With seven other similar examples of protests over names of buildings and
colleges, it clear that power issues over historical remembering and forgetting surround
us. Student activists argue that when institutions use names of racist or sexist figures
from the past, the university appears to be endorsing those harmful historical acts of
that figure (why, in fact, would you memorialize a building or statue after someone
and what they have done or what they represent to society?). They also explain that
memorializing racist historical figures will painfully remind campus members of color
of the historical past. University officials counter that institutions should use those
figures and the naming of them as historical lessons and debates around morality of
certain historical periods. Alumni of those universities highlight the absurdity of the
protests and the need to rename their colleges. Instead, they argue that those names
do not mean anything and that those represent time-honored traditions that are linked
to their positive and nostalgic memories in college.
In 2017 in Palo Alto, California, a middle school student conducted research on
the namesake (David Starr Jordan) of his school for a history report (Lee, 2017). This
148 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
student examined the background of David
Starr Jordan and discovered some horri-
ble things, namely that the namesake was
a fi erce proponent of the eugenics move-
ment (a larger group that argued that some
races—Whites—were superior over other
groups—African Americans). Th is student’s
report created an uproar that led to a dis-
trict-wide committee that began a process
of renaming the school (and one other in the
district) (Lee, 2017). Th e process revealed
diff ering opinions of community members
about renaming the schools, the power of
historical memories and the memorialization
of memories through names. Some argued
that the names represented important, and
nostalgic souvenirs of their childhoods (and
argued that the protestors are “whiners” in
a PC-dominated era). Others argued that
names are symbolic of the values of an insti-
tution and the value placed on cultures,
communities, and their experiences. What
has taken place is a larger and meaningful
conversation about the role of names in rela-
tion to historical memories. It also raises the
question of how we remember the lessons
of the historical past without celebrating those memories of oppression. Can these two
notions—lessons about the past and the past itself—ever be separated?
Even more questions arise here, in terms of the power interests at play: What constitutes
the process of naming buildings and statues? Was history not considered a factor in the
naming process? To what extent does a nod to historical tradition (or recognition of a
person from the region of this university) supersede the historical memories of oppression
and/or the racist ideology promoted by those individuals? Did these institutions just forget
about these historical memories of oppression and racist ideologies, or to what extent
did the infl uence of that historical fi gure (and any donated money to do such naming)
outweigh (and defuse) any negative historical memories brought about by that fi gure? Is
there a moratorium on when historical memories stop being painful? How do we learn
about historical memories of cultural oppression without celebrating those memories
(via the memorialization of fi gures) and under what conditions?
What is not remembered about the past reveals the power-slanted version of what
we know about important achievements in a country and the tremendous power it is
to widely circulate a narrative about what happened long ago. Such selective historical
College campuses are embroiled in controversy
over the naming of buildings and statues in
memory of racist or sexist fi gures from the past.
This raises the question of what and who should
be memorialized and if painful historical legacies
should be preserved.
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 149
memory was highlighted in the popular
fi lm Hidden Figures. In 2016, the fi lm
was released and received rave reviews.
Th e fi lm showcases three African Amer-
icans who worked at NASA in the 1960s
and how these African American women
were essential to getting the astro-
naut John Glenn into orbit. Th e movie
highlights how these women possessed
important skills (mathematics, engineer-
ing, computer programming, leadership
and management) for NASA operations
and yet were discounted given their race
and gender. Th ese women—Katherine
Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy
Vaughn—had to complete their diffi cult
jobs, all while still having to endure sep-
arate bathrooms and separate treatment
from their White peers. Audience mem-
bers praised the show while admitting to
not knowing about the important role
these women played in the United States’
space race. Th is historical memory was not
publicly or visibly shared, which reveals
how knowledge about cultural groups in
the past, and the kind of contributions they make in the face of unfair social and working
conditions, is left out and absent from our historical telling.
We also must ask the following questions: Whom do we memorialize? Why? Who
has the power to do this? Why are most buildings in the United States named after
White/European American men? Who decides this? Why do we not know about other
cultural groups and genders and their diff erent contributions to society? What about
the 4,000 women code breakers who broke and deciphered codes by Japanese and Nazi
military during World War II? Why don’t we know we know more about these women?
Historical Amnesia
Another key aspect of historical memory and remembering is also what is forgotten about
the past or historical amnesia. Several scholars, such as Hutton (1993) and Hobsbawm
and Ranger (1983) explain that certain events, traditions, and elements of the past are
repressed and forgotten in historical memory and History narratives because of the power
interests involved and the large stakes at hand in projecting a specifi c version of the past.
Th us, what is forgotten and elided is just as important as what is remembered. As empha-
sized in cinema and fi lm studies, we need to look at both the symbolic presences (what
This middle school in Palo Alto, California,
has been renamed because its namesake was
identifi ed as a strong proponent of the eugenics
movement (a larger group that argued that some
races—Whites—were superior over other groups
—African Americans). Community members
debated over the need to rename a school in
light of negative historical memories.
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150 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
is told and what this reveals) and symbolic
absences (what is not told or ignored and
what this reveals) of depictions of the past.
As another example, Japan has become a
recent target of attacks for its historical con-
struction as a solemn, proud, and untainted
nation. In her hailed book, Th e Rape of
Nanking: Th e Forgotten Holocast of World
War II, historian Iris Chang (2012) pains-
takingly traces how Japan (via the Imperial
Japanese Army) committed major human
atrocities and war crimes against China in
the 1937–1938 Nanking massacre when it
captured Nanjing, then capital of China,
during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Her
book details the cruel torture and raping of
the Chinese people (women and children)
during this massacre and how Japan, to this
day, selectively forgets and elides this event in
their national history. Chang also points out
how the Japanese government has failed to
formally redress and apologize for the atroc-
ities. What is forgotten is just as revealing
as what is remembered. When examining
the national museum displays and history
texts in Japan, one can see how the steady
and streamlined focus on how Japan is the martyr and savior of Asia, while forgetting
“the Japanese-led massacres, Korean comfort women, Chinese sex slaves, or tortured
POWs in this history” (Chang, 2012, p. 5).
Th e wounds of the Nanking massacre by Japan against Korea went deep. In a PBS news-
cast that highlighted her book, Chang demanded that a Japanese ambassador apologize
to the Chinese people for what happened in the past. After that ambassador expressed
regret for “unfortunate” happenings and the acts of violence committed by Japanese
soldiers, Chang expressed dissatisfaction with his statements and in subsequent years
joined a larger movement to press Japan for compensation to the Chinese.
Cultural groups (and even nations) worry about the possibility of historical amnesia,
especially when signifi cant historical events risk being forgotten. For example, the Taiwan-
ese people worry about people forgetting the importance of the 228 massacre (Fleischauer,
2007; Hwang, 2016). Th e 228 massacre refers to the violent killing by a Chinese govern-
ment unit of 10,000 Taiwanese civilians in an anti-government uprising in 1947. Th is
historical event served as a catalyst for the Taiwan independence movement. But, many
survivors of the 228 massacre have since died and the Taiwanese community worries
and streamlined focus on how Japan is the martyr and savior of Asia, while forgetting
The movie, Hidden Figures, showcased three Afri-
can Americans who worked at NASA in the 1960s
and how these African American women were
essential to getting the astronaut John Glenn into
orbit. The movie highlights how these women pos-
sessed important skills (mathematics, engineering,
computer programming, leadership, and manage-
ment) for NASA operations and yet were historically
omitted given their race and gender.
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 151
that the memory of the massacre and what it meant for the formation of the movement
to gain independence of Taiwan from China will also be lost. As a result, community
members are trying to capture the oral histories and narratives of the survivors in order
to preserve this historical memory so that the Taiwanese community never forgets the
beginning of the independence movement.
When the past is forgotten and or not actively remembered, some worry that the harsh
oppressions of the past will re-emerge and continue. According to economist Diego Rubio
(2017), historical amnesia is risky for European countries as the younger generations seem
to support authoritarian-like government forms over democratic types of leadership. This,
he argues, is due to the lack of historical knowledge and the preservation of memories
through historical education in schools. Rubio (2017) states that
[a] recent study by the University of Leipzig found that one in every ten Germans
(10.6 per cent) want their country to be led by a ‘Führer to rule with an iron fist
for common prosperity.’ Likewise, 61 per cent of Austrians favour supporting a
‘strong leader who does not have to worry about a parliament or elections’ and 40
per cent of the French state that their country should be put in the hands of ‘an
authoritarian government’ free from democratic constraints (p. 1).
He details the loss of historical memory further: “According to a study by the Berlin
Free University, half of German teenagers ‘don’t know Hitler was a dictator’, and a third
believe he protected human rights. A quarter of British schoolchildren could not say
what Auschwitz was” (Rubio, 2017). Without knowledge of the past, European youth
are not remembering the past with regard to dominant regimes and historical oppres-
sions. Historical amnesia is therefore looming as historical education is not being fully
maintained and instituted.
What is collectively forgotten could be an act of oppression onto another group or
an example of a structural barrier for some groups over others. In the end, collective
historical memory from a dominant position remembers only what advances its interests
and forgets or strips away what jeopardizes such interests.
Remaking Collective and Historical Memories
We are not forever doomed to History as our only source of memory. Instead, the Pop-
ular Memory Group (1982), led by Richard Johnson, argue that communities re-create
dominant historical memories, or the formal constructions of cultural histories and
subjectivities found in state forms (e.g., museums, History textbooks, national com-
memorative discourse, administrative and legal documents). In social life, community
members make different sense of the formal past by selectively remembering, forgetting,
and re-articulating images, histories, and narratives of who they are, thereby construct-
ing private memories. We rely instead on what is already within our reach: a generative
materials memory of life moments, pains, joys, displacements, and structural pressures
experienced by a racialized, gendered, and overwritten cultural group. The Popular
Memory Group refers to these re-makings of dominant historical memories as private
152 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
memories: “Private memories cannot in concrete studies be readily unscrambled from
the effects of dominant historical discourses. It is often these that supply the very terms
by which a private history is thought through” (p. 211). Such a notion resonates with
Marx’s popular explanation of social life: “that people make history but in conditions
not of their own making” (Grossberg, 1996b, p. 151). Private memories, therefore, are
framed by dominant conditions but not determined by them.
Communities create private memories through which people come to imagine a
shared experience of identification with those to whom they are in some way histori-
cally, politically, and culturally connected. For example, feminist ethnographer Soyini
Madison (1993) and intercultural scholar Tamar Katriel (2013) highlight personal
narratives as spaces where identities are performed, addressed and in dialogue with
“the cultural, geopolitical, and economic circumstances” touching their lives (Madi-
son, 1993, p. 213). By narrating their lives, (mis)recognized social members can re-tell
the identity constructions through which they have been narrated. These individual
stories spill over with rich theoretical insight. Community members’ remembrances,
though captured through individuated interviews, reveal the presence of pluralized
subjects who achieve their identities as extensions of a historical- and locational-bound
collective. No longer a single subject, the pluralized community subject, according to
McClintock (2013), “cannot be heard outside its relation to communities” (p. 11). For
instance, there are many “her stories” of women in different cultures and countries
articulating their experiences as females in male-dominated regions and how they
contributed to social life in major ways. Private memories and re-tellings of minority
groups and their experiences in multicultural countries such as Canada, Brazil, and
the United States, are emerging in varied forms (documentaries, blogs, oral histories,
theatrical performances, written documents). Communities can and do recreate private
memories that represent and articulate their individuated and shared experiences of
the past as a version of what actually happened.
Alliance Building Around Historical Memories and Experiences
But, historical memory can also stand as a meaningful bridge and not just a divide.
Cultural groups have also bonded over their shared historical experiences, and over con-
temporary ones, as well formed alliances (or an association or partnership with a shared
goal, experience, or viewpoint). Japanese-American communities (who have endured
a history of internment in the United States) have spoken out against the threatened
removal of rights from Muslims in the United States. In the wake of 2017 travel ban
against Muslim persons into the United States, Japanese Americans have used their past
experiences with the US government as a means to speak out against any discrimination
against Muslims in the United States. For instance, the Graceful Crane theater troupe
performed its internment experiences at the Arab American National Museum and
for Muslim-American communities (Wang, 2017). The performance was followed by a
panel in which Japanese-American representatives dialogued with Muslim Americans
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 153
about how to combat any threats to their rights (and of a rumored national registry for
Muslims in the United States).
Also, Karen Korematsu (the daughter of Fred Korematsu who sued the US govern-
ment for then-president Roosevelt’s internment executive order) spoke to the media
about the legal rights of Muslims and past legal decisions (Wolf, 2017). She and other
Japanese American leaders addressed the historical wrongs done to Japanese Americans
and the need to not let it happen to any other group in the country, namely Muslims in
the United States. Historical memory can indeed meaningfully connect cultural groups
into specific alliances.
Historical Memories and Intercultural Communication
Historical memory and depictions of the past (as History), as embedded in power, are
not just relegated to yesterday; these articulations continue to touch our lives in the
present day and for the future. Oftentimes, dominant historical memories (to which we
are exposed to more than other forms) become our first encounters with a group and
seal our first impression. Cultural groups are often identified and understood by expres-
sions, images, and myths of the past. Indigenous groups in particular are remembered
through constructions of the past, such as the first mystical meeting between natives
and Western explorers, and images of naked, exotic savages, tribal dance spectacles,
and native kings and queens. Enunciations of the past powerfully constitute and frame
the nature of a specific group, its origins and collective experiences. These enunciations,
whether in a museum display, a historical portrait, or popularized cultural legends,
derive from the historical imagination, a force too seductive and powerful to reside
as merely a physical structure or a matter of interpretation. It stands as a visual and
narrative dialectic of selectively shaping, remembering, and forgetting the past and,
in this specific context, historically identifying a culture. The historical imaginary is a
multi-vocal, multi-vested collection of memories that call forth and activate particular
myths, fantasies, and hegemonic beliefs over others. Such a force is just as much spoken
as it is ideologically engrained into popular thought and is made up of several colliding
forms: dominant memory (official histories by the colonial, nation-state, and local
governments), popular memory (public representations of history in museum displays,
tourist discourses and souvenirs, consumer products, widely reproduced legends and
social histories), private memory (the practices and performances of the past—historical
re-tellings, dances, celebrations and traditions—within a lived indigenous community),
and counter or oppositional memory (politically resistive narratives and rhetoric by
activist movement groups and everyday social actors). Our first intercultural contact
with a group could be in the very moment we learn a dominant historical memory
of another group in school or we read a commemorative statue in our country that
depicts a historical event. Even hearing a national story told to us by family members
at the dinner table is a sediment of a historical memory and an impression of another
culture. Hence, historical memories shape how we view others, which can inevitably
154 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
frame and guide our behaviors toward these group members. Remember, we act on
perceptions and sense-makings that we have inherited from others around us and
power structures in our lives.
Historical memories shape our specific intercultural relations in ways that we may
not fully understand. Rhetorical scholar Marouf Hasian (1998) shares how several his-
torical and political events (such as the Balfour Declaration) shape interactions between
Israelis and Palestinians. He discusses how different memories of cultural entitlement
to a territory, land, and people constitute the major struggle between the group. Who is
entitled to a cultural land and by what criteria? Who first physically settled a land? Who
is deemed by biblical right that they are the chosen people of the land? Who decides?
These complex memories and entanglements limit intercultural relations in the Middle
East to a narrow set of perspectives, behaviors, and viewpoints.
Intercultural scholar Thomas Nakayama (1993) also highlights how historical mem-
ories explain why some groups interact with one another and why others do not. He
shares stories and experiences of growing up Asian American in the United States and
in areas where all Asians were deemed immigrants and foreigners and rendered invisi-
ble in a dominant Black-White framework of the South. Nakayama also contends that
history explains why some Vietnamese American youth do not want to learn to speak
French because of the colonialist history of the French in Vietnam and Indochina and
the perception by many Vietnamese that French is the language of the colonizers. This
scholar emphasizes the following about historical memory:
History is a process that has constructed where and how we enter into dialogue,
conversation, and communication. It has strongly influenced what languages we
speak, how we are perceived and how we perceive ourselves, and what domestic
and international conflicts affect us (Nakayama, 1993, p. 15).
While historical memories can position us in specific intercultural relations and
with specific predispositions, history can also connect us in ways that enable us to build
intercultural alliances and partnerships through shared or similar historical experi-
ences and oppressions. As a case in point, Muslim and Japanese American residents
in the United States and worked together after the September 11th attacks to share
information to help each other out. Japanese-American citizens, many of whom were
interned in the World War II internment of Japanese Americans by the US government
or whose family members were, educated Muslim residents on their rights as citizens
given the heightened hysteria over Muslim people as terrorists after the attacks at the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon. These groups educated each other and worked
together (and continue to do so to this day) on community and legal fronts to form an
alliance to prevent what happened to Japanese Americans to others in this country.
Such an alliance reveals how historical memories—those filled with pain and injus-
tice—can bridge groups together and create constructive intercultural relations in a
hierarchy of power. We must remember that historical memories can bridge us and
create constructive pathways for a better tomorrow.
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 155
Keywords
Alliances
Historical amnesia
Historical memory
History as a fi eld of power
Private memories
Symbolic absence
Symbolic presence
History is a power-laden collection of events, images, experiences, sentiments,
relations, and perceptions (memories) for a specifi c nation, culture, or group. His-
tory and historical memory (in terms of what we remember and what we forget)
shape and constitute our intercultural encounters, relationships, and surrounding
contexts.
Summary
156 Intercultural Communication: A Critical Perspective
REFLECTION activity: What historical memories were you exposed to in your
culture?
Think about the ways in which your country, culture, and family have narrated the
historical past to you and write down your response to the following questions:
◆ What historical memories or narratives were you exposed to as a child? From
which sources (family member, religious institution, school, book, or other
forms)?
◆ How did these narratives depict your country and culture? What did you make
of this? How did these narratives shape how you felt about your country and
culture?
◆ Were the memories a seamless narrative of unity among all citizens? Does a
tale of struggle over foreign infl uences prevail? Is there one deemed hero or
glory period to be hailed by your culture?
◆ How did these narratives depict other countries and culture? How did these
narratives shape how you felt about other countries and cultures?
◆ Did your own historical memories of your country and culture change over
time? If so, how? If not, why?
REFLECTION activity: To remember, forget, or repay?
Reparations refers to the ways in which an individual or party makes amends for a
wrong whether it is through payment or some other act.
◆ In the United States, there have been movements to pay reparations to
African Americans for slavery.
◆ Japanese Americans who were interned in this country during World War II
received modest fi nancial reparations from the US government.
◆ The Polish government has argued for the need for Germany to pay repara-
tions for the violence and damage done to their country during World War
II. War victims are demanding reparations from Bosnia for the violence and
oppression experienced during the early 1990s Bosnia war.
So, given these examples, answer the following questions:
◆ To what extent, should cultural groups who have experienced gross unjust
enslavement, imprisonment, and degradation be given reparations?
◆ Why or why not?
◆ Can we ever make up for a historical injustice?
◆ What could possibly be repaid?
◆ What are your thoughts?
Questions and Activities
Chapter 7: Historical Memory and Intercultural Communication 157
Consider the symbolic power of a nation making reparations (in the most
meaningful form to a Western nation—fi nancial currency) and what it communi-
cates to a cultural group in terms of apologizing for a historical injustice. Wouldn’t
that stand as a powerful form of historical recognition, which could open the way
for a cultural group’s healing?
DISCUSSION activity: The nature of historical memories that were passed down
Think about any of the historical memories that your family brings up (or did when
you were a child or growing up) or talks about in relation to your cultural group
and answer the following questions:
◆ What is the nature of these memories? Are these memories of the ways
in which they practiced cultural traditions or prepared food? Are these
memories of what grandparents or elders told them about life in their
homeland? Are these memories about the government in their homeland and
of any signifi cant past events in that country? What do you notice about those
memories?
◆ If there were no historical memories brought up by your family, why do you
think that is the case? Was it in response to how they were raised or even in
response to a historical event?
◆ Share your thoughts and refl ections on historical memories.
Historical Memory &
Intercultural
Communication
Module 3 – Unit 3
COMM 174
Dr. Halualani
In This Module/Unit:
• Read M & N, Chapter 4
• Read Halualani
Chapter on Historical
Memory & Intercultural
Communication
• Read the Hasian article
What is “History”?
• History as a field of power
• History as a power-laden collection of
events, images, experiences,
sentiments, relations, and
perceptions (memories) for a specific
nation, culture, or group.
• History is not “neutral.”
• History as a field of power that is
shaped by dominant structures and
parties (for e.g., governmental
bodies, economic interests and
corporate powers, media
conglomerates, legal and educational
institutions, reigning majority groups).
What is “History”?
• History is always created and
spoken from a position of power.
• The History that is created, is a
construction and specific vested
version of the past that exclusively
advances the interests of
dominant (and status quo)
structures and power interests.
• Much work and effort are taken to
continually and subtly reproduce
the dominant version of History
and the embedded power
interests.
What is “History”?
• Oftentimes, history in most
cultural contexts, stands as
male, White, and upper-class
privileged accounts and versions
of “what happened.”
Historical Memory: How Do Structures and
Groups Remember and Forget the Past?
• Historical memory (also
termed “collective memory”)
refers to a remembrance of
the past as shared by a group
or nation. Meaning, how we
see and understand the past
is largely a construction
created, maintained, and
circulated by a group or
collective.
Historical Memory: How Do Structures and
Groups Remember and Forget the Past?
• “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American
History Textbook Got Wrong,” sociologist James M.
Loewen (1995) argues that what Americans learn in their
history classes and from their history textbooks are
inaccuracies and slanted representations that promote the
positive (and innocent) image of the U.S. government.
• “The United States dropped three times as many tons
of explosives in Vietnam as it dropped in all theaters of
World War II, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• Woodrow Wilson, known as a progressive leader, was
in fact a white supremacist who personally vetoed a
clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the
League of Nations.
• The first colony to legalize slavery was not Virginia but
Massachusetts.
• Helen Keller was a radical socialist.
• People from other continents had reached the
Americas many times before 1492 (the year of
“discovery” by famed explorer Christopher
Columbus).”
Historical Memory: Your Own Family
Histories & Memories
• Think about what you know
about your own family history:
• Where did your parents/
grandparents come from?
• How far back can you trace
your family tree?
• What do you know?
• What don’t you know?
• JE #3 & Discussion Posting #3
Historical Memory: My Own Family Story
• My Family Story:
• My Father’s Grandmother (My Great-Grandmother)
(Eva Halualani)
• Trying to trace her roots to identify how much
Hawaiian blood we have
• For our relatives and claims for a Hawaiian homestead
• Birth certificates (state documents)
• Census records
• To this day, we still cannot prove our Native Hawaiian
bloodlines over 50% (via official documents)
• Difficult to recover
Historical Amnesia
• Another key aspect of historical memory
and remembering is also what is forgotten
about the past or historical amnesia.
• Certain events, traditions, and elements of
the past are repressed and forgotten in
historical memory and History narratives
because of the power interests involved
and the large stakes at hand in projecting
a specific version of the past.
• Thus, what are forgotten and elided are
just as important as what is remembered.
• We need to look at both the symbolic
presences (what is told and what this
reveals) and symbolic absences (what is
not told or ignored and what this reveals)
of depictions of the past.
Remaking Collective/Historical Memories
• We are not forever doomed to History as our
only source of memory.
• Instead, the Popular Memory Group (1982), led
by Richard Johnson, argue that communities re-
create dominant historical memories, or the formal
constructions of cultural histories and
subjectivities found in state forms (e.g., museums,
“History” textbooks, national commemorative
discourse, administrative and legal documents).
In social life, community members make different
sense of the formal past by selectively
remembering, forgetting, and re-articulating
images, histories, and narratives of who they are,
thereby constructing private memories.
• Such a notion resonates with Marx’s popular
explanation of social life — “that people make
history but in conditions not of their own making.”
Private memories, therefore, are framed by
dominant conditions but not determined by them.
How Historical Memory Impacts Intercultural Communication
• Historical memories shape our specific intercultural relations and in ways
that we may not fully understand.
• Pre-Contact
• Perceptions from myths or specific historical versions
• Avoidance
• Interpretations of those around us
• View the awesome videos in this Module/Unit #3 (Vis-a-Vis, Who Do
You Think You Are/History Channel Videos)
• Think about the powerful role of history and historical memory!