I was sitting in my high school class a few months after arriving in the US, when I suddenly realized that for the first time in my life I actually finding a history class interesting. History! Who knew, you could like history?
It occurred to me that just a few months before that, as part of my UP Board syllabus, I was busy memorizing a bunch of dates which I could still easily rattle off without any effort. 1776 Declaration of Independence. The war of 1812 with the British. The Boston Tea Party. And on and on. But this was different. We were discussing the pros and cons of a decision taken by General Lee during the American Civil War. Studying history could actually involve discussion…
The teacher even rented “Gone with the Wind” and discussed the historical setting of the movie. By that time I had just about managed to get the hang of American accent and I understood very little of the movie. But I could still appreciate what he was trying to teach us -- history is a matter of perspective; and it's about people, more often than not, ordinary people...
And years later, in Berkeley, one day I discovered Columbus Day was no longer observed as Columbus Day but Indigenous People’s Day… And it stopped being a holiday. That was also history in the making, or rather, re-making. We were rewriting history: the hero of my own high-school text books from only a few years ago was now a villain…
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You’re probably wondering what’s the reason for this daydream about history. Well, I got an email the other day regarding a high-school reunion. If I was in the US, I would have certainly attended and if the history teacher is still there, said ‘thank you’!
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