Memorialization at Wounded Knee

As many in class have expressed, thinking and learning about place and memorialization has been one of my favorite topics that we have talked about in class.  I have never really thought about the choices that are made with regards to remembering a place or event. Our readings and talks in class, particularly the articles, "Memorial Landscapes: analytic questions and metaphors", and "Memory and the everyday landscape of violence in post-genocide Cambodia", made me think about Native Americans and their history involving large scale massacres; in particular the Massacre at Wounded Knee, killing 150 people.

When I was about 13 travelling on a trip driving back from Colorado, my family and I took a detour through South Dakota to the Pine Ridge Reservation.  We travelled through the Badlands National Monument to reach the Wounded Knee Memorial.  I couldn't help but think of this memorial area when we were talking about the various ways in which massacres were remembered and/or forgotten across landscapes.  Wounded Knee is a site where nearly 150 members from the Sioux Indian Tribe were killed.  I was pretty young at the time, and even then I remembered thinking to myself, “is this really it?”  It was so bare, isolated and just sad. Thinking about it now, I wonder, is this the best way to remember this event?  Using Dwyer and Alderman’s article, I am going to apply metaphors to the Wounded Knee Memorial.

 Text/ Arena:

Metaphorically, texts as monuments reveal who the author is, what the story is, and who is telling it.  When viewing these memorials using the arena as a metaphor, conflict comes about, and there is a competition for whose story is going to be told.  I decided to put text and arena together as one category because I find it difficult to talk about one without the other. 

When reading the text that is around the area, it shares history, commemoration and honor for those who suffered.  There are texts on signs, cemetery stones, inside of visitor's buildings, and many more.  I was having trouble fining who wrote these actual texts- but I dont think that is too important.  The stories that are shared through these texts are not being contested, but it makes me wonder if Native Americans who feel a connection to the place are satisfied with the memorial, and if there are more important stories to be told.

Natives Americans 'lost' at the game that was being played against the colonial whites. While there are Native Americans living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, I wonder if they are negatively reminded/ embarrassed on a daily basis that they 'lost' due to the attraction and memorialization in the area.  It would be nice to talk to one of the people who either live or work in the area, and find out their feelings towards the memorial.   

Performance:

When I visited the monument as a young girl, I remember feeling very out of place and almost uncomfortable.  I don't remember very many people being there, if any, and quite frankly I was wondering why we went there in the first place.  Of all of the vacations that I went on, this particular location still keeps vivid pictures in my head, as well as remembered feelings of empathy and confusion. We went into the small store which sold merchandise and contained more readings and pictures.   There was a Native American man working there and my dad asked a few questions, bought a t-shirt and a dream catcher.  When he bought those things, I remember thinking, he is just doing this because he feels bad for them, why would he buy a $20 tee-shirt?  It was very nice that he did, regardless of his motives.  I think that I remember some of these things so well because the whole time I was there I didn't feel comfortable; it was just a very sad and almost eerie place. This was my performance. 

While I was doing some research online about the memorial I came across some reviews made by people who had visited.  There were a few mixed feelings, as well as stories of disappointment.  One woman writes about being asked for money by Native American men, and believing she was scammed.  She continues saying that, “You should be ashamed, your ancestors would be appalled of your actions.... Stay away if you don't want to lose your hard earned money..It's all a scam! We were scared being there!”  Quite frankly, I am not too surprised by this.  I don’t mean to justify their actions, but it makes sense considering Native Americans demographically are very poor and are aware that visiters with money come through.    There were plenty of reviews sharing the same feelings, as well as others that had a very wonderful experience- I found it interesting to read them.

Thinking of the memorial as a metaphor for performance means to think about the activity that goes on in that place. I came across an event called, The Wounded Knee Motorcycle Run.  It  is a way to, “bring all those who make the run with us closer together and help them to be more understanding and accepting of the cultural differences between Native and Non-Native Americans that live in this very culturally diverse country we all live in.”  Positive performances like the Motorcycle Run occuring at Wounded Knee are a good way to commemorate those who died, regardless if there are people displeased with the memorials.  

Here is the link to read reviews:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g54880-d144992-Reviews-Wounded_Knee_Massacre_Monument-Wounded_Knee_South_Dakota.html

Travel Shows, Memorials, and The Holy Thugs of Venezuela

Most travel shows are totally bogus.  How many times am I suppose to watch Anthony Bourdain eat something weird and then say to myself “man, that Anthony sure does eat some weird stuff.” Or what about Rick Steve and his show Europe? The PBS show where the host force feeds you flowery stories of popular destinations until you’re ready to barf crepes all over the Eiffel Tower.  Most of these shows do very little for marginalized groups of people in the world because they rarely venture into the lives and struggles of real people in less-than-popular destinations. Sure, these shows will most likely add some bit of knowledge to your repertoire of facts, but they are what they are; quaint, cute, and relatively boring “outsider” accounts of people and places in the world.  The only exception (at least that I’ve found) is The Vice Guide to Travel.

Filled with excellent political insights, witty humor, and plenty of interesting takes on real-world situations, the Vice Guide to Travel investigates people and places that most journalists wouldn’t dare visit or much less even think about. The show is too blunt and true to be aired on cable television, which is all the more reason you should watch it. Plus, the host is not just a journalist; deep down, he is a geographer- and a social geographer at that. You can watch any of the short documentaries and find relations to the material we’ve read in class.

One particular episode caught my attention.  In “The Holy Thugs of Venezuela,” a rather unusual group of people have been memorialized throughout the city.  The Holy Thugs were people who committed crimes to benefit the poor, and are even described as the “Robin Hoods” of Venezuela by some. The Holy Thugs have been made as saints by parts of Caracas and are memorialized in various places. What struck me as extremely out of the ordinary were the ways that people performed when in the presence of the memorials:  People are expected to converse, make hand gestures, and give offerings (usually of drugs or cigarettes) to the figures that are located in the cemetery.  Not only is this type of activity unusual in a cemetery, it's also pretty rare to find people giving drugs to memorials that they refer to as "saints."This type of performance adds to the collective memory that these memorials encompass; these thugs were not people of prestige and because of this, they are remembered through performances that recreate and portray them as normal people.

 

In Caracas, it’s easier for some of the poor to put their faith in the people who protected their community rather than some popular Catholic saint or political figure like Chavez. For them, their state and their official religion helped them the least - It was guys like Tomasito and Crude Oil that brought a sense of relief and protection to their community, and it’s these Holy Thugs that are chosen to be remembered.  Even after fifty or so years, the presence of these “thugs” is marked (not through any organization or government, but by loosely associated individuals) in the landscape.

I could probably try to spell out all the ways that the Holy Thugs have been memorialized in the ways that Alderman did, or I can let you guys do so in the comment area (so this will be an easy way for some of you to contribute to the blog).  So let’s put our thinking caps on, watch the episode, and reflect on how these memorials can be interpreted as landscapes of Text, Arena, and Performance. Think about the various locations that these figures are memorialized in, the physical traits that they are given, who is memorializing them, how they contribute to a sense of belonging in the community, what message these figures are sending, and how these memorials compare to some of the memorials that Dr. Foote discussed in his lecture. To keep the comments from overlapping, just comment on one aspect at a time. Most importantly, have fun with this.

If that embedded code doesn't work, here is the link

http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-holy-thugs-2--3#ooid=R0Z2k1NDrd-u0xqV77WD8CJAWMVCE7WZ

Reading Places as Metaphors: The National Defense Shooting Range in Vietnam

To me, this past week was the most interesting set of readings and classroom discussions so far. We talked about connections between meaning and place and how place is important to consider when thinking about collective memory, which is the collection of memories developed by an individual or a group. In regards to the Alderman and Dwyer article, “Memorial Landscapes: Analytic Questions and Metaphors,” we discussed the ideas behind looking at a memorials as a text, arena, and performance.

 

In class on Tuesday, I mentioned how in Vietnam, a country for which a war took the lives of over three million people, an American tourist can pay to shoot the same rifles that were used in the war. To give an example, I found an article online that discusses The National Defense Shooting Range in Ho Chi Minh City as being that destination. The article explains, “For five dollars, you can fire off a few rounds on an American M-16, or the AK-47’s favored by the Vietnamese.” The author even discusses what the Vietnamese attendant said to him: “C’mon and try it, it’s your chance to be part of the war.” This statement, in particular, took me by surprise. I find it interesting that a Vietnamese born citizen would want an American to relive the experience of a war that most likely took the life of someone in his family. With this particular destination in mind, I would like to expand on our discussion about reading places as metaphors.

 

TEXT:

How could we look at this particular place as a text? This metaphor is meant for us to see a place as being an authored thing, something given meaning through the experiences of the author writing it. In the case of the shooting range, it is easy to see how people would have varying interpretations of this place. For instance, it’s obvious that the employee working the range had the mindset that totally disregarded the violent past of the war whereas most would think he would feel the direct opposite. I for one feel that the idea of this place being a tourist attraction is mind-boggling and honestly quite disturbing. Just by reading about this place I know that if I were to ever visit, I would not have the same mindset. I have too many family members associated with this war and seeing their grief, I could not sit idly by and shoot guns in a place that holds such tragic memories for my family. My great uncle, one of the first to don the Green Beret for our country, would be deeply offended to see a place for which such a tragedy could be relived. This is a good example relating to the Creswell article in which he quotes “our soon-to-be distinguished guest” Ken Foote as saying, “places have the power to force hidden and painful memories to the fore through their material existence.” Creswell also mentions that the “sites stained by the blood of violence and covered by the ashes of tragedy, force people to face squarely the meaning of an event.” With that being said, people differ when it comes to writing the story of a place. 

 

ARENA:

How can we look at the shooting range as an arena? Well, in class we discussed that this metaphor is focused around the idea of memorials or places serving as the location for people to discus the meaning of the place and to compete, sort of like a game with different teams, for dominance of the processes that make this place a struggle for identity. Basically, place as an arena means that there are other groups competing for how something should be memorialized. In this case, the Department of Tourism in Vietnam uses this place for profit. Vietnam is a struggling country with limited resources and has recently begun to see the profits of re-marketing war memorabilia and war-zone locations. So, how do they want this era to be memorialized or remembered? In the article online, it mentions that the country is “repackaging it’s collection of war museums, dusting away some of the dowdy propaganda and sprucing up the exhibits for greater international consumption.” This shows the political implication of places as arenas. Also, the article explains that the names of different museums are beginning to change. For example, “the name of the War Remnants Museum used to be known as the Museum of American War Crimes.” Like Alderman and Dwyer assert, when thinking about places as arenas, “it is important to recognize the historical representation is not only a product of social power but also a tool or resource for achieving it.” So, how can the shooting range and its historical representation be a tool or resource for achieving social power? I might be wrong, but the shooting range is obviously a representation of the violent history surrounding the Vietnam War and yet the Vietnamese government is actively exploiting that site for financial purposes.

PERFORMANCE:

As we learned in class, the idea of a place as performance means that we “recognize the important role that bodily enactments, commemorative rituals, and cultural displays occupy in constituting and bringing meaning to places suggesting that the body itself is a site of memory.” This means that places take on different meanings by how people perform there. A few questions are raised when we speak of memorials or places as performance. What is the expected behavior? What are the expectations for the memorial? How is the place used?  When I think of this idea, I think of what we learned in class about how memorials aren’t just seen by how it looks like in the landscape but how it is perpetuated by meanings. Here we discussed how the site of the Athletic Center in Argentina is located below a busy highway and that it’s passed frequently and not really noticed. However, judging by the candles we saw in the video, people still associate this site as being a place of bad memories. In regards to the shooting range in Vietnam, it is located in the busy city of Ho Chi Minh City and is frequented by tourists. How do these tourist act there will determine it’s meaning in a sense. Think about how my great uncle would act in this place. I would think he would be disgusted by the horrible memories that would come to light. However, a tourist who wants to experience this site would go shoot the guns and get the experience of feeling “part of the war.” How we act in a place determines our expectations of that place as well as the expected behaviors within. Like Dr. Whitson said in class, the Vietnam memorial in D.C. is a place that has a designated set of expectations. We wouldn’t have our child sit on the wall and eat ice cream. The site is for mourning and refuge for family members who lost loved ones whereas the shooting range in Vietnam is a place in which you are expected to pay to experience what it was like to shoot a gun in Vietnam during the war.

 

Website: http://www.gluckman.com/vietwar.htm