Module 1, Reflection 1

Do you think these historical events, rules, and laws still impact our society today?

It’s clear that many of these historical events, rules, and laws have lasting implications and continued impacts on society today. Indigenous loss of land, cultural assets, and children has deprived many groups from continued exchange of culture, not to mention the horrific physical and mental impacts on the families subjected to forced assimilation and adoptions. Racial inequality in housing, redlining, has continued impacts on the communities where black people live, the type and quality of public services available (education), and has some strong links to environmental racism. The videos on immigration broadly, and those at the border are particularly prescient today.

What are your thoughts after viewing these videos?

Some of the content in these videos was expected, in that I have heard of and studied some of these events. However, a lot of it was new to me, or had been sugar coated more in the past. Particularly shocking (and jarring) was the use of pesticides, kerosene, and the humiliating “delousing” procedures that took place at the southern US border and inspired the treatment of people in Nazi concentration camps. Additionally, given the current COVID-19 pandemic, the current administration’s treatment of immigrants, and living in Arizona, the videos on immigration, and the southern border are still particularly relevant. In the current pandemic, both Chinese and Mexican people have been labeled as "dirty" and a potential risk to spread the coronavirus to the US, though it seems that many of the initial transmissions came from European origin.

Overall though, I think these videos highlighted some large gaps in my education, both formalized, and self-education, as well as some miseducation in my past.