Introduction
Is all that we know about those who came before us from what they leave behind? Are the artifacts that remain long after a group of people are gone enough to tell us their true narrative or is there more for us to uncover? People and the societies they formed find places in our history books and museums after archeologists and historians have made significant physical findings, drawn their conclusions, and present what they believe to be the true story. What happens when an artifact, the evidence of historical significance no longer exists or was not recognized for its significance before it disappeared? How do we know when something of such significance is about to disappear and become an invisible history?
We walk upon land that bears the hidden footsteps of those who came before us. Often that is a thread we forget exists. Whether we forget it out of ignorance or convenience it is a thread that we must learn to weave through out generations until we reach our own. Connecting our lives with the past can lead to uncomfortable truths and willful forgetting. This is our challenge if we choose to face the reality that we too will become a society that is examined and most likely judged by what we leave behind.
The city of Emeryville, where I teach high school Visual Arts, is a small town of aproximetly10,000 residents 1 and 20,000 daily commuters located across the bay from San Francisco in what is known as the East Bay. Surrounded by the larger cities of Berkeley and Oakland, Emeryville's 1.2 square miles is uniquely positioned with a shoreline on the San Francisco Bay and major intersecting freeways that lead to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Today beside these intersecting freeways is a popular shopping and entertainment center called Bay Street.
Beneath Bay Street at the corner of Shellmound Street and Ohlone Way lays a story of our nation's growth, decline, and rebirth. When examined closely, the Bay Street site tells the story of the Ohlone Native Americans, Gold Rush settlers, and the industrialization of our of a city and subsequent contamination of the land. This history is rich in beauty and uncomfortable truths that my students will explore as they question what they will leave behind to tell their story and how our society will be viewed by those who come after us.
Through this unit I will guide my 11 th and 12 th grade students on an investigation of the Bay Street site while focusing a historical lens on the growth of Emeryville and its reflection of our state and nation's narrative. By beginning our inquiry at the present day and examining the role the Bay Street complex plays in their lives and our community, students will establish a frame to investigate the people who came before them and how our city was shaped into the Emeryville known as our own. When we look backward from the present, my students will discover the vast industrial growth of our city (1920s-1990s), life after the California Gold Rush (1870s-1920s), and the first known inhabitants of the area, the Ohlone Native Americans (Pre 1770). As they fill in the gaps of our historical narrative through an Art Based Research approach: students will create a timeline to visualize the scope of our investigation, map each period of history to track the city's evolution, visit locations that existed in the past to uncover what they have become, examine primary and secondary historical documents, and create a public art installations that gives voice to Emeryville's past, present, and future.
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