“Colonialism is terrible, but Pho is delicious” –Dustin Chinn, playwright1
Introduction:
Inevitably, every high school student will encounter the subject of colonialism. Unfortunately, in today’s political climate, this subject can be a very touchy one, fraught with possibilities for parental upset and administrative brow creasing. It also, of course, carries the problem of most topics of history, the ever present student questions of “why should I care? How does this affect me today?” In this unit, I hope to help Social Studies students begin to answer both of these concerns, by looking at the art created by both the colonizing powers, as well as the vibrant cultures which found themselves the subject of colonization.
But of course, merely looking at art from the Colombian period, or even Native American art from the pre-Columbian era, doesn’t give us the full picture, nor does it answer the students’ most common questions. To do that, we have to bring this art into the present, and examine how it has evolved over time, as well as how our perceptions of one another are influenced by art today, as well as by art from the past.
This is not going to be a story of defeated peoples, colonized by merciless conquerors and wiped from existence. Nor is it going to be a story of a purely noble society overcoming the forces of darkness and ignorance in the new world. Both are, I think, equally false, as neither one truly tells the whole story of the colonial period, as I intend to with this unit.. Instead, I hope for this unit to be one which will allows students to better appreciate how what we have done, whatever our cultural background, has led us to where we are today, for better and for worse, and how, as indicated by Dustin Chinn in the quote above, the evils of the past have created opportunities for new expressions for colonized peoples in modern society. These expressions ripen and improve the culture which we, at least to some extent, all share today.
This unit will address these topics roughly chronologically, first focusing on the point of view of the colonial empires of Native Americans and enslaved Africans, then rolling back the clock to examine the same span of time from the other perspective, that of the colonized people.
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