Recently, I completed a study of land ownership, stewardship, and land culture for an academic institution. The core purpose of this study was to trace the ownership of the campus back to the European contact period so that an evidence-based ownership statement could be issued. These statements provide opportunities for conversations about indigenous heritage and…
Category: Public History
Discussing the Impact of Disasters on a Community With Fox News
Various things make up the shared historical memory of a community. These narratives take assorted forms, but the most jarring materialize when an unthinkable tragedy strikes. Whether a storm or accident, the catastrophes are seared deeply into the collective memory of residents. They shatter many lives and became part of history in the aftermath —…
Remembering Japanese Internment
As today marks the 80th anniversary of the Feb. 19, 1942, presidential order authorizing the internment of Americans with Japanese ancestry, I recalled an April day in 2016 in Bridgeton, NJ. On that Wednesday as spring got underway, I spent a delightful morning talking with 92-year-old Frank Hitoshi Ono. At the time I was doing…
Disasters Are Part of a Community’s History and Should be Remembered
A story about the passage of 37 years since a sudden, life-shattering tragedy hit San Diego came up in my Delmarva Newsfeed yesterday. On Friday, September 25, 1978, a beautiful, sunny southern California Day, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) Fight 182 was on final descent into the airport when it collided with a Cessna. Thirteen seconds…