Post 3: Spanish/CUBAN/American War
I too was baffled when we became aware of the information we had been taught in high school had been morphed into events that favored the United States. However, I wasn't too surprised either. As we have been reading and discussing the perspectives of the Latin American people, we have been learning new ways of looking at certain aspects in history that we were taught in grade school. These past couple of classes we have been discussing the Spanish/CUBAN/American war. I capitalize "Cuban" because before these last two weeks, I always thought the war was only between the United States and Spanish. Although, we now know the Cubans were also part of the war. Which is really interesting that we never went over this in high school. This makes me also wonder on the perspectives that others around the world have on other historical events. Do all countries have their schools teach their own view on past events? Also, if other countries do teach events that happened in a different part of the world, what perspective do they teach it with? For example, if people in Australia were learning about this war, do they see it through the eyes of the United States? Spanish? Cubans? Or do they have their own perspective and implications? Its just really interesting that one thing in history can have so many interpretations and implications. Although, I could see foreshadowing on what the United States will have their citizens focus on when it came to the war because of their political cartoons. Whether it was being portrayed as a father figure or hero, United States was always the superior one in the cartoons. These pictures that illustrated them as being the good guys and fighting for the Cubans against the Spanish. I also am curious if there are other things we will learn about in the class that challenges what we learned in high school!
I completely agree with you!! I elaborated on American education in my blog post as well. It's so hard to not have bias when talking about your own country. You never really want to make your country seem bad. Our education system has a set curriculum on what to teach, which is probably very different from other countries. I actually went to Canada for a leadership retreat one year and the Canadians also learn a lot about U.S. history. It was very clear that they learned it a lot different than we did or at least have a different perspective than us. I can't remember specifically what they said, but it was clear that they thought Americans were ignorant about their own history. To be honest, I just don't know what to believe anymore that I want to only hear a neutral stance on U.S. history, and other countries for that matter. Neutrality is practically impossible! You definitely got me thinking about how my perspective of history could vary depending on the country I learned it from. I'm sure there will be more perspectives from other countries that will challenge what we learned in high school, or at least our vision of the U.S. now.
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