I haven’t been on a school bus in a while: do they still have those super slick seats where you slide all over where the bus makes a turn – unless you’re wearing shorts, and then they stick to your legs like duct tape? Are they still cold in winter, and hot in summer, and super duper loud? That’s so cool.
I didn’t get to ride them everyday, I either lived too far away or close to school, so my only opportunity to enjoy them was to and from field trips.
Regular schoolwork is exposure and repetition; field trips add “direct experience”. This is a Symphony Hall. This is a Working Farm. This is a French Movie. My favorite was The Rodeo, which wasn’t even a trip for my school, but something my mother took me to: I still remember being given a small square of bright green alfalfa; the smell was absolutely Verdant Green.
My mother’s career in classroom teaching was jet-fueled by a personal manifesto that “there is, always, something to learn”. So every time we left the house was a field trip. The amusement park was a festival of physics, the grocery store a study in economics, and every person you could know: sociology.
But history has always been tricky.
My picture of the past has always been a bit disjointed, like a Saul Bass title sequence. In the United States immigrant cultures, native to other geographical locations, thrive, flourish and connect their current lives to centuries of tradition from their ancestral homes.
As an African American, my true home is… here. And my cultural identity? Well, this is just me I’m talking about, but it’s always been more closely aligned with the future and expanding possibilities than the past.
Or so I thought. Before our field trip.
Zoe took the entire family to the African American History Museum last weekend. Three generations of us, 11, 56, and 82.
My reality living as an African American has always been a bit of a scarlet letter situation, where the meaning of my appearance was not at all personally defined (or even tied to a specific place, language, or culture) but instead hijacked by observers, critics and frankly madmen; a razor’s edge where it was difficult not to fall on either the side of victim or threat.
This visit changed that by displaying the through-lines from one event to another, from one action to another, one person to another. The visitor walks a four-century long path from no choice to in charge, literally rising from nothing at all to quite a bit actually, seeing facts that you already knew but learning how they all fit together, a slow motion quest for dignity, for opportunity, every small action feeding another, every short life inspiring another, every step creating that path.
The importance of history is moving time forward, like passing a note in class. You remember how important that was, if the transmission was interrupted you’d never find out if they like you or “like” like you. Experiencing that museum was finally getting the note.
Oh. They don’t like us. No. Not at all.
But that’s not the point. It’s not about them, whoever they are.
I’m not from a piece of land elsewhere on the globe that represents my heritage. Instead, the actions of others constructed my homeland on this soil. It wasn’t always allowed to thrive or flourish; more often than not people tried to just set it on fire, not realizing that you cannot burn a dream, and that is my homeland, a dream of dignity and survival. I’m the descendant of a dream, and my responsibility is keep dreaming, and somehow pass the dream along.
My native tongue is perseverance. Patience. Focus. To be African American is not one single culture, but a rich soil enabling an infinite ecosystem; what we each grow into is unique, but it’s not so much a family tree as a Rainforest.
We also visited the Air and Space Museum, and I saw the original Enterprise model from Star Trek and got a bit weepy about that too. Look, I know who I am, I’m a geek, my heritage is… complicated. But on all fronts, I am very proud to represent it. I don’t know what it’s like to be anything else, but now I do feel a bit more connected to other people who’ve felt this same way.
The struggle isn’t gonna be over. Conflict is ever and everywhen.
But dreams last longer than empires.
I do wish Wakanda was a real place, though.
Just for the dual citizenship opportunity.
Freedom's Journal.