Hey everyone here I was having difficulties replying to a discussion on Amanda McClaslin's Post on Alcatraz. So I've decided to post it here on my blog. Please feel free to respond and add input to our discussion!
Professor Leonard:
What do you think the history focuses on Alcatraz as a place of incarceration and not the larger history; why do you think tourists are more likely to flock to see a prison (what is that about) than a place that sparks historic memory as it relates to Native American resistance, Native struggle, and the larger history of the conquest?
Amanda:
I think tourist flock to see Alcatraz as a prison because there is more “build up” to see it. There is movies made about the escape from Alcatraz, the prison housed some of the most notorious criminals in America. I really don’t believe people know how much history is on the island for Native Americans. They don’t really know the importance and how the stance on Alcatraz really brought different Native American tribes together that form a more united force.
Professor Leonard:
How does imagining the U.S. as a nation of laws, crime and punishment, where bad people are locked up away from "good people" offer a more appealing narrative than Native American genocide?
Me:
I believe this statement can only be conceptualized by the insight of the reader. We say we are a nation of laws that are keeping “the bad” from “the good” but in all reality we could put it in the context of we are nation of laws that imprisons individuals who go against anything the government doesn’t believe in. This translates to the Native American Genocide in the sense that it hides that there are flaws within our system; Alcatraz being another one of them. Our nation had already taken away their land, now we have made it impossible for them to live among the land that we had so graciously “given” back due to the inadequate sanitation facilities. This brings in all of the elements of discrimination, racism, inequality and social injustice.
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