Monumental

Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial

Day 19

Our first stop in beautiful South Dakota was visiting what the local news station calls the “Shrine of Democracy.” (Local news station actually came out to do a story about our group…see it here at http://www.newscenterone.tv/stories/1714.aspx ) For those of you who have never seen the real Mount Rushmore…don’t get your hopes too high. It’s probably not as spectacular as you were expecting. However, part of the experience I did enjoy was when Jenni and I sat off to the side and observed the families who were visiting this historic monument. We saw a little boy about 9 years old being quizzed by his mother about why Abraham Lincoln was important to America’s history, and he was actually able to answer her question. His little sister chimed in with more questions about “the other guys up there” and what they had done to deserve a giant carving of their face on a mountain. Viewing Mount Rushmore as a tool for families to engage in a dialogue about our country’s history that otherwise might not have happened gave the monument a bit more charm than it had held at first sight.

We ate lunch in a small town named Hill City (where we had to visit 4 separate restaurants because 3 didn’t take credit cards….gotta love small towns…) and then headed on to see the unfinished monument of Crazy Horse. This was a bizarre experience. The work on Crazy Horse, which was designed to be the largest statue in the world- many times larger than Mount Rushmore- has been going on since the 1940s and it is not even half-completed. The elders from the predominant Native American tribe in the area, the Lakota, recruited a well-known Polish sculptor in the 1940s to erect a statue of the Lakota warrior hero Crazy Horse, because, in their words, they wanted the white man to know that “the red man has heroes too.”

It is my gut instinct to respond negatively to this project. On the one hand, it seems a reactionary response to the construction of Mount Rushmore in the Lakotas’ sacred Black Hills and to “white man’s history” in general. It seems to go against the traditional Native American value of preserving and protecting the Earth and the very humility of Crazy Horse himself, who is often described as a humble man who regularly retreated into nature to meditate. On the other hand, there is no denying the fact that the Native Americans’ stories have been left out of American history and continues to be. I can certainly understand the desire to erect a large public monument to one of their heroes simply to finally gain some kind of recognition for their past suffering- the Lakota elders who commissioned the work even says that the monument is supposed to speak for all Native North American peoples. Of course, that presents another issue- why is this Polish family responsible for creating a monument for Native American history?

At this museum that accompanies the unfinished monument, they show a video. I was excited at first to see it because I thought we were going to see a film about Crazy Horse himself. Silly me – it turned out to be this ridiculous documentary about the history of building the monument, focusing on this sculptor, Korczak Ziółkowski, and his vision for the whole project and how he recruited his children from a young age to help him in completing it. No joke, part of this film was a minutes-long montage of dynamite explosions, and you might be interested to know that there is a laser light show that is displayed on Crazy Horse on summer nights. While I am absolutely in strong favor for promoting education about Native American history, this whole monument project seems to be a strange way to go about it. The good part of the whole scenario is that once the monument is finished, there will be a cultural heritage center, a university and a medical center at the site as well, and honestly, the biggest statue in the world probably will be quite a tourist draw, so maybe if the end result is greater education, resources and appreciation for Native Americans, then the outrageous nature of the Crazy Horse statue shouldn’t matter. I haven’t made up my mind. Thoughts?

And bringing this back to the larger theme of the trip, how do monuments like these speak to what it means to be an American, maybe specifically, who are our heroes? What does one have to do in order to have your face carved into a mountain? Andi made a great point in the car on the way to Mt. Rushmore- why is it that we commemorate only the presidents (and a select few at that) on things like mountains and even our money? What about the everyday heroes who really did the most to build this country, the people who get no credit- the farmers, the small business owners, the street sweepers, not to mention women in general, slaves, immigrants, etc. etc. etc.?

I have more to say about this day, but I’m trying to cut down on blog length. I’ll write a post about our visit to Pine Ridge as soon as I get a chance. Again, I apologize for being so behind! Keep reading, and I love any and all feedback you’d like to give.

Where Some Wild Things Are

Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks

Day 17 & 18

For this trip and especially in visiting the national parks, one of the themes we were asked to think about was the idea of wilderness and if this country still offered any “wilderness” these days. So as we drove on paved roads, used established campgrounds, and walked on cleared dirt paths through some of the most beautiful land I have ever had the pleasure of seeing, I wondered about this concept of wilderness. In my mind, the term evokes feelings of solitude, wonder, rawness, silence and freedom. Though I had an incredible experience seeing and being in Glacier National Park and what little of Yellowstone we could see, our experience really didn’t offer anything close to being in true wilderness.

In Glacier, we tried to arrange a cookout over a campfire at the campgrounds, but both the rain and other campers and rangers apparently concerned about a lack of a permit to use the fire pit put an end to that plan. (We had to settle for microwave hotdogs and s’mores, which was okay with us.) A few of us went on a scenic drive up the mountain in one of the rental vans and we saw some truly beautiful sights despite the cloudy and sometimes rainy cold weather. Seeing the areas where fire has ravaged the land but things have begun to grow again as they always do, nervously eyeing the wall of snow that borders the highway once you get to a certain altitude, the incredible view from the rest stop thousands of miles above sea level that looks out over the river, snow-capped mountains and gigantic evergreens – all of it does make you feel insignificant in the best way possible. Seeing the vastness of it all made me forget a little the irony of seeing all of this natural beauty from the comfort of our heated rental van. We weren’t alone and the occasional passing car periodically disturbed the silence, but the feelings of awe and wonder I associate with the notion of wilderness were certainly there for all of us. Even though it is government-owned and –protected land, I like to think there is still some wilderness out there, miles and miles where no one has yet walked and won’t ever walk.

On another random note, we had a great breakfast before we set out for the park at this cute little pancake diner. As someone with a fondness for small towns, I always love to go to those restaurants where you’re the only one who isn’t a regular, the waitress calls everyone else by name, and you can taste the years of the cook’s experience. Though we joked about definitely seeming out of place and getting a few strange looks from the locals, most of who were bearded men in flannel downing cups of coffee, I still immensely enjoyed the authenticity of the experience, as well as the delicious (and calorie-laden) food. It’s a privilege that this trip allows us not only to get a glimpse of the character of our destinations, but also momentarily observe all kinds of people’s daily lives.

For our day in Yellowstone, we actually didn’t set foot on the national park land but instead saw some of it from a river raft. We had arranged to go white water rafting from a town called Gardiner on the edge of the park. It was my first time going white water rafting (Mom, I survived!) and I had a fantastic time. We saw some beautiful landscapes and our raft guide told us some interesting stories about the area. After we finished our rafting adventure, we decided last minute to go to a nearby hot springs someone had told us about. Having never been to a hot springs, I was expecting some hot water in a hole in the ground, nature’s rough version of a hot tub. Instead we got a very crowded warm fresh water pool. But it was still nice to have some time to relax and make good use of their public showers.

All in all, I loved our trip to the national parks. I don’t think the touristy quality of our experiences lessens the value of spending time enjoying America’s natural beauty. This year, Ken Burns is set to release his new documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. After visiting the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park and Yellowstone, I think I may agree- it’s certainly one of America’s greatest ideas. These parks and others are the most accessible way for most Americans to escape city life or suburban life and recreate that “traditional” American dream of exploration. I have lots of fond memories of going to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with my family, parking the car and hiking together. I think designating land to be preserved was one of the greatest foresights of our government, because as more and more land is getting developed- since I moved to Williamson County 10 years ago, I’ve witnessed an incredible amount of land bulldozed for suburban development- I think it’s so important for us to have a commitment to protecting our national parks from development. Not to get sentimental and cheesy, but I think we really do owe that to future generations, to ensure that there remains parts of our country that, despite paved roads and wildlife signs, largely appear untouched by man.

After a couple of days of (somewhat) relaxing in nature, we headed onward to one of America’s most recognizable tourist attractions- Mount Rushmore.

Seattle -- Land of a Million Starbucks

Our day in Seattle began in the most predictable way – with a visit to Starbucks. Plans for visiting a church didn’t work out, so we got our coffee and headed over to Pike’s Place Market. It was interesting to compare this bustling market to the one we had just visited in Portland. This market had more options and a permanent structure but less community. More tourists fresh off of the nearby cruise ship, fewer neighbors and families. Still an interesting experience. Unfortunately I missed the famous fish throwing stand, so that’s a reason to return in the future, I suppose.

In the afternoon, we went on a rather strange underground tour of Seattle. I guess I was expecting in an underground tour lots of creepiness but the tour mainly focused on (depending on your sense of humor) funny stories about the less than respectable past of Seattle, with a bizarre emphasis on bathroom jokes. In a way, I was a bit turned off at first but then I thought that it was kind of nice the city didn’t take itself too seriously, that unlike other places we have visited on this trip, the people running this tour were willing to tell the less-than-glamorous parts of the story. Essentially, the city had undergone a significant restructuring late in the nineteenth century, and had basically raised the entire city a level, so there is a whole underground that used to be mostly saloons and brothels. It was very strange, because the tour guides have not revamped this underground at all for their tour, other than adding a boardwalk for customers to easily maneuver their way around the wreckage of decades of history. It was a strange experience but in a way gave a more authentic feel for the history there than just viewing relics in some fancy museum.

A few of us ended traversing quite a bit of the city in efforts to find a place to eat dinner, and we ended up settling on a very trendy new restaurant called Icon. Even though I was completely exhausted after our trek, walking around the city definitely is the best way to get a feel for it, in my opinion. We ended our day with a visit to the Space Needle, which offered an absolutely incredible view of the city and the bay at sunset.

I got a similar sense from Seattle as I did in Portland – all the perks of a big city, like good shopping, diverse culture, beautiful buildings without the intimidation and busyness you feel in other major cities. I enjoyed Seattle quite a bit, especially that view from the Northwest coast…there’s nothing like it. The ubiquitous Starbucks aside, Seattle had a homey yet exciting feel to it and I would love to visit again.

Portland, Oregon

Day 15

We had a lot of hype about Portland before we got there. Only a few of us, including Shirah, who was the ambassador for this city, had been to Portland before and those of us who had not been had fairly high expectations for it. We began our day with a visit to the funky little donut place of Travel Channel fame (Anthony Bourdain visited it on his show “No Reservations”) called Voodoo Donuts. Its fun, laidback atmosphere combined with reasonable prices and scandalously-named delicious donuts, the long wait in line was actually worth it. We headed to Portland’s market, which featured local food and craft vendors. I loved the atmosphere of this market- it called to mind the street fairs of my hometown, Franklin, where everything is busy and crowded, but there is a friendly and leisurely feeling to the event overall, and for the most part, people are there to enjoy the community rather than just get some shopping done, like at a mall. As someone in the group mentioned, one striking thing about Portland was that the homeless seemed to be a part of the community, compared to other cities we’ve been, like Salt Lake City where across from the nice Italian deli we ate at, there was a crowd of what appeared to be homeless people just alone in a park. Here in Portland, homeless people sat all around the edges of the market, some of them selling newspapers, some of them playing music for tips, but definitely more visible than in other communities.

After the market, we visited the International Rose Test Gardens, which had around 8,000 different kinds of roses. The gardens were beautiful, but I had great fun reading the different names for the roses – apparently they ran out of ways of describing the color or appearance of the rose in the naming process because as you move further down the paths, you start seeing roses named after a very random assortment of celebrities, including Maria Shriver and Barbara Streisand.

We were able to explore the city in small groups after that, which was really nice. I feel like I was able to really get a feel for at least the city, if not the people, of Portland by having some time to wander around.

I liked the feel of Portland a lot. I felt like it was a relatively clean and pretty city, with the perks of a big city without it feeling busy or crowded at all. Most people we encountered seemed to be friendly and not in a rush or too preoccupied with their errands to take the time to smile at us. You definitely saw a diverse assortment of people, too, which I appreciate. Portland’s population, or what we saw of it, definitely did seem to fit my preconceived notions- relatively young, into the whole alternative music scene, indie-trendy fashions, and embracing the organic/green movement. One surprise of the day came when we stopped at “Nike Town,” the largest Nike store in the country I think, and saw their T-shirts and signs supporting the Portland gay pride movement. Not something that I would have necessarily expected from one of the largest athletic supply stores, but that was exciting and spoke even more of Portland’s progressive nature. We had dinner at a restaurant called Salvador Molly’s that served international food, while a couple of the group members met up with some friends. See Chris and Rashina’s (upcoming) blogs about their cool experience seeing some of the neighborhoods in Portland up close. I certainly was not disappointed by Portland and would love to visit again. Along with San Francisco, Portland was a city I felt I could spend a good deal of time in and look forward to visiting again.

The Other Face of California

Crescent City, CA - Day 14

We had originally planned to stay in L.A. for 3 days, but somewhere along the line, we had to change our itinerary to 2 days in L.A. and arranged to spend a day instead in the California redwood forest outside of Crescent City. We ate breakfast at the ubiquitous Denny’s and definitely got a taste for the local culture, which was your classic Small Town U.S.A. for sure, which was an interesting side of California to see after L.A. and San Francisco. We got to spend some time driving around the forest and then were able to set off on our own on foot for some rare alone time in one of the most beautiful settings I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. There’s nothing like being surrounded by trees at least 70 feet tall to make you remember how small you really are.

However something about driving paved roads through this absolutely beautiful landscape brings to mind the line from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”- “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” On the one hand, it seems a tragedy to develop this land at all, because the redwood forest is truly one of nature’s treasures. It seems like paving the roads, marking out trails and posting up signs all through the area cheapens the experience a little. But on the other hand, I can kind of understand the point behind it, because by ensuring there are a minimal number of roads and trails, the government is able to control when and where people go, to a certain extent. And it makes the forest- at least a small part of it- easily available for public use, which is what national parks are supposed to do. Developing this land for hiking and driving allows people who might not have the time or money to plan a rustic camping trip to have a leisurely, simple experience in this beautiful place. So this brings mixed feelings for me- I can understand it but I still think development looks out of place in a setting that feels so timeless and still.
But overall, the absolute silence of the woods was more than refreshing, especially after the hustle and bustle of Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco back to back. After our afternoon in the woods, we cleaned the bus, got some laundry done, made a shopping trip and had a much-needed productive day. We then traveled on to Portland, one of the most anticipated cities for many of us.

Forgot those flowers for my hair...

Day 13- San Francisco

Our plans for San Francisco had a wrench thrown in them when we had bus trouble for a couple of hours the night before (all is well now, no worries) but we arrived in the city several hours behind schedule and therefore were unable to complete the service project we had planned. As soon as we arrived in the city, we hopped on the public transportation system, the Bart, and traveled to the Castro district, which is one of the largest (if not the largest) gay and lesbian districts in the country. Before we made it to the Castro though, we got off the Bart in the Mission district, which was supposedly a pretty rough part of town. It was so interesting that just by walking a couple of blocks, we saw the buildings turn from rundown to painted with beautiful urban murals to finally, the trendy colorful little houses of the Castro district that were stacked practically on top of one another. The people turned from homeless to urban chic in a matter of 8 or 9 blocks.

I thought for the most part San Francisco was a really beautiful city compared to L.A. I had a delicious lunch at a place called Café Mystique, which served some type of African cuisine and then we traveled on the Bart to North Beach. We walked through the financial district with its giant skyscrapers, then onto the famous City Lights, where the Beats read their poetry. City Lights is still this quaint little bookstore that was hard to leave once you realized what important literary history was made there.

We then visited the Beat Museum, which was a great relatively new museum with a very thorough exhibit about the history and works of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and others involved in the Beat Movement. It was very cool to learn about this movement that has shaped this city’s reputation, and gave me a new perspective on a city known for being relatively “green,” gay-friendly and liberal. We walked around Chinatown for a while, which was interesting because, as I learned in a children’s book about San Francisco while in City Lights, San Francisco’s Chinatown is the largest Chinese community outside of Asia.

We met up with Rashina’s brother, Roshan, who is a graduate student at UC Berkeley and he kindly showed a group of us around Berkeley’s campus, which was beautiful. After the campus tour, we ate dinner at a trendy little vegetarian-friendly organic place that fit right in among all the political graffiti and trendy college record shops surrounding campus. From our day in San Francisco, I definitely felt like it was a place I would love to visit again, that it was a place where you could find your niche and meet friendly people and that it was definitely more my speed than busy L.A.

Out of touch...

Just wanted to update and say that we are spending our next few days in national parks (Glacier, Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore, as well as Pine Ridge Indian Reservation) and may be out touch and unable to update our blogs during this time. Actually, this provides a good excuse for me to catch up on my posts- by the time we are done experiencing some good ol' American wilderness, I will try to have the blogs for San Fransisco, Portland and Seattle done and ready to post. That is, as long as I survive my first white-water rafting experience.

Thanks and keep reading!

Los Angeles

Day 11

We started out our first day in sunny Los Angeles by taking a tour of CBS studios, specifically the set of Entertainment Tonight, where we met the friendly crew and host Mary Hart. We had lunch in a trendy little part of Santa Monica, where a few of us enjoyed an excellent slice or two of New York style pizza. We drove around Santa Monica, and then walked to the beach to enjoy a long afternoon of relaxing beach time. We then went down to Huntington Beach for some classic Californian fish tacos and check out the Surf City Nights festival. As we were leaving, we stopped to watch a very unique street performance, where a diverse group of young men were doing flips and tricks, as well as good-naturedly teasing the audience. They made all sorts of somewhat politically incorrect jokes about the “kinds of people” who would perform on the street, joking that if only they could earn enough tips they could stay off the streets and make it to college. It was interesting to watch the crowd look around a bit uncomfortably at each other and conclude that the joking was all in good humor. The juxtaposition of the crazy LA traffic we encountered and the rushed feeling of downtown next to the very relaxed surfer vibe of Huntington Beach and Santa Monica was really interesting. And then there were the more industrial, barren parts of town and I know there are all sorts of impoverished neighborhoods we did not get a chance to see. I got the feeling from our first day in L.A. that you could be in this city for months and months and never see all of its many faces.

Day 12

Disneyland. I’m going to be honest upfront- I love Disneyland -- all things Disney hold good memories for me, and I still enjoy going to the park and getting to ride rides and see my favorite characters from the movies I loved as a child dance around in a parade and the whole shebang. It’s more than just the fact that I had fun there when I was a kid- I actually still have fun when I go. However, I was definitely in the minority in this group. We did the whole waiting in lines for silly rides thing and the paying too much for a meal thing (though I had a delicious Monte Cristo that was almost worth the exorbitant amount I paid for it – you could actually feel your arteries clogging). Lunch was actually interesting, because we ate in the part of Disneyland called New Orleans, and having just been to the real thing last week, I can tell you that Disney’s New Orleans is a lot cleaner and quainter than the actual city. Disney’s New Orleans is this idealized beautiful town with Victorian-style houses, French music playing in the background, and all the waitresses and waiters are dressed in what appeared to be costumes hailing from the late 1800s. Needless to say, I did not see any of this in the real New Orleans, which gives this whole idea of Disneyland/world as an alternate reality an interesting perspective. Disney’s New Orleans has never seen a hurricane, or poverty, or strip clubs.

Going on the It’s a Small World ride as an adult was interesting, to see how Disney has created stock characters for countries around the world (and curiously enough, Hawaii as separate from America) which could possibly be responsible for forming many children’s first conceptions of people from different countries. All French women are can-can dancers, all Swiss people herd sheep, all Africans ride giraffes, etc. Strangely enough, Disney’s conception of your stock American characters consisted of a Caucasian farm boy and a Caucasian farm girl, a Caucasian cowboy, a Native American and the Toy Story characters of Woody and Jessie. That seems a rather strange interpretation of the land called the “melting pot”. All in all, our day at Disney was interesting, and for my part at least, enjoyable. We finished our day by driving around downtown L.A. and eating dinner on Hollywood Boulevard. I found Hollywood to be a bit anticlimactic, not much more than a main road with shopping opportunities that I couldn’t afford, and not much different than the main streets of other big cities. L.A. traffic was a nightmare and on the whole, I don’t think it was my kind of town. But I would certainly be willing to give it another shot, because like I said before, I don’t think we even came close to seeing all that this overwhelming city has to offer.

Viva Las Vegas

In a way, I found Vegas refreshing. In almost every other city we have visited, we have seen sites that claim this lofty dedication to preserving history and memory, and in the midst of that, everywhere we go, we see commercialism sneaking up to take advantage of that opportunity, where it’s the gift shops on Beale Street, in the Little Rock Nine museum, the Alamo, or the entire town of Roswell. This was the first town to be upfront from the very beginning about what they are and what they are trying to sell you. It’s a town of business, of consumerism, where everyone tries to be flashier than the next person or place. We began our day by meeting with Hugh Sinnock, the Director of Consumer Experience at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor’s Authority. It was a really interesting way to begin our day because it really did put the city in perspective, that everything on the Strip must be carefully crafted for the consumer (tourists) in order to maximize profit, because tourism is the number one industry in town. It was interesting to hear how Vegas has fared since the recession. Mr. Sinnock told us that right after Obama declared that America was officially in a recession, over 400 corporate business events booked in Vegas canceled. The Convention and Visitor’s Authority has had to raise the room tax to be able to make their budget work. Most of the rooms are currently at a discount price to encourage business, and he told us this has created an interesting dynamic with people of lower income levels all of a sudden being able to afford a room at some of the nicer hotels, mixing with the traditional upper-class customers. However, the 10 largest hotels in the world (I believe in terms of number of rooms) are still in Vegas and the convention center has been the busiest convention center for the past 15 years, holding some of the world’s largest corporate conventions. Mr. Sinnock gave us a great overview of what Vegas is all about, its history and its current goals.

For lunch, we went to a delicious new vegetarian café called the Red Velvet Café, where strangely enough, we happened to run into a sociologist eating her lunch there who stopped us when she overheard us talking about our trip. She had some really interesting insights about actually living in Las Vegas. She said that they had an appallingly low voter registration rate, an extremely poor public education system and a general lack of a community identity. All these problems arise from the nature of a town like Vegas that is solely based in the tourism trade. The people who live in Vegas do not usually think of themselves as being from Vegas, they still think of themselves as people from, say, Brooklyn, who happen to have lived in Vegas for a few years. Because people never embrace the community identity of Vegas, the actual residents of the city, involved in the tourism industry or not, have trouble accomplishing community improvement. I was really grateful that we got to see beyond the Vegas that is portrayed by the corporations in charge of the Strip, and hear a local’s perspective about the town. When we asked her one of our standard questions- what unites us as Americans- she had an interesting answer that I had not yet heard in our travels. She says that what unites Americans is the desire to be the greatest country in the world and the general consensus that no matter how the ideas are actually executed, the idea behind America of freedoms of speech, press, religion, expression, etc. is a good idea that almost anyone can get behind.

We spent the rest of our day in Vegas walking around the Strip and surrounding areas. It was interesting to actually begin our walk around the city in a poorer area- it was still a street with casinos, bars, strip clubs, etc. but this was (literally) a poor man’s version of the Strip. It was a completely desolate part of town that you could tell had once seen a fairly good business. I don’t know if the changing market of Vegas or the poor economy was responsible but it was bizarre to travel from this section of town where we were literally the only people outside walking around aside from a couple of homeless men to go a few blocks over and fight enormous crowds through some of the nicest buildings I’ve ever set foot in. We drove over to a couple of wedding chapels and got tours, which was actually pretty interesting.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around these ridiculously nice hotels, strolling through the confusing walkways that line the upscale shops that I am sure few Vegas patrons can actually afford to shop in and ended our day on the Strip seeing the pirate show outside of the Treasure Island hotel. I’d actually seen this pirate show last summer when I was in Vegas for a wedding, and warned people in the group who seemed to remember this event as family-friendly theater that is was definitely not that anymore. I was proven right - it was a raunchy, completely inappropriate debacle that was just a little shy of a strip show.

In our group discussions about Vegas, most people seem to be at least somewhat put off, even repulsed, by the entire town. I was trying to figure out why exactly I, unlike the rest of our group, did not have this initial reaction. I guess part of it is that even though I know it’s exactly what they are trying to sell me, I do not find anything inherently wrong with the idea of a town crafted for the sole purpose of allowing adults an escape from reality (or even an alternate reality, such as hotels like the Venetian and the Parisian provide). Someone in the group compared it to Disneyland, but for grown-ups- an adult’s playground. We certainly did see some of the trashier sides of Vegas in the constant objectification of women’s bodies and commodification of sex, but honestly, this occurs in every metropolitan area- it’s just the Vegas is way more open about it. But other parts of Vegas- the truly lavish decorations of some of the upscale hotels, the silliness of the idea of an Eiffel tower in the middle of the Nevada desert, the chance of striking it big- I can understand how that would appeal to your average hardworking adult. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” definitely allows you a certain freedom to be someone else for the short time you are there. Although as both a 20 year old and a part of a student group of a Christian university, Vegas did not have a lot to offer me, I can see myself perhaps enjoying it as a possible getaway weekend destination for some time in the future. Sure, it’s all about an escape from reality, and sure, some parts of the reality certain Vegas businesses have capitalized on are less than respectable, I still can understand the desire for that escape, no matter how flashy, tacky and short-lived it may be.

Salt Lake City

Day 9

Salt Lake City- a city of surprises, for sure. We got a late start, and were unfortunately unable to attend the different churches we had planned to go to on Sunday morning due to traffic delays. We had an exceptionally delicious lunch at a trendy Italian place called Tony Caputo’s and then headed over to the famous Temple Square, home of the headquarters of the church of the Latter Day Saints. I was prepared for an interesting experience here, and boy, they did not disappoint. This trip has provided an abundance of experiences that I would never seek out in my daily life in Nashville and even the ones that shock me, the ones that make me discouraged, the ones that test my patience, are valuable experiences nonetheless because it allows me to base my opinions on personal experience and knowledge rather than hearsay or media portrayals of certain subjects. Two young women who were serving as tour guides for their “mission” guided us through the museum of Mormon Church history. I’m afraid we may have been bad guests, because we apparently asked all sorts of questions that they had no answers for- we asked questions about their rules and rituals and received answers along the lines of “I’m not really sure, but that’s just what our leaders have counseled us to do” multiple times. All in all, qualms about the faith itself aside, for people who were supposed to be serving as informed members of their faith helping others understand their religion, I left rather unimpressed by how much they seemed to accept with blind unquestioning conviction.

Not to mention the very strange set-up of the whole museum: life-size statues of Biblical characters alongside the statues of the Mormon prophets set up in little display booths and the bright mural of the cosmos covering the walls and ceiling that served as the backdrop for the giant statue of Jesus. You sit down on benches in front of the giant Jesus to hear a recording over a loudspeaker that is supposedly Jesus speaking to us first in Japanese and then in English (and with a strange almost-Southern accent). And then the tour guides (who are all young pretty women very conservatively-dressed) thank you for your reverence during the message from Jesus, and inform you that the Jesus statue is now available for you to pose next to so you can get that special picture.

We then moved on to a completely different side of Salt Lake City. A GLBTIQ film festival was being held at the Tower Theater and we made it in time for the new film "Outrage" from award-winning director Kirby Dick ("This Film is Not Yet Rated" and "Twist of Faith"), about closeted politicians, their political life and the media conspiracy that keeps their secrets. It profiled several allegedly gay politicians who had consistently voted against equal rights for the GLBTIQ community. The film showed the efforts of some people to out these politicians who they felt were being hypocrites in an effort to expose their hypocrisy for the greater good of the gay and lesbian community. It was an absolutely fascinating film and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in politics and/or equal rights for the gay and lesbian population; equally fascinating was the fact that this theater was almost completely filled in a city that has a reputation for being openly antagonistic to the gay and lesbian community (and, in fact, says so in lots of polite words in one of the pamphlets that was distributed in Temple Square).

We stuck around after the film for a Q&A with the director and it was so interesting to hear this community speak up about issues both on a national and a community level. We ate dinner at a nice little Thai place that two different locals had enthusiastically recommended that seemed hidden away in a cute neighborhood away from the main part of town and Temple Square. One of our group members, Cory, shared that he had spoken with the owner of the restaurant we ate lunch at, Tony Caputo. Mr. Caputo had come to Salt Lake City from New York several years ago and mentioned that it took at least a couple of years to find his niche within a town so dominated by one religious community and for several years, he felt somewhat ostracized. But eventually he did carve out his own niche and ended up contributing to the makeover of the part of town his restaurant is in. You couldn’t tell today, but apparently his restaurant used to be in a bad part of town and his business helped revitalize it. This got us thinking about communities and how individuals can work to create their own subcultures or renewal projects even within a city that is known for having one set identity. The gay and lesbian community seemed to have done it, the small business owners like Mr. Caputo and those around his restaurant have done it, and I’m sure had we had more time in town we could have found many more subcultures and niche groups within this town that I had honestly thought was populated almost solely by Mormons. Our group had not been overly excited for this day- California was on a lot of minds, and the Grand Canyon had exhausted us all. But we concluded that this had been a good day after all. This was not the Salt Lake City I had expected to experience and it was a pleasant surprise to find this city is not as one-dimensional as I had anticipated.

Roswell and the Grand Canyon

Day 6- Roswell

Our days have been action-packed and therefore I have fallen a bit behind. I wanted to catch everybody up on what we’ve been doing. On this past Thursday, we were in the UFO capital of the world, Roswell, NM.

I’m not quite sure what I had in mind, but Roswell was way more of a tourist trap than I had expected, and not even a particularly nice one at that. I enjoyed the museum dedicated to exploring the possibility of UFOs, aliens and the conspiracy of a government cover-up of the supposed UFO crash near Roswell in the 40s. However, for having an international reputation for being the center of the alien movement, it was a little shabby, in my opinion- lots and lots and lots of small text printed on paper in a rather haphazard order, along with random posters for movies or TV shows about extraterrestrials and local artwork about aliens. But it was interesting nonetheless.

After this, we met up with a man named Guy Malone at the Not of This World Café who spoke with us about his organization, Alien Resistance, which is a Christian group that believes alien abductions are the work of evil spirits and can be stopped by invoking the name of Jesus Christ. It was a very interesting meeting and I’m glad we got the chance to speak to someone about the Roswell culture and tourism business, as well as Mr. Malone’s beliefs about aliens and paranormal activity. We ended our day with a very pleasant afternoon at Bottomless Lake, which provided a chance to relax for a little while after spending several days constantly on the go.

Day 8- Grand Canyon

The next day we were at the Navajo Reservation (see previous blog) and then we traveled to the Grand Canyon, epic family destination for tourists. In fact, we saw tons and tons of families while we were there, from all over the world. I think that in a country like America, which is known for being crowded and overdeveloped, a strip mall on every corner, people are drawn to the places that still inspire awe, where they can feel the vastness and wildness of natural beauty. A place like the Grand Canyon still inspires that feeling of exploration- even though there are guard rails and trails to walk down, it still seems like an adventure, though a relatively safe one and kid-friendly. Families are obviously drawn to these areas of natural phenomenon, like we saw here and would see later on the trip at the national parks and Niagra Falls. Of course, we also saw how families are drawn to the other extreme, the completely “unnatural” and commodified attractions like Mall of America and Disneyland.

We walked around for a bit and then drove to another spot for a more intense hike that some of us (including yours truly) participated in. The Grand Canyon was breathtaking, much more impressive than I had been expecting. I enjoyed the mile and a half hike down quite a bit but on the way up it dawned on me that I was definitely not in good enough shape to have attempted that. Luckily, the group that had gone down with me were good sports about waiting for me as I huffed and puffed the mile and a half back up. We made it back in time for a delicious dinner at a place called, strangely enough, We Cook Pizza and Pasta. We stopped for a minute or two of some truly amazing stargazing on the way back to our bus, and then headed to Salt Lake City.

Navajo Reservation

Day 7

Where to begin? I’m am completely overwhelmed by trying to convey in a few short paragraphs what this day meant to me personally, and how I think it affected our group as a whole. We had no idea what to expect from our day that would be spent on a portion of the Navajo Reservation of New Mexico and Arizona. We met up with our guide for the day, Leland Silversmith, at the reservation’s visitor’s center outside Gallup, NM and across the border into Arizona. For those who may not be familiar with the Navajos, I’ll attempt to give a very brief history of the land and people based on previous research that I, as the “ambassador” for this destination, had to undertake and information we were taught while on the reservation.

“Navajoland” encompasses an area of approximately 27,000 square miles in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. The area lies within what the Navajo people consider to be four sacred mountains, called the “Four Corners.” The Navajos are the largest Native American tribe with a population of about 320,000, of which about 200,000 live on the actual reservation. The Navajo government is the most sophisticated American Indian government, with the same three branches as the U.S. government. The tribal government was formed in the 1920’s to facilitate the sale of rights for American companies to excavate natural resources like coal, minerals, uranium and natural gas. These resources provide money for tribal land funds, as well as jobs for the Navajo people. However, we heard while on the reservation that they were continually short-changed for the price of their coal, and had they been paid full market price for it, they may have become one of the wealthiest peoples in America. The main trade for this tribe today on the reservation is shepherding and raising cattle.

When the United States acquired the Southwest and California after defeating Mexico in 1846, the US military, led by Kit Carson, established a scorched earth policy regarding Native Americans in the area; they burned their homes and crops, killed their livestock, and basically starved those Native Americans who had not already died into submission. They forced over 8,000 Native Americans, mainly Navajos, to march approximately 300 miles from their homeland to a small camp in New Mexico called Fort Sumner and kept them there for 4 years in an internment camp. In 1868, a treaty was signed between the Navajos and the United States government that allowed the Navajos to return to a small portion of their original homeland in return for certain services like compulsory education for Navajo children and agricultural aid provided by the US government. This was just a small part of the long and troubled history of this beautiful and resilient tribe we were privileged to observe for one day.

Leland Silversmith met up with us with a full itinerary prepared after having pulled a 12-hour shift at his job at the casino in Gallup, NM. He brought us to his family’s home, where his parents (who are in their 80s) graciously opened their home to us. Pastor George Silversmith, Leland’s father, told us stories both amazing and heartbreaking from his youth, from his time as a tribal police officer, from his years as a coal miner on the reservation and about his life now as shepherd, farmer and minister of their small church that’s on their property. He told us how when he was young and forced to go to boarding school, the Navajo children were beaten for speaking their native tongue, how the Caucasian boys would sometimes lie to the teacher and tell them George was speaking Navajo simply to watch him scrub the floors or have his mouth washed out with soap. He told us how when he was a tribal police officer, non-Navajos would come to the taverns at the edge of the reservation, get drunk and come over to cause trouble on the reservation and yet he had to simply stand by and let them go, because he was told repeatedly, even threatened, by state police or other sheriffs he had no jurisdiction with non-Navajos. We heard Leland’s sweet mother, Fanny, cry as she told us how much she missed her children when they were away, and most of them were, because of the lack of educational and vocational opportunities on the reservation.

We simply sat in their church, a traditional hogan adjacent to their house (which their family had built with their own hands using stone and logs hauled from many miles away), and listened as this humble, kind and gracious family shared their stories with us, stories of hardships, love and overwhelming pride in their people and culture. Mrs. Silversmith’s family has been on their plot of land for generations and generations, and she speaks of her land with such love and pride it brought tears to my eyes every time she told us that this was her home and she would never leave, no matter how others might try to take their land, which is an issue the Silversmiths constantly struggle with.

Leland had his own journey to tell us about. In 2008, he walked across America, from Alcatraz to Washington D.C. along with about 100 other people fighting for the rights of Native Americans, protection of their sacred sites and the cause of environmental protection that so many Native American peoples feel so strongly about. This walk was the 30-year anniversary of a walk called “The Longest Walk” organized in 1978 as a part of the American Indian movement, which resulted in many advances in rights for Native Americans. Leland says that he participated in the walk last year because he feels that the elderly members of his tribe do not have a voice; for example, there are elderly members of his tribe, including his own family, who have experienced people simply building on their land without asking and people building and bulldozing over ancient gravesites. Lee says that he went to march to Washington on behalf of these forgotten peoples’ prayers and tears. It put this trip in perspective for me. He laughed when I asked if he and the others stayed in hotels along the way. Of course they didn’t- they either camped out at other reservations or stayed in community venues that were offered to them along the way. Thinking about how later in the day, we would be able to come back to our fancy tour bus and have someone drive us through the night made me feel so privileged, and not necessarily in a good way. Though I’d like to think that our group is also fighting in a way for the greater good: fighting to ask tough questions, to raise awareness through our words and actions about social justice issues, to examine what it means to be a part of this larger body of American citizens and the responsibilities that come with that, I couldn’t help comparing the two journeys.

The Silversmiths made us a wonderful lunch of “Navajo Tacos,” which consists of the traditional Native American food of fry bread covered in taco food like beans, meat, lettuce and tomato, and we had homemade huckleberry jam on fry bread for dessert. Leland took us in to the capital of the reservation to allow us a chance to see Navajo history up close. We traveled in our van to Window Rock, AZ (see picture above) and got a chance to see the executive branch of the Navajo government. We were given a history of the tribe and an introduction to how the Navajo government works by the program manager, Lamont. We also heard what issues the Navajo people were still dealing with today.

He told us of how Navajo men and women were approved to work in the uranium mines that the US government built on the reservation, but received no warnings about the harmful effects of radiation. Today, babies are born with deformities and the people who work in the mine are getting cancer. The educational system is nowhere near up to par with American public schools, though adequate education is one of the promises made by the treaty of 1864. These people must face constant encroachment on their land by outside forces, and Lamont offered that he believes it is because the Navajo people see the land that they live on as a small portion of land they have been able to retain, while the US government sees the land they live on as a generous portion of land they have allowed the Navajos to occupy. The mining industry on their land presents a deadly predicament. The mines are currently producing pollution that is poisoning the earth that the Navajos hold so sacred- it has contaminated the rivers and made them undrinkable, and harmed their people’s health. However, without the jobs and revenue generated by the mining industry, the Navajos would face even deeper poverty than they currently deal with. According to Lamont, recent statistics (since the recession) studying the Navajos show unemployment at around 55% and the average family income at a little over $8,000 annually per household.

But we heard hope in his stories, too. Lamont spoke of efforts to tailor their Head Start programs and grade school education to embrace the Navajo language that is quickly dying out as a result of previous generations, like George and Fanny, who were not allowed to speak it in their schools and so did not teach their children for fear they would be punished as well. He talked about forming culturally-sensitive educational models to teach a mixture of Western and Navajo history and culture, and how they are trying to instill in their children that if they leave the reservation for college, their Western education should complement their Navajo identity.

We also got a chance to visit the office of the largest Native-American-owned newspaper in the world, the Navajo Times. We learned lots of interesting information from the editor, who took time out of his day to show us around, but there was one point he made that really stuck with me because it was such a different mindset than others we had encountered on our journey. He told us how they, as a paper, refuse to capitalize on what he called “Navajo misery.” He said other papers in the area will cover tragic stories about the Navajos in a tabloid-like manner. However, the Navajo paper believes they have an ethical and cultural responsibility to their people to respect ceremony and mourning; if a tragedy has happened within a Navajo family, the Navajo Times reporters wait to be invited to the family’s home to cover the story and they do get invited because the community understands they will treat each life, each story, with respect. The editor told us “not everything is for sale.” However, comparing this mindset to Graceland, where millions are herded past the Presleys’ graves decorated with flags with Elvis music playing in the background, I realized that this ethical responsibility to treat each life with respect is not shared, that along the way we have continually found that almost everything is indeed for sale.

We left with Leland to return to his home, where we tried our hand at sheep-herding by driving out on his family’s land into a beautiful canyon where supposedly, we were going to find the sheep and herd them back to the pen in their backyard. We had a nice hike but eventually gave up on finding the sheep. Of course, when we returned to the house, the sheep were already back in the yard (so we decided we had done the job right anyway). We were all set to leave and give the Silversmiths a break from having guests, but Fanny, along with her daughter and granddaughter had already made us a second delicious meal. So we sat for the second time that day with this generous family, in their small frontyard overlooking some of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen. Leland slipped easily into his traditional storytelling voice and told us a story about why it was important to protect our land today for the sake of our grandchildren. We eventually left this warm family setting with what seemed like a thousand hugs and a few tears as well.

We had asked them earlier in the day what it meant to be an American, as we have been asking people all along our journey. They all seemed to be confused by the question – Leland said they do not consider themselves American, they are Navajo. Their people have been here since before “America” even existed. In a way, you could view finding distinction between Navajos and Americans as a way that we are separate and different. But as Leland told us with sincerity over dinner, we are all the same – we are all people who deserve respect and who have a responsibility to our earth and our people. To hear this message from this family was touching and humbling. By the end of this trip, I hope I am even closer to living my life by the ideals that the Silversmiths live by. When we were driving back to our bus, Professor Spring asked for initial reactions about the day. The first thing we all expressed was the disbelief that we had never heard these stories about the history and current conditions of the Navajo people. How had we never learned about this important part of our own country? If we had never heard these stories, how many other Americans knew? So that is the goal of our posts from this day: to bring awareness about this group of people who feel (rightly so) forgotten by our country.

Borderline

Day 5 - El Paso


We began our day in this border town with showers at UTEP and a visit to El Paso Museum of Art, which had on display a diverse collection of exhibits. There was an interesting exhibit by artist Tom Lea who I felt really did capture with many of his pieces the true spirit of the Southwest and its traditional history as we think of it. One piece apart from that exhibit just out in the second floor lobby really caught my attention. It was a really powerful mixed media tiered sculpture called “Border Control”, where one side of the sculpture was a representation of Texas and the other side was a representation of Mexico. (This artist, Susanne Klotz, was an American artist, by the way). The Mexico side was filled with color, beautiful fabric and animal charms. The Texas side, however, was the part that caught my attention. The bottom tier had a graveyard with a bunch of crosses. The next tier showed a shape of the United States covered in flag fabric with some orange construction netting strung across it. Across the rest of the sculpture, there were horns, shapes of the state of Texas and small figures with skulls instead of heads dressed in miniature border control uniforms. There was one human figure labeled as a coyote who was throwing a small van and there were crosses scattered around it. I was so caught up in the details of the sculpture that I didn’t notice until Rashina pointed out that if you step away from the whole piece, that it forms a large cross shape- the cross-section is a carved wooden rifle and the whole piece is topped by a giant set of bull horns. I felt like this was a very powerful message from the artist about how some people in the area likely feel about the border control system, the consequences of it and the role of Texas as the gatekeeper.
Next we were taken on a tour of Fort Bliss, the second largest military base in the country and home of the US Air Force artillery-training center that teaches soldiers from all over the world, by Heather Snodgrasses’s aunt, Lunelle Southard and her friend Harold. We ate a great meal in their mess hall and then got to tour the original site of old Fort Bliss and the Air Defense Museum. Our afternoon tour was narrated by Lunelle and Harold, and many of the things we learned from them emphasized just what an important part our military plays in our national history and today’s society. At lunch, Harold gave us a whole list of products whose companies have redesigned their products to be military-friendly, like M&Ms that don’t melt in the Middle Eastern desert and Timex watches that don’t stop in extreme temperatures. He emphasized that the military affects all sorts of things we civilians might never expect. At lunch, we heard from one of the chefs in the mess hall how being in the military environment that limits so many of your choices makes you appreciate your freedom of choice once you are out, and how many civilians go through every day of their lives never recognizing what privileges they have when it comes to freedom of choice.
We had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant called Gonzales with Lunelle and other members of Heather Snodgrass’s extended family. My part of the table got to talk at length with her cousin Louie, who is a political science major and criminal justice minor about both what it means to be an American and what it means to be a Texan, and how those identities differ, if at all. We learned a lot of interesting things from him, including that a few years ago, public school students began saying a pledge of allegiance to Texas along with their pledge of allegiance to America in the mornings. He echoed what several other Texans have said in trying to explain Texan pride in saying that because Texas was an independent country before it was a state, therefore its people feel a certain pride and allegiance to this state in a way that residents of other states have trouble identifying with. Texas is the only state where their state flag is flown at the same level as the American flag. Students in public schools in TX receive four years of Texas history even before they receive their one year of American history. I’m pretty sure I studied Tennessee history for one semester, maybe just one quarter, of a year in elementary school. Louie claimed that, if need be, Texas could independently support itself through its agriculture and oil fields. Then again, we talked in San Antonio to several people said that the whole “don’t mess with Texas’ idea was nothing more than an anti-littering campaign and that the Texan identity was nothing more or less than the American identity. It’s interesting to examine how city, state or national pride is crafted, even from a young age and to see how the identities one embraces as a member of a certain community (as we saw in St. Bernard’s Parrish in New Orleans), a resident of a certain state (like Texas) and a citizen of a country (like America) all interact with one another.
We ended the day with what was probably my favorite activity we have done so far on this trip. First we drove along the highway that runs next to the border and got a chance to see the dichotomy between the Mexican village on one side and the city and houses of El Paso on the other. You look out to the left through the fence and you see houses almost on top of another, many created from what appeared to be building scraps; you look out the right window and see beautiful ranch houses reminiscent of what I think of when I picture Californian suburbs. We continued our drive up a scenic road to this absolutely beautiful overlook that gave us a breathtaking view of the city at sunset. It was outrageously windy, the sky was beyond beautiful and it produced for me one of those moments where you realize with surprise how happy you are in that very moment, how very good it is to be alive and where you are right then.
All in all, I viewed our time in Texas as valuable, because I got to learn about things I already had some preconceived notions about and was reminded that things are not always what you expect, that some things deserve a second look. Texas was a surprise but I think aside from the yet unexplored city of Austin (which other Texans officially peaked my interest in) I probably won’t be upset if the largest state in the continental U.S. is not included in further travel adventures. Even though I thought parts of the land were beautiful and I fully appreciate the beautiful multicultural diversity of the areas we saw, I like my salsa milder, my trees taller, my sun a little further away and my rabbits to be without horns.

(i've tried to post pictures,but i'm not having much luck. will update with photos ASAP)

Remember the Alamo - San Antonio

This morning we began our day at the legendary Alamo. We found there a continuation of the theme we have found elsewhere, one side of the story glorified with the other side of the story left untold. After we received one of the classic “history talks” by the historic site guide, we ended up having a really interesting conversation with a history professor from Furman University, who was crafting a class examining history- the actual facts of a past event- versus memory- how we tell our stories and the biases that come with that- and the relationship between the two. That was a really interesting way for us to view the account of the Alamo that we heard retold and saw portrayed at this site and for the rest of the things we have seen along the way. We noticed on the nice brochure they hand out, on the list of names of the soldiers that died at the Alamo, one black man is described as “John, the free black man” whereas in the history talk the guide casually mentioned that this man “may have been free or may have been a slave, we’re not really sure”…to notice the careful crafting of the story the Alamo tells through the products it puts out for visitors.
Another interesting part of the Alamo we noticed was a plaque put up to let visitors know that the Daughters of the Texas Revolution saved the Alamo in order to protect it from commercialism. However, on the actual grounds of the site, the most elaborate part was the gift shop, and all around this site were ways in which it had indeed been commercialized. Why did they feel the need to declare they were protecting it from commercialism when it was so clearly all around?
We had some good Tex-Mex by the rather odd man-made river that runs through the city, and then spent some time interviewing people in San Antonio, most of them locals. We asked them the question we have been asking others and ourselves all along this journey: what does it mean to be an American? In this city, we also tried to examine this larger-than-life identity of Texas that some people from this state proclaim. We got both some predictable and some interesting answers. I was surprised to hear from the ostentatiously-dressed gay couple that they loved living in San Antonio, thought the city had a diverse mix of people from all walks of life and felt more than accepted in their rather non-traditional lifestyle, which totally contradicts some of the expectations (and possibly prejudices) I had about people who lived in Texas. Almost all of the people we asked about what it meant to be an American said that it meant to be free. We have been trying to follow up that stock answer that everyone seems to produce with “free to do what or free from what?” We heard “freedom to do what I want, within reason of the law”, “freedoms that other countries don’t have” and other rather vague ideas about this concept of freedom. We have found over and over again that people have difficulty defining in any kind of concrete terms what it means to them to be an American. It is making me examine my own definition of a patriotic American citizen and see if my definition is changing along the way.

Fun note to end on... Andi bought the oh-so-exciting souvenir of Alamo crackers, mainly because of the priceless description on the back:
Alamo Crackers
"Remember the Alamo!" was the battle cry of a new breed of settlers in search of independence. "Remember the Alamo....crackers!" is the cry of a new breed of snackers in search of a treat independent of the rest.

It goes on to explain that these crackers, like their namesake, "never surrender" to good taste....(though I'm not sure precisely what that means).

Anyway, stay tuned for El Paso.

Ridin' in the City of New Orleans

*note- I wrote both the posts for New Orleans and San Antonio yesterday but the vast Texas highways we were driving on late last night apparently did not come equipped with wireless Internet..apologies for the delay.

Yes, I did have both Arlo Guthrie's, Tom Waits' and various other artists' songs about New Orleans on repeat in my head yesterday as we traveled the epic and perhaps infamous city of New Orleans. This was the first time I have visited this city that has always been on my travel list; my ideas about New Orleans were shaped by a variety of factors, from what little I know of its place in musical history, to the Nancy Drew mystery I remember reading when I was a kid about a haunted showboat and voodoo magic, to the reputation of Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras. I was very excited to see what this city had in store for us.
We started our day with a service project in the St. Bernard Parrish neighborhood, which is an impoverished community that was drastically affected by Hurricane Katrina. We did all sorts of tasks at the local community center; some of us organized their donated clothes “store”, some of us helped people select food from the center’s pantry and some of us helped clean up the community center. We worked hard and though I did not personally get a chance to talk much to the people coming in for aid or the other workers, check out Heather’s blog for a great account of her conversation with some of the center’s staff.
It was really interesting to drive around the city and see these absolutely beautiful, colorful houses in various states of disrepair from Katrina damage. Some streets were far worse than others though and there were definite lines of division where we could tell that certain parts of town had had work done to repair their houses and some parts of town that probably don’t look too different 5 years later than they did 6 months after the hurricane.
We went back to the main part of downtown New Orleans for lunch (my first po’boy – delicious!) and then headed over to Tulane University for our first much-anticipated showers. We walked around Bourbon Street for awhile after that and then had a great dinner (my second po’boy- I’m addicted! Good thing we spend all day walking…). Strolling down Bourbon Street was really interesting in terms of examining how gender is constructed (shout-out to Shelby Longard, who officially changed the way I look at pretty much everything gender, which both enhances and ruins the fun of so many experiences :) ). Seeing the “Gentleman’s Clubs,” hearing the older men paid to stand outside these clubs to tell female tourists “we’re hiring…want a job?”, seeing girls stand outside the clubs with males guarding them almost as if they are property makes one think about how a city like New Orleans is marketed. It advertises itself as a place where sex, alcohol and fun are abundant. I think it is comparable to Vegas in that people see it as an escape destination where there is anonymity and you can do pretty much whatever you want and no one will condemn you for it. This is a shame that a city so rich in a diverse and fascinating history seems to be overshadowed by such a cheap interpretation. I was fully intrigued by this city and I think especially with a place like New Orleans, there’s no way you can get a good feel for the city just spending 8-10 hours there. I look forward to visiting again because I feel like there is so much more to New Orleans’ story for me to find out.

Little Rock, AR

Day Two: Little Rock
I came to this city not really sure what to expect. By the end of the day, I felt as though I’d experienced multiple parts of Little Rock and come away still not really sure what it means to live in this city in 2009. I found our day was completely action-packed and emotionally draining, but I’m really grateful I got to experience all that we did.
We began by visiting the museum dedicated to detailing the history of the Little Rock Nine at Central High School, the scene of America’s most visible struggle for educational integration. I was extremely impressed with this museum and highly recommend anyone passing through the Little Rock area to visit this historical site. In my sociology class last semester, we had learned about how public schools in America have become more segregated over the past decade or so, after making fairly significant progress after the Little Rock Nine and other parts of the civil rights movement. A certain part of an article by writer and educator Jonathan Kozol written in the early ‘90s reminded me of a story told by one of the Little Rock Nine in a video in the museum. In this video, one of the African-American students tells how at her all-black school she had to take a class in laundry, because basically she was being trained even in her public school to become someone else’s maid. In Kozol’s article, he speaks of talking with a female African-American student at a high school in L.A. who was required to take a sewing class (for the second time) even though she wanted to be a doctor and had wanted to sign up for a science class but was directed by her counselor to stick with sewing. It makes you wonder if, as our group has been discussing, progress breeds complacency? We like to think we as a nation have come so very far in the realm of equality for all, but perhaps what progress we have made is overshadowing a host of unresolved issues that remain unequal in many different ways. We heard a really interesting story about when this museum held its opening ceremony in 2007. It was a ticketed but free event and someone called in advance to reserve 200 tickets, almost all of the available seats. When opening day came, almost no one showed up; it turns out that a bitter group from the “lost year”, the year after the integration battle when Central High School closed for a year, had reserved all the tickets purposefully to make a statement about integration and the museum. How has Little Rock really changed in the past 50 years? I don’t have a definite answer after one day but think it is a question worth asking.
One of the most valuable parts of the day for me was being able to talk with the two museum guides. We asked them both what it meant to them be an American and (I wish I had our video of them talking, hopefully we’ll be able to post that soon) their answers were simple yet so beautiful, and me summarizing them won’t do it justice at all. One of them said America meant that you had the freedom to express who you are, that it gave you a chance to follow your dreams and be who you wanted to be. The other museum guide compared her relationship with her country to a teen’s relationship with their mother; you may fight with your mom and say “I hate you” but once you get past that conflict, you realize that she is your mother and you love her more than you could ever express- she said that America is her country and she is part of America and she is so lucky to be able to claim that as her own, that she is just as important part of America’s history as anyone else is and that this country gives her the opportunity to make her part of history important.
Next we visited the Clinton Presidential library, which was relatively interesting in showing the good policies and programs of Bill Clinton, but just like Graceland which featured Elvis's idealized self, the Clinton library (which is actually a group of exhibits about his presidency, in case you did not realize this was not a library of books, which is what I had thought it was going to be) simply paints a rosy picture of the high points of Clinton's career. After this we walked over to a festival being held at Heifer International headquarters, which is a hunger and poverty relief aid program that lives by the motto "not giving a cup of milk but giving a cow"; they believe in giving people livestock to provide them with their own food and products they can sell to create their own income. This was a very interesting learning experience and I intend to research this program in the future.
We had a delicious lunch at a local soul food café and then in the evening went to a neighborhood non-denominational church. It was an interesting and eye-opening experience to say the least. From the very beginning of the service, the members were beyond welcoming to us and part of the service included the whole “hug someone next to you and tell them you’re glad they’re here” deal, which was so genuine and joyful. Their worship was incredibly energetic and the music was definitely different from what I was used to in church services, but I enjoyed that part of the service as well. The message that their pastor delivered, without going into a lot of detail, was not one that I could recognize in any idea I have of Christianity and God, and I felt that it could potentially be very damaging to the people in that community. This was extremely hard to sit through and the worship service proceeded to appear more manipulated by this church leader in a way vividly reminiscent of televangelism (and this service actually did appear to be televised) at its most dramatic, until the service abruptly ended after the money collection had finished. I left the service feeling confused and cheated, like the curtain had revealed the wizard to Dorothy and it turns out it was just a man looking for a little power and adoration. Though our first religious experience on our trip left me with a bad taste in my mouth, I was grateful for how our day went and the experiences we had. In seeing the enormous courage of the Little Rock Nine and other exhibits in that museum about civil rights of all kinds, I was humbled by their determination and bravery and proud to call myself an American alongside such great people. In the museum guides I found kindred spirits who were able to express things I myself feel about America that I guess I had never been able to articulate, that no matter what things go wrong in this country, America is mine and I have a place in it and I am awarded so many opportunities to pursue an identity and my goals in a way that citizens of other countries can only dream of. In the church service, I saw in the members of this faith community, a common desire for hope in something greater, something to give their everyday struggles and hardships true meaning, with is something I can certainly identify with, though my struggles cannot compare with theirs. Little Rock challenged me and has made me look forward to other surprises along our journey.

Walking in Memphis

Day One: Memphis, TN.
Though I've lived in Tennessee my whole life, I've never been to Memphis, so I was excited that it would be our first stop. It was very different than I was expecting it to be. I suppose in my mind I had always glorified this city steeped in the history of the blues and home of the mythic Graceland. However, it was interesting being able to compare the tourist part of Nashville to the tourist part of Memphis, because the two cities felt very different, though I had always assumed the two cities were essentially similar, just highlighting different genres of music.
Our first stop was the Peabody Hotel to see the march of the ducks- for those of you unfamiliar with this apparently time-honored Memphis tradition, a group (flock? gaggle?) of 5 ducks stay in a pool on the roof of this hotel (the "duck palace") and at 11 a.m. each day, they ride down in their personal duck elevator and proceed to march down a red carpet to swim in the fountain in the lobby. Literally hundreds of people were gathered in the lobby this Saturday morning to watch this duck march. I personally was a little unimpressed by this whole event, but lots of the other observers seemed to get a kick out of it.
After the ducks marched (or rather ran and clumsily splashed) into their fountain, we all headed up to the roof to get a better view of the city. We were all struck by the emptiness of the largest city in Tennessee…from the roof of this hotel in the middle of the city on a Saturday morning, we could see the empty mall parking lot and near-deserted streets. This was especially strange because hundreds of people had just shown up to see ducks walk around in a hotel- where was the rest of the town? We headed down to Beale Street for some authentic Memphis barbeque (even though the “ambassador” for Memphis, Rashina, is a vegetarian, she was a good sport and helped the meat-eaters find some of the best of her hometown’s famous food) and settled on the Blues City Café. The food was great but again I was struck at how empty a tourist restaurant like this one was at lunchtime on a summer Saturday.
After lunch, we set out to explore the famous Beale Street. We wandered into some of the shops, and found an interesting an eclectic mix of souvenirs. It was interesting to compare the Memphis tourist souvenir shops to the Nashville tourist souvenir shops that we had just visited on Friday. In Nashville, just a few hours north and in the same state, you find souvenirs devoted to promoting in a comedic fashion the notion of the idiotic hillbilly, a vast array of the Country Western-wear of spurs, snakeskin boots, and designer cowboy hats, and a plethora of Confederate flags. I did not see anything like this in Memphis; rather, in the souvenir shops I observed, many of their products called to mind what one of the group called “ a poor man’s New Orleans.” They sold votive candles, voodoo masks, African musical instruments, incense, porcelain animal charms and other such things, alongside your typical tacky tourist objects like personalized keychains and elaborate pocketknives.
All the people walking around seemed to be either people enjoying their drinks or harried parents pushing strollers and/or chasing after stray toddlers. I couldn’t figure out the appeal of Memphis as a family destination. Nothing on Beale Street seemed family-friendly, which was not what I was expecting to find. I would have been interested to see Beale Street at night, but our daytime glimpse of it was enlightening in its own respect.
We had planned to hit the Stax museum but we didn’t have enough time before our reservation for a Graceland tour. It was interesting visiting Graceland among a bunch of non-Elvis fans. I am certainly not Elvis’s biggest fan but I’ve grown up listening to oldies radio and have believed in the hype about Graceland all my life. In my mind, it was the kind of trip any self-respecting music fan should make at some point, so I was pretty excited. Of course, I should have seen it coming but it still took me by surprise how horribly impersonal and commercialized the whole experience it was. You stand in line, receive a tape recorder that speaks to you about the house’s history, board a shuttle that takes you across the street to the house, are herded like cattle through the exhibits by the near-lifeless “guides” working in the house; one of our group members realized that the whole process could theoretically be completed without a single human interaction after buying your ticket.
I did enjoy seeing the house- I am always interested in seeing older interior decorating, and especially the over-the-top style of Graceland was just so fascinating to see. Once you move from the house part of the exhibit to the more career-focused exhibits, I felt the tour lost what little charm it had left. Not that the whole thing wasn’t impressive in size and glitter, it was just so much memorabilia plastered all over the place and the pace of the crowd was moving too fast to really absorb much information. As a student who just took a sociology course examining gender, it was definitely interesting to see all the posters of girls throwing themselves at the feet of this iconic male figure….to see phrases like “it’s fun! It’s color! It’s girls! It’s music! It’s Elvis’s new hit movie!” (we equate women with flair for film?) The tour ends with a trip to the “meditation garden” where I was shocked to find gravestones for the Presley family. It felt like such a manipulative, manufactured emotion the Graceland establishment was trying to feed us by using a deceased man’s body…it felt like the worst kind of intrusion of privacy.
After Graceland we spent some time driving around other parts of Memphis to see the stark dichotomy of the different neighborhoods; we steered clear of the really impoverished (and dangerous) parts of town, but we did drive through some really rundown older neighborhoods that are just a few short miles away from some of the most elaborate and beautiful homes I’d ever seen in my life. It was really like seeing three different cities today instead of just one.
We then ended our day at Rashina’s house with an amazing homecooked traditional Indian meal/feast where I ate and enjoyed my first Indian meal ever. It was a really nice opportunity to experience a family setting one more time before we embark on the rest of the journey. Tonight we drive through the night to Little Rock, AK.

Nashville

Exploring downtown Nashville for the first time with a sociological lens was fascinating. I’d never really been in the tourist shops downtown before, even though I’ve lived in or near Nashville my entire life. I knew that Nashville was seen as the country music capital of the world, but I guess I’d never thought of how much the tourism industry endorses the whole country-western image, which is strange because outside of Broadway, you really don’t see many native Nashvillians in western-wear. Another thing that was interesting to observe was the abundance of ignorant, racist trinkets, not to mention all sorts of Confederate paraphernalia, being sold in the souvenir shops. Truly disgusting stuff being sold on the street that is supposedly representing Nashville’s image. Also, we saw a lot of souvenirs perpetuating the idea that your typical Southerner is a stupid, toothless hillbilly.

It made me mad and amused at the ridiculousness of it at the same time. It is frustrating to think of all the many people who come to this spot considered the center of the city, the prime tourist area, and see these types of things and leave this city that I love thinking that the majority of people living here are narrow-minded and bigoted, when I don't believe that is the case at all.

Seeing this in my hometown and examining the disconnect between reality and what was being sold as Nashville identity set a good precedent for the rest of the trip, because it made me wonder about the representations we saw in other cities and what was being sold as their identity, and how that might differ from the reality of the city's true identity.

Starting out....

We met at Belmont this morning at 4 a.m., got a chance to sleep for a few hours on our surprisingly luxurious tour bus and are now in Memphis, TN, about to head out on our very first American adventure. We're visiting the duck march at the Peabody Hotel, seeing the Stax Records Museum, exploring Beale Street, seeing Graceland, exploring the different types of neighborhoods in Memphis (by van, not be foot) and ending our day with a traditional Indian dinner at the house of one of our group members whose family lives in Memphis, Rashina. I'm excited to visit Memphis because I've lived in Tennessee my whole life and have never been here. I'll update the blog once we return to the bus at night to let you know how our day goes!