Narrative
for "The Archaeology of Ethnicity in America"
Elizabeth Brumfiel
Albion College
Albion, MI 49224
ebrumfiel@albion.edu
Why I Designed This
Course
How did I, a Mesoamerican archaeologist focused on the Aztec empire, come
to teach a course in historical archaeology, particularly the archaeology
of ethnicity in America? One answer is that liberal arts colleges make
you brave. As the only archaeologist at Albion College, I had to teach
historical archaeology if anyone was going to do it. Then too, I brought
some relevant experience to the course: a familiarity with the use of
documents in archaeological research based on my own studies of Aztec
culture, an interest in ethnicity stemming from my interest in factions
and political power-building, an interest in power and inequality which
has characterized my whole career, and some familiarity with Native American
archaeology and ethnography gained from teaching an undergraduate course
on Native North America.
Albion College has an ethnicity requirement which is part of its general
studies program. Classes that fulfill the ethnicity requirement must present
information on groups neglected by previous scholarship, but they also
address how ethnicity is constructed as a social category and works by
critical scholars that have transformed conventional scholarship in the
given field of study. This requirement is very necessary at Albion College
because the school is very white, very upper-middle class, and students
have very little experience with racial and ethnic diversity.
In contrast, the community of Albion is low income and very diverse. There
is a town/gown split, and students are nervous about leaving campus. However,
the community is a wonderful resource for learning about diversity. Members
of the local community serve as consultants who come into class to express
their views on archaeology. They also put my students in touch with other
members of the community who can recount oral histories. The town also
has a local history room, a local historian who has produced short biographies
of people buried in Albion's Riverside Cemetery, and a local history museum
maintained by the Albion Historical Society, which is mostly white and
middle class.
My Goals for this Course Include
(1) Facing up to the legacy of race and ethnicity in the United States.
My students want to ignore race and ethnicity and treat everyone "the
same."
(2) Recognizing the contributions of non-whites to the United States.
I emphasize Leland Furguson's concept of creolization, and I hope that
this concept changes my students' own identity, that it puts them in touch
with their own creolized, American selves.
(3) Understanding the social construction of race,
ethnicity, and otherness and recognizing the relationship
that these constructs have to power and inequality.
(4) Gaining familiarity with the uses of archaeology as a social weapon;
the ways that archaeology has been used to construct or deconstruct otherness.
(5) Recognizing archaeology's potential to inform
and educate the American public about race and diversity
issues.
(6) Realizing the necessity of working with descendant
communities and developing effective strategies for doing
so.
Course Requirements/Experiential Learning
Requirements for this course include two field exercises followed by two response papers. The first is a study of ethnicity and material culture carried out at Albion's Riverside Cemetery. Local historian Frank Passic has assembled short biographies of many individuals buried in the cemetery. Because the community is ethnically and racially diverse, Passic's biographies include people of African American and Russian Orthodox ancestry. Before visiting the cemetery, pairs of students are asked to develop a hypothesis about differences that they expect to see in the graves of African American and Russian Orthodox individuals. Hypotheses include statements like, "Because of more difficult social conditions, African Americans will have a shorter average life span than Russian Orthodox people." Or, "Because of lower pay, African Americans will have, on the average, smaller tombstones than Russian Orthodox individuals." Or, "Having more voluntary associations, African Americans will not be buried with members of their extended families, but Russian Orthodox people, having fewer voluntary associations, will more often be buried in the company of members of their extended families." In a two-hour fieldwork session, students visit the graves and student pairs gather data that will enable them to test their hypotheses. At each grave, one student gathers and records the data while the other student reads aloud the short biography of the individual who lies buried. This gives students personal acquaintance with a few of Albion's townspeople. In the response paper, students state their hypotheses, describe their data, and decide whether their hypotheses were confirmed. If they were not confirmed, students are asked to make a short statement of why they were not confirmed. The students report the results of their investigations to the class.The second class exercise involves a visit to the Gardner House Museum, Albion's local historical museum. Students are asked to inspect the museum and to comment upon what they see, making reference to the main questions in this course (see the course syllabus, p. 1) and to the issues raised in readings by Blakey, Handler, and other authors. Such issues include the location of materials relating to Native American history (displays of artifacts) or African American history in peripheral areas of the museum (i.e., the basement hallway, the second floor), the lack of elaboration on Native American or African American history (i.e., the artifacts are presented without labeling or explanation, a photograph of Emancipation Day celebrants in Albion does not identify individuals by name), the presence of ethnic stereotypes on the packages of old canned goods and groceries in an "old-time" grocery store display, a romanticized picture of a White woman in Native American garb in the first-floor hall).
Students also participate in team projects. These involve designing a display of a Native American "archaeology of place" for Albion, developing an exhibit of on Albion's three Tuskegee airmen, writing an article for the student newspaper on the relationship between Albion College and the Huron Band Potawatomi in Athens, Michigan (Albion was founded as a school for women and Indians), designing an African American walking tour of Albion, documentary research on African American housing (as a guide to possible excavation of this housing site), and gathering oral histories as guides to the excavation of African American housing.
The best part about these projects is that it gets students out into the community and talking to members of other ethnic groups. It works wonders on the students! They are so brave in pushing their own boundaries, and they are so proud of themselves for pushing their boundaries. They come to feel much more closely tied to the community.
The class also features in-class experiential learning. In one class, I have groups of students examine the historical artifacts (mostly spent bullets and shell casings) recovered from a Late Woodland site in Albion College's Nature Center. I ask the students to generate research questions that they could ask about these bullets (e.g., the dates of the bullets indicated by the trademarks, the economic spheres indicated by the trademarks and changes in those spheres over time, the types of game indicated by the caliber of the bullets, changes in the intensity of hunting or changes in the types of game over time, whether the animals rights movement had affected the intensity of hunting, etc.). This is a good class because it empowers White males (those who hunt), storing up good will for future discussions of racism.
In another class, students view the video "Skin Deep" and write down the scenes that they find most striking. We discuss their observations during the following period as an entrée to discussing racism in the United States, a topic that they would clam up on if they couldn't refer to the authorizing views of students who appear in the video. Students also view the film "Williamsburg Restored," produced during the 1950s, and write comments on whether the presence of African Americans and slavery at Colonial Williamsburg was properly acknowledged in the movie and why it is important to acknowledge the presence of African Americans and slavery at Colonial Williamsburg. Most students are appalled by the erasure of African Americans and slavery in the movie. Most say that it is important to acknowledge the presence of African Americans and slavery at Colonial Williamsburg to be inclusive of all Americans' history. I chime in with the point made by Blakey (1990) that it is important that we don't idealize the past and that we don't confirm the ethnocentric ranking of cultures by depicting only the positives of White/European culture (great material wealth and comfort for some) without recognizing the negatives (oppression, conflict, inequality, poverty, and hunger for others).
In another class, to show how archaeology may enrich traditional narratives and oral histories of descendant communities (as suggested by Echo-Hawk [1997], Staeck [2000], and Erikson [1999]), students read short sections of the Winnebago trickster cycle (Radin 1956) and generate archaeological research questions from the narratives.
In another class, the NAGPRA officer of the nearby Huron Band Potawatomi visits the class to discuss the range of Potawatomi attitudes toward archaeological research. Native Americans from the local community who are strong opponents of archaeological research also visit the class to present their views. For the last two years, I have been fortunate to have Paul Mullins (author of Race and Affluence, 1999) visit campus and give a guest lecture, "Collaborating to Construct the Past: African-American Archaeology in Annapolis and Indianapolis."
At the end of the semester, students sign up to read one chapter of Wegars' Hidden Heritage (1992) and prepare a five-minute summary of the chapter for class. Thus, for two days, the class receives a brief survey of the archaeology of overseas Chinese in the United States.
These are all strategies for increasing students' engagement with the material.
Reflections and
Challenges
I have one reservation regarding team projects: my own
lack of follow-through. So far, these projects have not
resulted in actual displays or excavations that would pay
back the members of the descendent communities that
cooperated in the research. I am hoping that community
members who participate in the research feel rewarded by
seeing White students break the boundaries of their own
limited worlds, but maybe this is not enough. At some
point, I think I will have to see some of these projects
through to fruition.
I have a second reservation in regard to the possibility
of a constructivist view of ethnicity undermining
descendant communities' claims to authenticity. My
strategy for avoiding this is to emphasize the
differences of experience that really do constitute a
basis for a shared identity among groups that occupy
different positions within American society.