tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/world-war-ii-veterans-16718/articlesWorld War II veterans – The Conversation2022-06-05T12:22:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1826372022-06-05T12:22:14Z2022-06-05T12:22:14ZD-Day: The politics involved in how war should be memorialized and remembered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466657/original/file-20220601-70047-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C70%2C994%2C634&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Troops of the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade head to shore in Bernières-sur-Mer, Normandy, France on June 6, 1944.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gilbert Alexander Milne, Department of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada, PA-122765</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Villages and towns along the Normandy coast will fill with visitors this week to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Normandy-Invasion">D-Day landings</a> on June 6. Flags will fly to welcome and acknowledge those who fought in <a href="https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/research/online-documents/d-day/order-of-the-day.pdf">the Great Crusade</a>. Over the summer, <a href="https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/normandy/commemorations/2022">hundreds of commemorations</a> will take place to mark <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/104/1045321/six-armies-in-normandy/9781844137398.html">80 days of battle</a>. </p>
<p>While not the only contribution by Canadian service men and women, D-Day takes a prominent place in Canada’s cultural memory of the <a href="https://douglas-mcintyre.com/products/9781550549133">Second World War</a>. </p>
<p>As a researcher of war heritage, I have observed and participated in commemorations in Normandy over the years. My focus has been on how the region, as a memorialized landscape of war, is <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Managing-and-Interpreting-D-Days-Sites-of-Memory-Guardians-of-remembrance/Bird-Claxton-Reeves/p/book/9781138592476">managed and interpreted</a>. I am also interested in the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203134900-14/12-place-identities-normandy-landscape-war-geoffrey-bird">meaning people draw</a> from the histories and stories told at these sites of memory. </p>
<p>My research has been augmented by my time as a guide at Vimy Ridge, by serving in the navy and by producing films as part of the <a href="https://warheritage.royalroads.ca/">War Heritage Research Initiative</a> at Royal Roads University. </p>
<p>This year’s anniversary offers a moment to consider how Canadians use commemoration as an act of community and a reflection of national identity. We are undergoing a turn in the evolution of war remembrance. </p>
<h2>The politics of remembrance</h2>
<p>The politics of remembrance refers to the <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300110685/remembering-war/">many voices</a> engaged in how war and the fallen should be memorialized and remembered — from the challenges and opportunities associated with <a href="https://youtu.be/43vFu-sJlNw">memorial design</a>, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-boys-of-pointe-du-hoc-douglas-brinkley?variant=32205222314018">speeches by heads of state</a> and <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781442616042/art-at-the-service-of-war/">war art</a>, to the interpretation of a <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/memorializing-pearl-harbor">war heritage site</a>. </p>
<p>Politics of remembrance evolve with new interpretations of the past to suit present-day ideological needs. While expected, the politics of remembrance illustrate how the past can <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/death-so-noble">unify</a> <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/608022/the-fight-for-history-by-tim-cook/9780735238374">or divide</a> people in the present. And the forces at play seem to be changing — three issues point to a new politics of remembrance. </p>
<p><strong>1. The passing of veterans</strong>: There is the inevitable passing of Second World War veterans. With less than <a href="https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/about-vac/news-media/facts-figures/1-0">20,000 veterans remaining</a>, in their passing we lose the voice of witnesses. </p>
<p>New generations will become entirely reliant on learning about the Second World War through various secondary means, like museums, schools, local commemorations and books and films. More funding to support communities to remember and commemorate <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/centenary_canada">is important</a>. </p>
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<img alt="A man lays a wreath in a park with the assistance of another man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466354/original/file-20220531-20-ondvwp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">D-Day Veteran Jack Commerford lays a wreath during a Remembrance Day ceremony at the National Military Cemetery at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>2. Canadian war heritage overseas under threat</strong>: In the early 2000s, the <a href="https://www.junobeach.org/">Juno Beach Centre</a> was established in Normandy, but it is currently under threat due to <a href="https://www.junobeach.org/juno-beach-centre-under-threat/">condo development</a>. The centre’s mandate was ambitious — to not only teach about what happened in Normandy and Canada’s wartime involvement, but of Canada as a nation. </p>
<p>Veterans realized the importance of a commemorative hub in Europe for Canada’s Second World War story. <a href="https://www.junobeach.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/JBCA-5-Year-Strategic-Plan_February_2022.pdf">That vision</a>, and the centre itself, warrants a national effort to protect and preserve this cornerstone of Canadian heritage overseas.</p>
<p><strong>3. Contest to own war memory</strong>: There is an evolving political contest to own war memory, and with it, to take the high ground of Canadian identity. Earlier this year, <a href="https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1488980291108900864?s=20&t=Q2cZgebs_DJIp-cvuEkbRg">Erin O’Toole</a> claimed to lead the party of “Robert Borden and Vimy Ridge.” And there was public outcry over the <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/police-look-to-identify-suspect-in-desecration-of-the-tomb-of-the-unknown-soldier-1.5765615">desecration</a> of the National Memorial by the so-called “freedom convoy” and the efforts to “<a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/maclellan-rolling-thunder-and-the-meaning-of-the-national-war-memorial">reclaim</a>” it. </p>
<p>Similar to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-canadian-flag-and-the-freedom-convoy-the-co-opting-of-canadian-symbols-176436">co-opting of the Canadian flag</a>, Canada’s war memory has become a source of inspiration and misinterpretation to justify opinions concerning the nature of freedom and what it means to be Canadian. The consequences are divisive and diminish the memory and sacrifices of Canadians.</p>
<h2>A moral obligation to remember</h2>
<p>Inherent in the politics of remembrance is the belief among many that there is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15027570.2020.1797987">moral obligation to remember</a>. </p>
<p>The meaning of remembrance is open to interpretation because <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-importance-of-personal-memory-on-remembrance-day-126252">each person’s</a> experience with and connections to war, military and civilian, are different. </p>
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<img alt="People walk up to a modern building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=219&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/466435/original/file-20220531-46163-i4bszx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=275&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jockrutherford/49139351541/in/photolist-WkwPWs-mtTTC-2hSh2dZ-bBrHJv-bowPK5-2hSh2DZ-WoLZuP-bBrGSp-2hSh2Tb-WkwPTw-WkwQ2s-XYicgk-bBrKUR-25trzr3-YWSNMY-25oGgN7-FNhn2g-XURWVA-BTsfEw-YCuWu1-YVmtwo-XYvwBk-YYuYuf-YWPmiw-BTsj57-XV2HH3-BTtRFG-YZK3pp-XV1LY3-YZJFog-YVmEa7-XV1ZLh-Z2dskk-XYtLG8-XUUWA1-YVmM4N-XYpUUZ-YWTF5m-YVuDzU-BUomsq-YZKhxe-XYnNkF-YVscLJ-XYsHQD-YAWVmQ-YAZvru-BTsQa7-YAY21y-BTAVds-XYqmhT/">(Jock Rutherford/Flickr)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Remembrance for the post-veteran generations involves learning about history and trying to comprehend the what, how and why remembering is relevant today. Visiting sites of war memory, such as Normandy, assist in gaining <a href="https://canadianmilitaryhistory.ca/events-page/study-tours/">new perspectives</a> while acknowledging that remembrance is also a journey to imagine the past and its context.</p>
<p>Standing in the footsteps of soldiers triggers many reflections, including on the violence of war, responsibility, camaraderie, sacrifice, liberation and freedom. People often think about what they would do, as hard as it is to imagine. Commemorating with other nationalities is important in Normandy, especially with <a href="https://untpress.unt.edu/catalog/dolski-d-day-in-history-and-memory/">those who were liberated</a>, and serves to reconcile the past with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511551109">former enemies</a>. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://exepose.com/2019/12/11/the-politics-of-remembrance%E2%80%8B-nationalism-and-the-state/">nationalism brews with ease in remembrance</a>, there are many sites of war memory stripped of worldviews, leaving only the universally shared sense of loss and death, and the call for humanity and peace. </p>
<p>I think of places like Place des 37 Canadiens in Authie, Normandy, where <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/normandy-massacres">soldiers who had surrendered were executed</a>. These histories are profound and gut-wrenching. But spending time there allows the visitor to break free of the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fallen-soldiers-9780195071399?cc=ca&lang=en&">myth of the war experience</a>. </p>
<p>Remembrance as a force to heal, reconcile and unify, is something that should also be done here at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182637/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Bird does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Remembrance for post-veteran generations involves learning about history, trying to comprehend the what, how and why and its relevance today.Geoffrey Bird, Professor of war heritage, memory and culture, Royal Roads UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1637892021-07-09T12:37:41Z2021-07-09T12:37:41ZBefore Shark Week and ‘Jaws,’ World War II spawned America’s shark obsession<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410439/original/file-20210708-27-1unwwa3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=185%2C4%2C2984%2C1951&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A painting for the U.S. Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper shows a downed pilot fending off sharks with a knife.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/painting-for-the-us-army-stars-and-stripes-newspaper-shows-news-photo/483235361?adppopup=true">Ed Vebell/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every summer on the Discovery Channel, “Shark Week” inundates its eager audiences with spectacular documentary footage of <a href="https://www.discovery.com/shark-week/2020-pictures/20-years-of-air-jaws">sharks hunting, feeding and leaping</a>. </p>
<p>Debuting in 1988, the television event was an instant hit. Its <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2015/07/01/the-ridiculous-bloody-scientifically-questionable-history-of-discovery-channels-shark-week/">financial success</a> wildly exceeded the expectations of its creators, who had been inspired by the profitability of the 1975 blockbuster film “Jaws,” the first movie <a href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/60at60/2015/8/1975-first-film-to-reach-100-million-at-the-box-office-392964">to earn US$100 million</a> at the box office. </p>
<p>Thirty-three years later, the enduring popularity of the <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-shark-week-became-the-longest-running-program-in-cable-tv-history-2018-07-20">longest-running programming event</a> in cable TV history is a testament to a nation terrified and fascinated by sharks. </p>
<p><a href="https://daily.jstor.org/sharks-before-and-after-jaws/">Journalists and scholars</a> often credit “Jaws” as the source of America’s obsession with sharks. </p>
<p><a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/ams/faculty/davisjm8">Yet as a historian analyzing human and shark entanglements across the centuries</a>, I argue that the temporal depths of “sharkmania” run much deeper.</p>
<p>World War II played a pivotal role in fomenting the nation’s obsession with sharks. The monumental wartime mobilization of millions of people placed more Americans into contact with sharks than at any prior time in history, spreading seeds of intrigue and fear toward the marine predators.</p>
<h2>America on the move</h2>
<p>Before World War II, <a href="https://shop.wisconsinhistory.org/when-is-daddy-coming-home-an-american-family-during-world-war-ii-3">travel across state and county lines was uncommon</a>. But during the war, the nation was on the move. </p>
<p>Out of a population of <a href="https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/1940census/CSPAN_1940slides.pdf">132.2 million people</a>, per the 1940 U.S. Census, <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/wwii-veteran-statistics">16 million</a> Americans served in the armed forces, many of whom fought in the Pacific. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-First-Strange-Place/Beth-Bailey/9781476727523">15 million civilians</a> crossed county lines to work in the defense industries, many of which were in coastal cities, such as Mobile, Alabama; Galveston, Texas; Los Angeles; and Honolulu.</p>
<p>Local newspapers across the country transfixed civilians and servicemen alike with frequent <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?date1=1941&index=3&date2=1945&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=shark-infested+waters&andtext=&page=1">stories of bombed ships and aircraft</a> in the open ocean. Journalists consistently described imperiled servicemen who were rescued or dying in “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&endDate=19450901&query=shark-infested%20waters&sort=best&startDate=19411201">shark-infested waters</a>.”</p>
<p>Whether sharks were visibly present or not, these news articles magnified a growing cultural anxiety of ubiquitous monsters lurking and poised to kill.</p>
<p>The naval officer and marine scientist H. David Baldridge reported that fear of sharks <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/23801/close-to-shore-by-michael-capuzzo/">was a leading cause of poor morale</a> among servicemen in the Pacific theater. General George Kenney enthusiastically supported the adoption of the <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/eric-m-bergerud/fire-in-the-sky/9780813338699/">P-38 fighter plane</a> in the Pacific because its twin engines and long range diminished the chances of a single-engine aircraft failure or an empty fuel tank: “You look down from the cockpit and you can see schools of sharks swimming around. They never look healthy to a man flying over them.”</p>
<h2>‘Hold tight and hang on’</h2>
<p>American servicemen became so squeamish about the specter of being eaten during long oceanic campaigns that U.S. Army and Navy intelligence operations engaged in a publicity campaign to combat fear of sharks. </p>
<p>Published in 1942, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Castaway_s_Baedeker_to_the_South_Seas.html?id=7iCqKwl3Ud8C">Castaway’s Baedeker to the South Seas</a>” was a “travel” survival guide, of sorts, for servicemen stranded on Pacific islands. The book emphasized the critical importance of conquering such “bogies of the imagination” as “If you are forced down at sea, a shark is sure to amputate your leg.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover depicting a cartoon shark about to attack someone stranded in the ocean." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410438/original/file-20210708-27-mlr0lj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Shark Sense’ sought to prepare troops for encounters with the marine predators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhibits-highlights/aviation-sense-pamphlets/shark-sense/shark-front-cover.html">Navy Archives</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, the Navy’s 1944 pamphlet titled “<a href="https://www.history.navy.mil/research/archives/digital-exhibits-highlights/aviation-sense-pamphlets/shark-sense/shark-front-cover.html">Shark Sense</a>” advised wounded servicemen stranded at sea to “staunch the flow of blood as soon as you disengage the parachute” to thwart hungry sharks. The pamphlet helpfully noted that hitting an aggressive shark on the nose might stop an attack, as would grabbing a ride on the pectoral fin: “Hold tight and hang on as long as you can without drowning yourself.”</p>
<p>The Department of the Navy also worked with the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, to develop a shark repellent. </p>
<p>Office of Strategic Services executive assistant and future chef <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/julia-child-shark-repellant-world-war-ii">Julia Child</a> worked on the project, which tested various recipes of clove oil, horse urine, nicotine, rotting shark muscle and asparagus in hopes of preventing shark attacks. The project culminated in 1945, when the Navy introduced “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/Grunt/">Shark Chaser</a>,” a pink pill of copper acetate that produced a black inky dye when released in the water – the idea being that it would obscure a serviceman from sharks. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the U.S. military’s morale-boosting campaign was unable to vanquish the glaring reality of wartime carnage at sea. Military media correctly observed that sharks <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/odds/compare-risk/death/">rarely attack healthy swimmers</a>. Indeed, <a href="https://armyhistory.org/the-other-foe-the-u-s-armys-fight-against-malaria-in-the-pacific-theater-1942-45/">malaria</a> and other infectious diseases took a far greater toll on U.S. servicemen than sharks.</p>
<p>But the same publications also acknowledged that an injured person was vulnerable in the water. With the frequent bombing of airplanes and ships during World War II, thousands of injured and dying servicemen bobbed helplessly in the ocean.</p>
<p>One of the worst wartime disasters at sea occurred on July 30, 1945, when pelagic sharks swarmed the site of the shipwrecked <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805073669">USS Indianapolis</a>. The heavy cruiser, which had just successfully delivered the components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to Tinian Island in a top-secret mission, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Out of a crew of 1,196 men, 300 died immediately in the blast, and the rest landed in the water. As they struggled to stay afloat, men watched in terror as sharks feasted on their dead and wounded shipmates. </p>
<p>Only 316 men survived the five days in the open ocean. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Survivors are carried on stretchers following their rescue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410437/original/file-20210708-27-m1plbt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not everyone made it to shore after the torpedoing of the USS Indianapolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/survivors-of-uss-indianapolis-enroute-to-hospital-following-news-photo/466684321?adppopup=true">PhotoQuest/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Jaws’ has an eager audience</h2>
<p>World War II veterans possessed searing lifelong memories of sharks – either from direct experience or from the shark stories of others. This made them an especially receptive audience for Peter Benchley’s taut shark-centered thriller “<a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/external/title/9780345544148/">Jaws</a>,” which he published in 1974.</p>
<p><a href="http://archives.bu.edu/collections/collection?id=121539">Don Plotz</a>, a Navy sailor, immediately wrote to Benchley: “I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it. For I have rather a personal interest in sharks.”</p>
<p>In vivid detail, Plotz recounted his experiences on a search and rescue mission in the Bahamas, where a hurricane had sunk the <a href="https://www.hullnumber.com/DD-383">USS Warrington</a> on Sept. 13, 1944. Of the original crew of 321, only 73 survived. </p>
<p>“We picked up two survivors who had been in the water twenty-four hours, and fighting off sharks,” Plotz wrote. “Then we spent all day picking up the carcasses of those we could find, identifying them and burying. Sometime only rib cages … an arm or leg or a hip. Sharks were all around the ship.” </p>
<p>Benchley’s novel paid little attention to World War II, but the war anchored one of the movie’s most memorable moments. In the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9S41Kplsbs">haunting, penultimate scene</a>, one of the shark hunters, Quint, quietly reveals that he is a survivor of the USS Indianapolis disaster. </p>
<p>“Sometimes the sharks look right into your eyes,” he says. “You know the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. He comes at you, he doesn’t seem to be living until he bites you.”</p>
<p>The power of Quint’s soliloquy drew upon the collective memory of the most massive wartime mobilization in American history. The oceanic reach of World War II placed greater numbers of people into contact with sharks under the dire circumstances of war. Veterans bore intimate witness to the inevitable violence of battle, compounded by the trauma of seeing sharks circle and feed opportunistically on their dead and dying comrades. </p>
<p>Their horrifying experiences played a pivotal role in creating an enduring cultural figure: the shark as a mindless, spectral terror that can strike at any moment, a haunting artifact of World War II that primed Americans for the era of “Jaws” and “Shark Week.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet M. Davis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As part of the nation’s massive wartime mobilization effort, millions of Americans, for the first time, traveled abroad – where many had their first encounters with the marine predators.Janet M. Davis, University Distinguished Teaching Professor of American Studies, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1585122021-05-27T14:01:57Z2021-05-27T14:01:57ZJapanese American soldiers in World War II fought the Axis abroad and racial prejudice at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399851/original/file-20210510-5687-12ps4vc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C10%2C2304%2C1838&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Soldiers of the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Bruyères, France.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:442nd_RCT_citation_presentation_in_Bruy%C3%A8res_1944-11-12.jpg">U.S. Army Signal Corps via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine being forced from your home by the government, being imprisoned in a detention camp under armed guards and behind barbed wire – and then being required to join the military to fight for the nation that had locked up you and your family. </p>
<p>That’s what happened in a little-known chapter of U.S. history, in which many of those men went on to become American military heroes, some making the ultimate sacrifice. These soldiers, along with all other Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. armed forces during World War II, were honored with a <a href="https://www.khon2.com/local-news/hawaii-nisei-soldier-is-the-face-of-the-new-usps-forever-stamp/">new U.S. Postal Service stamp</a> on June 3, 2021.</p>
<p>From the time the first immigrants had arrived from Japan in the 1880s, people of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. – whether they were American citizens or not – faced decades of discrimination. The inequities stemmed from politicians promoting anti-immigrant sentiments, workers and businesses fearing economic competition, and tensions relating to Japan’s rise as a military power. The attack on Pearl Harbor whipped those prejudices into a frenzy of fear that swept the nation. After Dec. 7, 1941, anyone with a Japanese face, especially on the West Coast, had the face of the enemy.</p>
<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ndu8Fw5h4ITDsNGOj1c0E?si=MtkjEgbdQB2sw0ZMiYw7Yg&t=1656&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A14O3EsEGWQ4mK3XpKzsncP&dl_branch=1"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420489/original/file-20210910-22-cof6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=212&fit=crop&dpr=1" alt="Promotional image for podcast" width="100%"></a>
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<p>A little more than two months later, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=74#">Executive Order 9066</a>, authorizing the forcible removal of about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from California, Oregon, Washington and parts of Arizona. Without any evidence of disloyalty or charges brought against them, these people – including my grandparents, parents and their families – were sent at gunpoint to hastily constructed detention facilities in desolate inland locations, where they spent the duration of the war. </p>
<p>Two-thirds of those incarcerated were “Nisei” – American citizens, born in the U.S. to Japanese immigrant parents. Their first-generation parents, called “Issei,” were barred by federal law from becoming citizens. Lacking any political clout or any effective allies, the community was powerless to fight against removal and imprisonment.</p>
<p>My forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/When-Can-We-Go-Back-to-America/Susan-H-Kamei/9781481401449">When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during World War II</a>,” chronicles the stories of many who experienced this <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/remarks-signing-bill-providing-restitution-wartime-internment-japanese-american">travesty of justice</a> simply because of their race. I also tell of the roughly 33,000 Japanese Americans who served gallantly in the U.S. military during the war, fighting for a country that had <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter52&edition=prelim">unconstitutionally wronged them</a>, their families and friends.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men squat near a stove, with a woman holding a child" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399859/original/file-20210510-5566-70vk7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=788&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The barracks at Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center in California relied on cloth partitions to provide privacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manzanar_Relocation_Center,_Manzanar,_California._A_typical_interior_scene_in_one_of_the_barrack_ap_._._._-_NARA_-_538136.jpg">War Relocation Authority, U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Segregated units</h2>
<p>On Jan. 5, 1942, the War Department reclassified Japanese American men from being draft-eligible to <a href="https://amhistory.si.edu/perfectunion/resources/history.html">“enemy aliens” not eligible for the draft</a>. Yet as the war continued into 1943, the U.S. government put out a call seeking Japanese American volunteers to join the army. Thousands of them rushed to sign up, agreeing to serve in a segregated all-Nisei unit under the <a href="https://www.history.com/news/black-soldiers-world-war-ii-discrimination">command of white officers</a>.</p>
<p>Most of these volunteers were from Hawaii, where the Japanese American population had generally been allowed to stay in their homes. Future U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, then a college student, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/journey-to-washington/oclc/949787">was among the first to enlist</a>.</p>
<p>On the mainland, about 1,500 Nisei men volunteered from the 10 euphemistically named “relocation centers.” Of these, <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469641904/american-inquisition/">805 were accepted into service</a>, having satisfied a loyalty test administered only to incarcerated Nisei. Some used their Japanese language skills in the Military Intelligence Service in the Pacific theater, while others formed the 100th Infantry Battalion, which fought in Europe, including as a unit attached to the Nisei-staffed 442nd Regimental Combat Team.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Japanese American soldiers stand in a French forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399857/original/file-20210510-16-171boqk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These Japanese American soldiers were part of intense combat retaking Europe from the Nazis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2nd_Battalion,_442nd_RCT_near_Saint-Di%C3%A9_1944-11-13.jpg">U.S. Army Signal Corps via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Going for broke</h2>
<p>By the end of 1943, U.S. military leaders had grimly realized they were running short of manpower. The political decision to reclassify the Nisei as ineligible for the draft was being reconsidered, as commanders were hearing impressive reports of Nisei volunteers in their training. Mike Masaoka of the Japanese American Citizens League was also lobbying the military brass for the opportunity to show through a <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/great-betrayal-the-evacuation-of-the-japanese-americans-during-world-war-ii/oclc/982298524">“demonstration in blood”</a> that Japanese Americans were loyal Americans. </p>
<p>On Jan. 20, 1944, Secretary of War Henry Stimson announced the reinstatement of the draft for all Nisei men. Young Japanese American men were now considered loyal enough for compulsory military service. These draftees from the detention camps subsequently fought in some of the bloodiest battles in Europe.</p>
<p>The Nisei soldiers shared a spirit, and a motto, of “Go for Broke,” Hawaiian gambling slang for wagering everything on one roll of the dice. They wanted to give it all to defend their country and prove their patriotism.</p>
<p>The Japanese American soldiers helped <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/north_apennines_campaigns.php">drive the German army out of Italy</a> and continued into eastern France, fighting nonstop for nearly two months in the <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/rhineland_vosges.php">Vosges Mountains</a>. Their last-ditch effort <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/rescue_of_the_lost_battalion.php">rescued over 200 soldiers from Texas</a>, who had been stranded behind German lines for nearly a week.</p>
<p>By the time the Nisei troops emerged from the Vosges, the number of dead and wounded outnumbered the living. One company had started out with 185 men, but ended up with <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/combat_history/world_war_2/european_theater/rescue_of_the_lost_battalion.php">only eight</a>. This terrible casualty rate earned the 442nd the nickname of the “<a href="https://www.defense.gov/observe/photo-gallery/igphoto/2001155728/">Purple Heart Battalion</a>.”</p>
<p>Approximately 18,000 Nisei soldiers served in the combined 100th and 442nd, and collectively they and their units <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/hall_of_honor/awards_stats.php">earned more than 14,000 awards</a>, making it the <a href="https://www.goforbroke.org/learn/history/military_units/442nd.php">most decorated military unit for its size and length of service</a> in all of U.S. military history.</p>
<p>One top military official in the Pacific theater credited the <a href="https://encyclopedia.densho.org/Military_Intelligence_Service/">Nisei MIS interpreters</a> with saving tens of thousands of American lives and shortening the war by as much as two years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ronald Reagan, sitting, shakes hands with smiling people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399864/original/file-20210510-13-13bij0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill making moral and financial amends to Japanese Americans kept in U.S. detention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/USPRESIDENTREAGAN/fd942fdf82e4da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo">AP Photo/Doug Mills</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Their legacy</h2>
<p>The Nisei soldiers might have prevailed over the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese in the Pacific, but they came home to racial prejudice that had only intensified during the war. In 1981, MIS veteran Mits Usui recalled that as he returned to his hometown of Los Angeles, wearing his U.S. Army uniform, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/japanese-americans/hearings">a bus rider called him a “Damn J*p.”</a> Inouye described how after he was released from the hospital as a decorated second lieutenant with a hook replacing the arm he had lost in combat, a San Francisco <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/journey-to-washington/oclc/490796212">barber refused to cut his “J*p hair.”</a></p>
<p>Vigilantes were terrorizing the veterans’ families so they would not return to their West Coast homes. Some were threatened with bodily harm. The government promoted stories of the Nisei soldiers’ valor as part of a pro-Japanese American publicity campaign to combat the terrorism. </p>
<p>For U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga, President Ronald Reagan’s signing of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was important recognition of the Nisei’s wartime sacrifices. That legislation officially apologized for the incarceration and provided token reparations payments to the surviving incarcerees. A decorated 100th/442nd member, Matsunaga recalled, “<a href="https://www.nvlchawaii.org/442nd-rct-veteran-spark-matsunaga-elected-us-representative">We feel now that our efforts at the battlefront</a> – giving up our lives and being wounded and maimed and disabled – all this was for a great cause, great ideals … to remove the one big blot on the Constitution that has been there for over 45 years.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399862/original/file-20210510-23-1j8q2th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The new stamp is based on a photo of U.S. Army Private First Class Shiroku ‘Whitey’ Yamamoto with the 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team, Antitank Company in Touet de l'Escarène, France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://store.usps.com/store/results/stamps/_/N-9y93lv">U.S. Postal Service</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2005, surviving Nisei veterans and their families launched a campaign to have the U.S. Postal Service issue a <a href="https://niseistamp.org/">stamp honoring all Japanese Americans who served in World War II</a>, including the women who served. The campaign has had support from bipartisan local, state and federal legislators, as well as from French citizens and officials who have not forgotten the <a href="https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2020/1117-usps-announces-upcoming-stamps.htm">Nisei heroes</a> who freed their towns from German forces. <a href="https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/go-for-broke-japanese-american-soldiers-of-wwii-S_480504">The stamp</a> is one of only a few in U.S. postal history to feature an Asian American or Pacific Islander.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158512/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan H. Kamei is a member of the Japanese American National Museum and the Japanese American Citizens League.</span></em></p>Young Japanese American men who were incarcerated because they were presumed to be disloyal were considered loyal enough for compulsory military service.Susan H. Kamei, Lecturer in History; Managing Director of the Spatial Sciences Institute, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/777582017-05-25T03:31:44Z2017-05-25T03:31:44ZWhat veterans’ poems can teach us about healing on Memorial Day<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170872/original/file-20170524-31366-1wzk00u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A visitor pauses at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/J. David Ake, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Memorial Day, a national holiday to honor the <a href="http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf">1.17 million men and women who have died</a> to create and maintain the freedoms outlined in our Constitution, is not the only Memorial Day.</p>
<p>The holiday <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008199">emerged from the Civil War</a> as a celebration almost exclusively for veterans of the Union Army to remember those who had died. Veterans and their families from Confederate states held their own celebrations. Thus, it remains fraught with conflict and ambiguity.</p>
<p>In 2017, <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-04-24/what-to-know-about-confederate-memorial-day">seven states</a> – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia – chose to also celebrate some form of Confederate Memorial Day. It’s usually celebrated on April 26 – the day associated with the surrender of <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780759116320/Memory-in-Black-and-White-Race-Commemoration-and-the-Post-Bellum-Landscape">General Joe Johnston</a>, nine days after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox at the end of the Civil War.</p>
<p>How can we overcome these deep divides? </p>
<p>Having served 28 years in the U.S. Army and as a teacher and <a href="http://veteransinsociety.wordpress.com">researcher who studies the roles veterans and their family play in society</a>, I believe poems written by veterans that focus on honoring those who have died may give us a clue.</p>
<h2>Bridging divisions</h2>
<p>Tension between North and South remains. We see it not only on days dedicated to remembrance. It surfaces daily as communities such as <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/robert-e-lee-statue-removed-new-orleans/">New Orleans</a> wrestle with whether or not to keep memorial statues honoring Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/170875/original/file-20170524-31352-1euq0s6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seaman Daniel Odoi of the Navy Operational Support Center of New York City presents the American flag on Memorial Day 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Minchillo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One poet who does not ignore these divides is <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/yusef-komunyakaa">Yusef Komunyakaa</a>, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 and earned a Bronze Star. He is now a professor at New York University.</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/47867">Facing It</a>,” a poem about visiting the Vietnam War Memorial, Komunyakaa, an African-American, confronts the wall and issues linked to war and race. He writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“My black face fades / hiding inside the black granite.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But he is also a veteran honoring those who died; he is balancing the pain of loss with the guilt of not being a name on the wall: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I go down the 58,022 names, / half-expecting to find / my own in letters like smoke. / I touch the name Andrew Johnson; / I see the booby trap’s white flash.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The poem ends with two powerful images that offer a glimmer of hope: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A white vet’s image floats / closer to me, then his pale eyes / look through mine. I’m a window. / He’s lost his right arm / inside the stone. In the black mirror / a woman’s trying to erase names: / No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The image of the speaker becoming a “window” addresses how two vets, one white and one black, bridge the racial divide and become linked through shared acts of sacrifice and remembrance. Yet even with such a positive affirming metaphor, the speaker’s mind and heart are not fully at ease.</p>
<p>The next image creates dissonance and worry: Will the names be erased? The concluding line relieves that worry – the names are not being erased. More importantly, the final image of a simple act of caring calls to mind the sacrifices made to protect women and children by those whose names are on the wall. As a result, their image in the stone becomes a living memorial.</p>
<h2>Memory and reflection</h2>
<p>We can also learn from Brock Jones, an Army veteran who served three tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He named his award-winning book “<a href="http://www.uapress.com/dd-product/cenotaph/">Cenotaph</a>,” the name for a tomb to honor those whose graves lie elsewhere. By using the name of a monument for those not present, a monument with historical ties to ancient Greece and Egypt as well as our own culture, Brock highlights how honoring the dead goes beyond culture and country. </p>
<p>Jones’ poems do not focus outward toward social strife, but inward. They address language’s inability to capture or express loss linked to memories of war. They also point to how those remaining alive, particularly those who have not served, might come to understand the depth of the sacrifice expressed by memorials and, by extension, Memorial Day.</p>
<p>In “Arkansas,” a poem that takes place at the Arkansas pillar, one of 56 pillars at the <a href="http://www.wwiimemorial.com/">National WWII Memorial</a> in Washington, D.C., the speaker remembers a journey with his grandfather:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“dead eight years ago this summer / to the Atlantic pavilion engraved / with foreign names he never forgot. / Bastogne. / Yeah, we was there. / St. Marie Eglise. / We was near there.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The poem ends with the grandfather described as “a hunched figure, in front of ARKANSAS. Still, in front of ARKANSAS.” The grandfather is burdened by memories he carries, memories that render him “still” (motionless), memories that will remain with him “still.”</p>
<p>“Memorial from a Park Bench” offers a broader perspective, one that any visitor sitting on a bench in front of a memorial might experience. For the visitor, the memorial becomes “an opened book,” a place where “A word loses its ability to conjure / trapped inside a black mirror.” </p>
<p>The words are “names,” which “could be lines / of poems or a grocery list. / They could be just lines.” But they are not “just lines.”</p>
<p>At poem’s end, when all is contemplated, “Here are names and black stone / and your only reflection.”</p>
<p>Jones shifts the emotional and intellectual burden from the person on the bench to the poem’s readers, and thus to broader society. These words cannot be just lines or lists; they become, by being memorialized in a black stone, a “mirror,” the reader’s and thus society’s “reflection.” All on the bench are implicated; the names died for us, and, as a result, are us. </p>
<h2>Memorial Day and mindfulness</h2>
<p>Memorial Day may have “official” roots honoring Union dead, but veteran poets of recent wars serving a United States have found ways to honor all those who have died in battle.</p>
<p>Our country may be divided, but by taking a moment to pause and reflect on names etched on monument walls or gravestones, everyone on benches may see their own reflections, and in so doing further the task President Abraham Lincoln outlined in his 1865 <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html">Second Inaugural Address</a> “to bind up the nation’s wounds…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”</p>
<p>By being mindful, we might understand what Robert Dana, a WWII vet wrote in “At the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.”: that “These lives once theirs / are now ours.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Dubinsky received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities to put on a three-week Summer Institute for faculty on Veterans in Society. He is affiliated with Virginia Tech Veterans Caucus. </span></em></p>An Army veteran and professor of rhetoric explores poetry written by veterans about a divisive holiday born of the Civil War.James Dubinsky, Associate Professor of English, Virginia TechLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717802017-02-10T04:06:32Z2017-02-10T04:06:32ZAfrican-American GIs of WWII: Fighting for democracy abroad and at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156252/original/image-20170209-28716-6qsolu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two U.S. soldiers on Easter morning, 1945.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NARA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until the 21st century, the contributions of African-American soldiers in World War II barely registered in America’s collective memory of that war. </p>
<p>The “tan soldiers,” as the Black press affectionately called them, were also for the most part left out of the triumphant narrative of America’s “Greatest Generation.” In order to tell their story of helping defeat Nazi Germany in my 2010 book, “<a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=33/">Breath of Freedom</a>,” I had to conduct research in more than 40 different archives in the U.S. and Germany.</p>
<p>When a German TV production company, together with Smithsonian TV, turned that book into a <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/breathoffreedom">documentary</a>, the filmmakers searched U.S. media and military archives for two years for footage of Black GIs in the final push into Germany and during the occupation of post-war Germany. </p>
<p>They watched hundreds of hours of film and discovered less than 10 minutes of footage. This despite the fact that among the 16 million U.S. soldiers who fought in World War II, there were about one million African-American soldiers.</p>
<p>They fought in the Pacific, and they were part of the victorious army that liberated Europe from Nazi rule. Black soldiers were also part of the U.S. Army of occupation in Germany after the war. Still serving in strictly segregated units, they were sent to democratize the Germans and expunge all forms of racism.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156253/original/image-20170209-8640-18ygaep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A soldier paints over a swastika.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NARA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was that experience that convinced many of these veterans to continue their struggle for equality when they returned home to the U.S. They were to become the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement – a movement that changed the face of our nation and inspired millions of repressed people across the globe.</p>
<p>As a scholar of <a href="https://history.vassar.edu/bios/mahoehn.html">German history</a> and of the more than 70-year U.S. military presence in Germany, I have marveled at the men and women of that generation. They were willing to fight for democracy abroad, while being denied democratic rights at home in the U.S. Because of their belief in America’s “democratic promise” and their sacrifices on behalf of those ideals, I was born into a free and democratic West Germany, just 10 years after that horrific war. </p>
<h2>Fighting racism at home and abroad</h2>
<p>By deploying troops abroad as warriors for and emissaries of American democracy, the military literally <a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/">exported</a> the African-American freedom struggle. </p>
<p>Beginning in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, African-American activists and the Black press used white America’s condemnation of Nazi racism to expose and indict the abuses of Jim Crow at home. America’s entry into the war and the struggle against Nazi Germany allowed civil rights activists to significantly step up their rhetoric. </p>
<p>Langston Hughes’ 1943 poem, “<a href="http://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans">From Beaumont to Detroit</a>,” addressed to America, eloquently expressed that sentiment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You jim crowed me / Before hitler rose to power- / And you are still jim crowing me- / Right now this very hour.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Believing that fighting for American democracy abroad would finally grant African-Americans full citizenship at home, civil rights activists put pressure on the U.S. government to allow African-American soldiers to “fight like men,” side by side with white troops. </p>
<p>The military brass, disproportionately dominated by white Southern officers, refused. They argued that such a step would undermine military efficiency and negatively impact the morale of white soldiers. In an integrated military, Black officers or NCOs might also end up commanding white troops. Such a challenge to the Jim Crow racial order based on white supremacy was seen as unacceptable. </p>
<p>The manpower of Black soldiers was needed in order to win the war, but the military brass got its way; America’s Jim Crow order was to be upheld. African-Americans were allowed to train as pilots in the segregated Tuskeegee Airmen. The 92nd Buffalo Soldiers and 93rd Blue Helmets all-Black divisions were activated and sent abroad under the command of white officers. </p>
<p>Despite these concessions, 90 percent of Black troops were forced to serve in labor and supply units, rather than the more prestigious combat units. Except for a few short weeks during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 when commanders were desperate for manpower, all U.S. soldiers served in strictly segregated units. Even the blood banks were segregated.</p>
<h2>‘A Breath of Freedom’</h2>
<p>After the defeat of the Nazi regime, an Army manual instructed U.S. occupation soldiers that America was the “living denial of Hitler’s absurd theories of a superior race,” and that it was up to them to teach the Germans “that the whole concept of superiority and intolerance of others is evil.” There was an obvious, deep gulf between this soaring rhetoric of democracy and racial harmony, and the stark reality of the Jim Crow army of occupation. It was also not lost on the Black soldiers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156254/original/image-20170209-8637-e0mz4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women’s Army Corps in Nuremberg, Germany, 1949.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Post-Nazi Germany was hardly a country free of racism. But for the Black soldiers, it was their first experience of a society without a formal Jim Crow <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/breathoffreedom">color line</a>. Their uniform identified them as victorious warriors and as Americans, rather than “Negroes.” </p>
<p>Serving in labor and supply units, they had access to all the goods and provisions starving Germans living in the ruins of their country yearned for. African-American cultural expressions such as jazz, defamed and banned by the Nazis, were another reason so many Germans were drawn to their Black liberators. White America was stunned to see how much black GIs enjoyed their time abroad, and how much they dreaded their <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5630897-the-last-of-the-conquerors">return home</a> to the U.S.</p>
<p>By 1947, when the Cold War was heating up, the reality of the segregated Jim Crow Army in Germany was becoming a major embarrassment for the U.S. government. The Soviet Union and East German communist propaganda relentlessly attacked the U.S. and challenged its claim to be the leader of the “free world.” Again and again, they would point to the segregated military in West Germany, and to Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. to make their case.</p>
<h2>Coming ‘home’</h2>
<p>Newly returned veterans, civil rights advocates and the Black press took advantage of that Cold War constellation. They evoked America’s mission of democracy in Germany to push for change at home. Responding to that pressure, the first institution of the U.S. to integrate was the U.S. military, made possible by Truman’s 1948 <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=84">Executive Order 9981</a>. That monumental step, in turn, paved the way for the 1954 Supreme Court decision in <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-v-board">Brown v. Board of Education</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/156393/original/image-20170210-23316-1kb1z6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hosea Williams, World War II Army veteran and civil rights activist, rallies demonstrators in Selma, Ala. 1965.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The veterans who had been abroad electrified and energized the larger struggle to make America live up to its promise of democracy and justice. They joined the NAACP in record numbers and founded new chapters of that organization in the South, despite a <a href="http://eji.org/reports/online/lynching-in-america-targeting-black-veterans">wave of violence against returning veterans</a>. The veterans of World War II and the Korean War became the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Medgar Evers, Amzie Moore, Hosea Williams and Aaron Henry are some of the better-known names, but countless others helped advance the struggle. </p>
<p>About one-third of the leaders in the civil rights movement were veterans of World War II.</p>
<p>They fought for a better America in the streets of the South, at their workplaces in the North, as leaders in the NAACP, as plaintiffs before the Supreme Court and also within the U.S. military to make it a more inclusive institution. They were also the men of the hour at the 1963 March on Washington, when their military training and expertise was crucial to ensure that the day would not be marred by agitators opposed to civil rights. </p>
<p>“We structured the March on Washington like an army formation,” <a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/index.php/oral-histories-6?id=57">recalled</a> veteran Joe Hairston.</p>
<p>For these veterans, the 2009 and 2013 inaugurations of President Barack Obama were triumphant moments in their long struggle for a better America and a more just world. Many never thought they would live to see the day that an African-American would lead their country.</p>
<p><em>To learn more about the contributions of African-American GIs, visit “<a href="http://aacvr-germany.org/">The Civil Rights Struggle, African-American GIs, and Germany</a>” digital archive.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Höhn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When war broke out, Black Americans fought in segregated units to serve their country. The breath of freedom they experienced in Europe flamed the fight for equality when they returned home.Maria Höhn, Professor and Chair of History, Vassar CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/397282015-05-07T09:51:24Z2015-05-07T09:51:24ZForeign students not a threat, but an advantage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80572/original/image-20150505-948-1nudkey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Concern about international students displacing domestic ones, are misplaced.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=sRTZWRN81teNSSbSuQ5www&searchterm=foreign%20students%20&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=188797388">Girl Image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An undeniable shift is taking place across US campuses with the number of international students increasing rapidly. Between 2003 and 2013, the number of foreign students studying in the US <a href="http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/Data/International-Students/Infographic">increased by 55%</a> with continuing growth anticipated in the years ahead.</p>
<p>This has led to some concerns about domestic students being displaced by more affluent international students who can afford to pay rising tuition costs. Inherent in this view is the assumption that the primary obligation of US universities is towards their local residents and that financial interests are driving the trend.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/international-students-stream-into-u-s-colleges-1427248801">A common claim</a> is that “cash-strapped public universities” are “aggressively recrui[ting] students from abroad.” </p>
<p>In our view, these are flawed assumptions. </p>
<p>It is very likely that the <a href="http://www.symposium-books.co.uk/books/bookdetails.asp?bid=87">increasing pace of globalization</a>, is playing a role, but, it is important to note that US campuses have historically witnessed demographic shifts as a result of social and economic changes that took place around them. </p>
<p>These demographic shifts gradually broadened US universities from a domain of elite, white men to one that included veterans, women and increasing numbers of underrepresented minorities. </p>
<p>As researchers who focus on the internationalization of US higher education, we believe the increasing numbers of international students need to be understood in this historic context and as merely one more step in the ongoing demographic expansion of US universities. </p>
<h2>How US universities evolved</h2>
<p>Early US universities were parochial. <a href="http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/american_college;%20https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/history-american-higher-education">American colleges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries</a> were designed to educate a population of elite, local, Christian young men for service to their religious and local communities. </p>
<p>But within a short half-century or so, this changed radically. The <a href="http://www.pvamu.edu/library/about-the-library/history-of-the-library-at-prairie-view/1890-land-grant-history/">Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890</a> provided funding to each state to <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED512738">develop practical post-secondary education</a> in agriculture and mechanical fields – the “A&M” (agriculture and mechanical) universities that many states retain today. </p>
<p>As the purpose of higher education grew to include these practical subjects in addition to the traditional focus on the classics and ancient languages, higher education <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/american-higher-education-twenty-first-century">changed from an “elite” system</a> that <a href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED091983.pdf">educated less than 15% of college-aged youth</a> to a “mass” one that educated between 15% - 50% of it. </p>
<p>A massive influx of veterans to US campuses after World War II, funded by the <a href="http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/04/20080423213340eaifas0.8454951.html#axzz3ZI6gNWXA">GI Bill of Rights</a>, further broadened US universities’ student demographics <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9577.html">from an elite domain </a> to institutions serving a broader and more diverse population. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement">civil rights </a> and <a href="https://tavaana.org/en/content/1960s-70s-american-feminist-movement-breaking-down-barriers-women">feminist movements </a> of the 1960s and 1970s, coupled with university affirmative action policies, created still more gender, racial and ethnic diversity among student bodies.</p>
<p>These demographic changes were not always smooth ones; each wave of change has been and in some cases, continues to be challenged. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/80573/original/image-20150505-951-19wmaqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An increase in international students should be seen as a positive trend.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=P2B2rnLITTPVZIBb-KLz8Q&searchterm=international%20students%20%20&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=136836428">Pencil image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The idea that all Americans ought to have a pathway to higher education has become a deeply held belief. Indeed, issues of access and equity remain perhaps the two most dominant areas of research and policy making in US higher education today.</p>
<p>Increasing international student numbers are being seen by some as a threat to domestic student access or as solely driven by the money-making zeal of US higher education institutions. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/international-students-stream-into-u-s-colleges-1427248801">news article</a> recently cited numerous examples of dwindling state funding for higher education amidst rising tuition for in-state and out-of-state Americans at traditionally land grant, public institutions. </p>
<p>Tensions on campus, according to the author, coupled with pressure on state-level legislators by disgruntled students and parents, is leading to a backlash movement against further international student growth. </p>
<h2>Global role of universities</h2>
<p>We suggest such a backlash is fundamentally flawed for at least two important reasons. </p>
<p>First, efforts to preserve ‘seats’ for local residents rests on an assumption that public institutions’ primary obligations ought to be to their local communities. </p>
<p>Although this assumption is rooted in historical facts – since most US universities were founded by either local communities or by religious ones - universities’ obligations to bigger and broader communities has grown over time.</p>
<p>After World War II, universities became key players in national security and international development projects as university scholars embraced new roles as problem solvers who could address pressing challenges of <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war">Cold War</a> geopolitics, modernization and development and national security. </p>
<p>By the time the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/berlin-wall">Berlin Wall</a> fell, the pace of globalization had begun its rapid acceleration in ways that would forever alter universities’ notion of communities. As <a href="https://ed.stanford.edu/faculty/stevens4">Stevens</a> and <a href="http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/cynthia.cfm">Miller-Idriss</a> argue in their forthcoming book based on a long-term <a href="http://www.ssrc.org/programs/producing-knowledge-on-world-regions/">research project</a> at the <a href="http://www.ssrc.org/">US Social Science Research Council</a>, a new global logic in US universities dictates that university patrons and flows of students and scholars are global as well as local. </p>
<p>Second, the data on domestic student displacement is not entirely clear. </p>
<p>Although it is indisputable that international students are growing in number, it is not clear that their percentage within the total student population on campuses has grown.</p>
<p>In other words, <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-015-9362-2">in-state students may be an increasingly small percentage of the students on campus</a>, but their total numbers may not be <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_306.10.asp">much greater or less than than they were 10 or 20 years ago</a>. It might be simply that the overall population has grown and out-of-state and international students are a larger share of the pie.</p>
<h2>Foreign students not a detriment</h2>
<p>What do these shifts mean for local students who feel closed out of seats in their state universities? </p>
<p>We sympathize with anxious parents and students who feel the burden of incessantly <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/FastFacts/display.asp?id=76">rising tuition costs</a> and believe that international applicants may negatively affect their chances of getting into the college or university of their choice. But we urge them to balance emotion with fact. </p>
<p>Before passing judgment on institutions and the international students they serve, we urge those affected to ask their state institutions for hard data on student enrollment numbers over time and to gather the most objective and reliable facts at their disposal before urging action by their state legislators to change the public institutions serving them.</p>
<p>Lastly, we suggest seeing growing international student enrollments as a positive new trend in a long list of demographic transformations that have historically shaped the US university mostly for the better. </p>
<p>Previous demographic transformations also raised alarm bells. The rising numbers of veterans post World War II were <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9577.html">met with dismay</a> by some: <a href="https://president.uchicago.edu/directory/robert-maynard-hutchins">University of Chicago president Robert M. Hutchins</a> warned that campuses would turn into <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9577.html">“hobo jungles.”</a></p>
<p>But such dire predictions turned out to be ill-advised, as academic <a href="http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/bio/christopher-loss">Christopher P Loss</a> has <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9577.html">argued</a>, in part because the older, mature veteran students were more serious, disciplined, and pursued academic learning more rigorously. </p>
<p>We believe that a similar perception will emerge over time when the contributions international students are making to US higher education will be seen as having been a boon to the US higher education system rather than a detriment to it. </p>
<p>Perhaps our energy would be better spent trying to maximize international students’ contributions rather than challenging them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The number of international students on American campuses has increased by 55%. Are they taking the place of American students ?Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Associate Professor of Education and Sociology, American UniversityBernhard Streitwieser, Assistant Professor of International Education, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.