Mary Claire Waterman: This is America

  1. The story of the United States (until the 1990s) is one that is fraught with corruption, classism, racism, and xenophobia. For every important moment of US history I’ve included an equally important moment of oppression and exploitation that is often lost in the historiography and the narrative that Americans choose to listen to. The use of faceless figures to represent the people who impacted American history is a choice I made in my attempts to not glorify or idolize the people who made a mark on the United States but to simply share how their actions impacted the greater narrative.
  2. Using the discussions we had in class on the somewhat controversial history of American education and the trends in policies that instituted the changes to the educational system, I elaborated on moments that significantly impacted a greater American narrative. Utilizing Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” I garnered some difficult truths about the United States origin which I translated into my comic.
  3. I chose to create an embroidered American flag simply to show the type of nationalistic sentiment that is a part of our everyday lives. The need to understand the differences between patriotism and nationalism is clear with the constant bombardment of America themed consumerism. The constant marketing and branding of the American flag for selling products needs to be understood for what it is, a symptom of American nationalism and consumerism.