Sydney Pendergast CAPS #2

History is important to study when making sense of where we are at today. Many histories come together to influence who we are and who we become, such as political histories, social histories, gender histories and family histories. You cannot truly understand how a person acts and operates until you know about their past, just like you can't understand how a nation or culture operates until you study the past events they have been through.

History is something that is so important for our future. Without teaching the past we cannot have a successful future. It is scary to think that their our some events in our past that are absent or hidden histories. Absent histories are any part of history that was not recorded or that is missing. Hidden histories are the events that are hidden from or forgotten by the mainstream representation of the past. Without making an effort to learn about our nations past we could repeat our mistakes.

Although all through the last 16 years of school I have learned a lot about history I do not know much about the past of the Chinese American culture. When people from China first started immigrating to the United States they were treated very poorly. The Chinese people were in America working in the mines and on the railroad and thought of as "cheap labor". They were portrayed very badly in the newspapers and in 1882 laws were passed that prohibited immigration from China. This lasted until 1940. In 1943 the Magnuson Act began allowing Chinese immigration into the U.S., again. I had never realized that for 61 years there was an entire culture that was not allowed into the United States.

This piece of history hits close to home because of a resident at the Assisted Living home I work at. Helen, a woman I have become very close with immigrated from China to the United States in 1945. She likes to tell me stories about her family and her past. Through finding out about her past I have learned so much more about her. In China Helen's family was very rich and high society, when they first moved to Lincoln they were poor and lived in a one bedroom apartment for years until they were able to begin making a living for themselves and start their own business. I sometimes wonder what would have happened to Helen's family had the Magnuson Act never allowed them to immigrate to the United States.

Histories such as these are sometimes not talked about as much or hidden because they shed a bad light on our country. We often don't want to remember the times when we may have been wrong or treated certain people unfairly.


Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T.K. (2013). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.