"Dublin Core:Title","Dublin Core:Subject","Dublin Core:Description","Dublin Core:Creator","Dublin Core:Source","Dublin Core:Publisher","Dublin Core:Date","Dublin Core:Contributor","Dublin Core:Rights","Dublin Core:Relation","Dublin Core:Format","Dublin Core:Language","Dublin Core:Type","Dublin Core:Identifier","Dublin Core:Coverage","Item Type Metadata:Text","Item Type Metadata:Interviewer","Item Type Metadata:Interviewee","Item Type Metadata:Location","Item Type Metadata:Transcription","Item Type Metadata:Local URL","Item Type Metadata:Original Format","Item Type Metadata:Physical Dimensions","Item Type Metadata:Duration","Item Type Metadata:Compression","Item Type Metadata:Producer","Item Type Metadata:Director","Item Type Metadata:Bit Rate/Frequency","Item Type Metadata:Time Summary","Item Type Metadata:Email Body","Item Type Metadata:Subject Line","Item Type Metadata:From","Item Type Metadata:To","Item Type Metadata:CC","Item Type Metadata:BCC","Item Type Metadata:Number of Attachments","Item Type Metadata:Standards","Item Type Metadata:Objectives","Item Type Metadata:Materials","Item Type Metadata:Lesson Plan Text","Item Type Metadata:URL","Item Type Metadata:Event Type","Item Type Metadata:Participants","Item Type Metadata:Birth Date","Item Type Metadata:Birthplace","Item Type Metadata:Death Date","Item Type Metadata:Occupation","Item Type Metadata:Biographical Text","Item Type Metadata:Bibliography","Item Type Metadata:Player","Item Type Metadata:Imported Thumbnail","Item Type Metadata:Referrer",tags,file,itemType,collection,public,featured "The Power of Myth",,"Ron Eisenman shares how a PBS television series encouraged him to pursue his passions and turn to the humanities to help him make sense of the world around him. His engagement with ""The Power of Myth"" helped to connect seemingly disparate cultural contexts by illuminating the shared elements of the stories we tell about ourselves.",,"""The Power of Myth"" (PBS television series)",,1988,"Ron Eisenman, public high school social studies teacher, Rutland, Vermont",,,,,,power-of-myth,,,,,,"From a young age I thought I would be a mathematician, but when I became 18 or so, I realized that humanities, not math, asked the questions I was yearning to explore. Nobody did this better than Joseph Campbell in his series of interviews with Bill Moyers done for PBS in 1988. At the time, this program rocked my world. I laugh today when I consider how boring teenagers might perceive it today because the cinematography basically consists of 2 people talking in chairs facing one another for hours. Yet, at the time, it set my mind on fire. I saw this series on TV just after graduating college with a minor in folklore and a year working in Japan. I was so enthralled that I eventually got the recorded tapes and companion book. Here was an intellectual who not only confirmed some of the ideas I had been exploring in the past few years, but also provided critical perspective and expanded my understanding. Bill Moyers was able to capture the brilliance and gentleness of Joseph Campbell. He captured the idea that people all over the world try to understand themselves and the mysteries of the universe through story. He reminded to try to be humble and listen to those stories which can have incredible power and meaning. He also opened my eyes to the common threads that weave through global cultures. I truly loved his work on the hero’s journey, a story that is told with little variations across time and place. The hero’s journey is inspiring because it tells us to expect trials, be brave, and do things for others. Sometimes the journey is scary and we may not return in the same state as we left. I also try to live by the motto, “follow your bliss.” When I found that I wasn’t happy as a lawyer, this idea gave me the inspiration to change my life and do what makes me happy without worrying about loss of money or status. I also loved how Joseph Campbell could look at the pop culture of the time, like Star Wars, and demonstrate the relevance of the past. He talks about this series borrowed elements of Zen Buddhism and the bushido code of the samurai warrior. I have also been inspired by the wisdom Campbell shows when exploring an idea. He is able to draw on cultural practices from a wide variety of cultures to help bring understanding about the human condition. I want to emulate him in this area. He also opened me to the idea that in addition to the past having value, one must recognize that culture is always changing. Although nationalism has made perhaps a last gasp comeback, Campbell was a true globalist who recognized the uniqueness and similarity of cultures. He talked about the development of a new global culture emerging. My eyes are looking out for signs of this. ",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,"I heard about this while taking a class at the National Humanities Center","Campbell, Joseph,Cultural History,Moyers, Bill,Multicultural Education,Multiculturalism,Mythology,PBS (Public Broadcasting Service),Popular Culture,Storytelling,Teachers,The Hero's Journey",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/9/336/Power_of_Myth_HM.jpg,Sound,"Teacher Advisory Council",1,0 "The Currency of Emotional Intelligence",,"
Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye is the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. She recalls her experiences as a student in a humanities class in college, her upbringing in a Filipino community of hardworking women eager to pass on their traditions, and her realization that the humanities teach us to celebrate and respect the stories and uniqueness of people.
To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,,,,"Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, 28th Chief Justice of the State of California ",,,,,,tani-gorre-cantil-sakauye,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Community Colleges,Cultural History,Families,Filipino Americans,History,Justices,Oral Tradition,Teachers & Teaching",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/146/Hawaii_Filipino_Welcome_Philippine_Navy_Capt.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "Reflections on the Banks of the Tiber",,"Like so many significant events throughout the history of the Western world, my humanities moment begins on the banks of the River Tiber in Rome. I had just crossed the Ponte Sisto bridge and was standing at the crosswalk to Piazza Trilussa in the Trastevere neighborhood. The sky was crystal clear and had the color of deep blue topaz, and the sun was bearing down in an unforgivable blaze. Only three minutes prior I had been hellbent on making it back to my AirBnB as quickly as possible; I desperately needed an hour or two of rest and relaxation in air conditioning. But the Tiber pulled me back. I asked my spouse Brandon if he minded my turning back to get a photo. Ever the Type-B match to my persistently Type-A personality, he said it was no problem, even though I know he was just as ready to be back our apartment as I was. I approached the bridge’s short wall and gazed out. The river was moving at an even pace, but its motion looked lazy in comparison to the times that I had visited Rome in the spring—when the snow from the Alps melted into the tributaries and flooded rivers like the Tiber with a rush of new life and renewed possibility. I recalled a Horace poem that I read during a summer Latin language-learning intensive I attended three years prior. It was not a particularly inclusive environment. The institute taught Latin via the nineteenth-century-style grammar-syntax model, demanding its students to learn the language, not as a vibrant cultural milieu brimming with life and storytelling, but as if it were a mathematical equation to be decoded and solved. In this program, there was no room for nuance. As a burgeoning literary scholar, I struggled with this model because my entire academic career had been built on the notion that meaning and context are fluid. So, when I encountered one of Horace’s Carmina describing the Tiber as yellow, I was baffled by the adjective/noun agreement. Bordering frustration, I asked an instructor of the institute, and he casually (and not a little derisively) explained that if I had ever been to Rome, I would know that the river looked yellow. Having not had the resources to travel abroad in well over a decade, I felt ashamed, small, and provincial. It was July 2016 at this time, and the preceding August I lost my mother to a long-term illness that none of us knew she had. Her passing was quick, but the grief stuck around. This instructor’s condescension cut deeper than my ineptitude at translating Latin poetry. It felt like an indictment of my life, the choices I made, and the opportunities that had not been afforded to me. The only amelioration was my summer study group that year, the group of underdogs that kept me tethered to the Earth and from going completely mad. (I should note, we were the underdogs not because we were somehow lesser than intellectually, but because we were all pursuing advanced degrees in higher education. We all were also, it should be known, the only students in the entire program who fit into some category of “minority” student; we were either female, or BIPOC, or LGBTQ+, or first-gen, or a combination of all the above. But we persisted, and all of us managed to hobble over the finish line after three months of intensive study.) When I saw for myself the yellow tinge of the Tiber last summer, this pedagogical memory came flooding back to me. But instead of feeling sad or sorrowful, I felt empowered—vindicated, even—because I was in Rome for a professional reason. I was invited to present a paper at the European Shakespeare Research Association, an experience that would eventually lead to my first peer-reviewed publication the following spring. The inclusivity I felt in that moment resonated greatly with me. Unlike my experience three years prior, my voice was valued and sought after. I mattered. My education and language-acquisition struggles being what they were, it gave me perspective. Yes, I can see for myself now that the river looks yellow. It is a beautiful sight, to be sure, but the yellow river is not all that different from the brackish waters I grew up with in Mississippi. I can guarantee, however, that I will convey this piece of trivia in a more accessible way to my students, those like myself, who a few years prior was someone with little cultural capital but the rapacious desire to research, to learn, and with a little help of my friends, to lift myself out of a life that felt inescapable.",,"Tiber River in Rome, IT",,"July 2019","Alexander Lowe McAdams, literary scholar and dedicated pedagogue ",,,,,,reflections-on-banks-tiber,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"NHC Summer Residency 2020","Cultural History,Graduate Students,Language & Languages,Latin,Rome, Italy,Self-Realization,Travel",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/399/HM_Tiber.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2020",1,0 "Random Research Gems",,"I’m deep in research for an article, searching through the National Library of Wales’s digital archives of the South Wales Echo newspaper for coverage of a specific coal mine explosion. Yes, there is a search function, but it turns out that computers don’t always correctly process the words in scanned documents (no surprise there!), so I am going issue by issue, within certain parameters. The monotony of clicking into an issue and then clicking to each page to scan it, fumbling with the zoom feature so I can actually read the headlines, is broken when I stumble across “Fun For Christmas. Conundrums” in the December 25, 1880 issue. This is clearly not relevant to my article, but I’m curious about these conundrums.Author and publisher Malcolm Margolin shares how the telling of stories helps shape and give meaning to the world. He also reflects on his time documenting American Indian life in the Bay Area and becoming captivated by the stories and histories from this experience.
To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,,"California Humanities",,"Malcolm Margolin, author, publisher, and founder of Heyday Books","Standard YouTube License",,,,,malcolm-margolin-making-the-world-bearable,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Books & Reading,Cultural History,Love,Native American History,Oral History,Publishers,Publishers & Publishing,San Francisco, California,Storytelling,Violence,Writers,Writing",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/53/Ohlone_Indians_in_a_Tule_Boat_in_the_San_Francisco_Bay_1822.jpg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "Learning How to Read a Poem",,"Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, reflects on her life growing up in New Mexico and how a low grade on a poetry analysis assignment in college encouraged her to master the craft of writing. She notes how her writing abilities and exposure to the humanities served her well in a career in government and higher education.
To celebrate its 40th year anniversary of grant making, programming, and partnerships that connect Californians to each other, California Humanities invited a group of 40 prominent Californians to explore what the humanities mean to them. For more information visit California Humanities: We Are the Humanities.
",,"""Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God"" by John Donne; Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather",,,"Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California",,,,,,janet-napolitano,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Analytical Skills,Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God,Cather, Willa,Citizenship,College Teachers,Cultural History,Death Comes for the Archbishop,Donne, John,Humanities Education,Literature,Music,New Mexico,Oakland, California,Santa Clara University,Santa Clara, California,Science & the Humanities,Teachers & Teaching,University of California,Writing",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/5/147/Willa_Cather_1912.jpeg,"Moving Image","California Humanities: “We Are the Humanities”",1,0 "Keeping the Otavalenos Culture",,"My Humanities Moment started when I moved with my family from Utah to Ecuador in July 2019. My family is originally from Venezuela but moved to the United States many years ago. I am currently living in Ecuador because my dad is the mission president for the Church of Jesus Christ in the Quito North area. This has required us to travel to multiple cities; one of those cities is Otavalo. I thought it was going to be like any other modern, updated country, but when I arrived in Otavalo I realized that everyone was dressed in their traditional clothing. I became very interested in their attire, since all the other cities I visited in Ecuador people wore the common clothing we see in the United States. Therefore, I began to ask around for details about their clothing and if there were symbolisms behind each piece. The females in Otavalo, starting from a young age, wear a white blouse which is embroidered with flowers. Having the shirt embroidered by hand represents the dedication and wealth of the woman wearing it. The skirt and Alpargatas vary in color depending on the tribe the person was born into. Most Otavaleno females use a black skirt with black Alpargatas. Then comes the shawls and scarves, that depending on the material and thickness, represent the wealth in the family. They use these shawls as a cover-up to protect them from the sun. The most interesting part for me was the jewelry. Of course if you have gold that shows how rich the person is, but that is not it; Otavaleno women wear 10 or more gold necklaces so that people can see she is royal or rich. The males wear white shirts and pants with a blue poncho, and on special occasions they wear hats as well. Again the Alpargatas depend on the tribe, but the males usually use white Alpargatas. The interesting thing that all males do is grow their hair from a young age, maintain it in a braid and never cut it. Even the government understands the importance of them doing this, so that when Otavalenos enter the army they are not required to cut their hair. The length of the hair, when they are older, represents the wisdom in the man. They say “ the longer the grey hair is the wiser they are.” I thought it was fascinating that their hair represents wisdom for them and how they continue to believe in that. I began to ask the Otavalenos why they continued to wear the clothing that their ancestors wore. One sir said “ It is a respect for those in our past and we continue to honor them by maintaining the culture.” That response shocked me because even though my family and I kept some culture, we didn’t honor the whole culture of our ancestors. I realized how important it was for the Otavalenos to maintain their whole culture and to teach their children at a young age the life of their ancestors. I admired how whether rain or shine, young or old, male or female, rich or poor ;they continued to embrace their culture proudly. This moment made me realize that there are smaller towns and cities that still keep their culture alive and do not modernize like the bigger cities do. This has influenced me to increase my knowledge and be more interested about new and different cultures. Since that moment I learned about the Otavalenos and their culture I became more interested in my own Venezuelan culture. I plan to pass this knowledge down to my future family so they can see how a culture can be so important to some people. I am grateful for this moment because it has opened my mind in seeing the power a culture can have in a life and how important it can be. ",,"Visiting a little city in Ecuador",,"July 2019","Esther Chacon, 18 year old student",,,,,,keeping-otavalenos-culture,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"My english class","Cross-Cultural Relations,Cultural History,Family,Modernity,Travel",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/383/Untitled_presentation-3.jpg,Text,,1,0 "How Maps of Time Made me Rethink the Significance of Education",,"My Humanities Moment was when I first read David Christian's Maps of Time during my 2nd year of grad school. It made me interested in some of the big questions that I have never thought are important and compelled me to converse about these topics with others and to converse with them well. There are two major academic challenges that I faced which were what makes humanities education meaningful? How can I attract an audience to listen to my expertise? The book helped me overcome these two challenges by convincing me that whatever disciplines we work on, it always boils down to the fundamental big questions that are of concern to us all. It teaches me how to use metaphor and how to reach out to a wider audience. As a scholar of Chinese history, I always thought that only historians (indeed only Chinese historians) will ever be interested in what I have to say. But this book changed my mindset and made me realize that I was the one who was locking up the door not my audience. It is up to us as humanities scholars to demonstrate why any knowledge or skills passed down are worth learning about. I was overwhelmed by the ability of the author to do interdisciplinary research. It is true that in his discussion of the origin of the universe and humanity, Christian is not an expert in math, science, geology, history, anthropology, etc. But what is valuable and worth keeping in mind is that this is the right approach to do humanities research because the questions come first and our ego and pride come last.",,"Maps of Time",,,"Jiajun Zou, 25, Graduate Student",,,,,,how-maps-of-time-made-me-rethink-education,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"National Humanities Center","Books & Reading,Christian, David,Cultural History,Education,History,Maps of Time,Self-Realization",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/413/Big_Bang_Image.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2020",1,0 "Finding “the Truth” in Music","Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.","In June 2017, I found myself in a cramped, sweltering apartment in New York’s East Village. I was there with three high-school students to interview William Millan, founder of the seminal 1970s Latin band, Saoco. The students were working on a documentary film about the history of musical communities in New York City. After playing several Saoco albums for us, William described how his interest in the roots of Latin music led him on an intellectual journey to understand the cultural history of the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Then he said something profound: “I wasn’t a very good history and geography student when I was in school… it wasn’t until I really got into the music that I realized it’s not that I don’t like history and geography—I really love history and geography. It was the information they were giving me in school that I couldn’t relate to because it had nothing to do with what I was living. If you go into the music, and you check out the artists’ lives, that’s going to give you a truer picture of history; and in their body of work you’re going to see what the truth is.” In 20 years of teaching, I have never heard a better articulation of music’s power to engage students in the study of history and culture. Reflecting on the interview with William, I realized that he was describing the very learning experience my students were having as they created their documentary. By investigating the relationship between individuals and the music that shaped their lives, the students were in fact developing deeper understandings about the history of neighborhoods, their city, and American society—and seeing connections across time and place. Like William, their interest in music led them to think like historians. That day reaffirmed my commitment to interdisciplinary learning and, specifically, to using music and art wherever possible to help students make meaningful connections in my classroom.",,"Interview with William Millan, musician and founder of the band, Saoco",,"June 2017","Ben Wides, age 46, social studies teacher, East Side Community High School, New York City",,,,,,finding-truth-in-music,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Art,Cultural History,Documentary Films,Geography,History,Interdisciplinarity,Latin Music,Millan, William,Music,New York, New York,Saoco,Teachers & Teaching",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/7/95/Willie_Millan.jpg,Text,#Humanitiesinclass,1,0 "Chronicling a Summer in Cinéma Vérité",,"For Peter Galison, an influential moment was seeing a film made in 1961 by an anthropologist and a sociologist, featuring a series of estival interviews with people on the sidewalks of France. With its innovations in sound technology, Chronicle of a Summer opened Galison’s eyes to the possibilities of documentary film. The film illuminated the interplay between image and text, revealing how the humanities can “open up a world.”",,"Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été)",,,"Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in History of Science and Physics at Harvard University",,,,,,peter-galison-chronicling-a-summer-in-cinema-verite,,,,,,"Hi, I’m Peter Galison, I’m a professor at Harvard University and a Fellow at the National Humanities Center this semester. I’m interested in a combination—odd as it sounds—of filmmaking, physics, and the history of science.A moment that really was hugely affecting for me in the humanities was seeing an old film, that was filmed in the summer of 1960, called Chronicle of a Summer. It was a French film made by a collaboration between a sociologist/philosopher, Edgar Morin, and a great filmmaker, might be called an anthropological filmmaker, Jean Rouch.
They combined to make this film in a moment just when it was possible to have portable sound-taking. They went onto the street and they asked people everything from, “Are you happy?” or “What are you doing?” In the course of what people say, you see a France that goes back even before the war, of horse-drawn carriages, but also cars. You meet a woman who had survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, lost her father there, and was now trying to navigate this post-war world. But 1960 is also the cusp of this opening up to another world of France. In a sense you see the beginnings of the unrest, the uneasiness with the received order of things, that culminates in May ’68 and the explosion of the student and worker revolt of that period.
For me, this film had a huge effect because it seemed to me to capture, in a moment in specificity, some really deep understanding of this transition point between the old order and the new order. It showed me that film could do something, a documentary film of a certain type—a certain exploratory, innovative type—could push beyond what text alone could do. I think, for me, the idea which I keep trying to figure out, is how do visual sources—especially the filmmaking that I’m doing and writing—combine to produce something whole that each part can’t quite do on its own.
With each bit of understanding, as people push what can be done with text, or text plus still images, or with film in innovative ways, I find it enriching and exciting and it opens up new possibilities for how I think about the kinds of problems that I want to work on. For me, the humanities at its best can do that, can take something specific and open up a world from it.
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"",,,"Anthropology,Chronicle of a Summer (Chronique d'un été),Cinema Vérité,Cultural History,Documentary Films,Film,History,Morin, Edgar,Professors,Rouch, Jean,Sociology",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/8/182/paris-2971589_340.jpg,Sound,"National Humanities Center Fellows",1,0 "Chicano Park",,"I had been in San Diego for less than a week and was still unsure of bus routes. Having successfully navigated the trolley-to-bus transfer from La Mesa to the Gaslight District downtown, I figured I was close enough to walk. If it were a different day I would welcome any unexpected detours as a result of getting on the wrong bus, but today I was headed somewhere specific. It was July, Saturday, and sunny. I walked southwest from downtown heading toward Barrio Logan. A historically working class Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in the city, Barrio Logan is home to Chicano Park. Chicano Park is located under the Coronado Bridge and contains over 70 outdoor murals that decorate the pillars that support the bridge. Chicano Park came into existence in April 1970 when neighborhood activists occupied the then vacant space under the bridge. The bridge was built around three years earlier, displacing thousands of residents in the process. Though the vacant space under the bridge was originally set to be the site of a highway patrol station, community activists instead demanded that the site be turned into a public park. After months of struggle, the city ceded to the community activists’ demands and designated the site a park. Soon thereafter local residents began calling the space Chicano Park. The name Chicano Park reflected not only how Barrio Logan was a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood, but also how those involved with the takeover supported El Movimiento, the civil rights movement in the U.S. that focused on those of Mexican descent. Activists who participated in El Movimiento regularly identified themselves as Chicanas and Chicanos. Since the 1970s artists like Victor Ochoa, Yolanda Lopez, and Salvador Torres have painted murals dedicated to Mexican and Mexican American culture and history on the bridge’s bare pillars. Popular murals painted in the 1970s include Historical Mural, Quetzalcóatl, and Birth of La Raza. Much like the name of the park, artists found inspiration in El Movimiento’s goals of eradicating ethnoracial discrimination and used the bridge’s pillars to present positive renderings of those of Mexican descent. Also starting in the 1970s, a festival, or Chicano Park Day, is held each April commemorating the day community residents occupied the land under the bridge, reinforcing the park’s continued importance to the local community. After around a half hour of walking toward the park, colorful pillars broke into view. I entered the park and saw people walking among the pillars taking photos of the murals and reading the walls. People sat on steps of the green, red, and white painted kiosko situated near the center of the park. As I walked around taking my own photos a man in his mid-20s approached me and we began to talk. Learning that I was not a local, he began running through aspects of the park’s history. While I would later tell him that I was writing about Chicano Park in my dissertation, I initially kept this information to myself. I was more interested in hearing about how he spoke of the park. As he talked he braided the park’s history and importance to the community with the park’s significance in his own life. We stayed in the park and talked for hours while he guided me from pillar to pillar discussing the murals. My “Humanities Moment” is therefore the confluence of walking to the park, seeing the pillars for the first time, and listening to a man – now a friend – talk about the importance of Chicano Park in his life and to the community. Chicano Park is representative of Mexican and Mexican American activism, culture, and history in the U.S. and reveals the power of community to determine the shape of its immediate surroundings. As my friend also demonstrated, Chicano Park is deeply personal and holds layers of meaning for community residents and those who visit the park. ",,"My visit to Chicano Park in San Diego, California ",,2017,"Sean Ettinger, 28, PhD Candidate in History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign",,,,,,chicano-park,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"During the National Humanities Center VGSSR2020","Activism,Artists,Communication,Community,Cultural History,History,Public Spaces,San Diego, California",http://humanitiesmoments.org/files/original/17/401/73849b6c02430c12b5db2964049f4acb.jpg,Text,"Graduate Student Residents 2020",1,0 "Being Nobody ",,"I had never felt so small, in the moments I sat and looked down towards the trees and pyramids surrounding me. Where I sat was the top of The Masks Temple, it was a gift from the king Jasaw Chan K'awiil I in honor of his queen Lady Kalajuun Une' Mo'. The Mayans had slept, eaten, worked and celebrated in the areas below. They lived and served their purpose in their society and brought us the magnificent temples. Each temple made from the same stone but each unique in design. The temples were beautiful, the view from up above was mesmerizing. Unfortunately we would never know the true creators by name; those who cut, moved, and placed the stone or those who fed the workers. All I could do, was to appreciate what they had left behind.