Organization of American Historians
COMMUNITY CONVERSATION
Free and open to the public
History on Trial
An American History Forum with Educators
Sunday, April 2, 1:30 pm-4:00 pm
The Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the Japanese American National Museum
From school board meetings to the halls of state legislatures and front-page news, the politicization of the teaching and writing of United States history is reshaping what can and cannot be taught in our nation’s classrooms at all levels. Rooted in the sentiment that there is only a singular narrative explaining the American experiment, past and present, these efforts seek to take us back to an earlier era characterized by a limited, celebratory vision that ignores the core conflict of our national story: that the United States was founded on radical notions of liberty, freedom, and equality, but built on systems of slavery, exploitation, and exclusion. Panelists will focus on the challenges of teaching and presenting history in today’s classrooms, public spaces and museums, debates over what and whose history will be taught, and lessons to be gleaned from “history wars” of the past.
The panel discussion will be held Sunday, April 2, 2023, at the The Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the Japanese American National Museum, with opening remarks beginning at 1:30 pm and a reception following at 3:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public, and will be livestreamed.
This forum honors the late Gary B. Nash — former president of the Organization of American Historians and staunch defender of teaching history in all its complexity.
Co-sponsored by UCLA Department of History, Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, the Thomas E. Lifka Endowed Chair of History, and the Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World.
Chair: David Blight, OAH Vice President; Sterling Professor of American History; Director, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition Yale University
Panelists:
- Danny Diaz, Director of UCLA History-Geography Project
- Robin D. G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, University of California, Los Angeles
- Karalee Wong Nakatsuka, Middle School History Teacher, 2019 Gilder Lehrman CA History Teacher of the Year, author of Bring History and Civics to Life
- Orlando R. Serrano Jr., Manager, Youth and Teacher Programs, Smithsonian National Museum of American History
- Lynn Yamasaki, Director of Education at the Japanese American National Museum
Livestream, Spanish translation, and CART captioning will be available.
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