We the People: Historical Literacy

Raise your hand if you enjoyed your history classes. Take a moment to reflect on why you did or didn’t. Now consider whether your feelings about studying history have changed. If so, how? Are they the same? Are you more interested? Or might you still not find it engaging?

Assume you’re writing your autobiography. Think about its structure and what you would include. Would it be a timeline, a compilation of factoids? Would you describe how you dealt with and felt about certain situations and people? Would it be only about you, or would you wrap in others, your parents and siblings, for example?

Now apply that process to your family. Would you include only information you already know, or would you research to learn more? If the latter, would you confine it to information you might find on Ancestry? Or might you try searching for primary sources, like letters and diaries?

I’m supposing at this point you know where I’m going with this. You’d be writing yours or your family’s history, and if you did a comprehensive job, you’d have copious amount of information to pull from.

If you thoroughly researched your family’s origins, you’d probably learn much you hadn’t known, develop a deeper appreciation for your ancestors, and grasp that their actions and choices set off a chain of events that has led to you. You might be reminded that you’re likely a descendant of immigrants who came from a certain place, landed at a particular location, interacted with others, both receptive and hostile, and perhaps relocated somewhere else. Thus, you’d realize that due to a past that you weren’t part of you’re more than the sum of your experiences. Rather, you’re a character in a complex, to-be-continued tale.

That’s true for your country as well. Because certain people, unrelated to you, in the past did certain things, the circumstances of your present situation, from your profession to your location and lifestyle, are largely the way they are.

An unsettling tendency today is to think and operate strictly in the present with a glimpse toward the future, primarily for AI or financial considerations. A major problem with that mindset is that it’s detrimental to one’s wellbeing.

Besides being able to learn from the past, studying it helps one rise above self-centered egocentricity by connecting them with people long gone, whether family, ethnic, or prominent folks—heroes—who might’ve overcame great odds and performed great deeds or perhaps crashed and burned because of poor decisions they made, or who may have been victims of a grotesque evil like the Holocaust, slavery, or religious or political persecution.

By learning more about my family’s history, I’ve become increasingly empathetic toward the plight of immigrants and workers everywhere. I’ve also become more interested in the history of my grandparents’ native lands and concerned about the ongoing threat they face from Russia, their age-old repressor.

Learning more about Abraham Lincoln’s struggle with melancholy and depression has helped me appreciate more about those who go through life dealing with a mental disability. It’s also helped me to become more appreciative of his brilliance and political acumen.

And I learned much from my boyhood hero, Roberto Clemente. Not among them were hitting, catching, and throwing a ball skillfully, but I learned the importance of being resilient, persistent, steadfast, and determined.

Studying and learning about the past helps one become more historically literate. Its benefits are unlimited. It contributes not only to becoming more educated about the complexity of our past and appreciating those who helped make us who and what we are. It also exercises the brain and helps make one a more interesting and engaging conversationalist. For it’s like what Oscar Wilde said: “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

 Increasing one’s historical literacy can be done through reading well-researched nonfiction works as well as well-told historical fiction, viewing movies and documentaries like the ones Ken Burns has produced, attending lectures by renowned authorities in their area, and touring historical sites.

Ask yourself how historically literate you are. Identify areas you’re familiar with. Go beyond dates, battles, and leaders. Consider eras, such as the Progressive, social movements, immigration, native peoples, and so on. List people, events, or other that resonate with you. Write or converse about why they do. Then switch gears and identify areas about which you have limited or no knowledge.

Finally, challenge yourself to become more historically literate about your country. Then devise a plan that could include signing up for the PBS Passport, if you’re not already a member. You and your country not only would be better for it, you’d greatly enhance your ability to talk about something far more interesting than the weather.