History Commons^™

#Meto Panel Discussion Raises Awareness Of The Social Media Movement, Bria Lamonica

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On Nov. 29, a panel discussion was held around the ongoing social media hashtag #MeToo. The discussion took place in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union and included five panelists offering different perspectives, finishing with a question-and-answer session. The discussion was sponsored by the UMaine's Women's. Gender, and Sexuality Program (WGS) the Rising Tide Center, and the Feminist Collective.

Negritude And The Black Pen, Sarah Carnahan

History Class Publications

The emotions toward having black skin can only be known through firsthand experience. This disposition is known as negritude. Negritude refers to the values and beliefs held in black culture and heritage. These feelings shape a person's worldview, and the way they understand society. This effect can be seen through art, music, and writing. The attitudes and feelings of negritude can be seen through the emotional writing in Birago Diop’s poem The Black Pen.

Ikeda Draws Parallels Between The Muslim Ban And Incarceration Of Japanese Americans, Aliya Uteuova

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On Monday, Nov. 13 [2017], University of Maine welcomed Tom Ikeda for his talk titled "World War II Incarceration of Japanese Americans and Why It Matters Today."

Celebrating Diversity Through A Multicultural Thanksgiving, Bria Lamonica

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On the evening of Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, dozens of people celebrated Thanksgiving in the North Pod of the Memorial Union at the University of Maine to celebrate the annual Multicultural Thanksgiving potluck. Hosted and organized by the Office of Multicultural Student Life (OMSL) and the Student Heritage Alliance Council (SHAC), the purpose of this event was to celebrate and share the real meaning of Thanksgiving by bringing together people of all religions, cultures and ethnicities for a diverse meal. “This event is a great way to meet new people and experience foods and traditions from other countries and cultures. …

Doug Allen Talks About Trump, One Year Later, Jack Barber

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017, the Socialist and Marxist Studies Series held a lecture titled, “The Election of Trump: One Year Later,” in the Bangor room in the Memorial Union. The lecturers included Doug Allen, a University of Maine professor of philosophy; Kimberly Hammill of the Bangor Racial and Economic Justice Coalition; and Maia Dendinger, the statewide officer for the Socialist Party of Maine.

Daley Leads The Black Student Union's Quest To March In Dc, Jordan Houdeshell

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

The rain on Friday afternoon drove many people into the Memorial Union to socialize and do homework, but fourth-year Kirsten Daley didn’t mind the influx of people as she tabled and tried to raise funds for the Black Student Union’s (BSU) trip to Washington D.C. for the Unity March for Puerto Rico. “We are trying to go to DC to go to the Unity March for Puerto Rico to stand in solidarity with Puerto Rican hurricane survivors as well as protesting the Jones Act, which is keeping aid from getting into Puerto Rico where it needs to go,” Daley, who …

The Progressives: Racism And Public Law, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

All Faculty Scholarship

American Progressivism inaugurated the beginning of the end of American scientific racism. Its critics have been vocal, however. Progressives have been charged with promotion of eugenics, and thus with mainstreaming practices such as compulsory housing segregation, sterilization of those deemed unfit, and exclusion of immigrants on racial grounds. But if the Progressives were such racists, why is it that since the 1930s Afro-Americans and other people of color have consistently supported self-proclaimed progressive political candidates, and typically by very wide margins?

When examining the Progressives on race, it is critical to distinguish the views that they inherited from those that …

Cultural Appropriation And Costumes, Sam Tracy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Every year the conversation about politically-correct Halloween costumes rears its ugly head, only to die down once the holiday is over. The conversation consists of one side claiming disrespect and insensitivity toward their cultures and identities, and the other side arguing about the limits of political correctness. In recent years, more and more college campuses are taking the subject seriously. So far, the University of Maine has not been one of them.

Goodell Releases New Statement About Nfl Protests, Haley Sylvester

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Former NFL football star Colin Kaepernick started an epidemic during the 2016 preseason games when he began protesting the national anthem. On Aug. 14 and Aug.20, Kaepernick went unnoticed while sitting during the national anthems in his first two games as a San Francisco 49er. He was not in uniform and did not play during these games. The third game, however on Aug. 26, he gained national attention. The 49ers released a statement later that night confirming he sat during the anthem.

Kneeling For The Flag, Sam Tracy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

During the past few weeks, there’s been upset about athletes kneeling during the anthem before professional sports games. It was August 2016, when Colin Kaepernick sat down during the anthem before a game for the first time. Kaepernick was an NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers at the time. After his act went viral, Kaepernick told the media he sat for “the oppression of people of color and ongoing issues with police brutality.”

Trump Fires Back At Nfl Over Player Protests, Haley Sylvester

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

President Donald Trump has created quite the controversy on social media in the past week over certain NFL players decision to kneel during the national anthem before their games to protest racial oppression and inequality in the United States. Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was the first player to protest the national anthem last season by sitting down during a preseason game, and then kneeling during week one. Since the start of the 2017 season, players from several NFL teams have chosen to protest by kneeling, sitting, raising their fists, placing their hands on teammates 'shoulders and locking …

Reconsidering "Diversity" In College Applications, Brawley Benson

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

My high school used to give out class awards. In all subjects, students were recognized for their outstanding performance during the year and presented a trophy, and usually a relevant book. During one of these annual award ceremonies, my English teacher said, “We have no way to measure intelligence, but grades are the closest we can come.” When I think about the word “diversity” in the college context, I ask myself what it means and how it is measured — much like how I questioned my teacher’s understanding of grades as the closest measure of intelligence. Diversity is obviously something …

Editorial : Shifting National Culture Toward Inclusion And Apology, Sarah Allisot

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Portland, Maine will decide on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, whether to transition from celebrating Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. Bangor voted for the switch in August this year, and Belfast first changed recognition in 2015. Several states and independent cities across the U.S. have also made the choice to change this celebration as well.

Political Correctness Is Incorrectness, Jonathan Petrie

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Gentrification is the idea of taking cheap, poor or underdeveloped areas and bringing them up to middle or higher class standards. It appears as progress, but it actuallydoes not address the underlying issues of poverty. As strange as this may sound, the Comedy Central cartoon “South Park” made me realize that there is another form of gentrification in our society – that is political correctness.

Racist Narratives During Natural Disasters, Sam Tracy

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Hurricane Harvey is the first Category 3 or higher hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2005. The hurricane reached peak intensity as it hit southern Texas on Aug. 25, 2017 and barraged western Gulf states like Louisiana and Texas especially. With it, floods have destroyed hundreds of homes and displaced over 30 thousand people. At least 47 people are dead. Houston is particularly affected by flooding and many speculate the city will be uninhabitable for weeks to come. Economic estimates range from $10 billion to $190 billion, according to a report from the private weather firm AccuWeather. …

Oral History: John Bartosiewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview touches on a variety of aspects of life in the community, from school and parish life, to Polishness and the significance of language, and the effects of suburbanization.

Interview keywords: St. Mary’s, church / parish, all Polish, PNI, women’s guild, basketball, immigrant, Polishness, language, John Paul II, I-290, suburbs.

Conservative Right-Wing Protest Rhetoric In The Cold War Era Of Segregationist Mobilization, Devon A. Wright

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the early Cold War decades, the Citizens’ Councils of America (CCA) became the flagship conservative right-wing social movement organization (SMO). As part of its organizational activities, it engaged in a highly sophisticated propaganda effort to mobilize pro-segregationist opinion, merging traditional racist arguments with modern Cold War geopolitics to characterize civil rights activism and federal civil rights reforms as an effort to bring about a tyrannical, Soviet-inspired, dictatorship. Through a content discourse analysis, this research aims to contribute to understanding what factors determine how SMO’s deploy propaganda rhetoric. The main hypothesis is that geopolitical factors, defined here as specific geographic …

Oral History: Richard Lewandowski

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses much about the Polish-American experience, from the Polish diaspora, the effects of I-290 and discrimination on the community in Worcester, as well as the effect of global events such as the rise of Solidarity on the Worcester parish.

Interview keywords: St. Mary’s, English, displaced people, I-290, Polish-American parish, Solidarity, Polishness, John Paul II, discrimination, education, Church

Oral History: ​Carol Fredette

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former teacher at the Polish-American high school in Worcester, Saint Mary’s. The interviewee is not Polish, but of Lebanese descent, so provides the point of view of someone who came from outside the community yet still became a part of it. The interview touches on the rising importance of the English language, the Church’s centrality, ethnic parishes, school life, and high school basketball.

Interview keywords: English, ethnic parish, church, nun, club, basketball

Oral History: Anonymous 1

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses aspects of community life, the neighborhood’s ethnic composition, as well as the effect of I-290 on the neighborhood.

Interview keywords: festivals, non-Polish, White Eagle Club, PNA, PNI, Booster’s, crime, expressway, Polish language

Oral History: Irene Rojcewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. The interview discusses aspects of life in the parish of Czestochowa, from festivals to clubs, to tensions within the diocese, as well as trips organized by the parish to travel to Poland.

Interview keywords: festivals, clubs, English, tension, Poland, John Paul II.

Oral History: Charlene Zimkiewicz

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a longtime member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. This interview touches on difficulties the parish faced, tensions between different groups, school life, and the transition from an ethnic community to a public college.

Interview keywords: ethnic communities, festivals, Irish, fire, I-290, White Eagle Club, basketball, languages, college, immigrants, universal, June Show.

Woman Energy: How Our Lesbian Past Informs Our Lesbian Future, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Sinister Wisdom Issue 3, published the year 1977 holds an essay by poet Adrienne Rich, titled, “It is the lesbian in us...”; The cover of the same issue has art by photographer Tee Corinne. Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal. This non-fiction creative essay written by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz reflects on the first year of Sinister Wisdom's publication as a celebration of 40 years through this special edition anniversary print for which only 1000 have been printed. The essay remarks on the shift in lesbian identity and community and the potential impact of the Sinister Wisdom journal …

Oral History: Jayne Bausis Cotter

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester's Polish community. The interview touches on many facets of community life from the importance of the Polish language, of the Church, as well as Polish pride, the experience of immigrants, and John Paull II.

Interview keywords: immigrant, language, church, college, pride.

Oral History: John Kraska

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former member of Worcester’s Polish-American community. This interview touches on community and church life, immigration, divisions in the city, and the effect of I-290 on the community.

Interview keywords: English, festivities, church, I-290, Quo Vadis, White Eagle Club, PNI, sections, basketball, displaced persons.

Eartha M. M. White Collection Container List, Thomas G. Carpenter Library Special Collections And University Archives

Finding Aids and Container Lists

Personal correspondence, documents, notes, memorabilia, printed materials and photographs. Notable materials include numerous photographs chronicling twentieth century black history in Jacksonville and historical photographs of urban Jacksonville. Included in the collection are the photographs of R. Lee Thomas, a black photographer active in the early twentieth century in the southern United States. Thomas' work covers primarily southern black religious and labor groups, circa 1946-49.

Oral History: Thaddeus Stachura

Zycie w Ameryce: A Collection of Polish-American Oral Histories

This conversation is an oral history interview with a former pastor of Our Lady of Czestochowa parish, the center of Worcester’s Polish American community. This interview discusses much of the history of the community from its beginnings and delves into the life of a parish priest, while also touching on topics such as immigration, Church corruption, community life and difficulties, and local festivals.

Interview keywords: immigrants, Saint Casimir’s, difficulties, seminary, Bojanowski, Moneta, vocation, dompolski, immoral, Polish priest, Solidarity, redlining, violence, festival, PNI, citizenship.

Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy's Transnational Migrations And Colonial Legacies [Table Of Contents], Teresa Fiore

Sociology

By linking Italy’s long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country’s colonial legacies, Fiore’s book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Fiore rethinks Italy’s formation and development on a transnational map through cultural analysis of travel, living, and work spaces as depicted in literary, filmic, and musical texts. By demonstrating …

Time Travel, Labour History, And The Null Curriculum: New Design Knowledge For Mobile Augmented Reality History Games, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This paper presents a case study drawn from design-based research (DBR) on a mobile, place-based augmented reality history game. Using DBR methods, the game was developed by the author as a history learning intervention for fifth to seventh graders. The game is built upon historical narratives of disenfranchised populations that are seldom taught, those typically relegated to the 'null curriculum'. These narratives include the stories of women immigrant labour leaders in the early twentieth century, more than a decade before suffrage. The project understands the purpose of history education as the preparation of informed citizens. In paying particular attention to …

Diversity Week And Islamic Awareness Week Bring Community Together, Allya Uteuova

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Students and members of the University of Maine community came together to celebrate the differences and similarities that make up our campus during Diversity Week and Islamic Awareness Week, March 27–31, 2017. Put on by the Office of Multicultural Student Life, Diversity Week started back in 2014. So, what exactly is diversity? When people hear this word, they often associate it with multiculturalism. Diversity is the make up of a group of people who have different characteristics. These characteristics can differ in socioeconomic backgrounds, abilities, countries, races, genders and religions. Multiculturalism is the difference between cultures. It is meant to …