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Cultural Diversity
we’re going to
turn
to a more specific question the ways that debate has affected, or should
affect, the way American history is written and taught.
American history has been a crucial battleground in this debate. During the past
20 or 30 years, there has been growing attention on the part of American
historians, and teachers of American history, to the story of previously
neglected segments of the population. And this new direction of historical
interest raises questions about how these uncovered stories unearthed from
obscurity relate to the narrative of white male achievement that used to
constitute the essence of our history.
 George Fredrickson
Is this one story with several subsidiary themes, subplots, or is it several
narratives of equal significance? If the latter is true, is any synthesis
possible?
ALBERT CAMARILLO I want to comment first on the core issue that
Professor
Schlesinger raised yesterday in his talk about the oftentimes intense debate
between what he calls the “monocultural ideologues“ and the
“multicultural
ideologues.”
You have to understand that the debate arises out of nearly 25 years of changes
in the historical profession the way we write history, the topics that
we’ve identified for analysis and interpretation.
The new histories, the new Western history; the so-called ethnic histories
African American history, Chicano history, Asian American history all
these are relatively new in the academy.
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