The Parallel Challenges of Doing History and Cross-Cultural Relations

Wednesday I had the pleasure of spending all day at Hosford Middle School with Mr. Essan Weah, who told more than 100 students about what it is like to be a student in Ghana.  The following day got to speak at the High Desert Museum (one of their exhibits is pictured here) to a group of very engaged museum volunteers and others about women and domestic violence in western history.

On the face of thing, this seemed like two very different activities, speaking to middle school students about becoming friends with people their age in West Africa and talking with (mostly) seniors about the history of gender in the Western United States.

But it struck me last night that becoming friends with people from different cultures and coming to terms with the past are in fact very similar activities.  We bring to both endeavors a set of expectations and beliefs that are often disappointed, at least at first.  Most Americans have very high expectations of privacy, and Ghanaians tend to expect that friendships require a substantial investment of time.  That's one point of tension.  Likewise, when we look at the past, we expect to find facts and developments that mesh with our understanding of the world.  When I wrote my dissertation and first book on the history of violence against wives in Oregon, I did not want or expect to find so much variation.  So I had the unwelcome task of explaining that variation.

But the fruits of these challenging interactions are rewarding.  Giving friends the gift of time (such as a long, detailed letter) is a very important skill to learn, and if one's handwriting is illegible, one needs to hear about it.  Likewise, being confronted by parts of the human story that don't fit our preconceptions prompts us to get closer to the truth about what the human story is actually like.

Change is not comfortable.  But it is good.