All this Columbus talk has really got me thinking of the first time I learned about Columbus. La India, La Niña, y la Santa Maria. Does that ring a bell? At that point in my life, I never thought Columbus would ignite an era of genocide. It really makes me wonder whether or not it was beneficial to be censored from historical truth. In the Latin American classroom, children are taught to praise Columbus for his accomplishments and the “positive things” he did for Latin America. What?! I mean, there is Spanish blood in almost every individual in Latin America, but we’re mostly descendants of indigenous people – yet we’re not taught to dislike to the Spanish for killing off our ancestors. Now, I wonder how did people learn about Columbus in the United States. Its almost the same story, but I think a better example would be the concept of Thanksgiving (if we are doing an American application). Is Thanksgiving just this?
Learning history at a younger age depended so greatly on interpreting images. We assumed that what was in front of us was the truth and that images couldn’t lie. Then we go to higher courses and figure out things aren't exactly how we pictured it. I remember being in my 8th grade US history course and reading Lies My Teacher Told Me. So Columbus didn’t discover America? Who would’ve known?
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