paper beats rock, Texan beats American...

I was Not prepared to step off the bus into Texas this morning… after the brief yet lasting impressions I’ve gotten in the last three years of Texas (enter random “Woohoo!” here by the Texan in the audience) I could only imagine the amount of state pride I was about to experience.  As someone who doesn’t specifically take pride in my state but rather in the identity of my community as a whole, I’ve always been interested in the identity of Texans and the perpetuation of this idea of ‘independence’.  But after an entire day in San Antonio, I was somewhat amazed at the identity I encountered in the Lone Star State. 

Our day began at the Alamo –

The Alamo promotes itself through that same heroified history as the verbal recap (and every sign) refers to the historical place as a “Shrine of Texas Liberty”.  The decision in this language, to use the word “Texas” instead of “American” was somewhat shocking at first.  After a 10-15 minute review of the story of the Alamo (given by a tour guide in a fashion similar to that of the Duckmaster in Memphis) I realized that this story of being a Texan was being reinforced through this specific linguistic framing.  The idea of “otherness” was strongly reflected in the way the Alamo presented its story, constantly emphasizing the few hundred men who defended the fort for Texas – calling them by their full-names, detailing their histories, and therefore perpetuating the idea of only telling one side of the story of a significant part of a people’s history. 

As we interviewed native Texans on the street, asking them what it meant to be an American, I received the response that perfectly embodied what Texas presents itself as: “I’m not an American, I’m a Texan.”  As I stood there, attempting to keep an unbiased visage, I felt my mind exploding with frustration at the idea of disclaiming Americanism simply because one was born in a state that proclaimed itself its own country years ago.  However, in trying to maintain a positive perspective, I continued my questioning of what it meant, then, to be a Texan.  In response, one of the men being interviewed stated that Texas exists as an extension of the American ideals upon which the U.S. was created.  The concepts of freedom, honor, and rights and the citizen’s protection of these liberties manifest themselves in the Texan mentality and independence.  While this was the clearest and most understandable depiction of Texan pride, I still found myself weary of what it was exactly that not only drew people to the state, but then held their attention and satisfied their happiness to an extent that they felt that they were a Texan first, and all else second. 

After interviewing locals and tourists, we had class on the steps next to the Alamo.  In the middle of our conversation, I looked up and to my surprise there was Matt Burchett! walking up to our group with his wife Holly.  For all of you who don’t know the backstory to the 40 states trip, Ken and Matt formed the idea about two years ago, while Matt was still working at Belmont.  He and his wife currently live in Waco, TX and drove a couple hours to meet our group.  (Fun fact: Dr Pepper was invented in Waco and it’s the only place in the U.S. where you can buy the original recipe – with real sugar.  Matt brought us a couple six packs and they were delicious.)  After we caught them up on how our trip had unfolded so far, and answered some questions they posed, we asked them what it meant to be an American, and how that Texas identity impacted/developed with their national identity.  As Matt began to recount there story, the draw of Texas became incredibly clear…

He and his wife had both grown up in Texas, constantly surrounded by their families throughout the state.  After attending Baylor University (as a form of continuing the legacy that generations of their families had begun), Matt and Holly moved to Tennessee for about seven years, where he worked at Belmont and she continued her career as a nurse.   They described how much they enjoyed Nashville’s green landscape, as it strongly countered the dry Texas heat and land, yet how they couldn’t stand being away from all of their family.  Through not being able to visit sick relatives or attend annual celebrations, they decided to move back to Texas in order to re-strengthen familial connections.  However, in detailing their move back home, they experienced an immense sense of personal growth, as distancing themselves from “home” allowed them an open-mindedness and individuality that would’ve otherwise been unattainable.  It was at this point that Texas, for the first time, was undifferentiated from all other places in my mind…

The idea of home has been a reoccurring theme throughout the country, from the locals at Graceland, to the employees at the Central High School Museum, to the St. Bernard’s Community Center in New Orleans, and now across Texas.  The American Oxford Dictionary defines “home” as: “a place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates.”  This belonging represents a key ideal in the American ideal thus far, as people seem to constantly be displacing and replacing themselves in order to satisfy their selves. 

I hope to see this embodiment of home throughout the rest of our trip, and perhaps even redefine my own idea of home through visualizing and experiencing the homes of thousands of others… 

"a member of the greatest community on the planet..."

My favorite moment of this trip so far occurred during our exploration of New Orleans.  While I wish the morning could have begun a bit more smoothly, we awoke to realize that we had overslept and rushed off of the bus in ten minutes.  Our morning plans from 9:30 to 1:30 consisted of volunteering with the St. Bernard’s Community Center near the Ninth Ward, and as we pulled into the neighborhood dressed in our 40/40 attire from head to toe (the army hats look amazing) I felt a rush in thinking about the possible great human connections I was about to share.  We walked inside of what was clearly a makeshift food pantry, pulled together as quickly as possible, sacrificing aesthetics for the purpose of serving.  I found this beautifully tragic, because while I understood the importance in that sacrifice I also wanted the incredible amount of beauty I’d soon realize in that center to exist as much on the outside as it did inside the people we encountered…

 

We were greeted by Jason, who was mostly in charge of the center and with whom we had spoken prior to arriving in New Orleans.  He introduced us to Steve, a man who simultaneously brought me the greatest feelings of hope and sorrow, and Thomas, a Scottish man whose practice of life defined that idea of wanderlust to the most intense degree.  We were split into smaller groups and assigned specific tasks based on what the center needed most.  These included counting inventory, organizing clothing, shoo-ing cockroaches, cleaning the kitchen and – my group’s specific task – unloading boxes of busted cleaning supplies and washing the bottles off in large tubs so that they could be neatly stacked in the shed outside.  (Never before have my hands been so clean while the rest of me was so dirty). 

 

As three of my peers and I worked in the heat and humidity, Steve began to recount his biography of the last few years.  He began by describing all that he had lost in during Katrina, which included more than most of us could imagine (I’m choosing to leave out these details out of respect for him), and as he continued to express his loss I realized that he wasn’t describing a list of grievances in what had happened to him, but rather was displaying that sense of progress and understanding that I had appreciated so much in Little Rock only 24 hours earlier.  We all found ourselves completely mesmerized by his retelling of that tragedy, and as the cleaning supplies momentarily sat in the sun, we created a warped circle around him and became completely focused on every word he detailed in his recount. 

He exhibited his frustrations with the government in telling us that the National Guard (whose building we had passed less than a mile away while driving to the center) only showed up in St. Bernard’s Parish four days after the hurricane hit.  He told us that St. Bernard’s Parish was the only county in the history of the United States to be declared 100% uninhabitable.  This statistic absolutely blew me away… I’d heard so many numbers and reactions about Hurricane Katrina, the majority of them focusing on the Ninth Ward, and yet somehow this information failed to be mentioned in any of these shared histories.  He continued to tell us that the first group of people to come to the aid of those in his community were the Canadian Mounties – who showed up one day (the hurricane hit on Sunday, they were there Monday afternoon) after the storm, followed by a German Cadaver Removal team – who arrived on Tuesday), right before the local New Orleans Police and Fire Departments – three days after the hurricane.  When I asked him why it took the National Guard so long to get there from down the street, he explained how they had just assumed that there weren’t any survivors to save, so they didn’t bother looking at first and went directly to the aid of the Ninth Ward (in the opposite direction).  He ended in saying that it was people like us, the tens of thousands of people he’d met after the tragedy that kept him sane through his loss.  I saw the other students mirror my jaw-dropped reaction to his statements, and as Steve’s story sunk in, the Community Center became a bit more graceful and beautiful…

 

After working in the sun for hours, we were transferred inside to help check people out with their gathered and rationed food for the day.  This was wonderful as I had the opportunity to speak to some of the people who came to the Center for help as I shared some human interaction with each of them.  After an hour or so Thomas came over, brought us some cold Vitamin Water, and sat down to converse for a minute or two before more people arrived.  As we sat there asking him the same questions we had posed to various people throughout the last two days, I feel like I expected a similar response using words like “freedom”, “opportunity”, and “rights” without truly attaining any specific definition of what these terms entailed.  However, I was suddenly surprised as his thick Scottish accent bellowed his perfectly placed language in describing the America he had experienced in his last ten years.  He juxtaposed the dividing quality of greed with the uniting manifestation of love that exists in American people.  He went on to describe the ethic of life that he utilizes in order to live his life more fully than anybody he knows, and continue to aid others in that quest toward individual happiness.  He defined ‘being an American’ as “being a member of the greatest community on the planet,” and I began to realize that this community was perfectly represented by the twelve of us sitting there with him and feeling a sense of purpose and belonging, though defined by brevity. 

 

The remainder of our day in New Orleans continued to satisfy and overwhelm us, but I feel that the morning service project necessitates its own entry… I expect I’ll have to post another tomorrow in order to truly do the New Orleans experience justice. 

"it was the first time we were free to be ourselves..." - Little Rock Nine

Few days have affected me as emotionally as our day in Little Rock… I feel that one of the personal issues I’m recognizing in my perspective on this trip is the valuing of certain cities and experiences over others in my expectations and how this privileging diminishes the potential of emotional and mental reactions in the places that I am planning on exploring.  Furthermore, I think this speaks to a larger issue across America in terms of how we choose certain cities and places (Los Angeles, New York, etc) over others (Little Rock, Roswell) when deciding where to spend our vacations.

Little Rock truly spoke to this misguidedness…

 

Our first stop was at Central High School known for the Little Rock Nine who stood up in the face of oppression during a period in our nation’s history when kids weren’t “the ones who made a difference.”  The Little Rock Central High School National Historic Visitor Center was the embodiment of an emotive interactive museum-esque experience centered on an extremely important moment in history.  I felt really moved by the way the center chronologically exhibited the Civil Rights Movement with audio and video recordings throughout the space.  Furthermore, the display of the women’s and disability movement on the last wall promoted the idea of progress, across the spectrum of oppressed peoples, which has been echoed throughout the history of America.  (However, Andi pointed out that there was no mention or depiction of the Gay Rights Movement and I wondered if that was because we were in the South or because it’s a movement whose history is still being written within American culture, or because of the idea of the lack of visual symbolism that queer theory defines..?)

 

After visiting the museum portion of Central High and being emotionally touched by the story of those nine students, we walked across the street to the site of the story.  The act of standing on the steps where American history was changed so drastically, where I had just witnessed (on video) the riots of the mob that countered desegregation, where the representatives of media literally stood between those who felt empowered to create change and opportunity and those who opposed the progression of colorblind-ness… To actually Feel history around me for the first time was an unbelievable dynamic and I believe that each of us can truly appreciate that experience as we continue to explore the concept of rebellion (upon which this country was founded) against the systems of oppression that disallows progress and equality. 

Yet there remains a large part of me that recognizes the perpetuation of some of these systems within current society and the importance in continuing this fight. 

 

After experiencing Central High School, we wandered over to the Clinton Presidential Library where were shown exact replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as they existed when Clinton was in the White House.  I couldn’t help but have my mind be flooded by thoughts of Beaudrillard as we walked from one replicated place to another, realizing the consequences of creating these hyperreal spaces for tourists to enjoy so that they feel satisfied in experiencing the real thing.  This feeling only became more amplified as the tour guide led us from one room to the next (in quite an illogical order nonetheless).  Finally, the lack of any mention of scandal throughout any of the visual or verbal biography was not necessarily surprising, but somewhat awkward.  I feel that many of the students in our group remember the scandal as a focal point of Clinton’s later administration and the lack of any mention of near-impeachment only furthered the feeling of the inaccuracies our country presents in verbalizing its history to its citizens.  While practically all of the people who visit the Library today are already aware of this national issue that occurred, I wonder how they will present this history years from now when this information isn’t as nationally known and remembered or mentioned.  I feel that I’ve recognized this perpetuation of a perfect and flawless America in almost all of the historical places we’ve visited – Graceland’s lack of mentioning the way in which Elvis really died and instead, poetically explaining the way he spent his last morning – and I fear that I will experience this “heroific” America rather than the America that truly existed. 

 

We had lunch at this incredible meat and three place where I just got a “three” (green beans, mac n’ cheese, and potatoes), which was absolutely delicious.

 

Little Rock ended with a night filled with an interesting and thought-provoking church service.  While I retained mixed feelings about the function and practice of the service, the people we encountered fulfilled the strongest sense of community in their welcoming and acceptance of our group as we were hugged hello and goodbye and multiple times in between.  After three and a half hours of sitting and standing and singing, we left the church to head back to bus. 

Little Rock was definitely the most grueling day we’ve had thus far, but also the most emotive and inspiring… 

Speeding towards home...

And so it begins…

 

I awoke, as I had expected, in somewhat of a confused daze this morning… as I opened my eyes to a convex wall on one side and a closed curtain on the other, it took a few seconds to understand that this adventure had finally become actualized.  A feeling of excitement simultaneously swept over and seeped into me, and as I lay attempting to embrace a feeling that I am sure to have for the next thirty-nine mornings, I suddenly felt familiarity replace the strange excitement I had awoken feeling.  Then it hit me… the beginning of my adventure across an unexplored nation began with my hometown of twenty years…

 

The contradicting nature of this first stop is simultaneously interesting and frustrating.  Having lived in Memphis, TN my entire life until coming to college, the idea of exploring a city whose traditions and structures already felt so intrinsic to me failed to initially satisfy my wanderlust.  Nonetheless, the day was ours and mine and I knew that there were experiences to be had. 

 

We started discovering Memphis at the famous and original Peabody Hotel, known for its marching ducks.  For those of you unaware of this historical tourist attraction, the Peabody hotel marches five ducks along a red carpet to a somewhat ornate fountain each day at 11:00 a.m.  Though I had experienced this strange and short-lived viewing multiple times, I eagerly walked with my other eleven colleagues into the hotel, up the stairs, and positioned myself up against the banister.  And then we waited…  As I glanced across the gathering of over the hundreds of tourists in the lobby – the conservatively dressed businessmen, the older couple whose hawaiin print t-shirts perfectly exemplified their ‘touristic’ intentions, and the young girl playing with the stuffed animal- they seemed eagerly patient, waiting for the chance to experience what their families or friends must have boasted about seeing in years past.  As the ‘duckmaster’ stepped into the scene, the crowd silenced itself, awaiting instruction from the man with the walking staff.  He began to recount a history of the duck march, using a bellowing tone of voice and pausing for dramatic effect so perfectly that I felt slightly nauseous.  Finally the doors opened and five waddling ducks sprinted to the fountain in about five seconds flat.  The audience began to applaud the event as the ducks jumped into the fountain, and immediately the expression on each student’s face around me changed from eager to disappointed.  While the duck march embodied specific aspects of tourism that fully supported the archetypal tourist, a part of me felt satisfaction in simply Recognizing the construction of this tourist attraction that promoted itself through historic tradition yet displayed itself in a three-ring circus fashion.

 

After the Peabody we wandered over to Beale Street to define the Memphis that Memphis sells itself as.  The group scattered itself among gift shops, voodoo stores, and conversations in the street.  It was difficult for me to see the kitsch and conformity in the streets of my own town as I stepped across the pavement that my feet had already grown so familiar to.  I did however, have a new experience as we walked into Blues City Café for Memphis BBQ.  As the group sat in the nearly empty room of the restaurant detailing the deliciousness of their rack of ribs or catfish, I slowly attempted to savor the flavor of my salad and French fries… New Orleans has never been so close to home. 

 

And then there was Graceland…

 

In my twenty years of being a Memphian I had refused to step foot into the tourist trap that is Graceland.  And there I was, map in hand and headphones clicked on, being herded into the bus (that took us across the street…) As we were ‘politely’ pointed and directed through Elvis’ home I found myself being just as visually intrigued by the people who were there as by the jungle room or gold-record lined walls.  There was such an interesting dichotomy of ‘tourist’ within Graceland – while we were examining the representation of Memphis through Graceland, there were some who were extremely emotional, some who felt nostalgia, and some who were only there because “it’s Graceland.”  Once the tour concluded, we spent some time in the Multiple gift shops where we quickly realized that you could put Elvis’ face on ANYTHING. 

 

As the day began to conclude we drove from the city of Memphis into the suburb of Germantown, utilizing the drive as an opportunity to visualize the segregation in housing and neighborhoods.  As we neared Germantown my stomach tied itself into a huge knot.  My two social circles were colliding in front of me and I had absolutely no control in the embarrassing pictures and jabs in jest.  But my parents created an (as always) amazing full Indian meal and dessert to follow.  The conversation focused around my parents’ histories and biographies as well as what Memphis meant to them. 

 

As we drove back to the bus to unwind, I felt a sense of comfort and excitement that I had been longing for in the last two months finally hit me.  I realized that while our first stop was Home and difficult to grasp with an unbiased perspective, hearing my parents recount their feelings about why they chose to make Memphis my home showed me that regardless of the pre-packaged an promoted image that all of the cities on our trip embody and perpetuate, there remains an untapped and more hopeful perspective that I soon hope to discover… 

14 hours and counting...

I should probably start packing...