History Cannot Teach Us Anything

History cannot teach us anything. History is not a living, sentient being. People teach. The history that is taught results from a selection process. History is a product of people.

Although often used in such a way, history is not synonymous with the past. The past is vast. It encompasses all of the lived experiences of every human who has ever lived. Think of the enormity of that.

History is and only can be a representation of the past. There is the crux of the issue with history. It is a partial representation of the past. It comes to us from those sources via the prisms of historians, educators, social commentators, politicians, advocates, etc. It is those people who teach the past, not history. They decide what from the past becomes history and what from the past is left out. They select what evidence to use or not use.

World War II has become such an iconic period in U.S. history. There is a general impression of unity of purpose and sacrifice in a just cause. It is a powerful lesson from history. But, it is only a representation of the past. It is not the entire story of the lived experiences of all Americans.

Some American citizens, known as Nisei, were detained and relocated to internment camps, losing homes and businesses, because of their Japanese ethnicity. Other American citizens took part in the Double V Campaign fighting against the racial hatred of Nazi Germany and racial oppression and segregation in the United States, where a German prisoner of war could be served in a restaurant, but his African-American guard, in uniform, had to get his meal from the back window.

What is the history of the U.S.A. in World War II? Is it one of a unified crusade against totalitarianism? Or, is it one of racial and ethnic discrimination against the very ideals of America proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal”?

The lived experiences of those men at that time indicate the history should be both. The famed Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group, all African-American pilots, was a highly decorated unit. But for some of those men and their families, those decorations did nothing for them in the segregated South. Nisei comprised almost the entire manpower of the 442nd Infantry Regiment—at the beginning Nisei were not allowed to be officers. The 442nd Regiment was the most decorated military unit in all of World War II. It also is the most decorated unit in American history. Many of the men who served in the unit had been placed in internment camps prior to their military service and their families remained in the camps for the duration of the war.

History cannot teach the two different stories of World War II. That is up to people to do, up to people to declare this part of the lived experience, this history, is important too. Having multiple perspectives provides a more complete understanding of the past. People must decide to teach these histories.

History cannot teach us. However, we can use history to understand who we are, where we have been, and where we need to go. If some perspectives are uncomfortable, they are the ones that need to be encountered to give is a better background knowledge of how we got to where are now—a better understanding of who we are and a better guide to who we wish to be. History cannot do this. Only we can.