In one of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s earliest memories, he is on a boat leaving Saigon.
It was 1975, and he and his family had been turned away from the airport and the American embassy but eventually got on a barge, then a ship. He can’t remember anything about the escape, other than soldiers on their ship firing at refugees who were approaching in a smaller boat.
It is Nguyen’s only childhood memory from Vietnam, and he isn’t sure if it really happened or if it came from something he read in a history book. To him, whether he personally witnessed the shooting doesn’t matter.
The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Squanto Shutterstock
By Joseph A. Williams/Feb. 19, 2021 12:04 pm EDT
To schoolchildren, the name Squanto is associated with Thanksgiving feasts involving kids using tin safety scissors to cut up construction paper to make either faux Pilgrim hats or Native American headdresses. Squanto was the so-called friendly Indian. He helped the English Pilgrims survive the first brutal years of the Plymouth colony through his skills as a translator and a teacher.
While this grade-school assessment on the surface is correct, the truth is far more complicated. Squanto was a highly complex man whose character was shaped by tragedy. Squanto knew enslavement, exile, and genocide before his own suspect demise. He was far more worldly and far more well-traveled than the English of Plymouth. He was an intelligent, ambitious man who had a cunning streak that would make Machiavelli proud and who ultimately wanted to be a grand sachem. Squanto was also
Guest column: Don t betray Jean Ribault
Your turn
Guest columnists
Our ancestor Jean Ribault (1520-1565) is currently being betrayed by Florida – and by Jacksonville in particular.
In recent months, the Duval County School Board initiated a name change process that includes two schools named after him. If this process reaches completion, Jean Ribault High School and Jean Ribault Middle School would change names.
Other schools included in the process are named after Confederate generals or slavery proponents. Clearly, this amalgam is detrimental to Jean Ribault, of whom we are proud in France, and we wish to defend his memory.
Obviously, there is a misunderstanding about who Jean Ribault was and what he did in Florida in the 16th century. French sailor of great renown, Jean Ribault was the first to recognize Florida in the name of the King of France in 1562. The aim of his expedition was to find, in the New World, a safe harbor for French Huguenots persecuted in France because
THE REAL AMERICA: A Black Perspective
“And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat. Or a Republican. Nor an American. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy – all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America, not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism. We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream. We’ve experienced only the American nightmare.”
December 10, 2020
The following essay is part of The Federalist’s 1620 Project, a symposium exploring the connections and contributions of the early Pilgrim and Puritan settlers in New England to the uniquely American synthesis of faith, family, freedom, and self-government.
Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world … To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars. –
“Ulysses,” Alfred Lord Tennyson
During the last month, contributors to The Federalist’s 1620 Project have demonstrated the resounding influence and positive legacy of the Pilgrims of the
Mayflower and subsequent early sojourners to New England, such as the Puritans. Indeed, one can go far before overstating their invaluable endowment to the foundations of the American character.