2015 conference important, oregon. Its about an hour and a half. Welcome and thank you so much for coming this early in the morning. Rather than sleeping in, you would to see us do battle with the zombies of western history. This format is something different. Its a lightning rod which means everyone of you will have five minutes to slay their zombie. Wen we talk about zombies, are talking about the popular dominant stories that are told over and over again about western history even though people know they are not necessarily the full truth. Oursome reason even though brave historians have with an arrest they reanimate. They reanimate every 57 years and come back for us to get put to rest again. Our panelists are willing to name some of those zombies and why they need to be put to rest. This is an interactive session. After each person has their five minutes audience members cant stand up and respond and defend the zombie, attacked the zombie, but you have one minute and then you need to sit down to Something Else can come up and then we will move on to the next zombie. Does that make sense . Experiment and im your intrepid referee. [laughter] all these people are very illustrious so i will not spend a lot of time introducing them. Yde is at Colorado College and moving on to the university of oklahoma. Shes not passing over but moving on. Is author of empires, associate professor of history at uc davis. Chicano protests and patriotism during the vietnam war era which explores the nexus between race and foreign policy. Kevin leonard is a professor of history at western washington university. He is also chairing the department. An executive director of the Pacific Branch of his american historical association. The battle for radiant los angeles is his book. Ohn coleman atis professor and director notre dame. He is the author of vicious. And we have pictures of nelson limerick, who i am calling buffy today. [laughter] she really does not need much introduction which is written a lot of things. [laughter] time. , i am keeping first. First anne is i dont get how the microphones work. . Speak into this mic can you hear her in the back . It is north dakota. It is 3 00 in the morning. It is february. There is a little house. Sunombie is the helpful bonnetted white woman of the planes. Thatma, one of the later mary, baby grace and i went on an errant. Now dont worry. I know it is the middle of the night but we laid out for time with you in the barn struggle to keep the animals warm during the great blizzard. After we watched you put on pas boots to milk the cow, we think we need a new acts. A sharp one just in case. We will buy from mr. Olson at the general store. And tell limits to keep the indians away. Gone on the been launcher to find the next little house, the one in the big woods with a Little Prairie or silverlake by the banks of palm pre did not work out. Since then youve been spending a lot of time alone in the bar. We dont have any food or wood left. Hes been acting very strangely. I know that when these people for the future arrive and set up camp in our house with tv cameras that they do under some extra pressure. Now you have to act like living in dakota in the winter was depressed and frustrated and pa is fun so money that people will pay money to pretend to be like us. When he started ironing our underwear and using words like sturdy help meat, i started thinking about that ax. [laughter] have you ever heard of zombies . Dont worry. Even if youre dead, we have a plan. The tv people save it cant be in the show because we are too dirty and thin. Our uncivilized appearance by make people think homesteading of the great plains was not so much fun. Some friendly lakota people came by and offered to adopt us. I know what else was to let them in the house because we are good white girls, but they didnt they pushed us. They gave his deer meat and berries and some new clothes for grace. They left a letter saying that their tribal land law experts would be in touch about our farm. [laughter] the tv people only have power bars and perrier, so we are not going with them. We have two options. Moved to deadwood and become prostitutes. Mary and i could take care of grace that way. Always you go to the awesome talent of the future and wash dishes there. Love laura. [laughter] [applause] that was the first zombie. Any responses . You may respond also on the panel. You have one minute if you do. I love laura and its hard to give her up. [laughter] why did they come back . The question is why these always come back . Notion of being independent, able to take care of yourself, and a lady situation is fabulous. And be clean and profitable and all of those things. Any others . This is interactive. You expect the audience to be involved. Any other responses to that . Yes . No, you are moving to somebody else. I just learned in the elevator that 4h is meeting in the hotel. We should send anne over and that will not go well. Do you think it will go well to speak ive only met ladies . How do you think it would go with the 4h people . I think it would be fine because the whole notion about was actually going on in the planes was deeply interesting to them. The 4h club cares about horses and all those kind of things. Seen and understand how it works. They have seen the less glamorous picture of the west. I think they think that would be fun. This may be a short session. Will get used to it. Lorena . I dont understand, there are two timers going off. Miserly is american exceptionalism. What is that . We are in a roomful of historians so we think we might know, but for a broader audience according to one of its fiercest critics is about democratic principle, material prosperity, we love consumerism. According to one of its staunchest defenders its about all of the above. Americans sense of principal mission, a unique blending of religious and democratic commitment, its characteristic emphasis on local government, the high cultural esteem in which economic enterprise is held, and americans to think of respect for individual liberties. What makes u. S. Different from any other nation on this planet. I want to say i really thought the zombie was dead and buried. I am not going to sing but that would truly be scary. Hoteler that song from california. We just cannot kill the beast . These are some of the sharp knives. We have come a long way from when a person who was in the field i originally trained in said about the u. S. Mexico war. American expansion across the practically empty continent, this spoiled no nation unjustly. This was the leading line from 19351965. We have come a long ways. Some of the sharp knives are on this panel. Conquest asgacy of the foundational text when you get u. S. History. How to give a shout out to diplomatic history because when i learned it a long time ago, decades ago, the idea was that the fabulous market was from the u. S. Perspective of the far west, not the far east. Territorial expansion is linked to economic influence in penetration elsewhere. Knife isthe last sharp the inclusion of native American History in the western History Association and so many other places. There was an excellent article that said we have not done enough, especially diplomatic historians. I just read a book by walter links he does a beautiful job of linking territorial expansion starting on the atlantic seaboard, all the way to the u. S. In the philippines. He incorporates alaska and hawaii. The link is violence and he mentions what he calls the g word. Genocide. These are some pretty sharp knives. And to give a shout out to the president of this conference. One of her addresses was on colonialism. We won. We have killed the zombie but it keeps coming back. And it comes back we are kind of in accord. We look at the past critically. It comes back into the political realm. Lets look at where comes back. America is a force of good in the world. That actually, comes a rush limbaugh, america stands for in defense of protect freedom for all. America is a shining light, a beacon. This is a definition of american exceptionalism. If you want confirmation on how yourful this idea is, probably know this, advanced placement u. S. History standard were revised this year to include the term american exceptionalism. One of the people who was so critical of the 2014 standards, but thats not enough you got to be more, there were changes in the contents of is much more emphasis on the productive role of enterprise on entrepreneurship and innovation in u. S. History in how americans won the cold war. This is for me a back to the zombies nt, or the are we the walking dead . Are the historians the walking dead . Came about ins the 1990s during the culture war. Lynne cheney was at the forefront of that. I will get killed right now, hold on. Lynne cheney and her husband had a book about exceptional, why American Standard be strong in the world. Rate 4000 on amazon. Ranked 4000 on amazon. Paul revere, 206. Time that ist of anybody want to join in . Why is this some be coming back . This is the answer. Settler colonialism is wrapped in Laura Ingalls wilder. Kill her . Of whatealing vision settler colonialism really was. Cute little white girls. They are innocent. They have pigtails. But that is how we have packaged settler colonialism as opposed to genocide which it actually is. One of the reasons we can talk about this keyword g wo rd is because territorial expansion is done and it has for about a hundred years. In california yosemite is now a national park. You not to think about those injustices because it is so far away. Any other responses . Societies are assisting to. Distinctive australia and canada apologizes and we dont do that. This weinctive in are not a onesizefitsall. Where does the think of this register . When you talk about american , thetionalism by fiat assumption is if you do comparisons it becomes aggressive relativism. Imperatively is to down the United States which is crazy because if you think imperatively, why would the United States actually look like it has a handle things better than the british. What is the fear . There is a fear to think at all. Yet to go to the microphone and you have one minute. [laughter] it is over now. I think one of the things that makes this so difficult to our National Identity associate by the western expansion. At the same time the hardships that people survived in order to homestead on the great plains are good stories about man, women versus nature. Public, wel a wider cant glorify the story of those little houses on the prairie, with a here is you are saying that my grandmothers suffering does not matter. You are saying these people are not valuable. We have to somehow into the conversations in a different manner to say, those are Great Stories. I would love to hear how your grandmother suffered and how this native woman suffered as a result of the opportunities that the land gave your ancestor. We have to engage them on a level that says we are not saying youre a bad person because you dissented for somebody who lives in a plane, when you talk about the larger implications of that. Other responses . Anne isld say i think correct. Is the heroes, the exciting people that is so much a popular appeal. Men we get soain excited about these people and people look to say this person or that person. They were these great heroic in the popular imagination we love biography. Ofhink that people sort shine a light on these beacons, these exciting individuals. Then all publications western history is the history of heroes and villains, not history of complex societies. Others . Thank you so much. Responses . No. We will go on and. Kevin, it is your turn. I dont like not in and by the way. [laughter] mountain men by the way. Dianetough to follow both and her creativity and marina and her energy. I will be more zombielike. [laughter] i first encountered one of the zombies of western history in the spring of 1984 when i was a student in the history of the transmississippi west. Tom was not the zombie. One day he asked the course identify the west. To my surprise most of the students insisted the western halves of washington and oregon were not part of the region. They agreed that the world areas of washington and oregon were part of the west but the urban areas of seattle and portland had at some point ceased to be western. I thought this is strange because i grew up in the strange and exotic places of casper, wyoming. Thought that western cities included los angeles, San Francisco, portland, seattle, and many others. I do not let the exchange in that class stomach curiosity from leading me to study those parts of the lesser gun was intriguing which were the cities. I knew i wanted to be a western historian and i completed my undergraduate education in california. I always thought i was studying western history as a convicted research on mostly urban california. 1990 andarticle in nobody told me it was inappropriate for me to publish in that journal. I was taken aback a few years later when i landed on the job market with a dissertation that focus on los angeles during world war ii. One some people wanted me to explain how my topic was western. The questions coming off guard. The way i looked at it i was writing with the largest city in the west and it makes sense that this was western history. I came to realize that some scholars were not convinced that los angeles was western. They seemed much more comfortable with an imagined west, indigenous villages, mining camps and homesteads in north dakota. To use one place particular. It is true that the historians workout was trying to engage were in some way on the periphery of the field of western history. This gets into questions of race in urban environments and the larger question of settlor colonialism and genocide that is already come up. Most western historians fixate on what is called westward movement, national expansion, and a settler colonialism. They focus on the sparsity populated spaces. Zombie, theowed my city was region cityless region to rise from the grave. It might be unfair that i suggest that they focus on the frontier without cities. I could not resist. Perhaps what i most troubled by is the fact that much historical scholars street people who live in cities and events in cities is not part of western history. We often miss the presence of the Indigenous People in cities because we want to focus on what happened in more rural areas. Fact is some irony in the i know its the urban character that was at a meeting of portland. They usually meet in cities, sometimes on the periphery of colorado springs. That was not really an urban meeting. Commenteddees favorably on the fine restaurants and museums and theaters available to them. Do we think we are in the west will meet important or Newport Beach or st. Paul . Evidence that western historians do not consider the citys western abounds. Im not trying to call anybody, i found relatively few paper titles that named western cities even though it is possible that some titles do not include the name of cities because they dont to appear to parochial. Hand there are numerous sessions and titles refer to spaces not coded as urban such as borderland in great plains. In light of the emphasis on agriculture i would argue that the very term the west and the north American West invokes open spaces were relatively few people lived. People think of the region in which six of the 10 largest cities are located. A number of scholars try to kill this zombie four years ago. You have one second. [laughter] nashwant to mention gerald. And i am now dead. [laughter] i have been dead for a while but keep rising. [laughter] any responses to that . Go to the microphone please. Moved to the microphones see you can anticipate the end of their minutes. We want to keep this going and lively. More people think about responding. I notice the citys often included agriculture cities. My particular zombie is yeti of the denver is in fact a cow town rather than an industrial city. It cannot be western if it is industrial is what i am finding. Oftentern cities are serviceoriented cities. Denver is a great example having so many federal employees. Either hi there. Speak louder to everyone. Do you think the concentration of interest in inies versus rural areas western history have a lot to do with the concentration of thetal in those places and expropriation of the wealth in the hinterland that defies the frontier . San francisco is the Center Capital that developed mining west. Do you think there is a focus on that kind of peripheral case of extraction as opposed to the concentration of wealth and capital in the west . I suggesting that western historians are reluctant to write about capitalism . [laughter] maybe that is my question. I absolutely think that is part of what is going on although i am interested in the ways in which when we say that los angeles is a city that is not really western, we also disappear the Indigenous People of los angeles and the people of mexican heritage and latin american heritage. The asianamericans that live there. The largest africanamerican population for most of the 20 century in the west. Im interested in how that happens but i think youre right. We dont want to look very closely at the relationship and thethe hinterland center of capital and power. Whether that is los angeles or San Francisco or denver. That is where the banks are. That is where the real wealth is concentrated. Following the that, the notion of saying putting the two categories separate. Rural and urban. If that is not missing the best opportunity of the relationship and i speak with a lot of personal authority. We had a program called the urbanrole divorce. Child. A very troubled [laughter] that worked really well. It was about the relationships and the trouble in that relationship. As ridiculous as my remark is, sense ison what rural western history going to make it is literally divorced from urban . Thatss i would just think i understand the desire to to counterity, city the rural preoccupation. Review that he said its there are no cities. I thought that cannot be true. They must be cities in legacy and there were not. [laughter] thank you john. I did not want to call out into my panel fellow panelists. Dont you think stressing the relationship i think that is important. I can hold of my own work as a classic example of that. Im focusing very much on black neighborhoods in los angeles in the postwar years. Migration is really important. Everywhere you look, at least in my research, what brings africanamericans los angeles literally are the railroads. Those are very important economic institutions. They connect the cities to the hinte