Taking Accountability

Imperialism is a topic that is heavily discussed in history classes. However, many feel that education on the issue is insufficient.

“Oftentimes, I feel like things are just glossed over,” said Rowan Sato*, a Carlmont student of Japanese descent. Sato’s name has also been changed in compliance with the Carlmont Media Arts anonymous sourcing policy. “All countries do this, where they specifically gloss over things their own country did. I know this is a thing. In Europe, for example, I have an English friend who told me, ‘In England, we do not really get into the things England did [in school.]'”

“[Teachers] should try to bring in resources from authors who are writing from a standpoint that isn’t pro-American. Maybe it’s a foreign author or just someone who has been researching this topic from the perspective of another country, for example,” Litvak said.

Johanson believes that the eurocentrism of the history curriculum impacts the way imperialism is presented.

“I feel like the textbooks we read… [are] very eurocentric,” Johanson said. “Last year, when we were in… World Studies, I had a teacher who… just kind of said, ‘Yeah, British imperialism in India was a thing that kind of happened.’ And then they started talking about how, ‘Yeah, it did really good things for India, like they, it was really good for India!’ And then they finished by saying, ‘Oh yeah, and they also completely destroyed everything, but sanitation was better! Sanitation was really good!’ And I was sitting there like, ‘Oh, oh, okay.'”

“Make it less Eurocentric!” Johanson said. “Talk more about the negative effects that still affect third world countries today because I feel like we just brush over that a lot.” 

However, despite the shortcomings of the education system, many students are beginning to contemplate imperialism’s effects. 

“Germany… apologized for the Nazi regime and everything that it did. But I don’t think a single other country has… I wish they would because if your country doesn’t stand for that anymore, why don’t you apologize,” Sato said. “As a country, one of the best things to do is to be critical about the country because it’s your own county, and you want it to be good, and you want to be educated and not ignorant.”

Imperialism’s lasting impacts are not only limited to the oppressed. 

“The only true thing I’ve experienced I had anything vaguely to do with imperialism was getting personally blamed for the happenings and effects of Japanese imperialism and militarization [in Korea],” Sato said. “An anonymous student took it upon themselves to be casually racist with the reasoning that since they were part Korean, it made sense to them that any sort of hatred they feel towards Japanese people is validated. They said very questionable things that out of context is just blatant racism.”

For Sato, this brought a resurgence of feelings of internalized racism.

“I’ve heard from many people… resenting the fact that they’re not white,” Sato said. “When they said things like ‘All Japanese people should die,’ it made me sort of hate that part of myself… I think that [internalized racism is] really common, and it’s more common than it should be.”