I should explain myself a bit here – I am a white, Jewish woman from North America (shared my time between the US and Canada) before moving to the UK nearly eight years ago.
So what is Juneteenth? And why should teacher activists – especially those who don’t live in the US – care?
Juneteenth is the commemoration of the day the slaves were freed from Galveston, TX, which officially abolished slavery across the country. Nearly all the states recognise Juneteenth as a commenorative day, although usually not shutting down its government (like on Labour Labor Day or Memorial Day). However, as most schools are out-of-session, many people don’t know about this day. After all – there are few Juneteeth television specials to watch compared to Christmas or even Halloween (ah, yes, that national holiday…) specials.
But I teach in a multicultural school in London. How did I commemorate Juneteenth in my classroom?
I am often asked ‘Where are you from?’, and when students aren’t pleased with my answer (as I don’t look like a ‘typical’ American/Canadian in their eyes), they plead ‘But where are you really from?’. This question has always irked me. I was born in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a father born in Wheeling, West Virginia, and a mother born in Montreal, Quebec. How much more American/Canadian can I get?
These students then proudly tell me how far back they can trace their heritage from. See, to them, the birth places of my parents do not suffice – they want to know where my grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., were born. That, to them, is where I am ‘really’ from.
They struggle to understand that I don’t always know the answer to that. My great-grandmother, born in modern-day Lithuania, was kicked out of her country because of her ethnicity/religion (still unclear). So should I claim Lithuania as my ‘heritage’? What about Poland, where my grandfather’s town was raized to the ground in a Nazi-led pogrom shortly after he fled. Does that count?
This conversation begins to illustrate to them the occassional difficulty of being proud of where you are ‘from’.
And then I swing the conversation to the plight of forcibly removed peoples. To current refugees and asylum seekers, persecuted by their co-nationals and forced to flee to countries unknown. To human traffickinng victims, who may be so traumatised that they fear returning ‘home’, unaware of what they will find.
To the former slaves, suddenly citizens of a country that stripped them of their humanity, dignity, and personhood for generations. To those who do not know where their ancestors were born, and cannot answer the question ‘But where are you really from?’.
To teach Juneteenth in a multicultural school in the UK, we must teach that those who are free today may not have a supportive past to fall back on. That their lives re-started from the point of freedom, of refuge, of immigration. To greet them today as the people they are, and not to let their traumatised situations impact your relationship with them.
[Image from: http://www.mosaictemplarscenter.com/annual-events-programs/juneteenth]