Coleen Herbert Blog 7

The point that Anderson belabors in chapter 7 is the role of education in establishing a nationalist discourse. Pilgrimages across nation-states were initiated by "industrial capitalism" (115),  a growing need for a mediation between the metropolitan state and colonized peoples, and education reform. For Creoles, being bilingual "meant access, through the European language-of-state, to modern Western culture in the broadest sense, and, in particular, to the models of nationalism, nation-ness, and nation-state produced elsewhere in the course of the nineteenth century" (116). The functionary journey of pilgrimage was transformed by the twentieth-century colonial school-system. What differentiated emerging nationalist America from Europe was its age. "Youth" became politicized and capable of "definable sociological contours" (119).  Educational policy in Indochina demolished political and cultural ties between colonized people and the extra-Indochinese world (124).  In addition, it established a system of language that cultivated an "acculturated indigenous elite" (126). The educational policy enacted in America likewise harnessed the intersectionality of race and class to its advantage. My definition of American nationalism is therefore assimilation via education. Citizens are expected to adopt imaginary concepts of the nation and submit themselves to the regime of education. The world that is exterior to the nation is polarized and othered (othering also occurs within the nation).
We observe this type of othering within the educational system in Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. Racist discourse surrounded Maya's winning design. She was discriminated against for being both Asian and a woman. Racism and sexism are so inherent in our educational system that we mostly confront them with othering. The nationalist concept of war was also repeatedly argued against in the film. Dissenters believed that Maya's design was irreverent and minimalist. It clashed with the visual representations of glory and war that we are educated with. Maya Lin's design presents not only a new representation of war and loss, but a new mode of education.