Monuments and Memory-Making: The Debate over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1981-1982 (Reacting to the Past™)

Monuments and Memory-Making immerses students in the conversations and controversies that emerged as the nation grappled with how best to memorialize what was at the time the longest military conflict in US history. As students engage in the historical process of memory-making, they will work to reconcile the varied and often contradictory voices that rose up after the fall of Saigon. Students will tackle questions such as How do we create a national memory of the past? How do we reckon with a war that was widely understood as a defeat for the United States? How do we remember the dead while honoring the living? How do we reunite a fractured nation? How do public opinion and public consciousness shape our understanding of the past, and whose voices are privileged over others?

Working with primary and secondary sources, students will take command of the subject matter as they immerse themselves in their individual roles as historical actors in the debate of how best to remember and honor American participation and sacrifice in the Vietnam War.