View from hotel balcony looking out over Key Bridge/Georgetown:
[Aside: Southern Man and I arrived an hour and a half before the official check-in time, and usually I've been able to check-in early. However, the clerk told me quite firmly (when I showed her my reservation sheet) that check-in was 3:00pm and that we'd have to come back. The woman, who looked to be Southeast Asian American, regarded me quite coldly--no fellow Asian American head nod. However, 10 minutes later, when Southern Man and I were trying to figure out where to have lunch near the hotel so we could come back in an hour and a half, and after Southern Man had asked for recommendations from the same hotel clerk (getting both a map and a set of directions for how to get to the Metro station as well as a map of restaurants in the area), the clerk relented and told Southern Man that she was SURE she could find a room for HIM-- and after I handed her MY credit card, after running it through her machine she handed it to SOUTHERN MAN, not to me, and told him that she got HIM a "really nice room." And all I could think was "You have GOT to be kidding me! Am I invisible or what???!!! I suppose one reading of this is that it's the example of the ultimate privilege of being a white man, but the thing is, this happens to us ALL THE TIME--Southern Man has a way of charming everyone and the next thing you know people are handing him mix CDs, complimentary sodas, and getting us checked in an hour early to our hotel (sigh)]
Nam June Paik's digital art-piece "Electronic Superhighway" in the National Portrait Gallery:
Sculpture of Einstein near the mall:
The Lincoln Memorial:
A segment about the Japanese American Internment in the exhibit on "America at War" at the National Museum of American History:
A display on Asian immigration to the United States at the National Museum of American History :
By the way, the above two photos were pretty much the extent of the Asian American content in the entire National Museum of American History. Which strikes me as being, well, sad. Actually, taking into account Nam June Paik's work, this entire post reflects the Asian American content that we encountered going to the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of American History. It does make you wonder about how much either of these spaces reflect the actual sense of the U.S. being a "mixed race" space and/or representative of the actual demographics of America. And I don't think it's because only white male Americans have had a profound impact on American culture (although it is indisputable that this is a true fact). I would argue that it has to do with the kind of emphasis that we choose to place on certain events. Actually, there used to be a great exhibit that the National Museum of American History had called "A More Perfect Union" which was entirely about the Japanese American internment. But after their renovations they, of course, had to make certain choices about what to keep and what to cut. Unfortunately, this exhibit got cut, or rather truncated to a brief display within another exhibit.
Again, I mention all of this to help us to consider just what we consider to be important on a national scale in terms of our museums and remembrances. And what impact that has on the people who view these exhibits, perhaps hoping to see themselves reflected in their nation's capital and their nation's museums.
