When Cathlin Goulding was conducting research for her doctoral dissertation in Tule Lake â the site in northern California where Japanese-Americans who were specifically suspected of being disloyal were imprisoned by the U.S. government during World War II â she was both heartened and dismayed. Heartened because, with the government again singling out ethnic groups and nationalities as potential enemies of the state, many white people in Tule Lake are not only empathetic toward those who were incarcerated there, but are now coming forward with artifacts found on their land, such as the remains of former barracks and bars from jail cells. Dismayed because of an overwhelming sense that history is, once again, repeating itself âand it seems that we have failed to learn anything from the past.â
LEARNING FROM THE PAST Goulding is heartened by the empathy of local white people today for Japanese Americans interned at Tule Lake, but worries that history may be repeating itself.
Gouldingâs meticulous research and self-described âauto-ethnographic approach to her subject â her grandparents were interned at another camp in Arkansas, and her mother was born there in 1943 â clearly pack a powerful punch: In January, the American Educational Research Association Division Bâ announced that she will receive its Outstanding Dissertation Award at AERAâs 2018 meeting in New York in early April.
âWe donât think of curriculum existing in such spaces,â Goulding says of the Tule Lake site, which is now managed by the National Park Service, but âthey have developed very even-handed historical materials to given an understanding to people who often are just passing through in trailers and cars, and who may be saying, âWhat is this?â Overall, itâs very much presented as a wrongdoing by the federal government.â
Her thesis, which she calls âa multi-case study of projects attempting to teach about national security states through immersive experiences,â spans past and present. The first half specifically focused on the Tule Lake site, which is now managed as an historic site by the National Park Service. The other half focuses on newer efforts to teach about violence through the use of digital and immersive spaces, and post-9/11 politics that surround how Americans are informed about ethnic and racial groups who are demonized as national security threats.
SPACE OUTSIDE K-12 EDUCATION The former Tule Lake camp today. Goulding is interested in the "public pedagogies" employed with such sites.
âItâs about these spaces outside of K-12 education â these public pedagogies,â says Goulding, a former high school English teacher who currently is an Andrew Mellon Fellow at New York Cityâs 9/11 Memorial & Museum in addition to serving as a communications specialist for the ¶¶Òőapp Inclusive Classrooms Project. âTule Lake is in rural northern California. Trying to expose this region of the country â we donât think of curriculum existing in such spaces.â She adds that she has been âvery impressedâ with the care taken by the Park Service in managing the site and teaching about âsuch a nuanced and complex part of the Japanese internment experience, which was one of even greater segregation.
âThey have developed very even-handed historical materials to given an understanding to people who often are just passing through in trailers and cars, and who may be saying, âWhat is this?â because theyâve had no prior experience with this history,â she says. âOverall, itâs very much presented as a wrongdoing by the federal government. They even talk about the irony of the Park Service critiquing the government, since the federal Department of the Interior, which they are part of, managed the camps during the War.â
Gouldingâs thesis adviser at TC was Daniel Friedrich, Associate Professor of Curriculum and Chair of the Department of Curriculum & Teaching.
âHe was a huge influence â he did his own doctorate on â[teaching] The Dirty War in Argentina,ââ she says. âHe directed a lot of my philosophical reading.â
How has Gouldingâs family responded to her research?
âMy momâs glad Iâm doing it, but sheâs not especially interested in talking about her experiences,â she says. âBut my father, who is white, came with me for a lot of my field work. It definitely brought us closer together.â â Joe Levine