A Brief History of American Myths
Rebecca Mesonjnik
What makes America? This is a question I ask myself constantly. As a child of immigrants I am always being pulled in two directions, either I must honor my parent culture or assimilate into American society. In the first half of my thesis, I explore what “being American” means on a personal level. I investigate how immigrants fit into our national identity, and why we categorize them as “other” while fetishizing their narrative. Drawing on personal experience and interviews with other children of immigrants, I attempt to debunk the Bootstrap myth (the success of immigrant generations decreases the longer they live in America). In the process I pose questions about who shapes our collective identity and what it means to aspire to the American dream.
This personal experience with American myth-making inspired the second half of my thesis project. A Brief History of American Myths investigates the source of American identity, inspired by my own experience of blindly accepting everything I read in history books, only to later find out that there was much more to history, and what we were taught as children purposefully omitted the stories of marginalized groups. After speaking with others whose experiences mirrored my own, I wanted to know what untruths we may have internalized and regurgitated as fact. Through this book I hope to encourage others to begin the process of uncovering the truth.