In “Hippie Day at the Reagan Library,” Jon Wiener laments Americans’ historical amnesia regarding the weightiness and complex conclusion of the Cold War. He discusses various museum exhibits to fortify his argument that Americans either misunderstand or trivialize the Cold War decades after its conclusion. Among the examples he discusses is a 2009 event for which the the Wende Museum erected two “Berlin Walls” along Wilshire Avenue in Los Angeles. Invited artists covered the walls with images expressing “their creative response to [all of] the Walls in our lives” (27), and then participants were invited to tear down one of them.
This example from Wiener’s text prompts me to ask two questions. Feel free to answer one or both of them.
- How does Wiener’s analysis resonate with that of Rodgers?
- In your view, have our ways of thinking about “the Walls in our lives” changed since Wiener published his essay in 2009? Consider the Trump slogan, “Build the Wall!” What role do walls (real or imagined) play in the construction of U.S. national identity?
The juxtaposition between Trump’s wall and the Berlin wall is tricky, but particularly interesting. From an American perspective, the two walls were very different and served different purposes. The Berlin wall was erected as a barrier to keep people in East Germany. It was a border that defied the will of the people and represented the will of an authoritarian government. Conversely, Trump’s wall is supposed to represent the will of the people, and keep illegal immigrants out of the country. Trump’s wall promises security and protection from the other. Both walls, though, serve as symbols- one of patriotism, and one of oppression, and both walls serve as borders between different groups. The problem with wall’s in todays world is that they seem to convey a certain sense of mistrust and doubt. Trump’s wall demonstrates a mistrust of illegal immigrants, whereas the Berlin wall was a literal manifestation of the mistrust between the USSR and the USA. Thus, regardless of the benefits walls may provide, be it security or something else, their simple existence stirs a bit of caution between the party that erects the wall and others. While this has always been the case, the effects seem to be more exaggerated in today’s already intense political climate.