These articles definitely did a good job of asking the question, "what is the purpose of a monument?". Monuments are supposed to be a physical realization of a belief or occurrence. Monuments have the power to immortalize a historical event or a person. They are erected in the hope that the memory of said event or person will live on into future generations. Unfortunately this goes both ways, and monuments can stand for things or people that are better left to the past and should not be immortalized in any way. I think my favorite article was the one about the "Bracero" monument. It's a perfect example of the true power that a monument can have. The striking bronze image tackles a timely issue and brings to light past sufferings that must be addressed and seen by everyone.
While reading some of the monuments pieces I felt as if each of them had something that they needed to prove. For example, for the Tate piece felt the need to expose what history has done to people. Each level exposed how much each person was taken advantage of in service of someone else. For the rumors of war piece exposed the whole idealism of the past resurrecting a past historical leader to make sure that the event does not happen again. The Bracero monument exposed all of the work that the people of that time had done in order to make sure that not another person is taken advantage of again. But truth be told, all of these monuments have come with some sort of backlash. The bracero monument had gotten criticism for stating that the braceros were free to do what they wished. From what the article had stated that was not the truth. It was merely one persons interpretation of what a bracero was, b...
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