They Made America, a new PBS series whose most recent installment aired on Nov. 22, is so patently offensive — even if you’ve never watched the program.
I’m suggesting an outright boycott. Instead of watching four installments of propaganda, read some real history; Ron Takaki’s Strangers from a Different Shore comes to mind.
Just consider the title of the PBS show: They Made America.
Who are “They”?
Apparently, not us.
The demographic breakdown of the 64 people profiled on the show reads:
White: 59
Black: three
Middle Eastern: two
Asian: zero
South Asian: zero
American Indian: zero
We in America are used to the American Indian slight. That’s why we are giving those darn casinos so much money.
But the Asian goose egg? It doesn’t make sense.
Fifty-nine whites made America, fancy that.
In typical PBS fashion, the show is a four-part media event based on a book by Sir Harold Evans, the former president of Random House and founding editor of Condé Nast Traveler.
That should give you the book’s perspective in a nutshell. It’s a British snob’s Eastern-elitist view of American history. As told from the penthouse suite, of course.
It’s Masterpiece History.
Sir Harold tosses in another 100 or so more innovators in the book. There’s Charles Crocker, foreman of the Central Pacific Railroad, who is praised for his “managerial” skill in making “railway builders (out) of thousands of Chinese laundrymen, chefs, errand boys, gardeners … ”
That’s our community’s presence.
Selection is everything in history.
The show chooses to highlight individuals its producers feel are worthy of the spotlight for their daring innovations in American life. Grouped loosely, not by race but by personality type, the categories are revolutionaries, newcomers, gamblers and rebels.
They couldn’t find an Asian American for gambler? Or newcomer?
Alas, no one to whom they wanted to give face time.
The show’s revolutionaries are people like Robert Fulton, who blew up warships and created the world’s first steamboat services. Add to the list Samuel Colt, credited with developing a mass market — for guns.
Newcomers include A.P. Giannini, the son of Italian immigrants and the founder of Bank of America, whom producers portray as the founder of branch banking. (So where’s the inventor of the ATM in this?) Another newcomer is Ida Rosenthal, the inventor of the Maidenform bra (perhaps the producers’ sop to feminism?). There seems to be a lot of inclusion on the basis of gender. Just not race.
For example, the gamblers are represented by the likes of Ruth Handler, who created Barbie, the most successful doll of the 20th century. The light touch only makes any Asian omission sting all the more. Don’t our contributions rate above the marketing of a frivolous Barbie (made in China, I might ad)? Trumped by a white gal again.
This is not to say there weren’t some marvelous inventions highlighted in the show. But Julius Schmid, the inventor of condoms? What made America (at least populationwise) is the immigrant’s lack of access to condoms.
Still, where’s the founder of Yahoo, Jerry Yang? His Yahoo is my daily tool to reach the world. Talk about cross-cultural marketing. Who’s the innovator in that arena? Sir Harold says it’s Russell Simmons, hip hop entrepreneur. Nice guy. But the selection comes across as a token gesture to get young hip hop viewers. He’s no Jerry Yang.
In technology alone, the failure to include an Asian American on the list is pretty curious. The Personal Digital Assistant is represented by Donna Dubinsky. (Now there’s a household name — I jest.) But where’s the South Asian chip designer who designed the Pentium? Where are the unsung Silicon Valley millionaires who have fueled innovation left and right over the last 20 years? Don’t feel so bad. Sir Harold is so retro that he includes Henry Ford and Samuel Morse and totally leaves out Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (the Apple guys), and of course, my classmate Bill Gates is nowhere to be found.
Sir Harold, you blew it.
With the dearth of blacks and the absolute absence of Asians and Latinos, what we have here is really the history of capitalist America. The history of money-making ideas.
So, of course, in that context, the heroes will never be the oppressed, the workers, the slaves, the ones exploited by the boardrooms and financiers on whose labor the profits are made.
For example, Ah Bing, the Chinese immigrant who was brought over here as a laborer to work in the orchards of Oregon. At 6 feet 2 inches, he became the foreman and started grafting trees, which showed his skill as a horticulturist. His work resulted in the Bing cherry. In 1885, when the anti-Asian hysteria was at its peak, the Lewelling family, who owned the orchards, hid Bing and his workers for safety.
That’s a little different from how the Crockers treated the Chinese.
A little perspective and balance would have been more than helpful for the show and book. It would have been accurate. Whole truth, not partial.
The producers of the series (they also made American Experience) knew they would have problems. Anytime you come up with a list, you’re asking for trouble. So naturally, their website has a discussion thread called “Who Did We Miss?”
That’s where a viewer, Corinne Low, wrote: “Who really ‘made America’ were the black slaves of the South who carried this country on their backs for many years and the Chinese laborers of the railroad who built that celebrated system painfully, rivet by rivet. Their lives deserve to be celebrated.”
The producers offered a cop-out reply: “Please visit our network of U.S. history websites, including Transcontinental Railroad, the Time of the Lincolns … ”
But they missed the point. We don’t need them to show us other sources, as if to say, “Yeah, we covered that.”
It’s offensive that they are pushing to get the book and TV show into school curriculums. Let us remember to Leave No Multicultural History Behind, please. An all-white history presented to schools that are majority Asian, black and Latino just makes a mockery of the diversity that’s all around us.
Amok-minded readers should write to WGBH-Boston and let them know They Made America is inadequate in today’s world, offensive and unwatchable.
A boycott is appropriate here.
WGBH could militate against such an action by immediately adding materials to its dynamic website that indicate the key contributions of Asian Americans and people of color.
But we must let them know that Sir Harold’s ethnocentric view no longer plays in the new America.