"Monumental Denial: U.S. Cultural Memory and White Innocence"

Laura Pulido, Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies and Geography; and 2022–23 OHC Faculty Research Fellow. I am analyzing how National Historic Landmarks represent process of white supremacy and settler colonization in the U.S. Based on both archival analysis and fieldwork, we explore both the racial and colonial processes inherent in the creation of these sites, as well as how they are represented. We identified four forms of representation: erasure, valorization, multiculturalism, and acknowledgement. We are publishing these findings as an historical atlas that illustrates how white innocence and denial have been instrumental in the territorial development of the U.S.