Journal

Daily Journal Entries:

9/19: Today I met with you regarding our game plan. I worked on redesigning and updating the Wiki which I mostly completed. I changed the format of the home page, and uploaded my course overview and essential questions. I also found two articles that I plan on using for my constructed definition of genocide. One examines solely the Native American Indians, and the other from the BBC talks about the legal definitions of genocide.

9/20: I finished the formatting of the wiki. I now have a course overview page, an updated home page, a journal section (here) and a resource page. I posted 5 new sources and created their citations, three of which are books and two online articles. I also read the same BBC article regarding the legal classifications of genocide and used it to begin crafting my own definition. I have a very uncompleted draft based on the definitional format sheet you gave me.

Weekend of 9/21 - 9/23: I spent time each night reading from three different texts. Blood and Soil by Ben Kiernan, American and the Age of Genocide by Sam Powers and A Century of Genocide by Weitz. I'm spending most of my time reading resources to try to craft a definition of genocide. I plotted more information into the definitional headers you gave me on Sunday. Also, I came across an amazing documentary on Sunday about Cambodian reconciliation which I emailed you about in case you didnt see.

9/26: I've spent the last few days putting together a draft or possibly a final copy of my definition of genocide. I now have a finished version of the definition based on the categories you gave me. I also came across three fantastic resources for multiple genocides: Peace Pledge Union, United Human Rights Council and World Without Genocide. I am going to throw those on the citations page tonight.

10/18: Below is a brief proposal for organizing the course moving forward:

Scheduled Meetings: -For the time being I think it would be most helpful to me to continue to see you three times a week. As I mentioned the periods anchor me a little bit and I find that helpful. In certain periods it may make sense to use the time for independent work on the course, but I believe that should be decided at the beginning of our meetings. Those meetings should normally consist of checking in with where I am, presenting any work I have completed and establishing a game plan for the future.

Journal Entries: -I think it would be really helpful to maintain a journal grade to keep my on track. As I said today, I think each week I should be expected to write five substantive journal entries, including one for the weekend. The grade should be 6 points, and every day that I do not write a complete journal entry I will lose a point from that small grade. I think that will be a pretty good way of keeping me honest with journal entries.

Time Management: -I think journaling will help me get to about 30 or 40 minutes of work on this course a night. I am going to fight the urge to leave my work on this course until the end of my normal work night. I think whatever 40 minutes I spend on this course each night will come right when I get home (followed by my math homework if you want all the specifics). Finally, as for blocking the course into my schedule every day, I think that may be an option that I end up using. But for now, just because of College Counseling meetings and other things I think I'd like to have some of those periods open.

Actual Journal Entry 10/18:

-I spent about 30 minutes reading an article by a Native American Indian named Ned Balckhawk. He is a professor at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). His article //Recasting the Narrative of America: The Rewards and Challenged of Teaching American Indian History,// focuses on the difficulty of teaching a high level course on Native American History. Blackhawk spends a lot of his article discussing the tactics he uses in creating the class curriculum along with other specific details. He also discusses his students, who are predominantly white, and how they react to the content of his course. According to him, some of his students have complained that the course is "Depressing", "politically motivated" and even "anti-American". Blackhawk discusses the challenges of presenting Native American History, both the horrible atrocities and the resilience of many cultures, to a group of students unfamiliar with America's indigenous history. Ultimately, he concludes that today with the resources available, mainly due to the formation of many recognized Indian nations, that it will become much easier to teach Native American History in schools. He also stresses the importance of teaching the field in order to for students to truly understand their country's history.

http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/textbooks/2007/american_indian/article.html

10/19:

-Today I spent about an hour researching a documentary which I found online called "The Thick Dark Fog". The film documents the federal run boarding schools for Native American children which seemingly aimed to suppress indigenous culture. This documentary focuses on the personal stories of those affected by the physical and emotional abuse of the boarding schools. Over 100,000 Native American children were sent to these schools between 1872 and 1960. The film cites a famous quote from U.S. Army Officer Richard Pratt who said in 1892, "all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." The film is titled "The Thick Dark Fog" because it was a personal phrase used to describe the feelings suffered by Native Americans who attended these boarding schools. We might call it post-traumatic stress disorder or sever anxiety. The film also argues that these emotional problems have furthered the difficulties that many Native American communities have regarding substance and physical abuse today. I found the documentary through an article on a website called "Truth-Out.org". Below is the link: http://truth-out.org/news/item/5127:new-documentary-tracks-cultural-genocide-of-american-indians Here is the link to the website and the trailer for "The Thick Dark Fog": http://www.thickdarkfog.com/

10/20-10/21

-Unfortunately I was out camping for almost all of Saturday so I was unable to post a journal entry. However, I found some interesting websites before I left which I then investigated a little further today. One of them is called the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission: http://mainetribaltrc.org/ The commission was established in 1999 when the Maine state government collaborated with multiple Wabanaki tribes to investigate how certain government systems and policies failed these Indian Tribes. The three goals listed on the website are: The process is relatively extensive and it attempts to bring in the input of as many tribes as possible. The main reason for this commission is because of certain cultural atrocities that the website lists, but specifically because of a program established in the 1950's that removed Indian children from their families and raised them in white homes. Indian children were removed at a higher rate in Maine than in most other states. The program resulted in the physical, mental and emotional abuse of many of these children, leaving them traumatized. The lead organizer of the commission, Denise Alvater, who was only seven when she was removed from her home, explained: “In our society, we gloss over things. We don't do a true reckoning of things that have caused harm and pain and we're not going to allow that to happen this time. This is going to be an actual process of decolonization of our own hearts and our own minds.” A similar model was adopted by the Canadian government, seeking to reconcile with Indian tribes in the area. The model seems relatively successful so far and this success begs the question if it could work nationwide.
 * To find out and write down what happened
 * To give Wabanaki people a place to share their stories and have a voice
 * To give the Maine child welfare system suggestions on how it can work better with Wabanaki people

10/22

-Tonight I was able to dig a little further into this Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I found an official letter from the Governor's office in Maine: http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=Gov+News&id=442242&v=article2011 This is a direct quote from the governor: “The Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be taking on the difficult task of examining the relationship between the Wabanaki People and the Child Welfare Program in Maine. They will develop a common understanding of this history, support healing of those affected, and work to create the best child welfare system possible." It's pretty incredible to think that this is happening and is being totally backed by the government. This letter was published on September 28th of THIS YEAR. So this is clearly a very current issue that in Maine. Then I dug a little further and found out that Canada is taking this WAY FARTHER. Here is their website: http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3 Canada has adopted the model of Maine nationwide. It was established in 2008 and it is going strong now. For example, last week the Mayor of Vancouver declared it "Indian Reconciliation Week". Both of the major parties seemed willing to dedicate resources to this comprehensive project. AND, THIS IS THE COOLEST PART: "On June 11, 2008, the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government of Canada, delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons to former students, their families, and communities for Canada's role in the operation of the residential schools." (from the TRC Canada Website) Harper, the Prime Minister himself, acknowledged and apologized to the indigenous peoples of his country for in some respects 'cultural destruction'. So whether you consider that genocide or not doenst matter. What does matter is that whatever took place in Canada probably took place in a similar way in America. So why are we not doing this? I honestly have no idea.

10/23

Tonight I read two interesting articles/blog pieces. The first was an obituary in the New York Times for Russell Means, the Native American Indian who organized the 71 day siege of Wounded Knee. He actually passed away yesterday. The article reviewed his work in organizing in the protest, as well as his work with AIM. Also the article mentioned some pretty juicy topics such as the forced indian removal in order to build Mt. Rushmore?? Did not know about that one. It'll definitely be worth researching. Here's the obit below: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/opinion/the-siege-of-wounded-knee.html?_r=0 The other thing I was able to explore was the AIM website. I poked around and looked at a few things. Most noticeably, the website doesnt really look that official. I wonder how much funding theyre getting for something like that? Then I found a cool link to an AIM blog about the Sports Mascots issue in the NCAA. AIM is trying to ban the use of Indian figures as mascots and they actually bring up some really good points. For example, the blog mentions the fact that if a school used a black or jewish sterotype as its mascot the world would be up in arms. But once again weve forgotten to include the INDIAN in our protections and standards of the country it seems like. Here's the blog: http://aimggc.blogspot.com/

10/24

Tonight I found a great site on PBS, all about Native American persecution. The page I posted below is actually called 'Assimilation, Relocation, Genocide" and in the description it states: "**Since first contact, Native Americans have been given three choices (assimilation, relocation, genocide) — which weren't really choices at all.** Pretty amazing that an institution like PBS would state this so outrightly on their website. Here's the main site: http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/assimilation.html The site also has a great section on the California tribes, which arguably experienced the most genocidal horrors of the whole era. A quote from the site reads: From a high population of 300,000 before contact, Indians in California reached a low of 16,000 in 1900. According to Alvin M. Josephy in his book //500 Nations//, the history of the California tribes "was as close to genocide as any tribal people had faced, or would face, on the North American continent." It's got a lot of information that I am going to cite probably when I do a final assessment. The last thing I found on this site was a fantastic interactive map that displays the affects of the atrocities on indigenous peoples in North America since first contact: http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/interactive_map.html It shows the California tribal destruction, the Cherokee Relocation and Trail of Tears, the Boarding Schools, and the Urban relocation process. I think I would absolutely use it in a presentation because it's pretty powerful.

10/25-26

I spent yesterday night and tonight watching the Wounded Knee PBS documentary. I thought it was incredibly fascinating. One, it gave me a great understanding of the history of the siege which I was totally unaware of. But It also touched on the historical context of boarding schools, reservations and urban relocations. 'Genocide' was only officially brought up once in the interviews, but I think most of the American Indians that were interviewed would say they consider the Native American experience a genocidal one. I also thought it was interesting that Native Americans had been virtually silenced between the first battle at wounded knee in the late 19th century and the 1971 siege. Also I think Wounded Knee was essential because it created a generally unified Indian race (as its described in the documentary) instead of the splintered tribes which allowed for massive American conquest in the first place. Wounded Knee helped Indians all over the country re-identify themselves. I am definitely going to find a way to work this in to the final assessment I do.

10/30

I'm really sorry this is my first entry in three days, my power went out early and stayed out for a while. I spent most of the weekend digging through one of the best resources I've found so far. "Blood and Soil" by Ben Kiernan, who is actually a major expert on Cambodia, his book contains an extensive chapter entitled "Genocide in the United States". His chronological history of Indian persecution under the federal United States government laid out a lot of concrete evidence as to why our conquest was genocidal. Attitudes were in fact ingrained, and although there was never a United States policy that mandated genocide, genocidal crime was used when it seemed necessary to our leaders...which was sadly very often. Everyone from Jefferson to Lincoln saw a need for Indian removal to some extent. Our attitudes toward them justified the atrocities. Sadly, those behaviors actually became a precedent. We continually practiced violent genocidal, indiscriminate massacres of Indians by the hundreds and after that became politically unsound, we practiced cultural genocide. Reading this well cited chapter has left me feeling very different about whether or not we can define this as genocide.

10/31

I spent most of my time typing up notes on the Kiernan chapter that I read. Although I dug a little bit more into the AIM contact. I did find their email contact AIMGGC@att.net. But I did find this disclaimer on their website: The American Indian Movement has attempted to provide information on a variety of issues on our Website. As we continue to build our site, we hope that the information will assist students in their quest for writing term papers, and other scholarly work. We receive many requests for more information, interviews about a variety of issues. Unfortunately, it is not possible to reply to all of these many requests. If you email us, a reply may not be forthcoming. We will reply on a case by case request, and attempt to refer you to other areas of interest. **Thank You for visiting us.**
 * TO HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEGE, GRADUATE STUDENTS: **

Hopefully, we'll still be able to get in touch with somebody over there. If not, finding a way to contact Ned Blackhawk, the author of that education article I showed you, might be a good idea. Also I've been thinking about organizing all of this information that I've found so far into a format for a presentation. I think no matter what I will need to present my definition. Work through it briefly but effectively. Then present arguments from the Guenter camp and the Kiernan camp, like we talked about today. It would be nice to actually provide excerpts but if time doesnt allow then it doenst matter. My only real question is whether to include a clip of the documentary that I had you watch for the assignment. I think it might be really helpful if I used it correctly.

11/1-2

I've spent the last two days working on an assignment based on Ben Kiernan's Blood and Soil. I have almost too much to work with which is why I am struggling to limit the excerpts that I can include. Creating the questions is not the difficult part this time around, there are actually too many options for questions. But I think I will have it done by the end of this weekend.

11/3-4

Finished my assignment, sent it to you, gave some more thought to the guest list for the presentation. Maybe offer it up to the history department and Amstud class, including Mrs. Pickering and Mr. Kline? Of course Mrs. Pendergast too...

11/7

I apologize for this break in my journal entries, last night I forgot to post because I was watching election returns. I've spent the last few days thinking about that short survey we talked about putting out to the middle school and upper school. I think I would need to keep the questionairre relatively short. But a few possible questions I thought up are:

-How would you describe the United States' relationship with Native American Indians throughout the country's history?

a) Very friendly (we can talk about a better adjective)

b) Detached, sufficiently respectful

c) Antagonistic, violent

-Do you believe that Native American Indians benefited from the settling of the United States of America?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">a) Yes

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">b) No

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">- Do you believe that American settlers committed wrongdoings against Native American Indians?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">a)Yes

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">b)No

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Do you believe that the United States has made efforts to preserve Native American culture throughout history?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">a)Yes

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">b)No

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Should the United States of America take responsibility for any crimes committed against the Native American Indians in the past?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">a) Yes

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">b) No

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Based on your knowledge alone, would you consider the American settlers' conquest of Native American Indians a "genocide"?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">a) Yes

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">B) No

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">We can talk about this on Friday. I'll also get going on the powerpoint. Im thinking I will chose the option of doing after school for faculty and some students, just because I think I will get a lot more out of that type of discussion...Everyone who is there will actually WANT to be there.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Weekend of 10/9 - 10/11

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">I spent the weekend working on my Survey Monkey, which I finished tonight. I loaded six questions online, most of which are "indicate the degree of belief" questions. I also drafted an email to faculty that I am going to send out in the next few days after your approval. The list as of now is as follows:

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">All Faculty <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-US History Department (separate email)

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Select Seniors <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Current American Studies Class <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Some former AmStud kids

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Finally, I also chunked away at an outline for the actual presentation. Its a work in progress, but I am definitely set on using a Powerpoint.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/12/12

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">I added in the changes and suggestions you gave me for the survey monkey, hopefully it is pretty much finished at this point. Also I started working on my powerpoint. I've been compiling the resources I want to cite in my presentation and working on an outline of what I want to go over.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/14/12

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">I worked on the presentation for the past few days. I need to meet with you badly to figure out our game plan for the weekend and break.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Weekend of 11/15-18

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">I meant to let you know earlier, but I was without computer access this whole weekend while I was in Minnesota. I spent a decent amount of time on my flights to and from working on the content of my presentation. Tomorrow we have a double and I can bring in some discussion questions that I've worked up so far.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/19/2012

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">WOW. I love survey monkey. This is so cool. I've basically spent the last hour analyzing this data. It's pretty crazy. 66 % of juniors said that they somewhat agree that we committed genocide. 49 % of 9th and 10th grade said the same thing! 43 strongly agreed in 12th grade and 46 somewhat agreed. Im amazed at how many people identified if with the term genocide. There is a lot going on in here, I think unpacking this is going to be awesome and getting it into my presentation as well. Also the open ended responses are actually really interesting. All of it is great.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/25/2012

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Sorry that this is my only post for all of Thanksgiving break. To be honest I spent most of my time away from the computer, but I did work a little bit each day on my faculty presentation which is rapidly approaching. I am still working on my Powerpoint, I still need to add in visual displays of my survey results. And I still need to break down some of the results with you. But I have got my entire idea laid out for the presentation:

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-To start I want to introduce my definition. Not in depth, but I want to go over each of the must haves and may haves with the group. I will also explain that this entire unit was designed to use the Native American history to TEST my definition. Does it fit? Is it a genocide, but is my definition off? What needs to be changed? These are some of the mini focus questions that I am going to use to frame this introduction

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">-Then I will introduce the main focus questions of the unit and the presentation which I have as now: <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> Can a series of genocidal crimes committed over a long period of time be considered genocide? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> Is there such a thing as cultural genocide? What is it? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> -Is non-violent cultural extermination a form of genocide? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> How defined must the perpetrator and the victim be in genocide? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> -Must a central government or institution be the perpetrator? Must one single group of people be the victim? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> Is there a statue of limitations on genocide? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> -Can we condemn crimes committed hundreds of years ago? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> -If we can, is that true reconciliation? Does it help the victim? <span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;"> -Does labeling a conflict genocide combat societal ignorance? And in turn can that achieve reconciliation?

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">This is in fact how I want to organize the presentation. I will work through each of these questions one by one. Using Guenter's reasoning along with Ben Kiernan's facts and the PBS interactive map (facts from the Wounded Knee documentary as well) I will provide evidence to support both sides of these questions. I think the final question will be a perfect transition into my survey results which will show the "societal attitudes" piece of this whole thing. I want to examine what the role of education might be in reconciliation. And this may be the place to show a snippet of the You Tube documentary. I want to show the disenfranchisement in order to prove that these people feel like their culture has been conquered but that they themselves have been removed from American society (i.e. Cleavland Indians, NCAA mascots).

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">This is my general idea of the layout. I think discussion could occur throughout, but maybe for the sake of order it would be best to leave a set chunk of time at the end for a real discussion. I will print this out and show it to you tomorrow.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/26

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Worked the whole night on my powerpoint and my presentation.

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">11/27

<span style="color: #000033; font-family: 'trebuchet ms',verdana,helvetica,arial;">Same as last night. I've spent my entire night preparing for my presentation tomorrow.

Weekend of 12/1-12/2

I spent this weekend revising my bibliography for my faculty presentation which I can give to you tomorrow when we meet. I also started poking around for some sources on Armenia. I found a very interesting article on France and its recognition of the Armenian genocide. It actually has a strong French-Armenian population of over 500,000 people and it recognized the genocide in 2001. But this year the French senate passed a bill making it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide. The article does a good job conveying the Turkish government's outrage and the French government's reasoning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16702453

12/3/12

Tonight I started reading the Burning Tigris, my main book about Armenia. Turns out its the most prominent text on the issue. Lauren Smeridjan actually mentioned it to me today and said that her grandfather is quoted in it! She also said it would be perfectly feasible to set up an interview with her mother who has a decent amount of personal history that she is willing to tell. Her mother also has her grandfathers poetry that he wrote about witnessing the atrocities. Pretty unbelievable stuff. I also started reading a little bit of Power's chapter on Armenia because it's a slightly shorter chapter that gives me some of the key details, especially regarding America's response.

12/6/12

Yesterday night and tonight I spent time researching more history for the lesson I am going to give you in our next meeting. I also began thinking about possible essential questions for this unit. I found some more articles about Obama and his reluctance to declare the existence of an Armenian genocide. This was the article I found during our meeting on Wednesday:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/obama-breaks-promise-commemorate-armenian-genocide/story?id=16202151#.UMFpBRyLkT8

Like you said the foreign policy aspect of this all will be a very interesting part of this.

12/10/12-12/11/12

Sorry for not posting very much last week. I have spent almost every day doing a little research to compile information for the lesson I am going to give you tomorrow. I have been using Kiernan and Power, and I have yet to really dig into the Burning Tigris. I will upload the document that I am going to teach from tomorrow.

12/12/12

I spent most of my night researching about Kemal Ataturk. I found some really fascinating stuff mainly because it has become super relevant in the Armenian-Turkish reconciliation process. Basically, the Turks have tried to pitch his legacy and distance him as much as possible from the genocide. After all he is there founding hero and leader. But the Armenians have painted a story in which Ataturk himself aided the latter half of the genocide. I found some great articles that I will show you tomorrow.

12/16/12

I spent my weekend digging around for more sources on Kemal Attaturk and his role in the genocide. The only sources that I can find that implicate him as a perpetrator do not seem very legitimate (at least in terms of objectivity) and the legitimate sources do not even mention the history of the genocide at all in the context of Attaturk. It seems like he stayed pretty separate from the CUP but he was used by the Young Turks as a military leader. What I am trying to determine are his attitudes towards Armenians, and whether or not he included them in the new modern Turkey.

12/18/12

I started drafting some of the potential questions I am going to ask. I am working to figure out which lobbyist group I will talk to to, either the Armenian National Committee of America and the Armenian American Assembly. I think whichever one has more pull and is more active I will shoot for.

1/9/13

Well I started poking around the web looking to refine my list of players, and I found out that the Armenian National Committee of America is probably the biggest one. They do major legislative work on capitol hill and have literally ranked and graded every single member of Congress on their history of votes for/against Armenia. Interestingly enough they sponsor Congressmen and Congresswomen who are particularly focused on Armenia. Both Chakah Fattah and Allyson Schwartz are listed as sponsored members. Meanwhile, the ANCA has listed pretty much every piece of legislation regarding Armenia that has ever passed through Congress. They describe themselves as "the largest and most influential Armenian American grassroots political organization." There is in fact proposed legislation called House Resolution 252 which is summarized on the website as: "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution - Calls upon the President: (1) to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the U.S. record relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution; and (2) in the President's annual message commemorating the Armenian Genocide, to characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide and to recall the proud history of U.S. intervention in opposition to the Armenian Genocide."

It has 148 Co-Sponsors! Turns out there is a lot of options to choose from...

1/22/13

I've spent most of the long weekend doing research on my analysis on the Turkish position on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. It has been difficult to find information regarding the possible consequences, but I think I will discuss multiple hypothetical options at length in the paper. I will have it ready for out next meeting.

1/27/13

I finished three email drafts to Congressman Fattah (A) and Congressman Schuster (F-) as well as the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. The emails are short and to the point but I will show them to you before sending them out. I also got started on fixing up the paper but it needs some work before I can hand it in for a grade.