This post was written by Hannah Cho and Jawhar Yasin, students participating virtually in the Library of Congress High School Summer Internship. This summer, under the mentorship of Jennifer Ezell and Katie McCarthy, the virtual participants worked in groups of two to add a teen perspective to the to the David M. Rubinstein Treasures Gallery: Collecting Memories exhibition. Hannah and Jawhar focused their work on the theme “Homeland.”
Homeland: A place where one is native to; A person’s origin land.
As simple as the textbook definition is, the personal concept of homeland is much more complex. We live far away from our homelands, causing our relationship with them to change; homeland becomes something that we are always reminded of— something that we chase and reach for constantly. It no longer just means place of origin to us; homeland means the very cultivator of our identities, cultures, traditions. Our homelands shape our pasts, our present, and our futures.
Weaving through several items in the Collecting Memories exhibition in the David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery, we found two objects in the Homeland collection that we wanted to highlight and expand upon. Each item uniquely portrays struggles in diaspora culture and the relationship with homeland, but they also show how immigrant communities can bring their homelands with them.
What we carried: fragments from the cradle of civilization tells stories of Iraq War refugees through a photo book. Pages contain photographs of possessions that refugees decided to take with them before leaving their home forever. The featured coffee cups below show how the idea of homeland takes the form of objects, becoming items of comfort that symbolize the life left behind. The photo book is a po