Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Guest
Field Note
Columbine, Colorado
I took this photo at the dedica-
tion ceremony for the memorial
to the victims of the Columbine
High School shooting of April 20,
1999. Columbine is located near
Littleton, Colorado, in Denver's
southern suburbs. The memo-
rial, dedicated on Se p tember 21,
2007, provides a quiet place
for meditation and refl ection
in a public park adjacent to the
school. Hundreds came to the
ceremony to honor those killed
and wounded in the attack, one
of the deadliest school shoot-
ings in U.S. history.
After tragedies like the
Columbine shootings, creating a
memorial often helps to rebuild
a sense of community. Public ceremonies like this can set an example for survivors who may otherwise have diffi culty facing
their loss in private. A group memorial helps to acknowledge the magnitude of the community's loss and, by so doing, helps
assure families and survivors that the victims did not suffer alone—that their deaths and wounds are grieved by the entire
community. Memorials are important too because they can serve as a focus for remembrance and commemoration long into
the future, even after all other evidence of a tragedy has disappeared.
In my research for Shadowed Ground I have visited hundreds of such places in the United States and Europe. I am still
surprised by the power of such places and the fact that shrines and memorials resulting from similar tragedies are tended
lovingly for decades, generations, and centuries. They produce strong emotions and sometimes leave visitors—including
me—in tears. But by allowing individuals to share loss, tragedy, and sorrow with others, they create a sense of common purpose.
Kenneth E. Foote, University of Colorado at Boulder
Figure 14.3
(only those who died or also those injured?), whether the
site represents a socially contested event (which often hap-
pens when racism is involved), and whether people want to
remember the site. In recent American hi
themselves from particular people or places. In the end
many people's identities are shaped by developments
unfolding at the global scale. Living in a world, at a scale
we have not experienced previously, changes us and pro-
foundly changes places. Globalization, for good or for ill,
has modifi ed how we interact with one another and has
shaped how we make sense of ourselves in our world, our
state, our region, and our locality.
story, major ter-
rorist attacks have been memorialized, often with the word
“closure” evoked. Oklahoma City permanently memori-
alized the site of a terrorist attack at the Murrah Federal
Building on the fi ve-year anniversary of the tragedy. Other
tragedies, such as that experienced at the World Trade
Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, take
longer to memorialize. Millions of people have a personal
connection to the World Trade Center site, and so choos-
ing a design and building a memorial took longer.
The mass of information coming our way each day
is often overwhelming. As people fi lter through or ignore
the fl ow of information, they may personalize the infor-
mation and either make a connection or differentiate
Think of a national or global-scale tragedy, such as
September 11 or World War II. In what ways do memorials of
that tragedy refl ected both globalization and localization at
the same time?
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