Forgetful “Sites of Memory”: Immigration Museums and the Uses of Public Memory

Abstract

Despite
 strong
 conceptual
 frameworks
 for
 national
 museums
 as
 potential
 “sites
 of
 memory,”
 practical
 attempts
 to
 establish
 such
 sites
 can
 prove
 paradoxically
 forgetful.
 The
 following
 paper
 considers
 this
 apparent
 paradox
 by
 contrasting
 the
 highly
 idealized
 theoretical
 motives
 for
 a
 national
 museum
 of
 immigration
 in
 France
 with
 the
 concrete
 realization
 of
 such
 a
 museum
 in
 Argentina.
 Grounded
 in
 a
 problematic 
opposition 
between 
New
 World 
memory 
and 
Old 
World 
amnesia 
of
immigration ,
the 
French
 museum
 was
 conceived
 as
 a
 form
 of
 national
 “memory‐work”
 that
 need
 not
 contend
 with
 the
 colonial
 past.
 This
 paper
 challenges
 that
 binary
 opposition
 through
 the
 example
 of
 Argentina,
 whose
 national
 museum
 of
 immigration
 enshrines
 a
 hegemonic
 memory
 of
 white
 European
 immigration
 that
 omits
 the
 history 
and 
present 
of 
an 
increasingly
  mestizo  
immigrant 
population. 

Both 
nations’
attempts
to
restitute
 public
 memory
 of
 immigration
 through
 inclusive
 “sites
 of
 memory”
 have,
 I
 argue,
 inadvertently
 highlighted
 their
 own
 national
 blindspots.
 The
 cases
 presented
 here
 point
 to
 the
 persistence
 of
 forgetfulness
 as
 a
 political
 feature
 of
 national
 memory,
 and
 to
 the
 often
 unintentional
 political
 uses
 of
 public
memory
sites.