A seminar explores what history can be

What do the Grinch, an academic symposium, and archival documents at Penn's Kislak Center have in common? They're all part of the first-year seminar, A History of America's Children, taught by Hardeep Dhillon, an assistant professor in the Department of History and core faculty in the Asian American Studies Program in the School of Arts & Sciences. The course leans heavily on experiential and analytical learning not only to examine how the roles and perceptions of children and childhood have changed in American history, but also to explore new ways of studying history altogether.

"This seminar is really about introducing students to what history can be. It's about history in its multitudes," says Dhillon, who is offering the seminar for the first time this semester. "History is often misunderstood as a field of facts and dates. As a discipline, however, it offers core analytical skills that allow students to interpret the past."

Dhillon's main area of research is the history of immigration, particularly the effects of United States law on immigrant communities and families. Among a larger focus on U.S. citizenship, alienage, and racial violence, Dhillon also studies how American law affects children born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. This includes access to public schooling and equal rights.

"As I researched immigrant families, I increasingly thought about children," she says. "Their appearance in historical records made me think about their absence in immigration history and the importance of historical methods. I found myself asking how we write histories of people who are marked as passive actors or whose voices are written out altogether."

By presenting American history from the vantage point of childhood, Dhillon felt she could offer a nuanced understanding of industrialization, education, and social reform. Though perceptions of children and childhood can mirror broader historical shifts, Dhillon argues that children from diverse cultural, racial, and economic backgrounds have vastly different experiences. "So, rather than making broad generalizations about U.S. history, I'm locating children and communities affected in various ways by shared and distinct sets of laws and bureaucratic practices," she says. "This more granular approach encourages students to slow down and think about the past in a different way."

Dhillon says she wants students to gain crucial analytical skills applicable beyond the classroom, fostered by understanding how history is produced and influences ideas about the world. "Many arguments that we have as a society are based on historical interpretations of the past-many of them inaccurate-so critical history is a fundamental skill. It helps you better understand arguments about the past and their relationship to the world we live in."

This story is by Jane Carroll. Read more at Omnia.