GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES OF MOUNT RUSHMORE | BY: MAC ALTOUNIAN

May 11, 2020

Mount Rushmore is a national monument that is recognizable across the world. It allows our country to understand who paved the way for our great nation. Although was the original intent of the monument? Mount Rushmore creates controversy in it’s home nation but how is it perceived across the world? Has the perception of Mount Rushmore changed since it was created? Do certain cultures view it as obnoxious or unnecessary? Does China think it’s unnecessary or interesting? Has it influenced these other countries to do the same for their historical figures?  Do other countries think of it as a national monument? Why do people associate Mount Rushmore with certain ideas that it is commonly grouped with.  Are there people who view it as racial disgrace? Certain Individuals have taken their own money and created their own personal replica of Mount Rushmore but why do they feel so strongly about it.  I want to look to find out if the perception of Mount Rushmore is similar to our government relations with China. Finally because Mount Rushmore is so closely associated with the United States do people feel so strongly because of their love of the United States or otherwise? 

The perception of Mount Rushmore has evolved over time both from American international perspectives. During the early discussions of Mount Rushmore the monument was intended to raise tourism in South Dakota, “ The original idea for Mount Rushmore was merely suggested as a tourist attraction in the Black Hills of South Dakota, not as a national "Shrine of Democracy.“ Tracing the development of Mount Rushmore from a modesi idea in 1923 to the abrupt work stoppage in October 1941 reveals how Mount Rushmore was ascribed certain meanings and what these particular meanings or perspectives ultimately came to symbolize. 

Originally some of the suggested faces for the monument weren’t  white presidents; highly regarded historians wanted to celebrate heroes of the American west.  “The original idea for a monument within the Black Hills of South Dakota manifested in the mind of the state historian, Doane Robinson, in 1923. The figures he originally wanted carved were not US presidents, but notable people that he considered western heroes such as Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark, or Red Cloud. Internationally Mount Rushmore was not known to the people outside of the United States, so it hadn’t really developed an international opinion. Although because of where the monument is located two separate nations had contrasting opinions of what was being done with the land.  “Mount Rushmore is located in a cultural!}, contested region once owned and occupied by Indian tribes, the last being the Sioux Nation. The Sioux Nation's "sale" of the Black Hills to the United States in 1877 is when the region officially acquired two competing land claims from two distinct cultures”... Just like many other scenarios in American history our government has pushed around Native Americans for commercial and material gain. The United States government then tried to cover up the way they treated the Sioux nation. 

President Calvin Coolidge's established view that Mount Rushmore was created for "spirit of patriotism" gives you the understanding that choosing not to represent any Native Americans in the monument shows that our government wanted to hide the fact that The United States didn’t treat the Sioux nation with proper respect. Because of the history of Mount Rushmore it creates associations with Americans taking advantage of weak minorities and hiding the fact the United States government has made bad mistakes. “The narratives that best shape the history of Mount Rushmore come from the historiographic bodies of the history of the Black Hills, the history of Sioux land claims, the histories of Mount Rushmore. and the processes that created notions of Mount Rushmore and their significance to the Black Hills.”  This is because these sources explain how America took the Black Hills for commercial gain as we did with many other Native American tribes. Mount Rushmore is associated with many dominant American ideologies because of its history and our treatment of the Sioux nation. 

Even though Mount Rushmore has a dark history, it is still celebrated across the world for different reasons. One scenario where Mount Rushmore is highly regarded is in Hangzhou, China where Chinese real estate magnate Huang Qiaoling has an enormous replica of the South Dakota monument behind his exact replica of the White House “From the windows of his 55,000-square-foot White House in Hangzhou, the mogul, now 58, could see the 20-foot-tall heads of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln rising from his mini-Mount Rushmore.” You may ask why does Mr. Haung have such a fascination with America and its national monuments? Mr. Haung is a self made real estate tycoon who created a portfolio of amusement parks in Hainin, China. “His success in creating a tourism entertainment kingdom in Hainan during the past 30 years has benefited from China's reform and opening up.” 

China’s reform gave individuals the ability to create their own “American Dream” and create a better life for themsleves and their family.  “A series of transformative economic reforms opened China up to the international community and foreign investment.” This gave China the opportunity for foreign investors to help propel chinese entrepreneurs such as Huang. After knowing all these things you think that Mr. Huang may have not understood the history of Mount Rushmore and was enthralled with American beliefs and capitalism. 

Why does Mount Rushmore get associated with modern American ideals? America is pretty widely studied and judged. Countries and people across the world hate us and love us for our culture and self indulgence. Regardless of one's opinion Mount Rushmore is intertwined with our nation's history and the four American heroes derived from the piece of quartz. Probably the most apparent and largest symbol in America is Mount Rushmore. The statue in  Pennington county, South Dakota shows our founding fathers sitting on an enormous piece of rock. I do think we need to recognize the American heroes and I find the monument very cool. Although I think we need to make it largely understood how Mount Rushmore was created and our country needs to honor the Sioux nation because of the neglect we bestowed on the great nation. We need to openly inform people of the world that our nation made mistakes but we want to make right by sending proceeds of the monument to preserve the Sioux language or by creating a museum to honor the tribe. 

Mount Rushmore gets a bad rap because it’s associated with American culture and the fact it is an unnecessarily big monument that displays these white males, some which owned slaves and took advantage of Native Americans. I don’t think  the originators of the Monument thought about how it would be received almost a century later but people don’t consider that when it comes in in current culture.  Mount Rushmore wasn’t really intended to do anything that I’ve talked about. Although because of the social and political construct of the world Mount Rushmore signifies big bad America. 

No matter what in a world of almost 8 billion people some individuals are going to look down on America. It is easy to see why Mount Rushmore is closely linked with  American capitalism and over consumption. Although unless we want to blow up the monument, we are stuck with it. I don’t think the perception of Americans is going to rapidly change but for now we can properly honor the land we took from the Sioux nation and educate the world on some of the mistakes we have made in our great history.