...

It's a really touchy subject, and at this point in time when PC reigns king and cultural sensitivity is a big buzz word, the only culture you're really allowed to represent any more, is that of your own.  Any other representation and you're going to ignite a corncrib, a cathouse and a dynamite shack all at once somewhere.  That's the easy way to put it.

There's an interesting untold story here about how the times have physically changed what is culturally acceptable.  Those books you grew up with from the 1950s, with their stories involving interactions between white kids and native kids the stories of little black sambo, speedy gonzalez, they're no longer acceptable.  And with that movement, we have been made to almost completely erase our memory of what happened between the end of the chiefs and the coming of the super chief.  There's a lot of history between the ATSF and I believe it was Hopi, and some may see it as a positive relationship, but by and large it's held with resentment by a growing number of minority groups.

It goes like this: the ATSF reinforced the image of the American Indian as the Plains Indian, dressing up locals to be actors in their southwestern stations.  They were paid to act, while the ATSF cashed in on their culture.  That idea alone makes some people very upset, this idea that their culture could be represented by this model and then sold wholesale across the nation.  But that is precisely what happened.  America squished together the tipi, the navajo blanket, the pueblo pottery, the peace pipe and the eastern tomahawk all into one tribe, and called it "The Indian."  And these people have gained enough strength to stand up and cry out, "THAT is NOT who we ARE, or EVER WERE!!"

I'm at a loss, though, whereas I see it, nobody owns culture, nobody.  But I would be a minority voice in this day and age, whereas Culture is by and large defined by the largest pocketbooks, and if the music industry is any revelation, it's all owned by someone.  And if someone owns it, they can come at you over it.  Even if they don't come at you for money, they can at least come at you socio-politically until you silence your whistle.

And so you get the ultimate solution: we just don't model it, and we say nothing about those people or those cultures.  If how we talk about them, represent them, or remember them offends them, then it's best just to forget about them altogether and not to anything.  That idea goes away to a museum somewhere, where I don't have to worry about it any more.

Modeling the culture--YES

If a model is to be a realistic depiction of a specific time, then modeling the culture is important.  If you model the Civil War era, then the people picking cotton should be the ones that historically DID pick cotton.  I'm modeling northern Maine in the 1920's, so there won't be many African Americans to be seen, if any, nor women laying track.

I was at Seashore Trolley Museum in Maine a few years ago, and someone complained about them mentioning that one of the cars was a "Jim Crow" car from Texas, with sigh holders to show who could sit where--and someone complained about bringing that up.  The guide simply said that that's part of the history--and shouldn't be ignored.  Thank goodness that they still, when running that particular car, mention its history.

It's YOUR railroad--and if you want to model the good and bad cultural aspects of the time, no one should complain--and I salute you for putting truth above those who would hide our history!

"while the ATSF cashed in on their culture"

but they are getting pay back in their casinos these days :> ) .......DaveB

It's crossed my mind...

Trying too hard?

I don’t disagree with the author’s basic premise – that it’s so easy to overlook cultural influences in our efforts to model other things.  Looking at it another way, if we model from photographs and other reference material, including the full picture becomes easier and more natural.  We may thus incorporate all those references without thinking of them as such.

I wonder how appropriate some of the cultural references in the column would really be as modeling subjects.  For example, the author states he’s yet to see a model of a pueblo with a kiva (I actually have, as a member of a local modular club has built such a model, and did a nice job on it as well).  One bothersome aspect of the column was that the author referred to a kiva as an outdoor oven for baking bread.  It's a space, usually underground and circular in shape, used for religious purposes, not an oven http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva. (*EDIT* In another thread Kevin R. pointed out that there is in fact something called a "kiva oven," but still in common usage kiva by itself refers to a ceremonial chamber.)  I’ve traveled a lot around the southwest, and have yet to see a pueblo within “modeling distance” from the tracks.  Grain elevator, grocery warehouse, power plant, coal loader, oil refinery, sure.  Pueblo?  Not so much.  Including one may just seem overly forced.

Overly forced or modeler's licence?

Well, there's "overly forced" and there's modeler's license. For example, I don't see a lot of trailer houses with a toilet flower pot in the front yard next to the tracks either, but Rick's "Buck and Loretta's place" has been modeled using modeler's license. It's at least plausible, maybe somewhat stereotype, but it's certainly colorful "modern hillbillie" modeling.

Treated this way, some of the things the author mentions in this column could be done under the guise of "modeler's license".

There's also selective compression. If we want a house or cabin next to the tracks, we will use selective compression to make it work in the scene, even though we're actually "pushing it" for things to be that close to the tracks. I can see that applying as well.

A few more thoughts...

Potty Planters

“I don't see a lot of trailer houses with a toilet flower pot in the front yard next to the tracks either, but Rick's "Buck and Loretta's place" has been modeled using modeler's license.”

You just might need to get out more!  In my previous neighborhood, my neighbors had just such a planter.  In my current location, there’s a plumbing business a couple blocks away and they have one too.  That kind of detail is quite common outside the south.  How many of these are right by the tracks?  I don’t know, so I get your point about including one via modeler’s license, although as details go it's not much of a stretch.

When I want diversity....

and even when I don't, I do things like:

1. Talk to my Latina wife.

2. Visit my daughter and her husband, who's of Filipino extraction.

3. Visit the younger of my 2  sisters and her kids  (whose father is African-American).

4. Remember my late Aunt Florence, who was (to use an obsolete term) a "full-blooded" Cherokee.

5. Go to family gatherings.

6. Talk to or visit my gay brother (I asked, he told, I really don't care).

There is a point where cultural "sensitivity" crosses the line and becomes nothing more than an affectation, a way of waving one's arms and screaming "Look at me, I'm culturally aware and OK with diversity". This article demonstrates the crossing of that line.

Incidentally, the architecture of LA Union Station is a combination of  Spanish Colonial and Art Deco and owes nothing to any Native American architectural style. If you're going to use examples, get them right, as Rob Spangler pointed out with the kiva.

Mike

The Greatest Generation!

The WWII era,

My father fought in the Pacific theater. I believe the depression and the war combined to create a unique, strong, and unified generation of people. Not perfect, but surely to be admired. I would like to recreate a little of that industrious, driven and resourceful culture in HO scale.

More color WWII culture can be seen here:  http://www.shorpy.com/Large_Format_Kodachromes

Regards, John ***************************************

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. <> Thomas Paine

Scenery/vegetation as important as buildings.

One of my pet peeves in modeling is the tendency to model generic, one size fits all scenery, geology, and vegetation.  If you are modeling the East Coast, the sort of rugged mountains found in the West would be out of place.   The same goes for desert scenery in New England.  On the other hand, if you are modeling the Southwest, the climate will be dry with appropriate vegetation.  In the Pacific Northwest depending on whether you are modeling East or West of the Cascade range will depend on whether you model dense forests or dry desert like conditions.

I've spent a lot of time considering just this

Modeling south Louisiana calls for cultural considerations, just as it calls for Spanish moss in oak trees and bald cypress in swamps.  Aside from the touches of Cajun French culture in place names and businesses, African Americans make up an important and visible part of the population, and creating convincing modeling scenes in my view requires placing African Americans in places and jobs where I grew up seeing them.  Sometimes that means running the refinery - sometimes it means hanging at the corner grocery.  Mostly it means a lot of hand painted figures since African Americans aren't well represented in pre-produced figures in N scale.

I've also had to have similar considerations for Asian Americans - there's a sizable Vietnamese contingent in south Louisiana, and so a business or two need Vietnamese names, etc.  Figures are easier (I don't do faces), but still require work.

What cultural sensitivity on a model railroad REALLY takes, IMHO, is a willingness to see the world as it actually is, not as we want it to be. FWIW, I find model railroaders are slightly better at that then average folks - must be our desire to successfully reproduce our world in miniature.

I live in AZ.....

I live in AZ near the old SP Sunset Route. In the last 5 years, I have discovered that most of the depots out here were standard SP depots with the exception of the second Casa Grande Depot, which was art deco....not much Mexican (even though it was once Mexico) or Native American influence there....On the AT&SF, the Williams depot would fit in a major Eastern metro area, the Grand Canyon Depot looks like a hunting lodge in Montana and the Flagstaff depot looks like it could be in the Alps

One Prototype

(I) have yet to see a pueblo within “modeling distance” from the tracks.

Take a drive along US 160 from Tuba City to Kayente AZ. You will be treated to a view of the Black Mesa and Lake Powell railroad, and electrified line that moves coal from the black mesa mine (the highway runs under the conveyor) to the Navajo power station. There are several small communities along the way, some of which sport a mix of traditional and new style architecture.

pqe

What about the negros?

Ere anybody gets upset, please understand that I have used that word very deliberately.

I model rural Virginia in 1940 (except on days when I consider moving my era even earlier, making the "problem" even worse), and there is simply no avoiding the fact that in that time and place, some people were not treated as well as they are today.  Things like Jim Crow cars, separate waiting rooms for White and Colored (or Negro), poverty, inequality, etc. were integral parts of life in that time and place.  No matter what I think of them personally, to ignore them would be like running a GP60 with an intermodal train on the layout.  It doesn't mean I have to glorify it, but I don't think it's right to ignore it either.  I haven't seen many people model racism as it existed in that era, and I've sometimes wondered why.

Outdoor adobe-like rounded-top ovens

Are referred to as "hornos" (sing. "horno") - a Spanish/Native American device (pronounced with a "silent" h).

Add this comment, if you like, to the discussion of the usage of the word kiva as discussed in the soft release thread.

I hope this will clarify the object and word usage - I apologize if this has already been clarified elsewhere.

Hey, I know that place

I've been through that area recently - took US 163 through Monument Valley and turned the other way at Kayenta (east toward New Mexico).  Maybe I'm being obstinate about what constitutes a "pueblo," as I'm considering it to be a specific kind of thing.  A few traditional Navajo dwellings (hogans) do indeed appear close to rail lines like the old AT&SF through AZ and NM, as well as the BM&LP, but actual pueblos like the ones on the Hopi mesas or others officially considered to belong to "Pueblo people" (e.g. the 21 federally recognized pueblos) aren't interchangeable with them.  Perhaps the author was intending a generic use of the term for a dwelling.  Having traditional architecture doesn't make something a pueblo.

The author's sloppy application of terms ...

... is the root of many of the problems when folks try to include 'culture' that they really have little or no knowledge of; this just irritates and occasionally offends those who do.

...

It's more common than you may believe...trailers with old commodes in the garden or on the porch, that is.  And trailers along the tracks isn't that uncommon either, it's low value real estate.  There's no real stretch there in the slightest.  In the end, it's not a color, it's a class...and it's a lot easier to model class than it is to model color...

That'll light em up...if there's anything that gets them heated, its when you start using generic terms...

I should note that I was educated through a modern university, drawing from a number of grants and scholarships that primarily target minority students, my minority being low income and first generation college.  In other words, even in my masters program, my college had a very minority driven program, and a number of students were there because of that program.  I gave me an insight I didn't have going in, and regardless of how I feel about it, I know how they feel about it.  And that changes things.

Let's say you do model a dwelling, and you go ahead and put markings on the walls because that's how you've been led to think.  Without knowing what those marks mean, and just throwing them around, it could be the equivalent of painting a swastika on the side of the wall.  We know what a swastika means.  Do you know what those markings mean?

It's for this reason I refuse to model graffiti.  I don't know what it means or who it belongs to, or which group is being advertised by that tag.  No matter how simple it looks, I know it may not mean what I think it does.  The same goes for tattoos.  The Bulldog, for instance, some may think it stands for Fresno State.  what most people don't know is that the Bulldogs are a gang 4000-5000 strong in Fresno California; the bulldog is their identification tattoo.

I ultimately don't think it's important to determine what color or creed lives or works in the different houses and industries on my layout.  On my layout, everyone is just people, and the people who live in that house could be any color of the rainbow.  My cotton fields are picked by combines, driven by any color or creed, but all you see, is cotton fields.  There doesn't have to be anyone in them.  If you model the reservation, you may indeed incorporate visual elements for that particular reservation into your model, but it requires a level of research above and beyond any prototype modeling any of us may have done elsewhere.

I understand we like to think of our hobby in an important role first and as a past time second - as in, we're preserving history, or illustrating history, or remembering history.  The fact of the matter is, the general public sees us first and foremost as playing around, playing trains, and as such, presenting things we like.  They are not going to see it as a representation of 1878, they're going to see it as "the builder is racist!"  For some, remembering history is not necessarily a history they want to remember,or a history we should remember for anything more than "we shouldn't have done it then, and we shall only remember to never do it again."

As a modeler, you have the license to model the world as you want it to be and not merely accept to see the world as people think it actually is.  My goal is a layout of a time and place anyone would want to go back to, one that looks like it's a nice place to live no matter who you are [or at least, equally rough for everybody].

Modeling as it is / was

Unfortunately, we are also at the mercy of our suppliers, unless you want to hand paint or modify figures.

"but it requires a level of research above and beyond "

That the great thing about modeling the modern scene. One can just go to google street view and copy what we see, it's all visual, no research into the whys or wherefore's needed. If you want a reservation near the tracks find one and copy the view, if you can't find one then it's probably not a good idea.......DaveB

Simplicity

I just do my best to model what was actually there.  About the only cultural signs present are that, as a very general rule, you'll see more new-ish vehicles as you move further from the tracks, just as in real life.

back to the old Swastika....

it not always means what you think. Until 1942, they were EVERYWHERE in the State of Arizona, thanks to the Native American population that viewed it as a  peaceful symbol.....IF I was modeling pre-war Arizona, I would have them

Swastika

I didn't know until a year or so ago that the swastika was seen as a positive symbol prior to WWII.  See  http://reclaimtheswastika.com/ .  At least some cultures viewed it as four L's, standing for life, light, luck, and love.