What can you surmise about the relationship between the priests and the Native Americans, or the police and the inhabitants of Watts?
History of California: The Watts Riots of 1965
Primary sources do not speak for themselves. They must be analyzed and interpreted.
Here are some basic questions to ask yourself when first encountering a primary source.
Who wrote it? (What do we know, or can we guess about the author?)
Why was it written? (To convince, to entertain, to educate, to fool?)
Who is the intended audience? (What do you know about this audience?)
Analytical questions:
When was it written? (What is the historical context?)
What do some the authors imply without saying? (Assumptions about Indians, assumptions about the African American community, etc.).
What sort of narratives do the sources seem to back up?
What kind of stereotypes do you see in the document?
Some of the sources are sympathetic. But are they respectful? Why or why not?
What can you surmise about the relationship between the priests and the Native Americans, or the police and the inhabitants of Watts?
Can you ever spot the ‘voice’ within these sources, even when it is not the narrator doing the talking? (For example, what might you learn about the Native American point of view when non-Indians are the narrators)?
How is the tone different in the later documents than in the earlier ones?
For example, after the red power movement in the 1970s, there are different views about Father Serra (see later articles about controversy over Serra’s sainthood).
A Watts Riot example might be what we have learned (or not learned) about Watts after the Rodney King Riots 30 years later. Did History repeat?
Discuss other observations you made from these sources. What do they reveal?