The St. Louis Arch: A “Spiritual” Project Born Out of White Supremacist Impulses

When I was in eighth grade, I moved from a suburb of Chicago, Illinois to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. My siblings and I made jokes about cows and cornfields as we drove six hours southwest across man-made state lines. The farmed landscape blurred as we sped down the highway, our thoughts never lingering on the fact that we are colonizers traveling to Osage, Miami, and Očeti Šakówiŋ (Sioux) territories about to move into a house that sits on land that is not ours.

My parents made sure that one of the first things we did as a family was visit the 630 foot steel arch that stands on the west bank of the Mnisose, (the Mississippi River). A memorial of westward expansion, the St. Louis Arch stands with the intention of honoring Thomas Jefferson and the maneuvering of pioneers, hunters, trappers, frontiersman — all “dedicated patriots” who built the nation we see today. This old-timey, nostalgic, prideful narrative is what was instilled in me throughout public school. It infiltrates the way I was taught to imagine our family’s Irish and German immigrant past, how we connect with each other during 4th of July parties, and how we sit down for Thanksgiving. It informs our performance of “giving thanks.” Growing up, our conversations didn’t acknowledge that we are on stolen land and that Turtle Island is the true…