Though I didn’t know this when the term began, it turns out this was my last semester in New York. I’m finishing up my dissertation and packing up my life to move to the west coast, to the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Having spent my grad school years in London and New York–two cities overcrowded with both people and history–I am now preparing for my first job as a full-time faculty member at Western Washington University, in Bellingham, Washington, which is north of Seattle, near the Canadian border. While I’m excited to be returning to the PNW (where I’m from originally), I’m still getting used to the idea of leaving big city life behind and making my home in a college town of 80,000 people.

If I just look on the surface level, I feel like I’m losing a lot in the move: Bellingham has few galleries, few theaters–its restaurants have nothing on New York’s. However, when I look at the two locations through the kind of historical lens you’ve been cultivating in this seminar 2 course, Bellingham has some interesting selling points. It made its reputation as a town during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the lumber industry made a fortune on the region’s natural timber resources. Bellingham’s ports and mills brought bustling economy, but also a mix of immigrant populations. This wealth helped establish a cultured city core, which is where the university is. All of the land in town was formerly part of the Lummi Nation, which extended throughout the Puget Sound, clear across the current Canadian border. The Lummi reservation remains an important cultural hub in the region. I haven’t yet scratched the surface on the historical forces that have shaped this community, but I’m looking forward to finding out more.

Thanks for your eager work, and for including me in your experiments this semester. This website has turned out to be vibrant and complex–just like you all. Congratulations on a successful semester.

Andrew L, Instructional Technology Fellow