Ancrage et héritage

This legacy is also prominent through the construction for the preservation of a memorial heritage, passed on from one generation to another, a beacon of knowledge whose aim is to enlighten the world, with architecture, culture, art or nature The preservation of the great national parks in the USA like Yellowstone for example, are part of the heritage that needs to be kept intact in order to show to the future populations the grandeur of a nation and the beauty of a country; that is why the park rangers were created.
Furthermore, in the United Kingdom, organizations like the National Trust still exist, and commemoration days like the Poppy Day are preserved. They are landmarks, or milestones in the History and the culture of a country. It is even more important for the immigrant communities as it helps them maintain a link with their homeland while enriching the culture of the country hosting them. This is what we can find in events like the Notting Hill Festival in London. It celebrates and illustrates multiculturalism in the UK. We can refer to Columbus Day in the US that is quite controversial because it only shows one aspect of the American culture while putting aside another, that of the natives and their longing to have their Indigenous Day. Through the celebration of their origins, we can frankly wonder if the idea of multiculturalism is at stake in the UK and in the USA.

Besides, this celebration can go beyond a simple claim and can rapidly become a fight, a struggle to defend a territory or a border or to preserve a threatened heritage or culture as is the case with Native populations or minorities. In fact, the Stolen Generation in Australia greatly harmed the Aborigine culture. White people had indeed orchestrated an organized abduction, consisting in taking the Aborigine children away from their families to place them in white institutions with the aim of assimilating and converting them to Christianize: it was a way to "whiten" them and to make this native population disappear. The same happened with other native populations, such as the Maoris in New Zealand, the Native Americans in the USA, the Inuit in Greenland and in Canada, for whom the respect of their cultural and environmental heritage is a question of survival.
Closer to us, the fight between Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland concerning their border and their territories is quite symptomatic of this notion of cultural anchoring. The period of the Troubles has indeed marked the landscape and the spirits of many Irish men and women since each one of them had a member of their family touched, wounded or even killed during this conflict for the reunification of the two Irelands. Songs like Bloody Sunday by U2 or Zombie by the Cranberries or even Nothing compares by Sinead O'Connor are examples of the mounting tension between the protestants and the Catholics, a tension that is still perceptible nowadays. It has become a matter of pride and territory and neither side wants to retreat since it would mean the end of their dreams and the end of their identity.

The identification of a territory is essential for many artists or writers who spend much of their time and career representing their homeland, their mother country, whether to praise it through odes and eulogies or to give a nostalgic if not critical vision. For instance, Willa Cather in My Antonia relates the toughness and the determination of pioneers and the nostalgia linked to this past. It is the story of a young orphan, Jim Burden (Burden like having a weight on his shoulders) who goes to live in the great plains of Nebraska with his grandparents. Once there, he meets the elder daughter of a Czech family, Antonia and the novel follows the life of these two characters while describing the way America was built by the first immigrants and pioneers.