Stonewall: Changing How We View History

by Thy Pham

The GLBT Historical Society grants an annual Young Scholar Award to the best LGBTQ project in the California competition for National History Day. This year’s winner is Thy Pham, who created a documentary about the Stonewall Riots during her junior year at Menlo Atherton High School. Here, she explains her choices in creating the documentary, which can be viewed here.

History has always been my favorite subject in school, so choosing a topic for my National History Day project was a difficult choice, but I ultimately settled for the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. The 50th anniversary of Stonewall took place in 2019, and I felt like the memories, stories and importance of Stonewall were more prevalent than ever. 

I’ve always heard the name “Stonewall Riots,” but didn’t learn about it in my 8th grade U.S. history class and it wasn’t until the second semester of AP U.S. History that Stonewall was mentioned. There is a lot of material about Stonewall, but I focused on how we teach this historical moment, how we talk about it and more importantly, how we remember it, since it seemed like the details of Stonewall are contested and ambiguous.

Similar Patterns

An objective with National History Day is making historical situations relevant to the present. When I did my research about Stonewall, I realized that there are eerily similar patterns in how social media, traditional media and the government depict social movements today. As I was doing my research, the nationwide call for justice in the wake of the George Floyd murder was taking place and Black Lives Matter protests were gathering strength. Witnessing how the media portrayed this fight for African American rights made me realize how important communicating the narratives and purpose of social movements can be.

I realized that the Stonewall Uprising presents an example of how the words of the press can distort the views of social movements (even today, Stonewall can be called an “uprising” or “riots,” but I think the choice of what term to use does have distinct connotations and emphasis…). There’s been a repeated cycle of intentionally mislabeling movements for social justice.

Overall, I wanted my project to honor the trials and tribulations of the LGBTQ community. Focusing on Stonewall was a way to illustrate a bigger point. In doing my research, I realized and learned something that will always change my view of history: that we have to be precise and be mindful of both the present and the future when we talk about historical events.

Thy Pham won the Young Scholar Award for best LGBTQ project in the 2021 California History Day competition. She is an upcoming senior at Menlo Atherton High School.