History in the Making
by Anna Cannon
For most people, history is something to be studied. It’s something to be preserved in the pages of a textbook, to be displayed behind glass in a museum. Most people’s definition of history means it isn’t something that they can take part in, much less create.
For Craig and Zoe Nakashian, life revolves around history. Craig teaches the history preserved in textbooks, and Zoe takes care of the history displayed in museums, but their definition of history is broader than that. They’re creating the history of their family, and they’re leaving their mark on the history of their town.
The Nakashians moved to Texarkana from Rochester, New York. Their son, Meran, is 10, and their daughter, Pelin, is 6. Both children go to Pleasant Grove Independent School District. Dr. Craig Nakashian is an associate professor of history at Texas A&M – Texarkana, focusing on medieval studies, and Zoe works for the Texarkana Museums System, based at the Ace of Clubs House.
Craig earned his bachelor’s degree from Western New England University and his master’s degree from the University of Durham in Britain, where he met Zoe. His Ph.D. is from the University of Rochester, in upstate New York.
“I always liked history, and when I went to university, I really enjoyed it. I’m very enthusiastic about it, which isn’t something that’s often said about medieval studies and history, and I wanted to share it with people,” Craig said. “From there, I got on the train of ever-increasing credentials and luckily got a job. I enjoy the research part of it, for sure, but I really enjoy the teaching part.”
One of Craig’s guiding philosophies is the fact that our understanding of history isn’t set in stone; much of history is questioned, and he enjoys showing students that they are in control of how they perceive history.
“My favorite thing about teaching is getting students to understand how history is constructed,” Craig said, “breaking them out of this idea that history is a black and white series of events, and getting an understanding that we create a lot of how we perceive history, and showing them that they can do that, too. History is a contested space, so they don’t like that always. As boring as they find high school history with its multiple-choice, true-false, all that standardized testing junk, it’s comforting. My attempt to liberate them from that is not always met with great excitement, but once they get it, they enjoy it, I think, because it means that they can take control of how they understand history.”
Many of Craig’s students have trouble with the fact that we don’t know for sure how much of medieval history is true and how much is legend.
“I remember when I was in Rochester doing a continuing education course and there was a newspaper woman sitting in on one of the [classes]. She came away really disheartened to find out that King Arthur might not have been real,” Craig said. “I told her, ‘Well, I don’t know, he might have been real.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Wait, you’re a historian. Was he or wasn’t he?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’” Craig continued, “To paraphrase medieval historian Susan Reynolds: we’re never going to get history right; we’re just trying to get it less wrong.”
Zoe has a bachelor’s degree in archaeology and a master’s degree in conservation from the University of Durham, in Northeast England. She worked as a conservator in the UK before moving to the United States with Craig.
“I did an undergraduate in archaeology, but in the UK, all the archaeology jobs are generally short, six-week contracts sitting outside in the middle of winter digging a hole. It’s all rescue archaeology because, whenever they build something in the UK, they have to do an archaeological survey before that,” Zoe said. “I decided not to go into that field, so I went into object conservation. All the objects that they’d dig up would go to a conservator, and we turn it into something that is museum quality.”
At the Ace of Clubs House, Zoe is in charge of organizing the events that take place every third Saturday, keeping an eye on the artifacts, and doing a small amount of object conservation.
“I just do anything that crops up really,” Zoe said. “It’s nice to do what I was trained for. I like the variability of it; one day you’re doing this, and one day you’re doing that. It’s never the same.”
Zoe was a Girl Guide—Britain’s equivalent of the Girl Scouts—from ages 7 to 18 and became a leader after she turned 18. When Meran was old enough to join Cub Scouts, Zoe became his troop leader and then the cub master of his den. When Pelin was old enough to join Girl Scouts, Zoe became her troop leader as well.
“I remember one time when we were out at the Boy Scout campground Preston Hunt when the boys were quite small, and one of the boys said to me, ‘Do all the snakes here have collars on them?’ I said, ‘What?’ and he said, ‘Do they wear the little collars that have the electric shock that shocks them if they come too near the camp?”’ Zoe laughed. “I said, ‘No, I’m afraid not.’”
Zoe works part-time at the museum and is always off in time to pick up the kids from school, and Craig has a degree of flexibility in his schedule that he wouldn’t have with a traditional job.
“One advantage of being a professor is that you do have some flexibility in your schedule, but the downside is that you’re always kind of working,” Craig said. “There are times that you’re actually having to work, meaning being in the office or being in class, but when you’re not doing that, you’re usually doing something job-related. When I was working on my book, there were a lot of times when it [work] would come home. Academics don’t understand professional boundaries; we don’t have any idea of what it means because it’s who we are. It’s a love as well as a profession. In that regard it’s fine, because you can be home a lot, but on the other hand, it’s always coming home with you.”
Zoe’s family still lives in England, so the Nakashians travel to England every so often in order to go visit them and show their kids what it’s like in a different country.
“I’d like to say I use going to England as an opportunity to do research, but I don’t,” Craig said. “I take pictures of historic sites that I can use in class, but it’s more of an opportunity to go see Zoe’s family, introduce the kids to a different country, and take them around as many castles as we can. It’d be hard to do if I worked a traditional, 9-5 job.”
Since the rest of their family is so far away, Meran and Pelin don’t get to see their grandparents very often. However, since they’re not used to having their grandparents down the street, “their ignorance protects them,” Zoe laughed.
“When we lived in Rochester in upstate New York, I was really jealous of our neighbors because their kids would go over to their grandparents’ house for sleepovers or for the weekend, and we never had that. We’re not used to it,” Zoe said. “With the university, there’s a whole bunch of people who don’t have family in the area, so we basically become each other’s family.”
“For Thanksgiving, for instance, it’s generally my colleagues who don’t have family in the area who will come over, whereas for me growing up, it was my aunts and uncles,” Craig said.
Meran and Pelin don’t have any serious career aspirations yet, but Zoe and Craig aren’t too worried. Their hopes for their kids’ futures are simple: they want them to be content with how their lives turn out, and they want them to be people who make the world a bit of a better place.
“I think our main hope is that they’re happy, which is, you know, highly ambitious of me,” Zoe said. “Pelin’s dream at the moment is to be a cat, and Meran wants to be a YouTuber, but I told him that’s probably not going to be around in 20 years. We don’t have any requirements of, ‘You have to go to university.’ That will be their choice, because not everyone has to go to university. We want them to be happy and nice, someone people want to be with, and be open-minded to all kinds of people.”
