Selective Remembrance: Narratives of Ethnic Reconfiguration and Spatial Displacement in the Life of Queho, 1880s-1940

Abstract

Social memories and collective representations act as vehicles for configuring, legitimizing, and sustaining particular constructs of knowledge and power in the world of lived relations, while simultaneously marginalizing or negating others. This paper explores constancy and change in popular and official histories of a Southern Paiute man who lived in southern Nevada from the 1880s-1940. Accused of killing between seven and thirty people between 1910 and 1940, Queho became the center of multiple historical accounts written over the course of one hundred years. This diachronic analysis highlights the continuous reconfiguration of Queho's ethnicity and place of origin followed by a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of reconstructing these social memories.