Wow, excellent insight, and beautifully stated. Of course these people are contextual individuals with their own lives, stories, and perspectives. But they are also products and symbols of our exceptionalist, imperialist, American myth…er…”history”. The power and cultural truth of that symbol is entirely independent of the subjects’ awareness or intentions, whatever, and however valid, they might be. The general and the specific are not mutually exclusive. Thank you, Jackrabbit.