Imperialism
The United States Takes Up the White Man’s Burden
". . . to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them," – W. McKinley
MALEVOLENT ASSIMILATION
In 1999, Joseph Ileto, a Filipino American postal worker was gunned down in a Los Angeles
suburb by an admitted white supremacist. Racial violence in contemporary America is usually
not as deadly, but nonetheless perpetuated in both explicit and subtle ways. Like other peoples
of color, Filipinos have faced cross burnings in their front yards, been denied service at
restaurants, limited in their upward mobility at workplaces, and rendered invisible as a
community. These experiences and the fifty-year struggle for equity by Filipino veterans of WWII
are indicative of a racist sensibility that was developed over a century of subjugating a people to
American imperialist demands.
The beginnings of that subjugation are artfully portrayed in our centerpiece picture. President
McKinley holds the brush of education, as he is about to bathe a black Filipino child in the
waters of civilization. The Filipino, however, with spear tightly in hand, resists McKinley's
attempt at "ethnic cleansing."
By the time this political cartoon was published by Judge magazine in June 1899, Spain had
already sold the Philippines to the US for $20 million under the terms of the 1899 Treaty of
Paris, and the Spanish American War was officially over.
Symbolized in this cartoon of the black Filipino's refusal
to be "bathed" is the Philippine's resistance to American
colonial rule. A year before this cartoon was published;
the Philippines was declared an independent nation by
the revolutionary forces under General Emilio Aguinaldo.
Most of the country had already been liberated from
Spanish rule when the United States imposed its
expansionist agenda on the new republic. The Philippine
Revolution was thus forced to continue its pursuit for
national independence in the Philippine American War.
What to the United States was only an "insurgency"
required the deployment of 126,000 US troops, and took
the lives of anywhere from 250,000 to a million people,
the vast majority Filipino. Although the Philippine
American War was officially declared to have ended in
1902, fighting continued well beyond the first decade of
the century.
The "Filipino's First Bath" - in their own blood - was
America's baptism as an imperialist colonial power in the
Pacific. In this rite of passage, the United States
deployed two armies - soldiers and teachers - to quell
resistance and instill in the Filipino a "captive mind."
A fierce national debate ensued in this country between pro- and anti-imperialists that became
the subject of political campaigns and media editorials. In most publications, as represented in
the samples in this exhibit, Filipinos were presented to the American public as dark skinned
savages. These portrayals were intended to project Filipinos and non-whites in general, as
inferior beings within the racialized milieu of US society.
Filipinos were portrayed as diminutive (slaves) (pickanninies) or wild beasts - images that were
associated with blackness. These depictions were intended to vilify Filipinos as the enemy much like Japanese, Vietnamese, and Arab peoples were demonized during the most recent
wars. What Americans saw in pictures was reinforced by a racist language that labeled Filipinos
as "gugus", "niggers", and "monkey," and by the promotional hard sell of world fairs, such as the
1904 St. Louis World Fair, that displayed Filipinos along with other native peoples from other
countries as uncivilized beings.
By the 1920's, the collective mind of the general public was established in its belief in the
subservient status of the Filipino. Thus, the first large group of Filipino immigrants into the
United States was confronted with institutionalized racism that prohibited marriage with whites,
barred residence in white neighborhoods, and ultimately restricted immigration from the
Philippines.
Meanwhile, the United States set up a colonial arrangement with the help of Filipino elites that
allowed US corporations unlimited access to Philippine natural resources such as timber and
minerals, and control of major industries. They created a market in the islands for American
surplus products, installed the largest military bases outside the US, and exploited Filipinos as a
pool of cheap labor for US businesses and the military. Note the mass migration of contract
workers recruited to work in the fields of Hawaii and California in the 1920's and '30's, and the
mass recruitment of Filipinos in the US and the Philippines into the American military during
WWII.
Over the past 100 years, like the black Filipino child who resisted McKinley's bath, Filipinos
have continuously fought back against all forms of injustices. Among the Filipinos in the US, this
was evident in the manong generation that fought for decent wages in the 1920's and decent
housing in the 1970's in struggles like the I-Hotel. It was evident in the aftermath of Joseph
Ileto's death as his family and community activists spoke out against hate violence. And it is
evident today among the Filipino veterans struggling for equity, among students supporting
affirmative action, and among young activists demanding the toxics cleanup of former US bases
in the Philippines. These are the legacies of the "Filipino's first bath" in waters of civilization that
were evidently polluted with racism.
We chose the month of June for this exhibit because of its historical significance for both African
Americans and Filipinos. On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation; and
on June 12, 1898, Filipinos declared their independence from Spain. Our separate histories are
filled with many stories of struggles for justice. Now and then, the stories converge as it did in
the Philippine American War when David Fagin and other African American soldiers joined the
Filipino revolutionary forces to protect a fledgling republic from US domination. Their example
foreshadowed the kind of inter-racial cooperation that became necessary for future generations
to forge in the resistance against racism.
MANIFEST DESTINY
A popular concept since the U.S.-Mexican War ear in the mid-1840's, "manifest destiny" was the
belief that the white race was divinely ordained to spread westward to the Pacific shores,
bringing government, economic prosperity, and Christianity to the continent. Fueled by the
successes of
industrialization, the
United States
pursued an
aggressive policy of
expansion through
territorial purchase,
land grants,
homesteads, and
military campaigns.
By the late 1890's,
the desire of big
business for foreign
markets and
sources of raw
materials whetted
the appetite for
territorial expansion
overseas. With the
demise of the Spanish empire came the opportunity to acquire colonies abroad, fulfilling
American
industry's craving for new sources of wealth through the creation of a global empire.
Expansionist sentiment was further aroused by commercial rivalry with other imperialist powers.
The pro-imperialists saw the United States as the inheritor of the "white man's burden." As one
cartoonists expressed it: "There was once an old 'Yank' who lives in a shoe/covered all over
with red, white, and blue/His family is large and still growing bigger/The result of good work in
snapping the trigger."
CONQUEST AND COMMERCE
The war with Spain in 1898, highlighted by Commodore George Dewey's dramatic defeat of the
Spanish armada at Manila Bay on May 1, was the road to American overseas expansion and
conquest. Initially, many believed that the Spanish-American War was to help Cubans free
themselves from Spanish rule. On December 10, 1898, the U.S. forced a defeated Spain to
transfer control of Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the United States through
the Treaty of Paris. Around that time, the U.S. also added Hawaii and Samoa among its colonial
possessions. The United States had joined the ranks of imperialist powers such as England,
Germany, and France in carving up the globe.
While many Americans led by the anti-expansionists opposed the colonial conquest of the
Philippines, others argued that expansion was necessary for commerce and the capture of foreign
markets for U.S. surplus products. Senator Albert Beveridge's speech in Congress in 1900 was a
rallying cry for U.S. imperialism: "The Philippines are ours forever.... And just beyond the Philippines
are China's illimitable markets.... Our largest trade henceforth must be with Asia. The Pacific is our
ocean.... The Philippines gives us a base at the door of all the East."
Pointing to a map on his wall, President William McKinley declared: "I sent for the chief engineer
of the War Department and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States ...
and there they will stay...."
EDUCATE, CIVILIZE AND CHRISTIANIZE THEM
On June 12, 1898, the Philippine flag was first unfurled as Philippine independence was
proclaimed before thousands of victorious Filipinos. By November, the Philippine Constitution
was ratified, creating an executive branch, a representative assembly, and judiciary. Then came
the election of a president and the
dispatching of diplomatic representatives
around the world. The creation of the first
republic in Southeast Asia was cut short in
February 1899 by the Philippine-American
War.
When President William McKinley told a
delegation of church leaders that God had
counseled him to annex the Philippines and
"to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and
civilize and Christianize them," few
Americans knew that the Philippines had an
educational system older than that of the
United States and that the majority of
Filipinos were Catholic. McKinley's depiction
of Filipinos as uncivilized pagans played on
prevalent racist sentiments and served to
justify an unpopular war. One commonly held
view ranked peoples of the world into four
grades of culture -- savagery, barbarism,
civilization, and enlightenment. In this
hierarchy, white America was the pinnacle of
enlightenment while Filipinos belonged to the
two lowest levels of culture and therefore
incapable of self-government.
Senator Albert Beveridge in a famous Senate
speech referred to Filipinos as "a barbarous
race" of children incapable of even understanding "Anglo-Saxon self-government" adding:
"[God] has marked the American people as his chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration
of the world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit..." The first
American teachers introduced English into hundreds of schools already in existence at that time
but the myth that the U.S. brought the school to the Philippines remains to this day. American
education became a tool for pacification and assimilation into the U.S. colonial system.
"SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE 'FILIPINO' CHILD"
The McKinley administration aggressively promoted
the idea that Filipinos were children incapable of
governing themselves, thus justifying US
annexation of the Philippines. Filipino resistance to
U.S. sovereignty and the imposition of American
democratic institutions were proof of their childish
folly.
There were many examples of political
cartoons featuring Filipinos being spanked with the
shoe of the "US Army" or beaten with the rod of
"benevolent assimilation." One cartoon has "childlike" Aguinaldo caught between the rod of proimperialist Senator Albert Beveridge, and a candy
from the anti-imperialist Senator George Hoar.
President Theodore Roosevelt thought Filipinos
needed a good beating so they would become
"good Injuns." General Arthur MacArthur, head of
the US forces in the Philippines from 1900 to1901
and father of Douglas MacArthur, exclaimed that
Filipinos needed "bayonet treatment for at least a
decade."
KILLING NIGGERS AND RABBITS
The letters and diaries of U.S. soldiers who fought in the Philippine-American War reflected the
racist views fostered by
mainstream media. Pvt.
Humbleton of the
Washington regiment wrote
his brother: "Our fighting
blood was up, and we all
wanted to kill 'niggers.' This
shooting human beings is a
'hot game' and beats rabbit
hunting all to pieces." A.A.
Barnes of the Third Artillery
told his parents: "I am in my
glory when I can sight my
gun on some dark skin and
pull the trigger." Filipinos
were often called derogatory
terms such as "niggers" and
"gugus."
The Philippine-American War took place at a time when segregation was being written into
laws. A few years earlier, the Supreme Court approved the "separate but equal" doctrine in
Plessy vs. Ferguson. The hopes for racial justice and equality under post-civil war
reconstruction were dashed as African Americans were increasingly disenfranchised. Every
week, two to three southern blacks were lynched -- tortured and hanged or burned before
cheering white mobs. Many more were beaten in "nigger hunts." One saying went: "Kill a mule,
buy another; kill a nigger, hire another." Southern writers depicted the African American as "a
wild beast" and blacks were generally depicted in books, magazines, and popular advertisement
as buffoons, subhuman, ignorant, and immoral.
Six segregated regiments of African-American soldiers were sent to fight in the PhilippineAmerican War. While some felt that by demonstrating their loyalty they could improve the lot of
African Americans back home; others grew increasing critical of the war. Sgt. John Galloway of
the 24th Colored Infantry wrote: "The colored soldiers do not push [the Filipinos] off the streets,
spit at them, call them damned 'niggers,' abuse them in all manner of ways, and connect race
hatred with duty. The future of the Filipino, I fear, is that of the Negro in the south."
Filipino revolutionaries were aware of racial injustice in the American south. One leaflet
distributed by the guerrillas among the African-American soldiers mentioned the lynching of
Sam Hose, a black farmhand lynched in Newton, Georgia. On April 23,1899, Hose was chained
to a tree, mutilated, then burned in front of thousands of spectators; his remains were cut up
and sold as souvenirs. Many African American soldiers became sympathetic to the Filipino
cause and about a dozen changed sides and fought on the side of Filipino forces against U.S.
colonialism. One, David Fagin, was promoted to captain in the Philippine revolutionary army.
THE AUNTIES ARE COMING
The Philippine-American War took center stage
during the 1900 presidential election. The
Republican incumbent, William McKinley, ran as the
candidate for overseas expansion and big business.
His Democratic Party opponent, the populist
politician and orator, William Jennings Bryan, ran on
an anti-imperialist platform, opposing the war and
advocating for Philippine independence.
The anti-imperialist movement to protest the
Philippine American War and Philippine annexation
began in Massachusetts. On November 1898, the
Anti-Imperialist League was founded in Boston, and
spread across the country with major branches in
New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, and
other cities. Among the founders were suffragist and
Nobel laureate Jane Addams, labor leader Samuel
Gompers, former President Grover Cleveland, steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, reformer Ida
Wells Barnett, and Moorfield Storey, the first president of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Sexist and racist attitudes of the time were reflected in the jingoist clamor against the antiimperialists. The media depicted the "aunties," a term the anti-imperialists were derisively
called, as old women enamored with the "savage" Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo. Thus, to
oppose the war signaled a lack of manhood. Among the anti-imperialists feminized were William
Lloyd Garrison, son of a prominent abolitionist; Republican Senator Eugene Hale; former
Massachusetts governor George Boutwell, a friend of Abraham Lincoln and first president of the
Anti-Imperialist League; Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University; former senator and
Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz; journalist Joseph Pulitzer; Louisiana Senator Donelson
Caffery; E.L. Godkin, editor of The Nation; Missouri Senator George Vest; Alabama Senator
John Morgan; and Congressman Burke Cockran.
Ironically, some of the anti-expansionist included notorious racists such as Senator Benjamin
Tillman. Their opposition to Philippine annexation was motivated by a desire to exclude nonwhite immigrants to the United States, thereby preserving white racial purity.
The leading anti-imperialist and Massachusetts Senator George Hoar was among the most
vilified. In one cartoon he was portrayed as a black man which was intended as an insult. Mark
Twain (Samuel Clemens), America's preeminent writer and most famous anti-imperialist, was
pictured as a savage. Twain spoke passionately against the annexation of the Philippines and
was Vice-President of the Anti-Imperialist League from 1901 until his death in 1910. "We do not
intend to free but to subjugate the people of the Philippines," he wrote. "I am opposed to have
the eagle put its talons on any land."
HAYOP
A number of cartoonists drew Filipinos as various members of the animal kingdom: dogs,
snakes, frogs, mosquitoes, elephant, flies, and more. Artists made conscious choices to depict
Filipinos in trivialized or dehumanized form.
Underlying the animal depictions, however,
was a historical truth of Filipino resistance
to American imperialism: people fighting to
protect their territory against captivity, as
would any being, animal or otherwise.
Compared to portrayals of the imperial
powers like America's Uncle Sam or
Britain's John Bull, who were drawn in
human form, Filipinos and their struggle
were made unequal in political stature.
Opposing this view were a few artists who
humanized the Filipino in editorial cartoons
that exposed the uncivilized brutality of
imperialism.
OTHER NATIVE PEOPLES
Pro-imperialist media made no distinctions between the disparate cultures and ethnicities that
became subjects of the American empire. In their eyes, "our islands and their people" of Hawaii,
Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines were the same as Africans, Native Americans and Eskimos:
uncivilized pagans, savages, and heathens.
Some cartoonists were aware of the fate awaiting native peoples of the Pacific Islands. Through
the image of a Native
American, Filipinos were
warned, "Be good, or you will
be dead." In fact, many of the
officers and soldiers who fought
in the Philippine American War,
like Generals Adna Chaffee
and Jacob Smith, were
veterans of the Indian Wars.
"We had been taught that the
Filipinos were savages no
better than our Indians," wrote
one soldier. Ironically, General
Henry Lawton, who helped
capture Chief Geronimo of the
Apaches, was killed in 1899 by
Filipino troops under the
command of Filipino General
Lucerio Geronimo.
EMILIO AGUINALDO: A VILLAIN FOR ALL SEASONS
Emilio Aguinaldo, a leader of the revolutionary Katipunan against Spanish rule and later the first
president of the Philippine republic, became the recipient of the American cartoonists' wrath. In
the face of superior American firepower, Aguinaldo turned to guerrilla warfare, introducing the
United States to a form of armed conflict that it would face again in Vietnam.
Dozens of editorial cartoons vilified and demonized Aguinaldo for leading the Philippine armed
resistance against U.S. rule. He eluded capture until March 1901 when General Frederick
Funston masterminded his arrest by subterfuge.
Aguinaldo formally surrendered, swore allegiance to the United States, and urged his followers
to do the same. A year after his arrest, the US declared the Philippine American War to be over.
But Filipinos continued to fight well into the next decade. Aguinaldo died in 1964.
US WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLES OF MINDANAO
The Philippine American War is historically associated with the conflict between the US and the
Christianized Filipinos of Luzon and the Visayas. The United States, however, also fought in a
second front against the Moro people in Mindanao and Sulu Archipelago.
Like their brothers and sisters to the north, the Moro peoples were drawn by American
cartoonists in a stereotyped manner. Our sampling of cartoon depictions run the gamut from
bloodthirsty, "running amuck" savages to immoral polygamists.
The lone Judge cartoon in this section shows a valiant American soldier enduring fire from the
Moros and having to dodge the barbs of the anti-imperialist politicians unfairly criticizing their
conduct on the battlefields of the Philippines.
In fact, it was the Moros who risked death as they battled from their cottas or forts, which were
the targets of U.S. rapid fire from rifles, Gatling guns (an early type of machine gun) and
cannons. In the U.S., congressional investigations revealed many instances of atrocities and
tortures committed by U.S. Army troops.
GOVERNMENT BY CONSENT OR CONQUEST
For at least three years from late 1898 to
1902, the United States' incursion into the
Philippines was both the centerpiece of
American foreign policy and the headlining
subject of debate in the nation. President
McKinley voiced the side of conquest:
"Can we leave these people…to chaos
after we have destroyed the only
government they had?…(I)t is the duty of
American government to provide them a
better one…"
Imperialism's highpowered advocates included the likes of
then vice-president Theodore Roosevelt,
newspaper magnate William Randolph
Hearst, and Senator Albert J. Beveridge of
Indiana. To them the conquest of the
Philippines was the coming of age of
American global power. Anti-imperialists
on the other hand invoked the principle of
"government by consent," not conquest.
Lady Liberty became symbolic of a public
opinion that simultaneously supported the
Filipino cause for independence and
criticized corporate globalization: "Do I
represent the idea of popular
government…or am I simply a trademark
for goods of American trust
manufacturers?" On this side of the
debate were Senator William Jennings
Bryan, Mark Twain, suffragist Susan B. Anthony and prominent African American leaders like
the Reverend W. H. Scott and scholar-activist W.E.B. Dubois were among the national figures
who challenged the official policy of American expansionism across the Pacific.
FORBIDDEN BOOK
To the victor goes the privilege of writing history, the glorification of its conquests, and the
silencing of the conquered. The history of the Philippine American War is amassed in volumes
of newspaper accounts, military reports, government documents, autobiographies, biographies,
and letters by American soldiers. All, however, are part of a "forbidden book" buried in antique
collections, libraries, archives, vaults, and private drawers.
Forgetting was officially sanctioned so that a war that was at least 50 times more costly in
human lives than the Spanish-American War, could be relegated in American textbooks as only
an "insurgency."
A few late 19th century journalists and political cartoonists, however, managed to express
unpopular truths of massacres, tortures, pillaging, and wholesale destruction of villages. An
anonymous editorial cynically read, "We may have burned certain villages, destroyed
considerable property, and incidentally slaughtered a few thousand of their sons and brothers,
husbands and fathers, etc., but what did they expect? ….And they complain that drunken
American soldiers insult the native women. What did they expect from a drunken soldier
anyway?"
CARTOON IMAGES FROM PUCK, JUDGE AND LIFE
Many of these cartoons were taken from the pages of Puck, Judge and Life magazines.
These
three were among the most influential opinion makers of their day. Puck and Judge employed
color front cover and centerfold cartoons to opine on the issues of the day. Unlike Puck and
Judge, Life did not use color in its cartoons. All three magazines employed some of the best
artists of the day to draw for them.
Puck and Judge were generally supportive of President McKinley. They wholeheartedly backed
the U.S. war of conquest in the Philippines. In fact, at the time, Judge magazine was regarded
as propaganda vehicle for the Republican party.
Life magazine was one of the few published voices opposing U.S. imperial designs on the
Philippines. Its cartoonists drew cartoons extremely critical of the war and many were supportive
of the Filipino's aims of independence and freedom.
The history of the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) is largely forgotten today in the
Philippines and the United States. Forgetting was officially sanctioned; volumes of newspaper
accounts, military reports, government documents, autobiographies, biographies and letters by
American soldiers all became part of a "forbidden book" - so that a war that was at least 50
times more costly in human lives than the Spanish-American War was relegated in American
textbooks as only an "insurgency."
A few late 19th century journalists and political cartoonists, however, managed to express
unpopular truths of massacres, tortures, pillaging, and wholesale destruction of villages. An
anonymous editorial cynically read, "We may have burned certain villages, destroyed
considerable property, and incidentally slaughtered a few thousand of their sons and brothers,
husbands and fathers, etc., but what did they expect? ….And they complain that drunken
American soldiers insult the native women. What did they expect from a drunken soldier
anyway?"
In 1898, the Philippine Constitution was ratified, creating an executive branch, a representative
assembly, and judiciary. Then came the election of a president and the dispatching of diplomatic
representatives around the world. But the creation of the first republic in Southeast Asia was cut
short by the United States when it imposed its imperialist demands on the new republic. The
Philippine Revolution was thus forced to continue its pursuit for national independence in the
Philippine-American War. The Philippine-American War was also to become America's baptism
as an imperialist colonial power in the Pacific, and this expansionist agenda was met with fierce
resistance by Filipino Revolutionaries.
When President William McKinley told a delegation of church leaders that God had counseled
him to annex the Philippines and "to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and
Christianize them," few Americans knew that the Philippines had an educational system older
than that of the United States and that the majority of Filipinos were Catholic. McKinley's
depiction of Filipinos as uncivilized pagans played on prevalent racist sentiments and served to
justify an unpopular war. One commonly held view ranked peoples of the world into four grades
of culture -- savagery, barbarism, civilization, and enlightenment. In this hierarchy, white
America was the pinnacle of enlightenment while Filipinos belonged to the two lowest levels of
culture and therefore incapable of self-government.
Senator Albert Beveridge in a famous Senate speech referred to Filipinos as "a barbarous race"
of children incapable of even understanding "Anglo-Saxon self-government" adding: "[God] has
marked the American people as his chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the
world. This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for us all the profit..." The first
American teachers introduced English into hundreds of schools already in existence at that time
but the myth that the U.S. brought the school to the Philippines remains to this day. American
education became a tool for pacification and assimilation into the U.S. colonial system.
What to the United States was only an "insurgency" required the deployment of 126,000 U.S.
troops, and took the lives of anywhere from 250,000 to a million people, the vast majority
Filipino. Although the Philippine-American War was officially declared to have ended in 1902,
fighting continued well beyond the first decade of the century.
A fierce national debate ensued in the U.S. between pro- and anti-imperialists that became the
subject of political campaigns and media editorials. In most publications Filipinos were
presented to the American public as dark skinned savages. These portrayals were intended to
project Filipinos and non-whites in general, as inferior beings within the racialized milieu of U.S.
society. The imperialist cartoons appeared on the pages of Puck, Judge and Life magazines.
These three were among the most influential opinion makers of their day. All three magazines
employed some of the best artists of the day to draw for them. Puck and Judge were generally
supportive of President McKinley. They wholeheartedly backed the U.S. war of conquest in the
Philippines. In fact, at the time, Judge magazine was regarded as propaganda vehicle for the
Republican party.
In these cartoons, Filipinos were portrayed as diminutive (slaves) (pickanninies) or wild beasts images that were associated with blackness. These depictions were intended to vilify Filipinos
as the enemy - much like Japanese, Vietnamese, and Arab peoples were demonized during the
most recent wars. What Americans saw in pictures was reinforced by a racist language that
labeled Filipinos as "gugus", "niggers", and "monkey," and by the promotional hard sell of world
fairs, such as the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, that displayed Filipinos along with other native
peoples from other countries as uncivilized beings.
Meanwhile, the United States set up a colonial arrangement with the help of Filipino elites that
allowed US corporations unlimited access to Philippine natural resources such as timber and
minerals, and control of major industries. They created a market in the islands for American
surplus products, installed the largest military bases outside the US, and exploited Filipinos as a
pool of cheap labor for US businesses and the military. Note the mass migration of contract
workers recruited to work in the fields of Hawaii and California in the 1920's and '30's, and the
mass recruitment of Filipinos in the US and the Philippines into the American military during
WWII.
While many Americans led by the anti-expansionists opposed the colonial conquest of the
Philippines, others argued that expansion was necessary for commerce and the capture of
foreign markets for U.S. surplus products. Senator Albert Beveridge's speech in Congress in
1900 was a rallying cry for U.S. imperialism: "The Philippines are ours forever.... And just
beyond the Philippines are China's illimitable markets.... Our largest trade henceforth must be
with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean.... The Philippines gives us a base at the door of all the
East." Pointing to a map on his wall, President William McKinley declared: "I sent for the chief
engineer of the War Department and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United
States ... and there they will stay...."
On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation; and on June 12, 1898,
Filipinos declared their independence from Spain. Our separate histories are filled with many
stories of struggles for justice. Now and then, the stories converge as it did in the Philippine
American War when David Fagin and other African American soldiers joined the Filipino
revolutionary forces to protect a fledgling republic from US domination. Their example
foreshadowed the kind of inter-racial cooperation that became necessary for future generations
to forge in the resistance against racism. Over the past 100 years Filipinos have continuously
fought back against all forms of injustices.
This document was modified from an original website which may be found at:
http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/digiteer/yankee/
Digiteer
- Art Technology Culture by Fatima Lasay Contact fats@up.edu.ph
Copyright © 2003 Fatima Lasay
"Sangandaan 2003", an international conference on arts and media in Philippine-American relations, presents Filipino
and Filipino-Americans the unique challenge and opportunity to assess, in reflective hindsight, how the events of the
past century changed their lives.
The "COLORED: Black and White" exhibition in the US is part of this commemoration together with ten contemporary
Filipino artists in a new exhibition entitled "Yankee Doodles." In the virtual absence of discussions on the history of
the Philippine-American War, "Yankee Doodles" responds by remembering and interrogating this critical period in
American and Philippine history, and its consequences and implications in today's world.