Throughout the course of this quarter we have covered, especially in our readings, many examples of racism and prejudice. As we encounter these examples I am constantly blown away but it seems that every time I think I have read the worst racist quote, it is somehow topped by an even worse example. Of the two readings this week then one I enjoyed the most was the one by Ontal. His article is about the similarities African Americans and Filipinos shared in term of being oppressed by whites because of the color of their skin. He conveys his thoughts through the lens of David Fagen. Fagen was an American soldier in the Philippine American war that defected to the side of the Filipinos. I honestly really like the idea that some people (mostly African Americans) saw through the bullshit and realized that fighting the Filipinos was totally backwards to their situation. They were being oppressed back at home and could sympathize genuinely with the Filipinos, as they saw their own experience in the states mirrored in the Philippines. As Ontal says in his article that, “these young men questioned whether they were willing to help propagate abroad the same policies that beat them down at home”. I cannot imagine what the position of the African Americans would have felt like in this situation. They were treated like shit at home and then sent to fight a war that they did not even fully understand to help the white Americans further oppress colored people.

As if the situation was not bad enough, there is at least one example I have seen (and undoubtedly countless undocumented ones) of the Americans warning the Filipinos of how dangerous the Blacks were. In the example I saw a Filipino named Tordorico told an African Amerian troop,” before you arrived, the White troops began to tell us of the inferiority of the American Blacks - of your brutal natures, your cannibal tendencies, how you would rape our senoritas, but the affinity of our complexion between you and me tells, and you excercise your duty much more kindly in dealing with us. Between you and him, we look upon you as the angel and him as the devil”. Despite how messed up the situation was it nice once again to see that the Filipinos could see how ridiculous and untrue the Whites’ statements were and see the truth. But I mean “[their] cannibal tendencies”! That is over the top. But I suppose its no wonder that both the Filipinos and the African Americans realized how messed up the White leader were when there are quotes floating around such as one from Col. Frederick Funston who was hunting Fagen as he said,” I will rawhide these bullet-headed Asians until they yell for mercy— After the war, I want the job of Professor of History in Luzon University,when they build it, and I'll warrant that the new generation of natives will know better than to get in the way of the band-wagon of Anglo-Saxon progress and decency". As I was saying in the beginning, the racist quotes somehow manage to get more and more appalling.

The second thing that I wanted to talk about for this week was a Filipino movie that I saw with my classmate Steph and her family on our last day in the Philippines. It was called Ang Babae sa Septic Tank and it was about these young guys that were making a movie about the life of a lady with seven kids whom she could not afford to feed properly. They lived in the slummiest of slums in Manila and she decides to sell one of her children to a pedophile to make money. It started off very serious and very real and I thought it was going to stay that way and cover some deep issues. Throughout the movie though they seemed to really be making light of the serious poverty. There was a particular moment when the people of the slums did a musical number, singing lines such as, "my intestines are eating themselves" and "I have one foot in the grave". I could not tell if I am just in defensive mode after seeing all I have seen here in the Philippines first hand or this movie was actually disrespectful. I cannot figure out if they were addressing the real issues in their own way, or if it was blatantly offensive. This was my initial reaction so I tried to talk lightly about it with the others that watched it, who were all Filipino. They mostly seemed to enjoy it and one of them even said that it was a really deep movie, although it was conveyed through comedy. Hearing this made me think that perhaps to a Filipino person this movie really did shed light on serious subjects and perhaps I am being oversensitive. I have to admit that I found the movie semi-entertaining but I do not think I could ever say that I was not a bit turned off by it at the same time.

On the plane ride back to the United States, I watched the movie “Battle: Los Angeles” about a platoon fighting to reclaim the city of Los Angeles from alien invaders. I was not surprised when I saw that the lieutenant leading the platoon was Latino, William Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez). When I was in high school many of my Latino friends had a great desire to join the military, they all had different reasons for wanting to do so. Some were going to be fighting for the country where they were born in and others for the country that they escaped to. As I read the reading by Ontal I thought of how Latinos fight and die for a nation where at times does not feel like home. Latinos have to live with stereotypes, racist comments and violence due to race. What is happening to Latinos in the United States is what happened and continues to happen to African Americans. Both, African Americans and Latinos enlist in the military to fight for their home country but it is sad to know that it does not feel like it is their home.  

The reading talked about African American soldiers going to the Philippines and feeling more at home there than in the United States. They were fighting for the U.S, a country that had so much hatred towards African Americans; the racism caused people to kill them. Ontal shared the story of the murder of a Georgia sharecropper named Sam Hose (pg, 3).  He added that in 1899 and 1902 an estimated two thousand black women, men and children died from racial attacks in the Deep South (pg 3). Despite the hostility that Caucasians had towards African Americans, African Americans still enlisted in the military. They were drawn to the military life by the higher salary and the respect and affection they received from African American civilians.  

The Philippines, being a foreign country felt more like home to them, in the reading it said that editors often referred to the Philippine natives as “colored cousins,” a reflection of how the racial construct of the day sheltered all brown-skinned races as “Colored” or “Negro” (pg.5).  Throughout my education I have always learned about what African Americans had to go though and continue to go through. Racism and hatred still exist today among other minorities as well.  It seems that there is always a group of people who believe they are superior to others and their beliefs are reflected through their actions.

When I was applying for this study abroad I read “American exceptionalism” on the description of the program, I thought of an ideal of the United States being superior to other nations although others may interpret American exceptionalism as the U.S being apart from Marxist laws. This reading was like a conclusion to my initial thought. Throughout the readings we had in this program we read and learned of the U.S involvement in the Philippines. The U.S demonstrated superiority over the Philippines but now that I reflect on it some more, the United States has the ideal that it is superior to any other country, not just the Philippines.Perhaps the actions within the military do not seem as a big deal to others but it is, American exceptionalism is present there too. The hatred produced within the military motivated the African American soldiers to leave the American military and join the Filipino military.  When the African American soldiers were fighting against the Philippines it was as if the “Negro was fighting against himself” (pg. 6).  I was surprised to know that African Americans left the U.S military despite the consequences they could receive for betraying their country but it makes sense, they were not fighting for their country if it was theirs they would have been treated differently.

            Overall, this reading and all the past readings have allowed me to not only learn about the Philippines but about the United States. There are so many things that we do not learn in classes in the U.S but I am grateful for the opportunity of learning about the things that were unknown to me. 

When reading the article by Ontal did you think about American exceptionalism?