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?