Some responses to Joel Tesoro's recent post:
In my first post on this topic, I used the word "manipulation" deliberatively to be provocative: if the representation of historical events is used to promote or justify present agendas, then the substantive difference between, say, an imperialist vision of history and an immigrant minority recasting of it becomes perilously slim. How much difference does the fact that one was used for "evil" and the other for "good" make when the means are so similar? I see a "usable past" as like a gun -- it's loaded, and thus always potentially dangerous.I'm afraid I see a rather crucial difference between these uses of history; similar means -- whether you want to go the "tools of the oppressor" route or not -- in different hands may, and do, have different results. Or, you may approach it from a different though somewhat unproductive route: "the representation of historical events" always has an agenda, in which case… what mode of representation did you have in mind?
In sixth or seventh grade in Manila, I remember vividly being taught by my Pilipino/Social Studies teacher that the U.S. was a "core" country and the Philippines was at the periphery, and that the history of both was determined by that relationship. Only much later, in college, did I realize that dependency theory was being drilled into my head at the age of 12.Then you're a lucky man. I grew up and went to school in Los Banos -- back then a real hotbed of left-wing student activism -- but received the basic historical narrative of tutelage and undying friendship that I think many still get today.
In college admissions, for example, a Latino or African-American will be more likely to be admitted to a selective college than an Asian, all other aspects of their records being equal. Try as you might to transform that rejection into a kind of victimization, but it still doesn't seem all that credible to the majority culture, who think Asian-Americans have done pretty well for themselves.College admissions are a whole 'nother can of worms, so I'm hiding the opener -- suffice it to say that the operative word in your passage above is "think." A good number of more enlightened Filipino Americans -- who get lumped in with Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and, say, Laotian Americans as fellow "Asian Americans" all the time -- will not hesitate to tell you about the truths behind the model minority myth. But this is turning into one of my classroom lectures, so I'll stop there.
Sure I do wish the Spanish-American War and the conquest of the Philippines had a more prominent place in the teaching of U.S. history (although I'd dispute any argument that claimed U.S. empire began in the Philippines -- the thought may privilege the Philippines, but it isn't that easy to dismiss the American expansion west and south!).No, it isn't, but I think the United States' vision of itself as an empire, as Imperial America, becomes real after the colonization of the Philippines -- in other words, Manifest Destiny is finally fulfilled not with the Louisiana Purchase, or the land-grabbing in the south, but after the colonial possession of "our islands and their people." Posted by the wily filipino at August 5, 2003 07:21 AM