A Study of Asian American Issues in the United States - Nicoline Pedersen - Krista Celo - Eden Stilman - Seren Ventullo

Political cartoons, like so, alluded Filipino savagery to African blackness. The hostile narration of Filipinos and Africans impeded colonizers from recognizing their wrongdoing, and instead perpetuated a false rationalization that their brutality stemmed from good intentions. Moreover, the depiction of Filipinos as childlike and incapable of self-government further lends to their perceived "white man’s burden.”

POLITICAL CARTOONS “Hating immigrants makes them easier to exploit” George Lipsitz

“The Filipinos' Savagery justified to the nation the savage conduct of the Philippine-American War, just as lynching was justified as a solution to the Negro Problem"

NER I SSA S . BALCE

American Imperialism was constructed around the notion of manifest destiny; namely how their conquests revolved around the misrepresentation of expansionism as a humanitarian deed. The false narrative of their perceived “white man’s burden,” delineates into their “necessity” to assimilate their conquests into western society. Assimilation is not to be simplified as just a display of white hegemony, as it further testifies to the colonists understanding of how the eradication of culture strips their subjects of an identity---a manipulation that has the ultimate goal of shaping Filipinos and “others” into blind followers to the white regime.

Modern Society

Oppression towards Filipinos is seldom recognized due to a criticism constructed on the belief that they embody the model minority. Nevertheless, their history is heavily defined by violent colonization and depictions as “savages” and people incapable of governing themselves. Their lineage of suffering has seeped into contemporary terms. While the governing body no longer implements legislation that intentionally bars their advancement within the U.S., Filipinos continue to bear the scars of their past as targets for discrimination and oppression. As with other minority groups, white and western hegemony maintains the expectation of assimilation into American civilization. Moreover, Filipinos are depicted as substandard Asians. Whether this amplified discrimination be attributed to their characteristic darker pigmentation or lesser economic success, the identification as a Filipino exposes the group to further oppression----a display of intersectionality; namely how ethnicity can further plunge a group down the pole of inferiority. The Filipino struggle with other groups of Asian heritage is indicative of how prior American imperialism and white hegemony has ultimately pitted oppressed groups against each other. While there is an expectation that the “Shared histories of racial violence and economic oppression of black Americans and colonized peoples in Asia and the Carribean” would render these groups to maintain a bond by reason of possessing a “third-worldist perspective,” the oppressed can begin to perceive other oppressed groups as competition for the privileges whiteness endows.

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