STOP NATO: ¡NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, July 17, 2001 (SF Chronicle) Images of racism/ How 19th century U.S. media depicted Filipinos, other nonwhites as savages Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer Abe Ignacio said he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the century-old illustration for sale on eBay. The cover of an 1899 issue of Judge magazine shows President William McKinley scrubbing a Filipino child saying, "Oh, you dirty boy!" The caption reads: "The Filipino's First Bath." Ignacio of San Leandro bought the rare image and others from the era that are now part of a Berkeley exhibit of depictions of Filipinos in mainstream media -- as savages to be civilized by the United States as part of the colonization of the Philippines. "It's revisiting a terrible period that most historians have ignored," said Ignacio, who works as a Federal Express driver and has collected about 400 images from that period. "It's important to show that there was a very ugly side to America's rise as a world power." "Colored: Black n' White," at exhibit at Pusod, a community arts and environmental center, includes drawings, editorial cartoons, photos and news clips from prominent magazines and newspapers that covered the U.S. annexation of the Philippines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was put together by Ignacio, his wife, Helen Toribio, who is a college instructor, and Jorge Emmanuel, an environmental scientist. The Philippines had declared its independence from Spain in 1898 when the archipelago was ceded to the United States for $20 million. Filipino revolutionaries rejected the U.S. colonial regime, but their resistance was suppressed in a bloody war of conquest that claimed at least 250,000 lives, mostly Filipino civilians. To justify the use of military force in the Philippines, many pro- annexation politicians, writers and artists portrayed the Filipinos as primitive, childlike and incapable of governing themselves. An August 1898 drawing from Puck magazine, which is part of the exhibit, shows a mother figure representing America accepting a basket of crying babies representing the Philippines and other nations conquered by United States, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico. An 1899 illustration in Judge magazine shows a similar image with the caption "The White Man's Burden" -- a phrase coined by British writer Rudyard Kipling, who supported the U.S. bid to annex the Philippines. In 1899, the Boston Sunday Globe published an illustration depicting the supposed transformation of Filipinos under U.S. tutelage, from ignorant savages to civilized people who play baseball and wear Western clothes. A headline from the San Francisco Evening Post declared: "Filipinos Do Not Like Work." The collection includes clippings from two other San Francisco newspapers. "Manila Insurgents Routed With Great Slaughter/Two Hundred of Our Men Wounded, Natives Driven Into the River and Drowned," reads an 1899 headline in The Chronicle. "I Left Samar A Howling Wilderness," read a headline with an account of a U.S.-led massacre published in the Hearst-owned Examiner. The most striking illustrations in the collection came from Puck and Judge magazines. The publications are now defunct, but Professor Tom Leonard, university librarian of the University of California at Berkeley, said they were important and influential publications in the early 20th century, the equivalent of today's Time and Newsweek. "They were major magazines and they were read by educated people," he said. "They were not fringe publications." U.S. media in the late 19th century were notorious for depicting nonwhite communities, including American minorities, as lower forms of people, Leonard said. Public opinion has progressed to the point that such depictions are "widely condemned" as inaccurate and unfair, he added. Ignacio said he believes racism is still a problem in America, citing the killing of Joseph Ileto, the Filipino American postal worker shot in Los Angeles two years ago by a white supremacist. Collecting the images was a personal journey for Ignacio. The son of Filipino immigrants, he endured racial taunts as a child growing up in San Diego. "You actually begin to not like yourself and deny that," he said. Doing research on the Philippine American War helped him understand the roots of the racism. He began buying old magazine illustrations and cartoons at antique stores, bookstores and on the Internet. "It was exciting, like a treasure hunt," he said. "You find important pieces to give people a full flavor of the racial sensibilities of the time." Many who have seen them were shocked. Larkspur artist Elizabeth Saul said the exhibit helps explain the concept of Manifest Destiny, the philosophy that sought to justify the United States' westward expansion. "These images speak so strongly," she said. "You can hear someone talk about (Manifest Destiny) over and over again, but when you are confronted with images that are vile, pompous and arrogant, it strikes a chord that words can't communicate efficiently." A section of the exhibit focused on similarities in the portrayals of Filipinos and African Americans. U.S. troops fighting in the Philippines referred to Filipinos as "niggers" or "gugus." Berkeley artist Mildred Howard said the exhibit "makes something horrible visible." "How is it that one race feels that they were so much more important?" Howard, who is African American, asked. "I know it's probably because of greed and economics and a way to exploit others." The exhibit will run until September 30. Ignacio said he and the other curators have received invitations from colleges, universities and Filipino American organizations. Co-curator Helen Toribio, who grew up in Hawaii, said the exhibit is a way to get a dark period of U.S. and Philippines history "out of my system." "Anyone who grew up here, grew up with the mythology of America the beautiful, the great democracy, and there is very little exposure to the dark side," she said. "There is a lot that is hidden about American history." "Colored: Black n' White" is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Pusod, 1808 Fifth St., Berkeley. It is open by appointment on other days and at other times. For information, call the Pusod center at (510) 883-1808. / Copyright 2001 SF Chronicle The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/07/17/M N163275.DTL ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
