Anti-Americanism during the US colonial period in the Philippines

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The Philippines is commonly considered to have a very Americanized culture and not only in urban centers. US brands are preferred, US Hollywood stars are well-known, US pop music is present everywhere and when thinking of which country to migrate to, the US is the number one choice despite the fact that there are many nations with better life standards.

However, this was not always the case. Anti-Americanism was extremely strong during the US colonial period in the Philippines. Filipino intellectuals, politicians and newspapers talked continuously about the humiliation of not having self-government and criticized the contempt that US officials generally had for Filipinos.

Among those ilustrado (learned) Filipinos at the beginning of the 20th century, there was a young lawyer with literary ambitions named Rafael Corpus (1880-1960), who published from 1905 to 1906 his impressions of and experiences in the land of the new colonial master in the pages of El Renacimiento under the pseudonym Partridge. Only the insistence of his colleagues pushed him to collect those articles and publish them under the modest title "Fuera de Filipinas" (Outside the Philippines, 1908).

The book is extremely interesting because the author, being a colonial subject, refuses, as a matter of principle, to consider US culture as superior to that of the Philippines. Moreover, he describes American habits and manners with a spice of sarcasm; even ridiculing certain aspects of the society.

As soon as Rafael Corpus arrives in San Francisco, he doesn't only find everything expensive; he also senses that everything is dictated by money: "It seems that everything here has a price. Even spitting in the street." He observes how the local workers look badly on Asian people, especially the Chinese and Japanese, given that they were a strong competition in the labor market: their salaries were cheaper. And he wonders why Philippine tobacco, a prime export product, could not be found in the stores.

Corpus observes the development of US elections and claims that the electoral campaign is carried out with a complete absence of gentlemanliness among competitors. Even worse, the administrators are corrupt, and big corporations interfere with big sums of money.

He complains that the only thing Americans knew about the Philippines were the killings in Samar. In fact, only returned soldiers seemed to know something about the Philippines. The affairs of their new colony were completely absent in Congress, and then he points out how a senator dared to publish an article, arguing that Filipinos were incapable of self-government. He denounces two strong prejudices common among the US political class: the first, against the Spanish education; the second, concerning skin color because, for them, being white is the only way to be civilized. "The issue of the colored world versus the white world does not need explanatory notes. Unfortunately, this is quite evident for us."

It is quite noticeable that Corpus uses a descriptive tone, generally without feeling the need to add opinions or moral judgments. He never says, for example, that the American people are racist or discriminatory: he just writes about what he observes and what he hears when talking to people.

He says that individualism is even strong within families and that family ties are weaker than in the Philippines. He observes that the "self" is bigger, and everyone seems to be born to fight and compete. In the US, "all actions of life are reduced to only two: to earn and to pay."

Hospitality in the Philippines is way better, he thinks, because the guest is sacred in the house while in the US, a guest is just an opportunity to make some cash.

He contends the Americans' sense of superiority - for which they find everything bad and ridiculous in the Philippines - has caused the naturally shy Filipinos to feel inferior and find everything in the US better than in their homeland.

However, not everything is criticism and sarcasm in his book. He admires the Americans' patriotism, their veneration for heroes and their love for their country, which they consider the freest in the world. He oddly finds it good that children study and also work because this makes them responsible and aware of the value of effort, he says. Americans, unlike Filipinos, have the habit of debating political issues publicly and without anger, he observes.

Corpus becomes funnier when he compares Filipino women to American women. He finds the latter empowered but at the same time, masculine and with little taste in dressing.

Needless to say, the book was very much welcomed by Filipino readers, who found it very patriotic because it challenged the prevalent views about the US at the time. The Americans in the country found it insulting and maliciously written, unwilling maybe to accept the validity of many of the author's observations.

The book was reprinted again in Spanish in 1950 but, sadly, it has never been translated, as far as I know: another jewel of Philippine literature in Spanish that will have to wait - I hope not too many years - to be enjoyed by Filipino readers.

Sources:

1. When Filipinos laughed at the Americans, Jorge Mojarro, August 25, 2020, The Manila Times