How To: Justify Empire
“How did American narratives of this historical truth cause the omission of Filipino narratives — some to the point of erasure?”
By Esty Bagos
In August 2022, I boarded a Philippine Airlines flight to New York City. I came to the United States to pursue graduate studies, with the hope that I would return to my hometown Manila with better career opportunities. Relatives constantly encouraged me to stay in the US because there was the promise of a better life in America. I believed it too.
According to the Pew Research Center, in 2021 Filipinos accounted for 18% of the Asian population in the United States. With nearly 4.2 million Filipinos across the United States,¹ why aren’t their stories being told? Although the US occupation in the Philippines ended more than 70 years ago, the American way of life continues to be aspirational in my country today; but why didn’t a lot of people in the US know about the American occupation of the Philippines? How did American narratives of this historical truth cause the omission of Filipino narratives — some to the point of erasure?
In remembering, there is also forgetting. I saw how this manifested — or more accurately, didn’t — in St. Louis, Missouri, where over a thousand Filipinos lived and performed as part of the 1904 World’s Fair Philippine exhibit.
Attempting to trace the site of the Philippine exhibit, I visited Forest Park. I walked along the path where trains of the 1904 fair once passed through. To get to the Philippine Exposition, situated close to exhibitions on livestock, agriculture, forestry, and anthropology, visitors had to go through the grand Beaux-arts architecture, a variety of exhibitions, and cross a bridge over a small lake. Harvard University historian Walter Johnson, writing in literary magazine Lapham’s Quarterly, has called the St. Louis World’s Fair “the assembly of the largest human zoo in world history,” citing the Philippine exhibit as “the 1904 fair’s ideological core” and arguably “a civilizationist psyop — an act of psychological warfare.”² According to world’s fair historian Robert Rydell, these expositions were specifically publicized as “the world’s universities,” where people go to learn about the world’s cultures.³ This was hard to imagine in February 2023, because Forest Park was mostly filled with bare trees and small flower patches. I walked through winding paths alongside joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers. Walking beyond Forest Park, I saw Washington University of St. Louis, where two of the fair’s administrative buildings are now being used.
The “Philippine Reservation,” as the press called it, presented the latest addition to American territory a few years after the end of the Spanish-American war. Covering only 4% of the fairgrounds, the 47-acre Philippine exhibit was mounted with an allocated budget of $ 1.5 million, 10% of the fair’s official budget. Planning for the exhibit started as early as 1902, done under the supervision of then-governor of the Philippine Islands, William H. Taft, who spearheaded a circular letter instructing the preparation of the Philippine exhibit and the appointment of a Board to manage planning and object acquisition.⁴
Following Taft’s directives, over a thousand Filipinos were included in the fair, with different ethnolinguistic groups presented like a human zoo. This allowed visitors to see and understand people in racial terms, emphasizing the need for American governance to educate and civilize. Everyone was divided about the American presence in the archipelago — even the Filipinos. Some nationalists believed that it was about time for the Philippines to claim its independence after nearly 400 years of Spanish colonial rule, while others thought that American presence in the archipelago would mean further progress and development.
Festival Hall was the crowning feature of the fair, standing 200 feet high. This grand structure sat atop cascades flowing with water into the Grand Basin, presiding over some of the most photographed views of the fair, immortalized through fair-related souvenirs and publications. The Philippine exhibit was also one of the most popular attractions, with 99 out of every 100 visitors making their way to the site despite it being one of the farthest points from the fair’s entrance. However, by comparison, the absence of documentation is strange.
How did American narratives of this historical truth cause the omission of Filipino narratives — some to the point of erasure?
Everything was demolished soon after the fair closed. After making a mistake in the form of a three-hour walk through Forest Park, I realized that the site of the Philippine exhibit was no longer part of the park that stands today and has transformed into a mix of public and private communities. What used to be Arrowhead Lake, the moat of sorts that surrounded the Philippine exhibit, is now Wyndown Terrace, a gated residential community.
Not a single trace of the Philippine exhibit was in sight. A few people were strolling through the park, most with their dogs out for an afternoon walk. The landscape almost seemed to shimmer as it basked in the noontime sun, as if this was the way it had always been.
I felt erased.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Read: Decolonize Museums by Shimrit Lee.
- Listen: The Apl Song by the Black Eyed Peas.
- Find: 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Manila Bay Commemorative Monument in Battery Park.
- Budiman, Abby. “Filipinos in the U.S. Fact Sheet.” Pew Research Center. 2021.
- Johnson, Walter. “The Largest Human Zoo in World History.” Lapham’s Quarterly. 2020.
- Rydell, Robert W. All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876–1916. 1984.
- Taft, William H. “Circular letter of Governor Taft and information and instructions for the preparation of the Philippine exhibit of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to be held at St. Louis, MO.” St. Louis Public Library. 1904.
