 and YouTube is live. Webinars live quiet on the set. All right. Wait, wait. Who will give us the time? I will keep time for you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And we are live. Thanks, Anissa. Yes, yes. Thank you, MC. All right. Welcome friends. Let's get started. All right. Let's give it a moment for the room to fill up. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for waiting. And we're so excited today to have some very knowledgeable people with us today as part of our Filipino American History Month events. Today we'll be talking to Abraham Ignacio, our own Filipino American librarian, and coming out of the Mayhem Library. And MC from, he is a, what's known as a community historian, MC Canales of Soma Community Center. So a few announcements, and we'd like to pay tribute and land acknowledgement today. The San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramayutishaloni peoples for the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramayutish community. We have a couple of events coming up that we'd love for you to know about. One of those is tomorrow, a nature boost, connecting the dots, near woods, hidden figures, and this is all about LGBTQ figures working throughout nature, and in the national park system, and specifically in the near woods area. And our final Filipino American History Month event will be celebrating the work of artist Lydia Ortiz, who is our artist spotlight, and she does amazing, gorgeous, and vibrant work, and her work can be seen all over the place, New York Times, many, many places, and check out her Instagram to see all of her recent posts. San Francisco Public Library has a reading campaign called On The Same Page, which has been going on for many, many years, and this is where we encourage all of San Francisco to read the same book at the same time, and it's a bi-monthly. So September and October is the undocumented Americans, a very nice read, very great read, pretty deep, also delves into the medical life and the mental history and the mental health of our undocumented Americans. So often we see the front covers of the new stories, and we see people being deported, but the stories go so much deeper than that, and Carla Cornejo Villalvin-Sincio's book really delves into the lives of undocumented Americans, and not just the surface of what we normally see. So I encourage you all to pick up this book, and you should be able to pick it up at all library locations right now, and Carla will be in conversation with Jonathan Blitzer on the 26th coming right up next week, that's Tuesday, and you can always join us on Monday before the conversation for the bookbub, where we will talk about this book. All right, and then today without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to San Francisco Public Library's own Abraham Ignacio. Take it away, Abe. Okay, thank you, Anissa, for introducing us and stuff. So yeah, here we are today, we're going to have a conversation just between MC and myself to talk about the Philippine-American War and San Francisco's hidden relationship to it, and maybe get people interested in revisiting and trying to understand the Philippine-American War, because it really is a pivotal moment for Filipinos in the Philippines, and pretty much why we are here is because of that war of colonization and conquest. So let's start it off, MC, do you want to start off with our introduction? You can introduce yourself and I'll follow. Okay, so my name is MC Canlas. I live now in San Francisco for almost 34 years, and my base is San Francisco, so I'm also part of the South of Market or Soma, Filipinas, which is the Filipino Cultural Heritage District. And also I'm currently connected with the Episcopal Community Services as manager of the adult coordinated entry, which is housing the homeless population in San Francisco. And at the same time, I'm also working at the Philippine-American Development Foundation. I'm a member of the board, but at the same time, I'm their cultural strategies, because I've been in this community for many years. So of course my hobby is history because I graduated from the University of the Philippines, and I taught history. And then when I moved to the United States, I want to continue my interest in promoting history. Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you, MC. So again, I'm Abraham McNasio. I'm the third, let me just do a quick screen share here, share. So it's my screen showing up, screen share. Okay, yeah, so I'm the third of the Filipino-American Center Librarians. Before me was Mitchell Youngson, and then the original was Estella Manila. So we've been having Filipino-American Center Librarians since 1996. That's when the center opened. And we've been, you know, the stewards of the Filipino-American experience here in San Francisco Bay Area. So I got my MLIS from San Jose State University. I got my BA from Cal in ethnic studies, Asian-American studies. But my own history goes back in terms of why I got involved with the Filipino-American War, like MC was mentioning, is because I like history, but also because I was growing up during the 60s and 70s during the, you know, civil rights struggle, the black power movement, the yellow power movement, the brown power movement. And one of the things a lot of folks are reading back then, especially if you're Filipinos or Asian-American, was America's in the heart. So my real inspiration to getting involved with history and wanting to learn more later was Carlos Bulasan. So I owe a debt of gratitude to Manu Carlos for getting me on this road. So shall we begin the MC? So what got us interested, because this month, October, is considered the Filipino-American History Month. But at the same time, if you see the San Francisco calendar, we celebrate two history and heritage month. One in October, which is connected to the promotion that the Filipino-American National Historical Society promoted the October as the Filipino History Month. But at the same time, when I was doing my column in the newspaper, I said, I also prefer the Asian Heritage Month in May, because I said, why we are here is not because of the Moro Bay arrival of the Luzones Indianus, but because America occupied the Philippines. And the commemoration of that occupation, or we call it later, as we will discuss this, the colonization of the Philippines was memorialized at the heart of San Francisco, which is the Union Square. And then, and that's the Manila, Battle of Manila Bay, which is May 1st. And it's now in the Dewey Monument. That's why when the San Francisco Public Library invited me, because perhaps they heard that during the history day last year of the history day in San Francisco, my topic I provided them is Markers and Monuments. And the Markers and Monuments, because the reason why perhaps I got attracted to San Francisco was because of its connection to Philippine history, compared to when I migrated and I started in LA. And then, of course, LA, you have Disney, Universal Studio, but then when I discovered San Francisco, I said, oh, this is the place. And also, when you go to the procedure, you got reminded of John Hay, I said, oh, it reminds me. And of course Baguio, because I used to teach in Baguio, I said, oh, this is the place I can reminisce my teaching profession of history, something like that. So when I discovered the thing, I proposed to the San Francisco Library, what topic will I say? I said, it should be something related to the forgotten episode or perhaps the legacy of San Francisco that is not mentioned most of the time. It's the imperial war, the role of San Francisco in this imperial war at the turn of the century. That's why if you see the introduction of the library, I will show you the introduction. So I will read it. In 1902, this is the topic that will perhaps entice people to listen to us. In 1902, U.S. President Roosevelt proclaimed the end of the war. That same year, a 95-foot column was erected in Union Square to honor Admiral Dewey's 1898 victory over the Spanish at Manila Bay. President Mackinley himself visited San Francisco to break ground for the monument, illustrating the importance of the war to the United States. Unfortunately, most Americans only remember the Spanish-American war from April 21 to August 13, 1898, while 15 years in the Philippines was erased from people's memory, not only among Americans, but also among Filipinas, our Kababayan. Forgetting was officially sanctioned as Danielle Emerwar highlighted in the introduction of this book, How to Hide an Emperor, A History of Greater United States. One of the truly distinctive features of the United States Emperor is how persistently ignored it has been. It's long overdue to reveal this imperial war. So our conversation today is connected to that. So we wanted to invite our listeners to continue the discourse and conversation. I suggested also to the San Francisco Library that instead of me lecturing just like what I did during the history day in San Francisco last year, I said I'd rather make it a conversation because there are many people just like Abe who has his own passion and he was able to produce with the support of other scholars a beautiful book and perhaps Abe will also share the forgotten book. Okay, so that's the message for today, then that's the conversation for today. MC, may I interrupt? We are seeing only the window for the library. We're not seeing the correct thing. You're not seeing the YouTube thing? No, we're seeing the, we see the library website. So I think you need to switch windows. Okay. Anyway, so I read it anyway, the thing. Okay. Yes. So at least I read it. So perhaps Abe can start on the why were you, what led you to produce the forgotten book? Yeah. Okay. So let's, let me get a smaller screen here. I need to share. Okay. So I'm going to just stop your screen sharing and I'll continue a screen share. All right. All right. All right. So as MC was saying, how did, how did me a Filipino American get involved with the thing? Because one of the things that struck me as I was doing my ethnic studies work was this thing was editorial cartoons. I've had a real passion for editorial cartoons since the 70s, because as I'll read this quote from the History Institute of Ohio State, that are your editorial cartoons. Oh, sorry. I'll share. Sorry. You share. I see my screen now, right? Editorial cartoons. Yeah, we're seeing it. Okay. Sorry. Still getting the hang of this. Sorry, folks. Bear with us. Editorial cartoons provide a window into history by showing us what people were thinking and talking about a given time and place, the History Institute, Ohio State University. And this particular cartoon is called The Forbidden Book. It was shown in the produced for the Chicago Chronicle. And we were able to get a copy of it from the literary digest. But anyway, this is forms the origin story behind why we called it The Forbidden Book. As you can see with this cartoon, it says it's under lock and key. President William McKinley is holding the truth behind the true history of the Filipino war from Uncle Sam, meaning the United States. And it's for his private use only. So there was censorship back then. But the U.S. Army was censoring the dispatches of the reporters that were reporting on the ground in the Philippines and stuff. So that was a battle to find out, you know, like later on what was going on and stuff. But so this really became the origin story for why we called The Forbidden Book, The Forbidden Book, because the long history has been either forbidden or forgotten. And so that that led me on to kind of organize, finding, looking for all these cartoons. Because from 1898 to 1902, the official part of the war, the American public lived, eat and drank the Philippine conflict in the Philippines. And we're learning all sorts of new information about the Philippines, the Filipinos, but then also this war that was being conducted on their behalf to, as later on we'll talk about, to civilize and educate the Filipinos to good government, to civilization and what have you through. These cartoons provide important, as it's so, a window to see what the American public was learning about or thinking about. But also what the decision makers at the highest level, whether it be the president, the secretary of the state, or the generals, what were the conduct of the war, we can get some insight into that through the cartoons. So yeah, let's stop sharing. Okay, MC, did you want to continue? Yeah, so that's good, that's an inspiration because your book was very instrumental also in, in discussing the topic because in the Philippines and also here we're not able to see those cartoons, but then we know that they were during the time. So it means the public was being educated by the cartoons during those days because the newspaper is the medium as today's the social media. So therefore the molding of the minds of the American public is through the cartoon and the way they depicted us in the cartoon was important or is important. But the same time in my case I was educated in the Philippines and we have history classes in the Philippines, but then if you see at least I'm speaking of those who were in grade school in the 60s and the 70s, the history of the Philippines, if you're following the textbook, you won't get even to the American occupation. So because the discussion is mostly on the Spanish period and then when they read on the American period is just a summary that they bring us the schools they never mentioned about the Philippine American war, it's not even mentioned in the textbook before. And then of course part of the colonization of the Philippines is the colonial education. So during our school days you're not even allowed to speak your native language and you have to speak and learn how to speak English and then they will penalize you for speaking in that they call it dialect, although they're languages and then you will write, I will not speak in my native language or dialect something like that or you'll be fine, something like that. Of course the other side of that because I'm talking of the 60s, there's the Peace Corps where you have teachers coming from America and introducing you mathematics or yeah they're introducing mathematics because before is arithmetic and then now mathematics. Perhaps the Thomasites were also responsible later or earlier in our community but during the 60s it was the Peace Corps and then they're giving food especially the oatmeal and the milk with the shake hands of Filipino and US. So you're seeing these English the same time the Peace Corps and the same time this one but you cannot read them in our history. Even when I go to the University of the Philippines my major was engineering and then my fraternity is Gamma Sigma Pisces. It's really a fraternity for scientific progress of engineering but then on my third year I got this major career crisis but mind-changing because I said to myself am I in the right position because the priority rights before the framework was that the possession of the United States will be transferred to the Philippines so the natural resources should be in the hands of Filipinas because for many years the US exploited our natural resources so I thought myself oh mining engineering may be a good thing because I want to manage our natural resources but then the same time in 1975 Constantino introduced the new book Past Revisited. Okay yeah thank you for showing that and then Constantino unlike the previous book of Side Day and they're concentrated more on the Spanish time this one introduces more of the colonization of America and also when I was in high school I was introduced to the pamphlets of Constantino the miseducation of the Filipino people the origin of the meat generation without understanding so those kind of stuff that's why I said oh there are many things I need to learn so that's why this got me interested and then when I moved to San Francisco the thing that I never studied in the Philippines but now physically you will see them that's why I said San Francisco is the best educational environment to understand the history of the Filipinos in the Philippines and also in America so that's why now the topic is Philippine-American war so let's discuss the Philippine-American war because it wasn't well thought out so let's see how we can start our understanding of that the first is the naming of the war okay perhaps you can explain I what's your in your forgotten book what was the term you use or what was the term you discover as you see the the cartoons yeah here let me bring up a slide I'll share around the naming of the war hold on here let me get to it yeah because just to follow up with MC about the book of Bernardo Constantino I think he was the foremost nationalist historian back then and he was really putting forward Filipinos and trying to understand Filipino history from the point of the Filipino people and stuff and it for me it was also very mind-blowing and a revelation to read Philippines a pass revist and then he continued later on with this book also to a continuing pass so he really does a very thorough and critique of that period of time so let me get that one slide on the naming there it is okay so let me share this okay so in terms of what's in a name what's it a name insurrection versus war the Philippine-American war was in an armed military conflict between the United States of America and the nascent first Philippine Republic fought between 1899 I mean 1899 until at least 1902 but it really ran much longer than that into the into the teens or some even people go into the 30s but you know that that's a talk for another time the conflict arose from a political struggle against U.S. occupation of the Philippines following the Spanish Spanish-American war it is also known as the Philippine insurrection which that was what the Americans put forward and was historically the name most commonly used in the United States however Filipinos and some American historians refer to these hostilities as the Philippine-American war and in 1999 the U.S. Library of Congress reclassified its references to use this term the conflict officially ended on July 4th 1902 the state marked the end of the war as far as the United States and the Filipino elite were concerned however for the Filipino masses who saw the war against the Americans as a continuing struggle for independence their resistance lasted longer and this is a definition from the new world encyclopedia accessed on the 22nd and stuff yeah that's a good point because if you read those encyclopedia two decades ago that's not the way they describe it no because like you said it was only in 1999 when they changed the the language and also the entry so if we see for example now you're going to need to go to yeah there you go emcee it's your presence very good so like I said in our introduction if you go to the union square the important event is in san francisco imagine two presidents commemorating or inaugurating or launching the the monument commemorating the battle of manila bay so you see mackinley and you see uh uh president judo russell so if two presidents showed up here this is important to san francisco and this is important to the united states and then but if you read the book imperial san francisco little brown brothers and your forbidden books but the book that i love also reading is how to hide an empire you will see that in san francisco they cannot hide it because they're there you need to explain to people this kind of information so that's why i since 2005 i've been giving lectures and presentation i said there should be a continuing discourse to memorialize the accuracy of the philippine american war and independence and i use the term demapawi because in the philippines the term demapawi they cannot remove it they cannot erase it something like that so and then if you see the materials because what abe was showing to us a while ago was a new edition of the encyclopedia but if you see the books before it's it's the cover is like this uncle sam's little worse spanish american war philippine insurrection so those are they call it little worse but then how can it be little worse if you're talking of people the the actual cause causalities so if you see the the conflict four thousand three hundred twenty four american soldiers killed and the philippine soldiers sixteen thousand killed and the and the statistics okay from the only statistics the philippine were paris during the war for various reasons uh from two hundred fifty thousand to almost one million civilians were killed so do you consider this a little war no not at all so so therefore just using the statistics the reason why i'm raising this one because if you're reading the new books that are being published now they're more closer to the truth than one before when it wasn't yet accepted as a philippine american war because if you go for example even in the california state military museum they even mentioned still the philippine insurrection which followed the spanish american war but then they also acknowledge it was the bloodiest and most brutal guerrilla conflict the united state four prior to get numb right you see what i mean yeah this is their own this is their own thing their own presentation of the war yeah so of course this this materials are available now online but again you have to read the their their thing and the and that they now put spanish american war and philippine american war so but then the the discourse like when we started is the naming of the of the war is it american spanish american war philippine insurrection philippine war philippine american war us philippine war philippine american war and i will show later different books with just different terms and there was even a discourse in our community how do we call it something like that and sometimes we need to call it also of wars it's not only one war there there is spanish american war and there's philippine american war but my term is also it's a revolutionary war in the philippines but never mentioned that it's a revolutionary war and then this is the when abe mentioned about the changing you know the entry in the library of congress catalog i i reviewed that and there was this request when did the library congress change their entry of philippine insurrection materials into philippine american war can you provide me the documents resolution that this is all that was the post i request and then the subject heading according to the librarian there the subject heading changed to philippine american war was made at the cataloging policy support office editorial meeting on march 25 1998 okay and appeared on the subject headings weekly list the 2004 edition of the library of congress subject heading of quiz your local library should have a copy shows the new subject heading on page etc it means it's hundred years before they they actually change it yeah you see what i mean no that's why there's this challenge for us to establish and also to assert that it's a war and it's a revolutionary war and it's a philippine war or the philippine american war but the funny thing or not it's not funny but the the hard thing to accept procedure was the launching pad of the war all right you're right but then when you go to procedure i love to use procedure it's very beautiful place like i said it reminded me of jan hay of dodger but if you see the marker in procedure it's uh say formally established september 17 1776 the san francisco procedure has been administered successively as a military headquarters by spain mexico and the united states a major command post during the mexican war civil war spanish-american war world war one world war two and the korean war it remains a symbol of united states authority in the pacific in the pacific and you never mentioned philippine american war no not at all you see what i mean it's not so there's this uh there's this effort that we need to rebuild this one but the same time we need to assert okay yeah so and then there's these artifacts no of the ordonias again were taken from from the subic during the spanish-american war and philippine american war and there were the war price from the philippines of and of course the the good version here they put now philippino nationalists were known as insurrectors by occupying americans yeah so we were insurrect us we're not revolutionary nationalists our ancestors were not revolution and then and then they put the war in the philippines so now in this uh uh procedure they have the use term two this the spanish-american war and the philippine war okay so this one is in the procedure but then this one was damaged and they and then i found out that they need to change it right they need to replace the marker because it was damaged right nobody can read it and now it's gone oh i see okay yeah so now we're trying to rebuild this one but there's this effort that we're not getting it so the the ordonias gun is still there but where are the markers that explain the war yeah okay and now of course you have the dv tower the dv memorial tower union square which like i said the battle of manila bay was commemorated there but of course it means prosperity to san francisco it's considered the local economy's second gold rush because at the turn of the century there's depression economic downturn and the war created the economy that's why there was a movement the philipp san francisco uh beautiful movement wherein they put more monuments and monuments and monuments so that when the americans were coming back they're celebrating the war because it put them in prosperity so but uh and and and belongs to many 600 000 deaths or almost a million no lost their lives and the philippine independence was not even provided and the the difficulties that we became a colony but us never defined it as a colony correct okay so that's a big issue yeah no that's the the whole thing of trying to re-educate people in terms of what it really represented so what after based on your what you are presenting i'd like to share a an old editorial cartoon from life magazine from that period of time that talks about some sectors in the philippe here in the united states who call themselves the anti-imperialists who were opposed to the philippine american war were making illusions to who what the philippinos were that they were fighting a revolutionary war against the united states so let me get that cartoon up and we'll share it so let me get that one first and then i'll share my screen so let's get to that cartoon hold on here there we go okay so let me share my screen real quick there share okay so folks this is from a life magazine actually it was the precursor of the pictorial life which you know a lot of folks we all grew up with but before that it was a a editorial and literary magazine and they did and they took actually a anti-war position they were part of the opposition that opposed the philippine american war and that actually the philippinos should be given their independence so this is a cartoon here as you see lady liberty holding a sword and then there's two circles here this is the hessian shooting down continentals and this one right here on the right are us troops shooting down philippinos this is life circa 1900 let me just read the caption liberty and lighting the world it appears at a patriot and the western hemisphere is a rebel in the philippines things are naturally being reversed in the antipodes and as you see remember the american history the continental war of the us fighting for independence from britain and the same thing with the philippinos they were fighting for their independence from the us because they had already declared you know that's partly part of the discussion is that the philippines had declared its independence and on june 12 1898 a nascent republic was established and they were trying to establish a national government and then sending out envoys around the world to get recognition but the us would not entertain these envoys because they were dead set against granting philippinos independence that they were going to be just like everyone else at that period of time they were colonizers they would colonize you know like spain like britain they all all the european powers russia the the dutch the belgium you know they all conquered in africa and used brutal military suppression to conquer those countries and nations and people and that was the same thing that as mc was putting forward and you know i also too that's what really got me into trying to know more about this war and and it's these editorial cartoons showing that there was opposition to it but it wasn't strong enough to to turn the tide in terms of letting the philippinos become their independent become independent nation and stuff that the us you know launched this brutal war that suppressed and killed you know tens and hundreds of thousands of philippino civilians and a lot of philippino combatants and stuff so you know as we get into our discussion we'll even talk more about this naming thing because the name changed again when rooseville declared the war ended in 1902 but it actually continued on because you couldn't quell the fires of independence that had been lit around throughout all the sectors of the masses of the philippines throughout all the country so they had to change tactics from it becoming to a war to saying that it was now you know just disturbances and minor rebellions and and folks who were maybe guerrilla generals or fighting a guerrilla warfare were now bandits and to the sun is they the us began to institute when they instituted civil government in 1901 they began that changed the whole definition again to they were starting on a colonial government and under the us leadership but now those disturbances which were now before was a fight between a revolutionary a war between a philippine government was now turned to disturbances with bandits and other you know whatever people those who led were you know philippine generals were now considered bandits and stuff unless they turned themselves over so you know it all this naming thing changes because it's all part of that grand narrative of america that it's always been on a civilizing mission democratizing mission and not so that's why it was an insurrection because the philippines were revolting against a duly appointed legal government that the us had gotten by the deal signing that 20 million dollar deal that they got with spain and stuff so you know it's always changing things yeah but abbey we need to be clear and also i i just want to note the chat comment of lily yeah we need to uh just to clarify americans didn't articulate their control of the philippines as colonization to other americans okay so that's clear because uh if you see the term how can russ belt declare the ending of the war when the us never declared the war against the philippines they declare war against the uh spain spanish because of happened in cuba and of course uh it ended in august uh so therefore the spanish-american war ended right but then they continue occupying the philippines until they put their own government why will you end it 1902 when it's no more spanish-american war the reason i'm i'm saying this if you go to the procedure and also another uh cemetery of those war you will see is there are veterans of spanish war spanish-american war so there u.s spanish veterans so why is like that because the u.s didn't declare the war so therefore the budget connected to the war is the spanish-american war so therefore if the relatives the uh will demand for their benefits of their uh departed sons or husbands they cannot use they died in the philippines they need to use their spanish war veterans because the veterans it's the spaniards that they mentioned okay so that's why uh don't get confused if you see uh in the cemetery 1902 he died in minna now but then it shows us spanish veterans so and also it doesn't use the term u.s empire if you if you see the text you read spanish empire and british empire right u.s empire and then they use uh in if you see the later book they use them territories and the philippines was classified as p.i philippine islands the republic of the philippines oh yeah okay so so it's really hiding you know the the imperial intention and san francisco is connected to that okay yeah so yeah it's a good discussion and a good discourse perhaps it's about time also to show what kind of books that we can read you know to understand this because one conversation in the afternoon a saturday afternoon cannot capture the whole discussion for this although like i said even in our history classes sometimes they don't have much time to discuss the spanish-american war and the philippine-american war yeah and then like your date is 1902 and if i showed uh it's extended up to 1913 because of the minna now conflict too yeah okay so um did you want to start sharing some of the titles or i can yeah so we so the good thing now is we have uh recently i collected the books for this presentation and the good book that i discovered or purchased recently you can also get it online is the three volume of this spanish-american war and philippine-american wars see it's it's plural war so you have to differentiate the spanish-american war and the philippine-american wars the good thing about this book uh uh it's an encyclopedia so any subject matter or topic or person of importance you can read that and then they have a good uh discussion and i i i read some of them and they're very good they're they're more on the modern interpretation of the war they're not the pre uh 1999 where the library of congress were still using the insurgency that's why it's a good text and they're more sympathetic of what really happened rather than what's the propaganda uh in the us before and then of course your book this is your book and uh you show them the cartoon but if they can see the the book uh i can show you the book this week and it's beautiful and and if you read the text it was very very uh well researched and well written yeah thank you and then uh my favorite is the impregnance on fransisco so there are many uh landmarks and also reason why san francisco benefited much in the war and this one although it's published here but uh archipelago bookstore also sell this one because i recommended to marie romero before we should we should include this in our books just like in the philum center yeah it's not only those books that are uh written or produced from the philippines it's better to get some books that describe these philippines yeah so this one is really highly recommended oh no and of course this one is the how to hide the empire because not only the philippines but also it includes q uh perto rico hawaii and the other territories of the united states because this one is the greater united states so the american were only mainland oriented yeah so that's why even when we if we will see the immigration patterns right we were classified as us nationals right but we're not treated although you're a colony but they're not you're not you don't have the the benefits so this one is also highly recommended so about you uh hey what do you recommend books oh okay here i'll i have uh oh you want me to show my collection first yeah go ahead do your question and then i'll share some of the i i'll then i'll share items that we have at the library okay this one is republic or empire when daniel surmar was still active uh i i meant there is a active in the anti marcos and uh uh anti marcos movement and also friends of the filipino people and she has a good collection because his memories of the anti imperialist league you know uh is well documented in his book and it's also one of the active members you know during his time and a number of the progressive uh activists from the philippines were very close to daniel surmar yeah no great book but it's really not easy to read because it's really text text text yeah yeah and then this one when i was in high school that's when i read this one because like i said it's not a thick book it's a small book because after you read constantino you want other sources right and the filipino martes was a book and then later is the little brown brothers these are my early books that i started in the philippines and then now and then you have of course the filipino scholars here and the undergraduate and the graduate students are trying to uh decolonize uh our to provide the new narratives know of that of that history so there are many essays on the american empire and it's nice to get them uh read and then of course see i will also show you the different naming based on your book like this one is philippine war right it's also a good book and also uh from the philippine somewell uh tan made it it's a philippine american war and then the date is 1819 1913 and somewell tan was uh was a professor at the university of the philippines is also coming from the tausug tribe so therefore he understood that the war was extended in that area and then of course there's this in our image uh american empire something like that and there's even a good uh uh section not next section uh excerpt there that the person uh who killed lotan was uh eronimo all right general heronimo yeah yeah but the but the person who killed lotan was also eronimo yeah okay so these are lean and these are the other books that are good to read okay so now what's your collection okay and what is present in the film center that they can also get into yeah let me share a few uh books that we have at the center one that i highly recommend is by uh Milagros Camayon Guerrero and by publishing 2016 it's uh Luzon at war contradictions in philippine society 1898 to 1992 this is based on her uh phd thesis and uh i'll just read the the publisher's uh description of it this the book puts forth a series of questions about the colonial origins of the nation the tensions between state and society the role of intelligentsia and the resistance of ordinary people that successive generations of scholars are still seeking to come to terms with it remains most arguably the most astute critique of the first philippine republic laying bare many of the sources of today's political and social problems and it's totally on on the mark you what should read this book you really understand philippine society as it was about to emerge into the 20th century and and what the revolution would have brought or even though it failed what the us just took over in terms of um you know keeping the elites in power keeping the landlords in power and and what have you and reading this book will just really solidify your understanding of philippine society so that's one of and this is not a physical book but it's on our digital books and it's on hoopla so which which means any number of people can read this book at once oh my god pardon did you taste yes it's a digital version we don't have a physical version so people can get it on our hoopla format which means like i said many numbers of people could read it all at once if you go to like our liby site there may be only like four copies of a particular book available based on the licensing that we do but with hoopla many dozens hundreds of people could read this book all at once and then have a book talk about it so anyway this this is well that's great to know yeah even me i was never uh familiar with this book because oh no it's definitely a top read for you okay yeah and this one will be part of the library soon it's the philippine insurrection against the united states yeah i have a set that i'm donating to the library you know i i have this idea that you know i i've been collecting books since the 70s and this is among them and most academic libraries like colleges of in university on california and around the country have copies of this but no public institutions i think maybe new york public library might have a set but we would be the only public library on the west coast to have this set available to people which gives people a sense of the what was going on in the ground among the philippine and defendants fighters so this is a compilation of documents and notes an introduction of five volumes yeah actually in the philippines is renato constantino was uh tasked to to review and and and right annotate these books and you can also get them online yeah so yeah but at least you have the physical book because sometimes reading to uh on a digital version sometimes it's not a good reading because you have to stay with your computer or your tablet for for a long time yeah yeah so that will hopefully will get integrated into our reference collection uh early part of next year so yeah so any other books that i'm recommending uh like emcee was mentioning these are part of the philippine collect american center collection we have the constantino's book a pass revisited in english but we also have the philippine or togallag blur version of of the book on boggling lumi pass number one so you can read if those of you who are learning togallag are advanced togallag and you want to give it a shot you can read constantino's a pass revisited in in philippine or togallag we have both versions and as emcee was mentioning we also have a copy of circulating copy of republic or empire and then also jim zwick the late jim zwick put together a compilation of the writings of and work of of mark twain who was an ard supporter of philippine independence and was part of the anti-imperialist league so that book is also available also we have these four books that you can check out we have david fagan who was a brave african-american soldier who became part of the philippine revolutionary army to fight against his own us army so he was one of the most sought after and hated philippine i mean african-american soldiers he was definitely wanted general funston had a mania about him of trying to capture this man because of his audacity as an african-american man to to join the side of the philippinos the other book that i'm recommending that we have for circulation is bandoleros outlawed gorillas of the philippine-american war 1903 1907 by orlino ochosa and these are what i was alluding to earlier after 1902 after the war was declared over people were now considered bandits bandoleros or tulisans or what have you and but they were continuing the fight for freedom even on a smaller scale but they were demonized and later captured and hung many of them like simian ola and gosh i'm having a senior moment here mc help me out who is the other one who was hung mcaya sakai yeah mario sakai so these are the mcaya yeah mcario sakai so these are the people that are in part of bandoleros and then another one about local resistance brasil mojares he wrote the war against the americans about the um resistance in collaboration in saboo and then finally uh another book that we have uh which is critical of the philippine-american war was by david silby a war of frontier and a war of an empire also about the philippine-american war so although titles are available through the philip the san francisco public library in the philippine-american center that's just part of the collection that we have there's a roughly categorized under philippine american war about 70 plus books and stuff so there's a lot to read about there but i just wanted to highlight just eight of titles that you can begin to if you want to delve more into to this part of our history as philippinos uh these are some of the books that you might want to consider so anyway yeah that's very good eight because if you see my background in the zoom i really put the philip center so those who haven't been to the san francisco public library even before the pandemic there's a philip center in the third floor of the san francisco public library and these are where you can find the books perhaps because abe is the one coordinating the center perhaps we can really highlight the the spanish-american war philippine-american war and the philippine occupation uh period that can be selected so that those philippine-american or even the general public who want to know about that particular period when america entered or occupied the philippines or colonized the philippines at least they have something uh to mention and also it's important it's important to to refer to the different libraries because they're opening now their libraries and they have good collection i want to uh make uh notice to my good friend and brother uh atoramos who who continuously digging uh what i call gems information because you get them from the library during the turn of the century the the 1920s something like that describing the philippines in the philippines so it means say there are uh plenty or enormous uh information no that we can dig and also reread our history and so it's important for others to get interested in this reading it's no more the scarcity of of of documents or books so it's good you have your collection and a number of your collection i don't even have a copy so perhaps it's it's great to know what others have they can also share to us because this conversation is not only between abe and me it's a conversation to everybody so those who are teaching uh philippine studies it's also good to encourage people to go to the library again yeah that's part of our our mission here at the library is to support our institutions like the philippine studies at city college of san francisco you know when i do a lot of my selection i have in mind you know things that are not not really popular but also historical or cultural things that might be of value to students at at those institutions like city college or sf state or uh where have you around the bay area or even throughout california because we can or around wherever people can borrow books through link plus or interlibrary loan and stuff so it's really a part of our mission to make sure we have a good collection that will serve all different needs and especially important needs like this where we're trying to understand our history and the legacy and and trying to decolonize and stuff you know that's part of the movement now to trying to get rid of those uh backward looking ways and stuff of how we understood ourselves you know so i don't know do we want to open up for questions from the audience mc or from yeah but before that if i can show the oh yeah you why don't you so kind of some of the stuff you're you're doing contemporary wise right yeah okay let's see yeah continue first and i'm trying to get my your screen up yeah okay so uh let me just share a kind of a one of the cartoons from the forbidden book that's kind of the iconic image of what the americans were were up to and stuff so uh here we go can people see that screen it's up to them yes okay so this is really one of the when i come across this image it really speaks volumes about essentializing what the american mission was and stuff and what it was as you can see uncle sam's holding two options to the filipino and he's saying uncle sam the filipinos you can take your choice i have plenty of both and this is from huck magazine november 20th 1901 and the author was i mean the artist with joseph kepler jr and stuff and so here you have the the soldier on the and uncle sam's right hand with the crag jorgensen and then you have the american teachers who later came on uh gosh i'm having a senior moment again what's the shift that they came on the tomasites so here we go here's the tomasites here who are going to bring filipino's education and civilization and what have you and stuff and uh so there was that moment when they were negotiating you know agonaldo had just been captured and i don't quite remember when he took the oath of allegiance and stuff but so they were still prosecuting the war at that point in time and but they were also beginning to bring in teachers as they were establishing civil government in areas where the us had under control so looking at this cartoon you really see what the us was about to launch or continuing to launch the military operation as emcee might mention there were 126 000 troops in the philippines that was not a little war they were all over the philippines trying to put down uh you know the revolutionary fires of philippinos that wanted to be independent and free and stuff so there you go this is it are you ready emcee yeah okay so i'll stop sharing so are you seeing this one yeah monuments and markers yeah so like i said in our introduction my presentation for one and a half hours also during the history day in san francisco i gave a virtual virtual tour uh on the landmarks and markers and monuments uh connected to the philippines uh philippine american war spanish american war okay of course the first is the oh this is the map right do you see this one okay these are the the red ones are the are the monuments and markers you can find in san francisco okay and then and then the the point of interest one is of course at the heart of san francisco is union square and then if you go to the union square i mentioned a while ago it was two presidents no who were uh here during the uh groundbreaking and also inauguration but then there was this marker we put no but then if you read the marker would you want to read the marker right yeah go ahead oh okay it's a little tiny i can't quite see it so great okay i will read it because it says the battle of manila bay and the philippine american war okay the people of the philippines struggled against spanish colonial rule for over 300 years at the outbreak of the spanish american war philippinos joined with american forces and rejoiced in commodore d george diwis decisive defeat of the archipelagos spanish fleet in the on in the mappers eight nine eight nine eighteen eighty eight eighteen ninety eight battle of manila bay within month of that uh naval victory the philippines declared its freedom from spain marching john 12 1898 as philippine independence day philippine philippines took the historic occasion to declare their national sovereignty and to establish the first republic of record in southeast asia the spanish american war ended with the treaty of paris in december 1898 however the united states continued military presence in the philippines led to the conflict later known as the philippine american war in the dark period four thousand four hundred american soldiers died together with 20 000 philippino combatants civilian lives lost number in the hundreds of thousands philippines remain the colony of the united states from 1899 to 1935 and granted common wealth status thereafter the crucible of war two bonded together the united states and the philippines as never before against a common enemy the extraordinary sacrifice and erasing of philippinos in that struggle for freedom led to the united states acknowledgement of philippine independence day on july 4 1946 so this is a philippine american war centennial committee san francisco california 2019 this is the version but it's not necessarily the best version of our interpretation of the situation because if you read the first paragraph okay it says philippino joint forces with american forces and rejoice so the philippino joint american you see what i mean yeah context it's a wrong narrative yeah it's our revolutionary war they never mentioned it's a revolutionary war so that's why i said on the one hand we want to interpret those markers and monuments but we need to involve scholars and community to really what is the narrative that's why this conversation is important we need to raise those issues it's not necessarily if philippino put something in this marker you you already have the good thing but the same time this is important because during the black lives matter some monuments are being removed right like the civil war and if you go to others like for example the finers monument okay and they and you see uh uh the priest is calling the indian right right but then because of the new narrative approach in the historical movement they the california native americans wanted to reinterpret that monument so they explained the the casualties and atrocities that was committed to them during the finers monument that was our inspiration why we advocated from the arts commission to put a marker in the union square because we don't want to remove the union square but we need to have our narrative no because like i said you can america is trying to erase it right so don't remove it but we need to highlight our our version of history so this is that that's why this version doesn't capture but at least the effort of putting something like this one is already in place okay okay so that's that's the uh that's one at not the recent uh interest and of course the volunteers monument when you see the volunteers monument you know in the loris uh street you will see those who who fought in uh in the philippine and the spanish american war and then i mentioned this a while ago they they still not mentioning the philippine american wars lately i'm mentioning that okay and then you have the ordonias before they have the markers right they explained the the philippine american war and spanish american war now they disappeared you are in the philippines and now it was destroyed and then they they get and then they disappeared and then you have also mackinley uh president mackinley's also has some monument related and then you have the persing not which is uh responsible in mindanao right and even the chaplain mackinon in golden gate park nobody knew this person but then there's a monument related to that is the chaplain of the war so that's why part of our interest not only in books and readings but it's also having the tour in the in in san francisco and you learn more about the legacy of the war the imperial war in san francisco yeah so so like i said there are many artifacts related to that okay okay so like i said in dimapawi in tagalog it means it won't be a race remove or eradicated it is our task to unlearn and learn our own history from our point of view as philippinas so if there are markers like that we need to put our narrative but of course we need to consult scholars and community in putting those narratives okay yeah because what's happening now in the volunteers like in minnesota the those who are commemorating the role of the volunteers joining the spanish-american war they need they did their own markers uh in addition to the markers no that were placed in commemoration of the uh war i see okay so perhaps we can open up for discussion so this is our conversation i hope it will encourage people to visit san francisco go to the film center to see books and also go to the historical markers and monuments for understanding the philippine-american war uh in yeah okay that was so many books and so much great knowledge um and i try to keep up folks and there's a link that i put in the chat okay we have one question okay it's um by the 1920s and 30s the suppression of the philippine independence movement was within living memory so were the philippine scotus american foreign legion viewed with mixed feelings or even hostility by some philippinos by that time oh i know you want to touch tackle that one uh emcee what's your thoughts i don't really uh understand the question you know much why don't you restate it again menace sorry no worries no worries and you can also click on the q and a there at the bottom oh it's under a q and a i was looking at chat sorry and we could also unmute uh folks if they want to ask a live question um way and this is from wane if you wanted to unmute wane and ask this question directly you could yeah go ahead hi there i was referring to the philippine scouts uh huh so that was um the american presence uh huh using local philippinos right so wouldn't that have produced some you know uh i think by that time there was still people who remembered that there was independence movement right you know i think it was pretty if it was earlier in the period you know like with the philippine constabulary you know when it was uh and then later on the scouts there was more hostility but by we're talking about like by the 20s and 30s that that's already a long time ago so i i'm not quite sure that um i'm sure there were some mixed feelings but i think just the general uh hostility maybe in certain sectors maybe like in binda now if things were still simmering that's where there would be more animosity and and hatred of the scouts or the philippine constabulary because like you said the whole thing of using a native armed force to suppress your own people but from differing sector i mean from different parts of the country so you know it it it would you know embrace those already possible long simmering hostilities between you know muslim folks down in binda now who are getting suppressed by soldiers who are from wherever patangas or pampanga or whatever so that they're definitely were probably those hostilities don't you think mc i'm not sure yeah and also colonial colonial master usually uh apply what they call the divide and rule they use the native to fight the other native like for example amelio guinaldo's capture by full ton was using the macabre-based scouts recruited from pampanga right and so you have people like that so sometimes they attributed the animosity between tribes because one particular tribe is used to to defeat other tribe but it's not only tribe but uh uh certain mercenary also because uh they were used during the spanish time and they were used during the american time so there are certain scouts that really function uh for for whoever in power yeah and of course you have also the guerrilla what but the the statement were the insurrectos and their bandidos no yeah that they have their own uh community but of course there's the reconciliation or the what you call the you're trying to diffuse or and isolate the community yeah so then uh of course when the introduced the tomasites and also the education and also getting the leaders no Filipino leaders act as if they're american so the anti-american feeling was soft and of course there were still uh like the flag low you cannot raise the philippine nationalism so it's really a a movement but but uh it's part of the pacification campaign in the pacification campaign they don't declare it as a war that's why when when the americans learn about it when it was declared uh end of the war it doesn't mean it and the war it's a pacification campaign but it's still a war they're using the scouts now and they're using Filipino leaders speaking in behalf of the american interest yeah yeah yeah that's the yeah that's the whole point pacification and then not articulating your your colonization or colony as a real colony you know uh you know um professor Villarosa brings out a really strong point you you just that's another point of hiding the reality behind the civilizing mission and stuff of the overalls alleged civilizing mission any any any other thoughts from folks or comments people want to raise or anything yeah hopefully it's been helpful useful discussion or yeah the purpose of our uh conversation today is really just to excite and uh spark interest for people to understand that there's a chapter like for example they considered philippine american war as the first vietnam yeah and then when the news about afghanistan uh withdrawing from uh afghanistan oh you forget you were in the philippines before yeah and with true okay amanda kintas raisan okay amanda you can you can speak now yeah hello you mentioned uh professor Villarosa um do they have a book or a specific um philippine american war resource that is available well again let's speak for for lily yeah for professor yeah are you on lily and still are you still with us she's still here she is and i have unmuted allow yeah would you like to speak lily and yes hi hi hi hi hi mc um yeah just i don't have any books out um i teach philippine history at city college san francisco and i chair the philippine studies department um but you know these are wonderful i'm just really appreciative of these conversations um that are happening and i'm more than happy to have conversations with other folks so oh yeah let's let's have another conversation let's have yeah and hopefully if the library is open we can have a small conversation in the film center of course uh considering the health and safety protocol but uh getting them introduced to the books it's really wonderful yeah absolutely yeah i just wanted to add on to uh what i've been helping uh professor Villarosa with is like i mentioned i've been collecting a lot of books over the since the mid 70s and stuff so part of my donating my collection to for future generations i'm helping her develop a reading room for the philippine studies program so books from my collection and then from other scholars that have donated their philippiniana and philippino american studies books will also become part of their collection too so you know both us and here at the philip center here at sfpl and also the philippine studies will have these nice robust reading rooms which you know students and the community can can use to to learn more about these issues and stuff in this histories and also on my part because i'm still doing the what i call the ethno tour and i have two ethno tours one is the soma philippina's neighborhood heritage tour which now it's getting exciting because there are new markers that shows our philippino presence in this neighborhood and then the same time i have my favorite tour which is the philippine american tour of history which is the exciting markers and monuments on the philippine spanish american war philippine american war and the connection to the philippines and and i have many anecdotes and pan history to to share also yeah related to that yeah i'm glad you're bringing them back okay okay anything else friends that was amazing and it's so deep and i tried to add notes as we went along everyone oh yeah thank you for all the uh all the the notes you're bringing up in this to help navigate to the resources and i will try to um you know get connect with mc and aid in the next week and try to get a full book list from you all of the books that were were in this yeah presentation so we can add it to the document which i'm putting in the chat box one more time and if you want to watch this again or share it with your friends and family you can watch this and many other great programs on our san francisco public library youtube channel yeah abe and mc gosh you are brilliant humans and i appreciate you all for sharing such knowledge and abe i can't wait to check out your book okay amazing all right friends i'm gonna call it unless there's any last comments from our audience can i say before we end one last yeah go for it mc wait i want to share i want to share okay i'm gonna i'm gonna uh i'm gonna have you all close it out i'm not gonna come back on but big thank you to you abe and mc okay yeah so we'll we'll end on mc's uh sharing go ahead mc okay are you seeing this one yeah um yeah i do yeah and the medals and the medals read the medal uh very tiny mc it's philippine insurrection wow okay so some soldiers got that as as a um as a uh they're bugs they're bad they serve they they fought in the against the philippina okay so i just want to end that okay hey that's pretty cool so uh do you know how many uh soldiers got that it means that when the procedure was uh turned over to the to the government from the u.s army there are many documents or artifacts and and materials like that the flag from the philippines the medals the whatever because what the philippines what the americans they don't know about the philippines they start collecting collecting but because we don't have storage we we lost a number of them so we need to have a philippine american war storage or museum so that people we can go just like what uh we have on books but we need to have this kind of documents right so that's what that's my advocacy too to have a philippine american war museum oh okay okay all righty okay thank you all right everyone have a good afternoon thank you for joining us