Name:
AAS 206 Winter 2024
You may use the actual sheets for mark up or use a separate sheet.
You must provide hard copies.
Directions: Using the discussion on racism in the English language and Eurocentricism, provide 7
criticism of the following excerpt from The American Pageant: A History of the Republic (Heath
and Company, Boston: MA, 1961) by Thomas Bailey. This book was the standard history book
used in a number of "advanced" high school courses throughout the United States in the 1980s-
2000s. The author is a Stanford University history professor.
The knottiest problem of all was the Philippines. These lush islands not only
embraced a land area larger than the British Isles but contained a completely alien
population of some seven million souls. McKinley, who admitted that before the
war he could not have told where the islands were by two thousand miles, was
confronted with a devil's dilemma. He did not feel that we could honourably give
them back to Spanish misrule, especially after we had fought a war to free Cuba.
And we would be turning our backs upon our responsibilities in a cowardly fashion,
he believed, if we simply pulled up anchor and sailed away.
Other alternatives for the Philippines were trouble-fraught. The ill-prepared native
Filipinos, if left to govern themselves, might fall into anarchy. One of the major
powers might then try to seize them, possibly aggressive Germany, and a world
war might be touched off into which the United States would be sucked. The least
of all evils consistent with national honor and safety seemed to be to acquire all the
Philippines, and then perhaps give them their freedom later. . . .
Fresh disputes broke out with the Spanish negotiators in Paris, once McKinley
had reached the momentous decision to keep the Philippines. Manila had been
captured the day after the armistice was signed, and the islands could not properly
be listed among the spoils of war. The deadlock was broken when we finally agreed
to pay Spain $20,000,000 for this Philippine liability - one of the best bargains the
Spaniards ever drove. Ex-Speaker "Czar" Reed sneered at our having acquired a lot
of Malays, at three dollars a head, "in the bush” . . . .
"Benevolent assimilation" of the Philippines proceeded with painful slowness.
Millions of American dollars were poured into the islands to improve roads,
sanitation, and public health. Important economic ties, including trade in sugar,
developed between the two peoples. American teachers - "pioneers of the
blackboard" - set up an unusually good school system, and helped make English a
second language. But all this vast expenditure, which brought little to America in
substantial return, was ill appreciated. The Filipinos, who hated compulsory
civilization, preferred less sanitation and more liberty. Like caged eagles, they beat
against their gilded bars until they got their freedom. Short Play on Black and White
ASSIGNMENT: Change these terms by using more “neutral” language.
Some may blackly accuse me of trying to blacken the English language, to give it a black eye by
writing such black words. They may denigrate me by accusing me of being black-hearted, of
having a black outlook on life, of being a blackguard - which would certainly be a black mark
against me. Some may black-brow me and hope that a black cat crosses in front of me because of
the black deed. I may become a black sheep, who will be blackballed by being placed on a
blacklist in an attempt to blackmail me to retract my words. But attempts to blackjack me will
have a Chinaman's chance of success, for I am not a yellow-bellied Indian-giver of words, who will
whitewash a black life. I challenge the purity and innocence of the English language. I don't see
things in black and white terms, for I am a white man if there ever was one. However, it would be
a black day when I would not "call a spade a spade," even though some will suggest a white man
calling the English language racist is like the pot calling the kettle black. While many may be
niggardly in their support, others will be honest and decent - and to them I say, that's very white
of you.
From award-winning journalist Gwen Kinkead's book, Chinatown, published by Harper Collins,
1992, provide 7 criticism.
From the outside flap:
Gwen Kinkead's fascinating book is an explanation of a mystery: Chinatown. In the first book in
fifty years to break the code of silence about new York's Chinatown, Kinkead offers us an
intimate portrait of an exciting community that is also one of the most insular and, until now,
enigmatic in the world.
New York's Chinatown is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, a vibrant, chaotic little piece
of China entirely segregated from the United States. Against all odds, Kinkead managed to get
recent immigrants to Chinatown to speak to her - an astonishing feat for a low faan (a
barbarian, white person) with a notepad. Her portraits of Chinatown's invisible people are
intriguing. They work in its garment factories and restaurants, where child labor laws seem not
to obtain; they do not speak English and have no desire of opportunity to learn the language;
they rarely, if ever, venture outside Chinatown's boundaries and have no interest in the
American world surrounding their enclave. ...
From the preface, p. x:
More and more Asians will emigrate in the next decades, profoundly changing our society.
They will bring their skills, capital, and culture, and we have to do better than we have done to
remain one nation. Americans have things to learn from the Chinese. Frugality, for instance.
Respect for elders. Chinese can learn that they can't have it both ways - they cannot charge
mistreatment and racism and, at the same time, refuse to talk to outsiders, or vote, or lend a
cup of sugar to their neighbor.
From the acknowledgments, p. xi:
My foremost thanks are to Robert Gottlieb, editor of The New Yorker, for encouraging this
research and for publishing much of it... Peter Kwong, author of several fine books on
Chinatown, provided usefůl suggestions and contacts. . . .”/n
