Thought Paper - Political Caricature of the American Era PDF

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4 th PRIMARY SOURCE: POLITICAL CARICATURE OF THE AMERICAN ERA 1900-1941 BY ALFRED MCCOY AND ALFREDO ROCESBSA 2-Alfred McCoy is an award-winning writer who wrote Philippine Cartoons: Political of the American Era. McCoy is an American History professor and devoted his professional career to conduct r...

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4th PRIMARY SOURCE: POLITICAL CARICATURE OF THE AMERICAN ERA 1900-1941 BY ALFRED MCCOY AND ALFREDO ROCES BSA 2-2

Alfred McCoy is an award-winning writer who wrote Philippine Cartoons: Political of the American Era. McCoy is an American History professor and devoted his professional career to conduct researches regarding the history of Southeast Asian countries, particularly the Philippines. In fact, one of his studies embarked upon the conflicts within the colonial economy of Iloilo City from 1937 to 1955. Alfred McCoy studied Southern Asian history at Yale University and is currently a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, Alfred McCoy focused his writings about the Philippine political history and global opium trafficking. According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, when the CIA tried to block publication, his first book entitled The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia have been considered as a “classic” work on the global drug traffic. Due to his astounding works, he received several awards namely: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Hilldale Award for Arts and Humanities; Yale Graduate School Alumni Association, Wilbur Cross Medal; Association for Asian Studies, George Kahin Prize; and Philippine National Book Award. On the other hand, Alfredo Roces (who is also known as the “Man of Arts and Letters”) is prominent painter in the history of Philippine art. He started with metaphorical style on his paintings then started to incorporate expressionism, fauvism and impressionism in his art thereafter. Moreover, Alfredo Roces is a renowned writer of Philippine art books who is capable to build connection with the readers as he brings out the best on his work. The Political Caricature of the American Era consists of 377 editorial cartoons and caricatures made by several Filipino artists. This book tackles what and how it is like to be during the time when America takes over the Philippines. During the time between years 1900 and 1941, each caricature illustrated in the book symbolizes the national attitudes upon the arrival of Americans in our land. Some of the illustrations presented the situation of Filipino farmers under the Americans who forcefully owned the lands and taxed the laborers with unreasonable amounts. The cartoons also illustrated how unequal and unjust the employment was during those times. Even though Filipinos and Americans have the same nature of jobs, the salaries given to them was unrighteous – which obviously shows American’s racial prejudice against our fellow Filipinos towards labor. Furthermore, the images drawn in the book clearly portrays Americans manipulate and tyrannize numerous people. That being so, McCoy provided us an explicit view on the chaotic experiences of Filipinos during the colonization of America. This book made me realize how relevant and influential art and how good of an author Alfred McCoy and Alfredo Roces is. The political cartoons during the American colonization served as a tool to divulge the events that took place and unfold how the Filipinos experienced horrible situations under the hands of the Americans. Basically, the images shown in the book were a tool to protest visually and show social and political inequalities amidst the colonization. I can say that the cartoons were such a powerful tool to catch the people’s attention due to the fact that it banned Filipino publications to suppress the voice of the oppressed.

As I was reading the book, I felt disheartened for our fellow Filipinos for what they have experienced in the past. I felt awful just by reading how cruel Americans was. Aside from that, it moved me to discern how important it was to talk about politics and further understand the opinion of other people regarding a particular issue in order to come up with a better decision because if we decide out of anger and prioritize our self-interests, the situation might get a lot worse than already it is and might led to an unconstructive discourse....