How is St. Louis, MO even remotely connected to the Philippines? Carmina and Patch discover the answer in this episode. They discuss why St. Louis came to be known as the "Gateway to the West" and how it became home to approximately 1,200 Filipinos from April to December in 1904. Learn about the haunting stories that echo across time in what is now known as the Philippine Village Historical site, championed by one individual whose singular efforts will ensure that none of the site's former residents 120 years ago are ever forgotten.
How is St. Louis, MO even remotely connected to the Philippines? Carmina and Patch discover the answer in this episode. They discuss why St. Louis came to be known as the "Gateway to the West" and how it became home to approximately 1,200 Filipinos from April to December in 1904. Learn about the haunting stories that echo across time in what is now known as the Philippine Village Historical site, championed by one individual whose singular efforts will ensure that none of the site's former residents 120 years ago are ever forgotten.
Welcome to Field Trip , a podcast where we explore everything fun, weird, and in between about the Philippines. Today's trip is to St . Louis. Our listeners might be confused why we're going to St . Louis <laugh> and not somewhere in the Philippines.
Patch:
<laugh> St . Louis, Missouri.
Carmina:
Exactly. St . Louis was the site of the 1904 World's Fair, which is also known as the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition. It opened on April 30th, 1904 and lasted for seven months.
Patch:
Some articles are saying it lasted for eight months.
Carmina:
And this one I didn't know Patch, it also hosted the 1904 Summer Olympics, which was the first Olympic Games in the United States. Right.
Patch:
So it really showed off the US as a global player. Right.
Carmina:
In this World's Fair was a place or a site called the Philippine Reservation, also called the Philippine Village.
Patch:
Right. And it was one of the most, if not the most popular attraction at the fair.
Carmina:
Apparently 99 out of 100 visitors.
Patch:
I think you have some information on the history of St. Louis.
Carmina:
Yeah. So I never really knew, I mean, hardly anything about St . Louis before researching this episode. But I really did wonder why , why St . Louis? Out of all the places in the United States,
Patch:
You have such an inquiring mind because I did not, the question never crossed my mind. <laugh> ,
Carmina:
You didn't care .
Patch:
I just took it as fact . Oh , that's where <laugh> , the fair was <laugh> . But so what did you find out?
Carmina:
St . Louis is called the Gateway to the West and their very famous monument, the Gateway Arch, it's meant to convey the important role that St . Louis and Missouri played in the westward expansion of the United States. And that's the reason why the Louisiana Purchase's Centennial was being commemorated there. Do you know about the Louisiana purchase?
Patch:
Yeah.
Carmina:
Oh, good for you,
Patch:
<laugh>. Well, if I remember, the US government at the time was very interested in Louisiana. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . 'cause it will basically expand the empire, so to speak.
Carmina:
Napoleon Bonaparte sale of Louisiana to America in 1803 doubled its territory overnight, and Missouri was part of the deal. If people are curious, the states that were part of that deal were Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. It also included most of the land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota. And do you also recall Lewis and Clark? Lewis and Clark were famously sent by then President Thomas Jefferson to survey the region that covered the Louisiana purchase and to document the passage to the Pacific. And they were tasked with cataloging the wildlife and terrain to gauge the economic opportunities. Because it turned out, to your point earlier, this territory contained rich mineral resources, productive land, forests, and wildlife resources that were so valuable that it couldn't even be estimated at the time. So you were right. America was eyeing it because they knew that it was something that could be, for lack of a better word, exploited.
Patch:
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> .
Carmina:
The other thing that these lands contained were the original inhabitants. Right. The Indians. And so one of the other most important objectives of Lewis and Clark's mission was to begin spreading the word to the Indians. That they, the Americans were now their overlords and that the Indians were subject to their rule. So we can predict what happens next. Right. Over the next few decades and centuries began the systematic dispossession of the Indians. And in the course of history, St . Louis became an important trading and economic hub, which included slave trafficking, which made many white men rich St . Louis was called the mourning star of US imperialism. And it flourished to a point when there was even talk of moving the US Capitol from Washington DC to St . Louis. And much of this was because it was in a strategic spot along the Mississippi River, and then later the building of the railroad systems made it a hub again for commerce in the West.
Patch:
During the time of the exhibition, was it still that important place in trade?
Carmina:
Great question. So before I go into that, I was also fascinated to learn that St . Louis was a supporter of the Spanish American War because they already had business connections to Cuba and they saw it as an opportunity to further expand their commerce all the way to the Philippines.
Patch:
Okay.
Carmina:
St . Louis was already aware of the Philippines. In fact, there was an editorial in the St . Louis Star in 1898 that said, and I quote the stars and stripes should hence forth float forever from the Philippines. Isn't that fascinating? St . Louis apparently also made very good money after the Spanish American War by shipping street cars , freight cars and locomotives to Manila, San Juan, Mexico, and the other parts of the Spanish Empire. So here's where I get to your question. On the surface, it looked as if St . Louis was a place of endless wealth and opportunity, but it was actually very corrupt and was described as rotten to the core where you could apparently buy the most deviant of experiences if you had the money. I also came across that it was referred to as the sporting city because it was really a euphemism for being promiscuous. So as an example, even if prostitution had been outlawed in other parts of America, it could continued in Missouri for decades afterwards. It was also famous for gambling, which the police were in on. And everybody in the government in St. Louis took a big cut. It was also a place where the rich took full and unfair advantage of the poor. The people who led the city were imperialists and proponents of white supremacy. By the early 19 hundreds, St . Louis developed a reputation for being the worst governed city in America. And it became the poster child for urban decline. And so winning the bid for the World's Fair was meant to rehabilitate St . Louis's reputation. The organizers really made a good case, right? Because they connected it to America's history and I guess it resonated with the decision makers , and so they secured their spot. Yeah.
Patch:
Also, they, I guess one of the few who was able to raise the funds to , um, host ,
Carmina:
Uh, undoubtedly from all that gambling
Patch:
<crosstalk> <laugh> . Yeah. Yeah.
Carmina:
So anyway, to describe its organizers, let me quote from a book that we're going to link in our show notes. It's called The Broken Heart of America, which really is a great book for anybody who wants to do a deep dive into St . Louis history. And I quote, seldom and the history of the world had there been, and in parentheses and rarely has there been since such a gathering of professional racists, keepers of human zoos and western civilization luminaries as there was in Forest Park and on the campus of nearby Washington University during the summer and fall of 1904. I mean, that pretends what we're about to talk about , right? About the Philippine Village.
Patch:
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Carmina:
It was the largest human zoo in world history, and about 10,000 people played their role in the propaganda about white supremacy. The human beings were assembled in a way that showed how the whites were in an advanced position in human progress. So I think we need to have a trigger warning from this point forward because we will be saying things and quoting things that are not our views, but just from a historical perspective, we thought it was important to preserve the actual words that people use during that time to drive home the gravity of the experiences of the Filipinos during that time.
Patch:
As we mentioned, the Louisiana purchase exposition are also called the St . Louis World Fair happened in 1904 in St . Louis, Missouri. And it marked the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase. And it also overlapped with the 1904 Olympic Games. And , um, over a period of seven to eight months , uh, 20 million people from 62 countries, 43 states and five territories visited. So it was hugely popular and successful, quote unquote , the fair displayed new technology and introduced foods like hot dogs , cotton candy, and even the ice cream cone. Mmm. My personal favorite. And it celebrated American progress. But the fair also put people in display like the IOTs from the Philippines, instead of focusing on their products, visitors were more drawn to their quote and unquote dog eating and headhunting displayed.
Carmina:
Oh, about that dog eating . Dog eating was not really an everyday custom. It was just done on special rituals and no doubt, maybe it had special meaning. But the fair organizers apparently forced them to eat this in front of the visitors.
Patch:
And also their headhunting culture, quote unquote , was also very much in display.
Carmina:
But it illustrates that fake news can propagate through the centuries, because up until today there's a neighborhood where the fairgrounds used to be called Dog Town .
Patch:
Yes.
Carmina:
Because it was supposedly the place where the Filipinos got their dogs to eat. Can you imagine it's been perpetuated over the centuries?
Patch:
Not all of those who traveled to St. Louis from the Philippines were all IOTs . Right?
Carmina:
Yeah, you're right. Patch of this human zoo, there was an assemblage of the Philippine reservation. And it was also very strategic to support the propaganda. So let me quote again from the book, the Broken Heart of America, visitors to the Philippine reservation entered through a walled city, meant to recall the fortification of the Concord City of Manila. A raid around the grounds were villages populated by various officially designated ethnic types who were themselves categorized according to their supposed level of civilization. The quote unquote intelligent, the science , the quote unquote fiercely Islamic Moros, the quote unquote savage Bagobo, the quote unquote monkey like negritos, one of whom came to be known as missing ly . And the picturesque Igorots camped around the edges of the reservation beyond the earth SATs . Ethnic enclaves were the scouts who were charged with keeping order inside the reservation and exemplifying the final stages of the civilizing process. So apart from the indigenous Filipinos, there were also about 700 Philippines scouts who were basically military personnel who reported to white commanders or leaders. So that's how they arranged it. Keep in mind that the timing of the fair, if you recall, the Philippine American War was declared over right in 1902, but it was actually still going on in 1904 when the fair was happening under the guise of insurrection. So that's why they were staged in that way, to depict us as savages that needed to be saved to justify the ongoing conflict.
Patch:
It's also interesting to note that there were a number of Filipino carpenters who help built the exhibits and also some <inaudible> . Those are scholarship students who traveled to St. Louis. And in this process, 17 people died during the fair, mainly from pneumonia as well as malnutrition and even suicide. I know. And can we also mentioned Carmina, that they were expecting death. So I read somewhere that prior to the Filipino people arriving to the fair, they had already built cemeteries with full expectation that they will be Filipinos who will die.
Carmina:
You know, I also wondered how these Filipinos were convinced to come. There were apparently brokers all over the world, and many of the people who were there did not understand why they were being brought to St. Louis
Patch:
Carmina. I came across a copy of the actual souvenir flyer that was distributed during the World Fair . I wanted to read some parts of the description of the Igorot Village. So it says, the Igorot is one of the most conspicuous races of Northern Luzon. Scientists have declared that with the proper training, they are susceptible to a high state of development. And unlike the American Indian will accept, rather than defy the advance of American civilization, they are barbarians. They have a kind of spirit worship, and all tribes give ceremonial dances. As a rule, they are head hunters . This particular section on the Igorot Village ended with how they collected pennies and nickels and dimes thrown into the copper receptacle. And the Igorots would sing after finishing the weird dance of their tribe. This is part of their marketing flyer. Wow. So this is all worded to attract visitors. And if you think about what is attractive as an exhibit, this really gave me goosebumps.
Carmina:
But we were human spectacles. So a person named Mr. Hunt, who was apparently the broker in the Philippines. Even after the World's Fair, he toured the Igorots.
Patch:
Yeah. TK Hunt, a former Lieutenant governor of the province of Bontoc. There was another person who created these tours, quote unquote . So after the World Fair ended TK Hunt, and this other guy, Richard Schneiderwind, decided to create these tours that were very profitable. This Filipino Igorot tours around the country and actually even around the world. But the living conditions of these Igorots were deplorable. Also, they were not paid appropriately or as promised. So it didn't end in 1904 when the fair ended. In fact, it continued for about 10 more years. And not just in the US but also in other parts of the world. So when you were talking about the clothing of the Igorots, apparently when they were in the train on route to St. Louis, they were denied heat. So if you can imagine, they were freezing, they weren't appropriately clothed, even if they lived in the coldest parts of our country, that's nothing compared to the freezing temperatures that they were , uh, met with when they arrived. So really all the conditions, it was deplorable. And I just, I'm so saddened to learn about this part of , uh, history.
Carmina:
So we're going to link a graphical illustration of this experience, and it's part of an investigation that the Washington Post launched that looked into a brain collection that a man named Ales Hrdlicka started. So Hrdlicka was seen as one of the country's experts on race governments and members of the public actually consulted him to prove that people's race determined physical characteristics and intelligence. He started collecting body parts. So not just brains, but actual human remains to support his theories about race. And he did so without proper procedures or consents. So according to the article, the Smithsonian has at least 30,700 human bones and other body parts. And there are 268 brains collected by the museum, and only four have been sent back to their original countries. The Smithsonian will only return them if people with a personal interest or legal right issues a formal request. But the problem is, before this Washington Post investigation, it was not in the public's awareness. So anyone who had a claim or had these rights might not even know that they have it. This federal law mandates that the Smithsonian only proactively inform Native American Alaskan natives or native Hawaiian communities about any of these remains. So there's an estimated 15,000 body parts that are unclaimed. And again, we'll link to this full article in our show notes. People should really read it. It is so hair raising . I mentioned this because one of the people that we came across during our research, Janna Añonuevo Langholz inspired these Washington Post journalists to investigate the story about her racial brain collection because she claimed that one of the brains in the collection belonged to Maura, who was an 18-year-old woman from the <inaudible> community, which is one of the tribes within the Igorots, Patch. What makes Maura significant as well, in the course of Jana being acquainted with Mara and trying to find her grave site and committing to returning her remains to her family in the Philippines, she found 16 others who had died, including the names of the 1,204 people who participated in the fair.
Patch:
I did wanna mention, first of all, who Janna is. She is an interdisciplinary artist who resides and conducts research at the Philippine Village historical site in Clayton.
Carmina:
So basically what I read was she was born and raised at the original site of the fair. Right.
Patch:
It was , uh, once part of the world's fairgrounds. That's correct. And so considered as the site caretaker, thanks to her work , uh, she delved into the personal stories of the individuals who quote and unquote participated or were forced to participate.
Carmina:
And she really considers herself not just the caretaker of the site, but as caretakers of these Filipinos. We don't wanna spoil it for people who really haven't discovered it because it's really something else to go on this journey with Janna. We're even going to link a talk that she did at the Bard Graduate Center very recently in March, where she talks extensively about her life, about how she took up this advocacy and what she plans to do next, because she is actually in the process of working with the city of St. Louis to officially make the Philippine Village historical site a living monument. Can you imagine Patch one person's efforts will ensure that we never forget what happened to the Filipinos. There
Patch:
One person's efforts affects all of us Filipino Americans and Filipinos, because, well, we didn't even realize any of this. So really her work is very important to all of us. Imagine she was able to find all the names and there are barely any records. So we really appreciate her.
Carmina:
We're going to link to her bio in the show notes and how people can support the Philippine Village historical site. So I hope that we all keep Janna's work top of mind. So Patch , how do you feel about learning all these things?
Patch:
Honestly, I was shocked. I always knew about the human zoos, and I've seen pictures of the Igorots, but I didn't really delve too much on the history of it, and I didn't realize the impact it would have on me now, which is, I even honestly, after researching this, I searched online for like flights to St. Louis, Missouri. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , because I, I would be considering going there, taking my daughter there to see where the site is, to visit the Philippine Village, to visit the work that Janna did after the shock. Now I just want to support this effort. That's the process that I went through.
Carmina:
Yeah, same here. And Janna is very open, apparently, so anyone can reach out to her and request for a tour that she herself gives.
Patch:
Hopefully, fingers crossed, we do get to visit there and meet her, you know, hear all the wonderful work that she has done.
Carmina:
So, Janna, if you're listening, we're coming. <laugh>. That's our episode. We hope you join us on our next trip, o siya, siay.
Patch:
Ingat. Thanks for listening to FilTrip with Carmina and Patch. Support FilTrip through Patreon or PayPal. And follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.
Carmina:
Thanks to FIltrip sponsor Soul Pack . A functional shoe accessory bag. Visit the soulpack .com for more details.