Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Benevolent Assimilation: From Thriller to Born in the USA


They turned off the lights and cued the YouTube video of Thriller (the real video, not the Cebu prison version). My Filipina dance major and her kababayans (teammates) started doing the zombie dance.

For real? The quiet Viet and Korean kids are dancing in my classroom? In front of 32 other students? How cool is that!

Then from outside the classroom, my Ethiopian student barges in dressed as Uncle Sam, white cotton balls taped onto his black face. "What are you doing? Nonononono," he says. "This is what you should be dancing to." Cue Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA. They start dancing, but it's still too funky so Uncle Sam corrects them into an air guitar move instead. But nicely, cuz you know this assimilation is benevolent. Viet and Kim look confused. Dance major is pissed. End skit. APPLAUSE!

I think I'll give them an "A" for that.

Yesterday's class was devoted to presentations on the Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons. The cartoons reveal how superior white men thought of themselves in relation to Filipinos (and all non-WASPs). "Benevolent Assimilation" was President McKinley's explanation for what the US was going to do for (to) the Philippines.

I had divided the class into 9 barangays (teams) two weeks ago and assigned each group a chapter. Their assignment was to pick a cartoon, act it out and then explain it. This group's inspiration was the cartoon above of Uncle Sam and Aguinaldo (drawn as the little black girl).

And you know, this great exercise comes from the Pin@y Educational Partnerships (PEP) (http://phoenixpublishinghouseintl.com/pep_book.html --I'm eagerly awaiting Volume II, Allyson). I'm so glad to have this resource. The other groups were pretty creative and had fun with it. One even had a Kanye West interruption: "Amma give you back the mic but you know America has the best flag" (or something like that).

I was expecting some groans when I told them their assignment and some sheepishness during the skits, but they seemed to take to it. Really, I would never think up an exercise like this so thanks PEP!

Obviously, Thriller still lives on. In Cebu. Prison. Okay end metaphor.

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