The New "Americans"--The Process of Assimilation through Military Expansion

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-Julián Clivillés

    Following the Spanish-American War, the American Empire had expanded. With recent acquisitions of Puerto Rico, Guam, Cuba, the Philippines, and by extension, Hawai’i, America, and Americans’ understanding of who was and wasn’t an American, was beginning to change. In Louis Dalrymple’s cartoon, “School Begins”, we see various depictions of these outside identities among others. Unlike the states and territories of California, Alaska, Texas, and Arizona, the recently acquired territories of Philippines, Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Cuba appear disgruntled and nothing like the previously mentioned states and territories. One interpretation for this cartoon is that of the White Man’s Burden. The people depicted in this cartoon are “less-developed” and presumably “less-intelligent”; the Native American in the comic, for example, is reading a book titled “ABC” backwards.  Taking this into account, why do some territories/states appear more “civilized” than others? Does the comic hope for these new acquisitions to become more “California-like” or are they just too alien? The following cartoon by J.S. Pughe has an answer.

In Pughe’s “Declined with Thanks”, Uncle Sam, a fat, freakishly tall man, declines Carl Schurtz’ “Anti-Expansion Policy” medicine. The medicine will make Uncle Sam thinner, but still he declines. The cartoon, therefore, pretty explicitly condemns the empire’s recent expansion. America is quite literally being spread too thin; a fact detrimental to its health.  America needs to show restraint and limit itself, otherwise there will be no American identity. It is not an argument against assimilation of new identities, per se, but rather, an argument against its imperialist expansion. 

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012647459

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010651326/

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 1, 2022 at 9:37 AM

    It was interesting for me to see that these pictures' includes how America tends to behave towards other individuals who do not fall under the "American standards". I feel ashamed that as someone from Texas we are part of the problem as we force individuals to learn English and give up their culture. It is interesting to see how we limit individuals when we are known as the melting pot.

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