"Is it always be in one's subject's heart?"
Notes after 4th of July and how Filipinos still clinging to the idea
that "America is in their heart".
At first, this person and others concerned would say that as Americans celebrated its independence day, the struggle for independence isn't over as long as its subjects remained chained in interests brought by these Americans though a series of unequal treaties.
It may sound past-like in this era of "just" dialouge and "cooperation" over an era of disagreements and "struggle", but reality shows that 4th of July isn't about celebrating while its subjects marching and opposing every Yankee-sponsored moves whose motivation is to keep firm in its interests, the way its proud legacy stems in the desire for justice, self-determination, and freedom as an emerging nation. And being a subject, a vassal of a so-called "exceptionalist" thinks that America's policies "isn't unequal" knowing that these Americans truly believe that all men are created equal.
Nice to hear that but still, exceptionalism knows no equality except interests.
For the Americans and the United states at large, the 4th of July is their day of reckoning as a "nation"; in which these once called "colonists", Anglo-Saxon settlers coming from the British isles, Protestants and even Catholics, chose to overthrow their once-called King from their memories since the time their ancestors settled at Jamestown and its Mayflower compact, to strip their rights as British citizens as it made being "British" synonymous with repression and injustices, and to create a new nation out of their own making, brought up by "Life, Liberty, and in pursuit of Happiness" as their founding fathers hath afforded to say.
And in it, it may sound nice for Americans to take pride in that legacy behind that July 4th the way they idealise Thanksgiving as a pact between the native and of the settler. Americans, as themselves, may tried its best to show that their patriotism as greater, exceptional than any other nation despite being synonymous to repression towards lesser nations and disdain for those who chose to struggle against a dominant nation's wishes. Sorry to say but repression shouldn't be a part of that nation's legacy despite being "great and strong" due to its "manifest destiny."
However, for most Filipinos, being a vassal to Yankee interests so to speak, 4th of July has been once called as its day of independence since 1946. but to those who cling to its struggle since 1898 and recognising those of America's and its numerous contributions in Philippine history, 4th of July was also a day of reclaiming independence as a "Republic Day", what more of recognising it by its neighbouring nations especially its proud "big, white brother" with its friendship day.
However, these Americans, on the other hand, are also the ones whom have not only perpetually assimilated its subjects into their own consumerist culture, but also used education, sadly to say, to basically make Filipinos alien and detached from its own native land. Sorry to say, but despite all the efforts in educating Filipinos the manners of the developed west, of being "civilised" by western standards though its modernities, it appears that the so-called "little brown brother" rather apes altogether thinking as if it's also his and being culturally American is as superior than as culturally Asiatic or Hispanic.
After all, as Carlos Bulosan had once said: "America is in the Heart". That despite being treated unequally by its so-called "big white brother", from the so-called "Gringo", from that damned "White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant" the Hispanists tend to described as such, the "United States of America" rather remains in the heart of most Filipinos taking the Yankee culture as synonymous to modernity and development, that being against American is itself against Modernity, worse, being Patriotic is as synonymous with backwardness and maldevelopment!
Quite sickening those statements if that's the case, all brought by accepting the unequal treaties optimistically as if there's the United States to help with being a "big, humane, white brother" to a "little brown one", and that all from it's culture, arts, mannerisms, way of life, "America is in one's heart". And even though most people have not chosen to admit it, still, today's culture rather lies a manifestation of a culture which pretends and aspires to be accepted as an American citizen, or perhaps admit that the country does not need development of it's own, save tourism and some trade and commerce for some seriousness, least all for a cheap Yankee-sponsored "aid" rather than stand up and forge its own fate like its own neighbours.
Anyways, despite all agreements, proposals, and the like, all brought by a so-called "superior" country whose intention is to keep firm in its interests, a nation that is genuinely unfreed from injustice from its domestic repressors, disenfranchisement by "fair" policies, and unequality by so-called "superior" and "exceptional" nations, does not create a nation that is, at peace. Even Americans themselves know that fact, and some of them dare to oppose the way Mark Twain opposed his own country's moves during the Philippine-American War.
And in speaking of peace, it is unlikely to be called peaceful if that damned word called peace is nothing but an absence of conflict yet, that same peace has retained injustices what more of disenfranchisements that is, around one's cherished community.
For now, people may say that the freedom that Americans enjoyed is itself a product of struggle, but hope that struggle, all for what they called as "for peace, freedom, and prosperity", what more of "for life, liberty, and in pursuit of happiness" be not end laid into waste.
That's all.