Introduction 1

Notes Introduction 1. Although it is commonly known as “Spanish–American War” in English, the title does not involve the other two countries closely associated with the war, Cuba and the Philippines. In the Spanish-speaking world, it is often called “War in Cuba” (“Guerra de Cuba”), “War of Independence” (“Guerra de la Independencia”), or “War of 98” (“Guerra del 98”). 2. In fact, Havana and Manila can be called “twin cities” that shared the history of colonial administration not only under Spain and the United States but also during a brief British occupation in the eighteenth century. 3. For previous allusions to the links between Martí and Rizal, see Zea (1981), Anderson (1983, 2005), Blanco (2004), Kim (2004), and Lifshey (2008, 2012). 4. Zea writes that [Rizal] can and should be alongside the great Latin Americans, alongside the liberators and teachers of our America. Together with Bolívar, Morelos, Juárez, Mora and Justo Sierra; with José Martí, his twin brother, and with America; with Bilbao, Lastrarria, Montalvo, González Prada and many others who made Spanish an instrument for liberation. (175) While Zea’s comparison points to a necessarily expansive Latinoamerica- nism that seeks to include the Philippines, it ultimately eschews the complex historical context of each figure. 5. The term indio was used differently in the Philippines than in Spanish America during colonial times. In the Philippines, indios referred to the people of indigenous ancestry who were “inside” Catholic evangelization and “unmixed” in blood, representing the masses of lowland peoples (Kramer 39). 6. Martí studied law and philosophy in Madrid and Zaragoza between 1871 and 1874, and Rizal studied medicine and philosophy in Madrid from 1882 to 1885; both enrolled in the Universidad Central de Madrid. 158 ● Notes 7. Although Rizal is generally known as a “reformist,” some critics have argued that a close reading of his work illustrates his belief that reform was only a necessary step toward the ultimate goal, independence from Spain. Schumacher points out, for instance, that “Rizal had been a sepa- ratist from early in his career, but one who understood quite clearly the preconditions by which that independence from Spain would mean true freedom and justice” (1991, 99). See also Ambeth Ocampo’s essay “Mem- ory and amnesia: Rizal on the eve of his centenary” in his Meaning and History: The Rizal Lectures (2001). 8. It is worth recalling that the images of Martí and Rizal have been frequently used and even manipulated by their countries’ politicians as well as by the US government. 9. Blanco’s term also seems to echo with Benedict Anderson’s “spectre of comparisons,” which is a translation of Rizal’s words “demonio de las comparaciones” in his novel Noli me tangere (Anderson, 1998, 2). 10. Alfred J. López examines different ways in which people in Havana and Miami attempt to define national identities through their own interpretations of Martí. See López (2006), especially chapters 1 and 2. 11. In this book, all translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. For citations by Martí and Rizal, my translations are accompanied by original texts in Spanish. For other citations (e.g. secondary sources), I only provide translations in English. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Martí’s works are from Obras completas de José Martí (Complete Works of José Martí), and I indicate parenthetically the volume and the page number for each citation. 12. Recent scholarships on Martí include, for example, Ramos (1989), Belnap and Fernández (1998), Rotker (2000), Montero (2004), López (2006), Lomas (2008), and Bejel (2012). For Rizal, see Anderson (1983, 1998, 2005), Rafael (1988, 2005), Ileto (1998), Quibuyen (1999), Ocampo (2001, 2008 [1990]), Blanco (2004), and Nery (2011). 13. Related to Anderson’s discussion, see also Manuel Sarkisyanz’s Rizal and Republican Spain and Other Rizalist Essays (1995). 14. Notable studies on the literary and cultural relations between Latin America and Asia include Kushigian (1991), Tinajero (2003), López- Calvo (2008, 2013), Pierce and Otsuka (2009), Lifshey (2012), and Tsurumi (2012). 15. Some important publications on the history of nineteenth-century Cuba include Corwin (1967), Pérez (1983, 2011 [1988]), Ferrer (1999), and Schmidt-Nowara (1998, 2006). For studies on the Filipino history during the same period, see Schumacher (1973, 1991), Ileto (1979), Anderson (1983, 2005), and Francia (2010). 16. For discussions on the historiography of European empires and imperialisms, see Hobson (1902), Lenin (1916), Arendt (1951), and Hobsbawm (1987). Notes ● 159 17. Hobson studies the economic aspect of modern imperialism through a discourse of Western “parasitism” in the late 1890s. His idea of “parasitism” refers to the situation in which a few global industrial countries in Europe exercised dominant power in the world. Imperialism, which he calls “a depraved choice of national life” (125), fundamentally endan- gers the future of world civilization because it “parasitically” exploits the poor in underdeveloped countries in order to enhance economic progress and create industrial foundations for dominant nations. Hannah Arendt would famously advance and complicate Hobson’s model in The Origins of Totalitarianism. 18. Throughout the nineteenth century, Spain witnessed disputes between progressives, liberals, and conservatives within the country. Following the liberal revolution of 1868, numerous incidents intensified the pace of political instability in the metropolis, such as the restoration of a constitu- tional monarchy under Amadeo de Saboya (1870), the Carlist war (1872), the declaration of the First Republic (1873) and its fall (1874), and the reestablishment of the Bourbon Monarchy (1874). 19. Some nineteenth-century authors in Latin America incorporated the history of the Manila Galleons into their literature as they discovered new interest in Asian symbols and imagery. One of the examples is the represen- tation of Asia in José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi’s El Periquillo Sarniento (1816). See my analysis of the novel in Hagimoto (2012). 20. Unlike Filipinos, Cubans enjoyed certain privileges within the Spanish empire. For example, they had the right to send representatives to the Spanish Parliament, the political domination of the Church was relatively little, and there was a similar kind of legal system as in the metropolis, together with a secular and state-provided educational system. 21. Ferrer argues that the most intense conflict in Cuba’s independence movement was the one between racism and antiracism. For her, the legacy of the Ten Years’ War was “the impossibility of racial conflict,” which would later be articulated by Martí through his discourse of nationalism (124). 22. The category of “Filipino” did not have the connotation that we associate today with the native population in the archipelago. From the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century, “Filipinos” referred to the Spaniards born in the Philippines (i.e. those who would be considered “Creoles” in Spanish America), as opposed to more privileged “peninsulares” (the Spaniards born in Spain). In other words, the “Filipino” identity, at least until the 1890s, was associated with both an ancestral link to Spain and the ability to speak the imperial language. Often overlooked is the fact that it was Rizal and his generation that first appropriated the term “Filipino” to refer to themselves and, by doing so, started looking at the Philippines as their mother country rather than Spain. León Ma. Guerrero rightfully called Rizal the “first Filipino” because there was no clear definition of the “Filipino” before him (Ocampo, 2001, 12). In fact, the notion of the 160 ● Notes “Filipino” already appeared in Rizal’s earlier poem, “A la juventud filipina” (To the Filipino Youth), which he wrote at the age of 18 while studying at the University of Santo Tomas. 23. For a comparative analysis of the impacts of the Spanish colonial enterprise in the Philippines and in the New World, see Phelan (1967), especially chapters 8 and 11. 24. As the presence of these native languages suggests, there is rich ethno- linguistic diversity in the Philippines. Historically, the most important language has been Tagalog, used by the ethnic group residing in the region of Luzon. When a revolutionary organization against the Spanish empire was established in 1892, Tagalog played an important role as the movement’s lingua franca. As I discuss in Chapters 1 and 3, Rizal also considered the native language crucial for his works. His mother tongue was Tagalog, and he characterized his first novel as a “Tagalog novel.” Toward the end of his life, Rizal even began to write his third novel in Tagalog, entitled Makamisa, but it was never finished. See Ocampo (1992). 25. The figure of the Spanish-speaking population in the nineteenth Philippines varies depending on interpretations. Whereas Phelan claims that Spanish was understood by 10 percent of the total population (131), Anderson suggests that it was less than 5 percent (2005, 5). 26. Nevertheless, the evangelization of the Philippines did not mean that the non-Christian beliefs and rituals had disappeared completely. In fact, there was strong resistance against Spanish colonization in some parts of the archipelago, especially in Muslim Mindanao (Francia 90–95). 27. In Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule, Vicente Rafael examines how the imperial language influences both the dominant power of clerical orders and the natives’ response to Christianity. For him, evengelization and anticolonial resistance during the early colonial period essentially depended on the practice of translation. 28. Ileto studies the history of Apolinario de la Cruz, whom he considers a Christ-like figure. See Ileto (1979), especially Chapter 2. 29. For a historical overview of the Propaganda Movement, see Schumacher (1973). 30. The United States’ imperial ambitions were of course nothing new. After the massacre of Native Americans, the country bought Louisiana from France in 1803 and conquered almost half of the Mexican territory after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Load more