SF Bay Area Schools Will Finally Include WWII Sacrifices of Filipinos in History Books

SF Bay Area Schools Will Finally Include WWII Sacrifices of Filipinos in History BooksSF Bay Area Schools Will Finally Include WWII Sacrifices of Filipinos in History Books
Starting this semester, grade 11 history books in the San Francisco Bay Area will include information on the sacrifices of Filipino veterans during the second World War, filling a gap that has long been forgotten.
Cecilia Gaerlan, executive director of the Bataan Legacy Historical Society, hopes that this knowledge will eventually be available nationwide.
“We may have done the first step last year, but full implementation has yet to come,” she told Inquirer.net at a University of San Francisco conference. “We are starting with creation of the lesson plans and hopefully we can disseminate these throughout California then eventually throughout the United States.”
Gaerlan expects that disseminating the lesson plans in California alone would take three to five years, but action will simultaneously be taken at the national level.
The invading Japanese controlled the Philippine media, which portrayed imperial forces as helpful liberators. In reality, the Japanese were committing brutal war crimes like the Bataan Death March. This front page claims that Japanese occupation will bring peace and tranquility to the Philippines (photo and caption via U.S. Air Force).
Meanwhile, retired U.S. Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba claimed that historians have never been “kind” to Filipino veterans:
“Historians and history have never been kind to the Filipino veterans of World War II for unknown reasons. We rarely talk about victory in Japan day and what happened in the Philippines because Bataan and the Bataan Death March were a large defeat of the American military forces. Nobody likes to talk about defeat.”
Bataan Death March
“But it is also important to know why they were captured and defeated at the time when the Philippines could have been a Japanese territory today. To the victorious achievement, the tenacity and bravery and courage of our Filipino veterans and their American comrades, we are happy to have this history and we need to tell that now so we can tell our grandkids and the generations to come,” Taguba added.
General Douglas MacArthur and President Osmeña land at Palo, Leyte, 1944.
More than 250,000 Filipino soldiers responded to President Franklin Roosevelt’s call to arms in 1941 and eventually fought under the American flag at the height of World War II. They fought against Imperial Japan, which then conquered Korea and parts of China, Taiwan and Russia, Priceonomics noted.
Destruction at the Walled City of Manila, 1945
In exchange for their service, Filipino soldiers were promised U.S. citizenships and full veterans benefits. Unfortunately, of some 200,000 survivors, only 4,000 veterans were granted citizenships as President Harry Truman defaulted in 1946, leading to years of struggle for recognition.
Wounded Japanese Imperial forces surrender to U.S. and Filipino soldiers, 1945
For now, alongside efforts to disseminate knowledge on their sacrifices, veterans are awarded a one-time compensation through the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund. Eligible U.S. citizens receive $15,000, while non-U.S. citizens receive $9,000.
At least 18,000 claims have been approved to date.
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