From 1890 to 1913, United States embarked upon a quest to conquer new territories such as Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Philippines. The leader of United States, Theodore Roosevelt’s speech over “white” as a “superior race” was said to be one of the motivating factors that led United States into war and expansion of the country. Gail Bederman of Notre Dame University and Paul A. Kramer of Vanderbilt University both discuss the reason as to why United States went to war in their essays, Gendering Imperialism: Theodore Roosevelt’s Quest for Manhood and Empire, and Racial Imperialism: America’s takeover of the Philippines. Bederman in her essay argues that Roosevelt’s lack confidence led him to portray himself as the man’s man and thus his actions…show more content… Kramer’s essay clearly portrays the mistreatment of Filipinos population by United States due to their racial difference. Kramer’s portrayal of American imperialism as a way to completely dominate over Philippines and strip them from their right to vote in the matters that involved their country. For example; US signed a treaty with Spain that involved islands (Philippines as one of the islands) and they completely ignored the Filipino representative. Even the island’s citizens and the Philippine Republic that acted in their name had played a “minimal role” in treaty negotiations (Kramer 129). This essentially portrays that United States took the matter in their own hand since they considered themselves as “racially superior” compared to Filipino “savages”. Also after the war that involved Filipinos to fight for their Independence against American colonization, America justified their reason to go to war was due to Filipinos’ guerrilla war, as “savage” war and it was outside the boundaries of standard “civilized” war (Kramer 131). After everything that America has done to Filipinos it is quite clear that the American imperialism was not to spread of self-determination, rather it encouraged them to oppress the weaker race and strip them from their rights to govern their own
