The USA Map You Never See

I grew up knowing that the Philippines had been a territory of the United States. My family came to California in 1972 and I quickly learned that many (all?) of my classmates had never even heard of the Philippines, much less known anything about its relationship with the U.S.

This was a fact that simply lived in the background of my mind, and I never really thought about how it would have been presented in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, what it meant, or how that war and all the territories tied in with U.S. history overall.

All that changed when I read How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. It’s a brilliant book. Meticulously researched and very well written. I could talk about it for hours - as some of my friends have already experienced.

Here, I’ll just point you to one of the mind-bending moments for me early in the text: learning that maps of the United States of America were once published that included all the territories. These maps were from a time when the USA was in an imperialist phase, creating an empire that spanned the globe which started to make folks in the contiguous 48 states feel a bit uneasy.

The map below is from 1901, a bit before people started to question just how “United” the states were, questioning that would lead to calling this place “America” in order to shake off that discomfort.

This map also predates conversations (arguments) began over whether or not these territories would become states, and what would it mean for the white people in the 48 to be outnumbered by a state on the other side of the world?*

Looking at this map, I think about an alternate universe in which the Philippines did end up becoming a state, where Marcos and Duterte could at most have become Governor.

A universe where my family never migrated. We just moved.

This map of the USA from 1901 includes the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Wake, Howland, Baker, Cuba, and Puerto Rico - as well as Alaska and Hawaii - listed as territories. Source: Library of Congress.

*Echoes of these arguments are sure to resurface with the efforts to grant statehood to Puerto Rico today, or Guam and Samoa