IN HONOR OF MEMORIAL DAY: During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt pledged that Filipinos who fight for the United States will be granted citizenship and military benefits. As a result, over 200,000 Filipinos fought side by side with American soldiers during World War II. Shortly after the war ended, that promise was taken back with the Recission Act of 1946. It was not until 2009 when President Obama signed a bill that would give Filipino World War II veterans a lump sum compensation of $15K ($9K for those living in the Philippines) to the less than 18,000 veterans who are still alive today. Yes, such an amount is not commensurate to the benefits they missed out on for over 50 years, but yet to this day a majority of them still have not received such meager compensation. So, LET US REMEMBER THE FILIPINO VETERANS WHO WERE NOT ONLY VICTIMS OF WORLD WAR II, BUT ALSO VICTIMS OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM.
To clarify the details: since the Phillipines were a commonwealth of the United States during World War II, Filipino soldiers were considered American nationals, but not American citizens. For their service, they were promised full citizenship and the same benefits as regular U.S. soldiers.
However, the Commonwealth of the Philippines was established specifically as a transition step towards Philippine independence. Under the Philippine Independence Act of 1934, the United States agreed to recognize the Philippines as a sovereign nation after a ten-year transition period. This was only partially derailed by the Japanese conquest and occupation of the Philippines, and the Phillipines were formally granted independence from the United States on 4 July 1946.
The Recission Act of 1946 withdrew the promised benefits for Filipino veterans, in exchange for a two hundred million dollar payment from the United States to the newly formed Philippine government, which is not mentioned in the OP. Corrected for inflation, that’s $2.3 billion in present-day dollars. While racism was absolutely a factor here, it’s also true that giving Filipino veterans U.S. citizenship while at the same time granting the Philippines independence from U.S. occupation would have been nonsensical.
I disagree. The plan for independence was enacted 7 years before the promise was made to Filipino soldiers, and if independence would interfere with keeping that promise, it should never have been made. Furthermore, World War II ended 10 months before independence was granted, and the $200 million payout was made to the government for other reasons, not for or to the soldiers themselves. The payout to the then-new Philippines government in no way comprised compensation for the promise made to Filipino soldiers who fought for the US. It was just an easy excuse to get out of granting 200,000 non-white veterans access to the same rights and benefits of white veterans.
Filipinos were never US citizens, so if the promise was to give citizenship to non-citizens, I don’t see why it would matter whether the Philippines was a commonwealth or a sovereign nation. There were many ways this could have been handled, including giving Filipino veterans a period of time to opt to be US citizens or citizens of the Philippines.
When you consider that non-white veterans who were already citizens also faced significant barriers to being able to use their GI Bill benefits, it’s only more clear that this promise was broken due to racism.