A Filipino bloodline rooted in St. Louis' human zoo Smithsonian American Art Museum

At what point does an elder become an ancestor? When does the past become ancient? These questions are posed by artist Taryn Simon, who archived portraits, artifacts and text that trace the story of Cabrera Antero, one of the 1,100 Filipinos who were shipped to the St. Louis World’s Fair for display in 1904.

From Taryn Simon’s Chapter X: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII, 2011. The corresponding text, also a part of the piece, reads “Photograph of Cabrera Antero with his wife, first child, Sylvia, and another couple on display as part of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exhibition at the 1909 World’s Fair in Seattle. Family file, Bontoc.”

Antero, who met his wife during his transport from the Philippines, remained in the U.S. after the event. Through exhaustive research and communication efforts, Simon located and photographed a majority of Antero’s 158 descendants and relatives, whose diaspora spans the Philippines, the United States, Guam, Canada, New South Wales, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Japan. Simply entitled Chapter X, the multi-panel collage of Antero’s lineage is part of Simon’s larger piece, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters: I-IVIII, which similarly archives the tales of seventeen other bloodlines from various origins and historically distinct circumstances.

In its completion, the series urges us to examine our relationship with our histories – we witness time bend as images of the living are confronted with the moments of decades or centuries ago that continue to affect today’s outcomes. Most of the chapters are not necessarily about diaspora, which is why the showing of Abrero’s story in the Smithsonian American Art Museum is a particularly appropriate moment. Here we catch a rare glimpse of so many Smithsonian elements in perfect collision – nationalism with migration, art with anthropology, the contemporary with the historic. Its occupation of an entire wall in the museum’s Lincoln Gallery is a testament the the fluid and multi-faceted ways in which art can be deemed “American.”

Taryn Simon’s Chapter X: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII, 2011. This piece is on display in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Lincoln Gallery.

The story of the Philippine Exposition is among the most notorious of the historic 1904 exposition – not only because of the horrific moment in which American society found it appropriate to curate zoo-like settings for humans – but also because it was one of the fair’s most popular and expensive attractions. In celebration of the United States’ acquisition of the Philippines following the Philippine–American War, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was a rally for American expansion both as a tradition and a promise.

A booklet advertising the Philippine Exposition at the St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904. Collection of the National Museum of American History.

In this sense, the 47-acre exhibit which encompassed Filipino natives from a multitude of various and disparate tribes, was distinct from the other human exhibits, which Simon’s piece lists to include “Kwakiutl and Nootka from Canada, Pygmies from Africa, Serie and Cocopa from Mexico, and Tehuelche from Patagonia.” Antero was a representative of the Igorot, a society that captured the intrigue of the fair’s audience because of its tradition of eating dog. Although a text from Chapter X notes that the ritual seldom occurred in Igorot life, it became a highlight of the Philippine Exposition, and fair organizers arranged for the Igorot to eat up to twenty dogs per week. “They made them butcher dogs, which is really abusing the culture of the Igorots,” Mia Abeya – a Maryland resident and descendent of one of the Igorots on display – told NPR a century later. In a contrasting light, a current website commemorating the exhibit on the St. Louis Public Library’s website states that “Igorot culture included dog as part of their native diet.”

A photograph from the Philippine Exposition. The annotation reads, “Marriage party of Igorots(?) at Louisiana Purchase Exposition, 1904.” Courtesy of the Library of Congress

“Manila: American and Filipino representatives in the Salon de Marmol of the Ayuntamiento de manila.” Taken August 18, 1905 by Burr McIntosh during the Taft Mission to Asia, the year after the St. Louis World’s Fair. Collection of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives

This aspect of the exhibit echoes in American culture, possibly in larger ways than we’re commonly aware. In his article “Dogtown U.S.A.: An Igorot Legacy in the Midwest,” Dr. Virgilio R. Pilapil, founding president of the Filipino American Historical Society, suggests that the hot dog was given its name and introduction as a traditional American food at the same fair. The stereotype of Filipinos as “dogeaters” was born by American soldiers during the Philippine–American War, according to Jessica Hagedorn, who used the term for the titles of her novel and play. It’s almost certain that the notion was popularized during the fair, with its twenty million visitors. 

The dog-eating ritual was just one of the many elements of a grand display that also included traditions of hunting and dance. In a case that seems to turn the exhibit in on itself, members of the Ifugao, another Filipino society, were urged to conduct episodic mourning rituals for their counterparts who had died during the transport to St. Louis.

Janice Imy A. Chianglas, a student in Tadian, Philippines, as represented in Taryn Simon’s Chapter X: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII

“Woman in Costume and with Headgear.” Photographed in 1902 by Dean Conant Worcester, a zoologist and an early participant in the American colonial commissions in the Philippines resulting from the Spanish–American War. Collection of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Anselmo A. Sarmiento, a caretaker in Marilou, Philippines, as represented in Taryn Simon’s Chapter X: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII.

“Man in Partial Costume and with Ornaments and Baskets 1901.” Photograph by Arias M. Rodriquez. Collection of National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

Christian Bernard Ong, an automotive mechanic/fabricator in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. as represented in Taryn Simon’s Chapter X: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII.

In Chapter X, Abrero – who also participated in the 1909 Seattle World’s Fair – yet again returns to the realm of anthropological display, though arguably on much different terms. While the reservation at the World’s Fair attempted to draw an audience connection to its subjects through the frame of exoticism, Simon’s work beckons us to address how we in turn distance our histories from our understandings of today. Ironically, Simon makes a concerted effort to abstain from the use of autobiographical elements in her work – thus replacing one form of distance for another. “There’s this history with women in art that’s often associated with the diary, or being diaristic…and that’s something that I purposefully avoid.” Her explanation, like her piece, illustrates that we are all vulnerable to the ills of typecasting.

Taryn Simon’s TED Talk, The stories behind the bloodlines, 2012