👏🏽 Janna Langholz 👏🏽

This history is appalling and needs to be excavated unto Collective Consciousness and Release. Wow 😳 I had no idea.

Historical omissions make work by Filipino historians and scholars like Langholz even more vital for several reasons, said Monberg, who is also a board member of the National Filipino American Historical Society. She said that the dominant narrative of progress at the World’s Fair, and silence about those who were exploited, can perpetuate harmful stereotypes today.

“The ability to sort of center the stories of Asian Americans or Filipinos is essential, for several reasons, because the history has been largely documented by others,” Monberg said, adding that Filipino American, or Asian American, history is rarely taught in K-12 schools.

Scholar Angela da Silva said the need for reconciliatory remembrance of history is crucial for healing racial divides which persist today. In 2018, Da Silva directed a historical reenactment of how people of color were treated at the World’s Fair with the Mary Meachum society.

She said audiences were shocked, and some people even were defensive of the fair’s legacy.

“If St. Louis was not ashamed of it, why have they buried this and kept it buried for so long?” da Silva said. “But why? I mean, if this was OK, and you're so proud of this event, then why not tell the whole story?”

Da Silva said instead of justifying the event for being “acceptable at the time,” people in the present day should engage with history recognizing the wrongdoing that occurred. In her words, “both sides should face the truth.”