Conference Paper re When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

I received the following Google Alert:

An abstract of a conference paper citing When the Rainbow Goddess Wept:
Maxwell, T. "“Let the Dead Bury the Dead”: Remembering the Unspeakable during the American and Japanese Occupations" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association . 2008-12-11 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p113801_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Why do certain traumatic memories become part of public memory while others are forgotten? In protesting a particularly vicious campaign in the town of Calendaria during the Philippine-American War in 1901, four Filipinas testified of rape and molestation by American soldiers. In total, seventy women of Calendaria complained of abuses, yet the commanding officer Captain Boughton discounted their testimonies. Though hardly isolated incidences, these war atrocities were virtually erased from Filipino and American public memory. The women of Calendaria decided not to testify, claiming that it was better “to let the dead bury the dead.” My project explores what it would mean to honor these women’s voices. Recovering these testimonies from official archives such as the military records of the Philippine-American War at the National Archive in Washington, D.C., this paper examines how the elision of sexual trauma and rape in the history of the Philippine-American War signals imperial trauma. Although feminist scholars such as Anne McClintock point out the connection between sexual trauma and war, such violence has not been explicitly investigated in the United States’ military conquest and the Philippine-American War specifically. This study debunks the image of the good old American soldier by showing how acts of American conquest and empire were tied to acts of violence against women.

In contrast to the elision of American war atrocities against women during the Philippine-American War, the sexual atrocities committed against Filipinas during World War II by Japanese soldiers elicited public outrage. Called “comfort women,” these women were held as slaves to be raped and tortured. Recently, these lolas or grandmothers have spoken out and demanded reparations from the Japanese government. Why has this trauma become part of public discourse while the raping of Filipina women by U.S. soldiers remains nearly invisible? This paper analyzes both layers of trauma, how the prevalence of Japanese war atrocities in collective memory serves as a touchstone for earlier war crimes during the Philippine-American War. Examining the story of the Japanese war atrocities in Cecilia Brainard’s novel When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, I argue that the war crimes against women during the Philippine-American War haunt the narrative of World War II atrocities, and that the figure of the Japanese soldier stands in for the American soldier. My reading shows how imperial trauma shapes collective and cultural memory through historical layering. By juxtaposing women’s testimonies of Philippine-American war atrocities next to Brainard’s novel, my project interrogates the construction of the archive while simultaneously contesting imperial trauma.