1920-11: (Children in the March and the Occupation’s Dismissal — US Military Surveillance Reports Suggesting the Majority of the Marchers Were Children, Most…

1920-11: (Children in the March and the Occupation’s Dismissal — US Military Surveillance Reports Suggesting the Majority of the Marchers Were Children, Most Reports Using the Presence of Children to Invalidate the Event and Some Claiming the Children’s Presence Was a Political Ploy by the UP to Get Sympathizers, Yet These Children Were Witnessing and Living Under the Precarious Conditions of the Occupation and Chose to Protest the Foreign Presence, Malbranche-Sylvain’s Teenage Daughters Madeleine and Jeanne Likely Nearby Holding Their Mother’s Collection Bucket or Walking in Her Shadow Absorbing the Intricacies of Mass Mobilization): The teenage daughters of Malbranche-Sylvain were also likely nearby — perhaps holding their mother’s collection bucket or simply walking in her shadow chatting about their teenage lives, absorbing the intricacies of mass mobilization. If the future women’s activists did not accompany their mother, they surely heard of the day’s success. US military surveillance reports suggested that the majority of the marchers were children. Most of the reports used the presence of children to invalidate the event, and some claimed that the children’s presence was a political ploy by the UP to gain sympathizers. The occupation’s intelligence apparatus could not conceive of children as political actors — could not imagine that young people living under foreign military rule might have their own reasons for protest. Some children may have joined the crowd to engage in the general festivities of the marches, but these children were also witnessing and living under the precarious conditions of the occupation and chose to protest the foreign presence. The occupation’s instinct to delegitimize the march by pointing to the youth of its participants revealed more about the occupier’s assumptions than the participants’ motivations: in a nation where children watched marines kick severed heads like soccer balls and saw their mothers’ flesh torn by military vehicles, political consciousness required no minimum age.