Week Three: Desiree

The effect of US imperialism upon the Philippines is long lasting. As a Filipino-American, this puts me in a curious position, a person stuck between two worlds. On the one hand, I am a privileged American. On the other hand, I am a Person of Color who has historically been marginalized by the white supremacist dominant culture, and who has her true “roots” an ocean away from her birthplace. Just as it is important to examine my own identity as between two worlds, it is essential to look at the Philippines as existing in between two spaces – existing in its completeness in neither one space nor the other.

During the third week of our stay here in the Philippines, we visited several college campuses, including the University of Santo Thomas and Ateneo de Manila. The University of Santo Tomas (UST) is heralded as the first university in Asia. Much of its prestige seems to come from this title. UST is an institution that its students and Pilipin@s take pride in. However, this reverence as the first university in the PI (and in Asia) comes from views which are Western-centric. Western-centric views value a “university” education, or a formalized education with rules and some sort of degree to be earned. It is likely that pre-Spanish colonization, the indigenous Pilipin@s had their own way of “educating” their people – in life skill, language, literature, art, history/beliefs, and more. The space now called “the Philippines” is home to many different linguistic dialects. Furthermore, before the Europeans ever came to the islands with their Roman alphabet, many indigenous folks wrote in Baybayin. Indigenous peoples practiced martial arts, such as Arnis, and had art forms such as dances, including the Tinikling and Singkil. These elements of culture could be seen as other forms of “knowledge” if one looks outside a Western context. To focus on UST as the focal point of education in the Philippines ignores the idea that these things, too, are “educational” and are more than just “folk dances” or “ancient script” – but rather a way of seeing the world, of thinking, of educating generations. If one looks at indigenous art, dialect, and writing as education, it far outdates UST’s reign. After examining these elements of culture as knowledge, I believe they deserve just as much, if not more, prestige and honor as a university education.

Dismissing indigenous knowledge is in part a result of American colonization. During America’s official colonial reign over the Philippines, America believed it had to educate Pilipinos because they needed to be civilized instead of savages. According to Anne Paulet (2007) in To Change the World: The Use of American Indian Education in the Philippines, Americans got the blueprint for their plan to “educate” Pilipinos from their attempts to “civilize” Native peoples in the Americas. Americans used formal education (schools) in order to carry out their plan. Indigneous ways of learning and educating were pushed out, and instead Pilipino children went to schools where they practiced pieces of American culture: “The educational system adopted by the United States in the Philippine Islands thus functioned as an agent of Americanization, as it had among Indians in the West” (Paulet, 2007, p. 192).

Our visit to Ateneo de Manila made me think of one aspect of knowledge in particular: Language. Our UW class sat down and had a conversation with Oscar Campomanes and some of his graduate students, all from the Department of English at the university. Perhaps because of their departmental affiliation, many of the students were pro-English when it comes to the Pilipino educational system. During our discussion, the Ateneo students revealed to us that the Pilipino educational system is moving towards removing Filipino language from the educational system and to adopt English and focus on it instead. This is a part of the educational system in the islands becoming more Americanized, including adopting America’s K-12 system. One reason given to teach in English is to make students more competitive in an increasingly globalized world, where English is widely used. One Ateneo student reminded us that the U.S. had good intentions when it changed the Philippines’ education system during American colonization. 

This thought process represents a colonial mentality. According to E.J.R. David and Sumie Okazaki (2006), colonial mentality (CM) is “a form of internalized oppression, characterized by a perception of ethnic or cultural inferiority that is believed to be a direct consequence of centuries of colonization under Spain and the United States” (David and Okazaki, 2006, p. 241). To think that English is essential for Pilipinos in order to be successful could come from subconscious colonial thinking that native Pilipino dialects are not good enough – English is “the natural cost for progress and civilization (David and Okazaki, 2006, 242). Moreover, this coupled with a focus on the “good intentions” of the American colonizers represents a feeling of colonial debt, or feeling indebted to one’s colonizers for bettering them through means such as forced education, or feeling that what happened was ultimately beneficial (David and Okazaki, 2006).

Because Pilipinos have embraced parts of their society that are products of American and Spanish colonialism, the lines between what is “Pilipino” and what is “Western” are blurred. One may even argue that in the modern day, products of colonization such as English have become essentially Pilipino. Another example of this occurrence is the case of religion. Angel Shaw’s film “Nailed” tells the story of a Pilipina woman who, compelled by her God, nails herself to a cross every year in order to heal the sick. According to Shaw in a discussion of her film after its viewing, this represents a relationship between the religion of the colonizer (Catholicism) and traditional spiritual beliefs. Before critically thinking about the spirituality of Pilipinos, it was easy for me to criticize their choice to adopt Catholicism as purely because of colonization. However, examining the spirituality and devotion of the woman in the film forced me to re-think the way I though about “religion.” To see Pilipinos as bound by a colonial religion is in itself Western-centric, as the concept of organized religion comes from Western thought. Shaw’s film forced me to think of the “Catholic culture” of the Philippines not as a “religion”, but as a belief system and way of thinking that, although has aspects of a colonizer religion, is also deeply Pilipino and deeply important to many Pilipino peoples. On a colonial mentality scale, this could represent an “integration” mindset, or “high identification with both cultures” (David and Okazaki, 2006, 242). This means that spirituality of the Pilipino people is not mere assimilation.

Another artist that our class met during our third week was Kawayan De Guia, the son of an artist we meet in the first week of our trip.  Much of Kawayan’s art focused on yet another aspect of Pilipino society greatly influenced by American colonization: politics.  One mixed-media piece that he showed us comes to mind. On a canvas, Kawayan had painted his own depiction of an American flag, along with handprints “pushing back” against America. Kawayan told he had painted these handprints in his own blood. Kawayan spoke of the corruption rampant in modern-day Pilipino politics. Visiting the Aguinaldo shrine in Cavite and the abandoned Marcos house in Tagaytay provided examples to us of the extremities of Pilipino politics. Aguinaldo is made a savior for his role as this first President of the Philippines, while Marcos is villianized for his corruption. This is not unlike how American politicians are viewed. The Pilipino political system is modeled after America’s:

“It was understandable that for American authorities to think that democracy could only mean the American type of democracy, and thus foisted on the Filipinos the institutions that were valid for their own people. Indigenous institutions which could have led to the evolution of native democratic ideas and institutions were disregarded” (Constantino, 1982, p. 184).

To me, Kawayan’s piece represents a struggle against U.S. imperialism and politics, one that is fought with sacrifices and soul (in this case, Kawayan’s blood). Kawayan, an outspoken proud indigenous individual, is using his own resources and own self to “push back” against American imperialism.

In week three, I truly realized that the opinions of America and products of American colonization by Pilipinos vary exceptionally. In the Philippines, the lines between indigenous and colonized are blurred. Although many parts of Pilipino life come from Western influence, while sitting in on a PBA game (yet another Western influence) and watching Pilipinos screaming their heart outs and enjoying themselves, I thought to myself, Who am I to judge anyone who loves this? It was globalization that brought basketball to these folks. While some Pilipinos are more “pro-America/West” than others, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to exist and survive in a colonized land – rather, existence is somewhere in between.

My question is: What do you think accounts for the differing opinions on Westernization/globalization? Although it is essential to critique globalization because of its negative effects on the world, specifically the Global South, how do we “fix” these problems now that globalization exists?

Works Cited

Campomanes, O. (2014). Languages of the Philippines. [PowerPoint Slideshow].

            Retrieved from Ateneo University.

Constantino, R.  (1982).  Miseducation  of  Filipinos.In  I In A.V. Shaw & L.H Francia,

      Vestiges of war. (pp.  177-192).  New  York:  New  York  Press.

David, E.J.R., & Okazaki, S. (2006). The Colonial Mentality Scale (CMS) for Filipino

Americans: Scale construction and psychological implications: A review and recommendation. Journal of Counseling Psychology 53 (1), pp. 1–16.

De Guia, Kawayan. (2014). Art Gallery. [PowerPoint Slideshow]. Retrieved from the

            Philippine Women’s University.

Paulet, A. (2007). To change the world: The use of American Indian education in the

           

Philippines. History of Educational Quarterly, 47 (2), 173-202.

Shaw, A. (2014). Nailed. [PowerPoint Slideshow]. Retrieved from the Philippine

            Women’s University.