Learning Doesn’t Stop After the Program – Claudette’s final blog

Yesterday, I visited my 3^rd grade and she told me “Claudette, do you remember when you used to tell me that you wanted your husband to be an American?” By American she meant a white person. I forced a quiet laugh but when I heard it, a lot of things came into my mind. If I hadn’t been in this program, I would’ve reaffirmed that I indeed wanted an American husband. After being in this program, I was conscious of what colonial mentality is and so the fact that I used to say that when I was younger indeed confirmed that I had colonial mentality. Now I want to emphasis the word had. After learning what happened to Filipinos and what they’re going through now, I can confidently say that I’m a different person. I don’t think this blog can completely capture my experience during this program but I will try to put all I can into words.

During this program, I became frustrated and started to cry.  No, it wasn’t because of homesickness. It was because my identity was being questioned. Before explaining, I would like to give you a bit of background. I was born in the Philippines but moved to the United States when I was 8 years old. Unlike my fellow Filipino-American peers in this program, I had a balance of both Filipino and Filipino-American culture throughout my life so far.  After reading Third Andresen’s piece which explains the influences of colonial mentality on Filipinos, I felt frustrated because I realized how everything he’s mentioned such as “ deficit perceptions of being Filipino, involves feelings of inferiority, shame, embarrassment, resentment or self-hate about being a person of Filipino heritage” were something that applied to me growing up (Andresen, 2012, p. 69).  I thought that this mentality was just the way things were but after learning that it was because of the colonizers that I felt angry. Angry because I grew up hating this part of me. Angry because it was parents who embedded this mentality into my upbringing. Angry because that means generations of Filipinos will continue to have this mentality. Angry because I didn’t know if I had the responsibility to do something about it. Angry because I don’t know if I can do anything at all.

A specific example of colonial mentality is this whole skin whitening business. I still currently am in the Philippines and when I watch TV here, almost all of the commercialized products for beauty and hygiene advertises skin whitening.  It sickens me to think about how Filipinos try so hard to the point that they are willing to endanger their health to look like people who not so long ago oppressed them. I have no right to judge however because the blame cannot be put on them. This program taught me about what white privilege is. Before this program, I didn’t believe in it. But even during the pre-departure orientation, after watching “The Color of Fear”, I gained a different perspective and yet again, I felt angry. Angry because we people of color fight each other, which makes us do the dirty work for those in power. Angry because the fact that white people seem to think that being color blind isn’t still perpetuating racism. Angry because black men like Mike Brown are dropping dead like flies because of police brutality. Angry because white people are put into such high pedestal by Filipinos. Angry because I used to agree with them.

Another topic that stuck out to me during this program was globalization. Globalization opens borders, which brings in money through things like tourism. Before this program, I thought that this was completely the best way for a third-world country to flourish, but I learned about how it displaces and exploits the indigenous people and yet again I was angry. A reading that stuck out to me that is connected to globalization was Mark Twain’s “To the Person Sitting in the Darkness”. The person sitting in the darkness can be interpreted as Filipinos who were in the dark about how the Americans were pushing their beliefs on them or Americans not knowing what their country is doing to other people. In my case as both a Filipino and an American, both apply to me. Because I grew up in the American traditional schooling system, I grew up not knowing what happened to my people. Learning this didn’t discourage me however. Twain (2002) states “The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say: ‘there is something curious about this—curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land.’” (p. 64) As an American, pursuing what the truth is and questioning it is already fighting against what is so deeply embedded in our culture. This is when I realized that being angry was better than being ignorant. To acknowledge that though Filipinos gained their freedom in paper, they are still under the control of America is to acknowledge colonial mentality and the need to break free from them.

One way for Filipinos to break free is to change their educational system. When we visited Anteneo de Manila, we were informed that policy changes are happening in which will make English the main language of instruction. To me, this screamed colonial mentality. To break free from this belief that English should be a bigger priority than Filipino languages should be what policy makers should be working towards. This topic of education connects to Renato Constantino’s “The Miseducation of the Filipino”. In this reading he says “Worst of all, many Filipinos will even oppose nationalistic legislation either because they have become the willing servants of foreign interests or because, in their distorted view, we Filipinos cannot progress without the help of foreign capital and foreign entrepreneurs” (Constantino, 1982, p. 10). Because of this program, I became conscious of how dependent Filipinos are to their colonizers. I’m ashamed now to admit that even some Filipinos who can be called “educated” still don’t believe in themselves and our country as a whole.

Before talking about succeeding, whose standards are we talking about anyways? Why do we as a country have to prove to those who colonized us or anybody that we’re capable? Why do we try so hard to gain acceptance when we know that no matter what we do, we can never be like them? Why do we even want to be like them? Throughout my experience in this program, a lot of questions remained unanswered to me. I will take these questions with me back to Seattle, knowing that it takes more than one month for me to figure things out. My experience here in the Philippines is bittersweet because this land I call home has been but a lie but no matter what, I am still proud to be Filipino.

Reflection of Group Project:

The topic my group decided to pursue was music. Specifically we wanted to know the Western influence on Filipino music. I came into this project thinking that we were going to just get interviews of people who want to fight the big influence Western music has. To my surprise, many of them accept it and welcome it. It had me thinking: is letting Western influence become part of the music culture here in the Philippines no harm? Or is it still perpetuating colonial mentality?

How I personally benefitted from the group project was what I learned from interviewing so many people. I gained many perspectives, such as from an ethnomusicology professor to a professional DJ. The professor had a point when he said that everything is progressive. Why should we put in so much effort into preserving original Filipino music when indigenous people have no problem with this progressiveness? As for the DJ, he gave me hope that there are bands and other musicians with Filipino music trying to make it big in order to change the current music culture, which seems to be dependent on Western music.

To be quite honest, I don’t believe I was able to put my best work into this project. Usually in projects, I am the leader. I plan and make sure the plan is executed well. In this instance I wasn’t able to do so, which made our project a disaster. Our goal, or I could say some of our group members wanted a full-on documentary to show during our presentation, which was impossible for us to do. We had too much footage but so little time to edit them. In the end we ended up cutting a 45-minute documentary to 20 minutes. We literally had to pull an all-nighter to finish it. This was my first all-nighter, and yes I went crazy. I believe I was delirious throughout the presentation but I am just glad that we even had a presentation. My contribution included picking quotes from the readings to talk about in the presentation and also editing the documentary. I also took part in the interviewing process. I chose not to talk about the contribution of my team members for personal reasons

Works Cited

Andresen, T. (2012). Knowledge construction, transformative academic knowledge, and Filipino American identity and experience, In E. Bonus, E. & D. Maramba, (Eds.) The “other“ students: Filipino Americans, education, and power. Charlotte, NC: IAP.

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.

Twain, M. (2002). To the person sitting in darkness. In Shaw, A.V. & Francia, L.H. Vestiges of war. (pp. 57-68). New York: New York Press.