Reflecting on the Philippines

Lalaine Ignao

Final Blog

11 August 2014

Reflecting on the Philippines

For as long as I could remember, I fantasized about attending school in the Philippines. Growing up, I immersed myself in the culture from the moment I was born, hoping to one day have the opportunity to study abroad in the motherland. It wasn’t until this past school year that I was given the chance to actually follow my dreams with the help of the University of Washington. Finally being able to achieve my lifelong dream, I didn’t know what to expect; being a student from Seattle University, I have never experienced taking a class at UW except for the pre-departure seminar for the study abroad trip. I wasn’t sure how hard the class was going to be, let alone how rigorous it would be to study abroad with the university. At first I thought that I would be prepared studying in the Philippines because of my prior visit to the country seven years ago and my knowledge of the place from watching The Filipino Channel. I was wrong; with traveling all over the Philippines, learning about its history through the assigned weekly readings, and interacting with the local people, there was, and is, still so much I could learn about the motherland.

Picture taken from Richard Jarabe

Growing up, I always knew the struggles Filipinos had to deal with living in the Philippines but I never was able to really see it for myself aside from watching the Filipino news and seeing bits of it during my stay in 2007. CHID opened my eyes to see the poverty local people in the Philippines deal with every day. As we traveled to many parts of the country, I could see the different class structures present; one town would be the home of the working class citizens when just the next town over inhabits the upper class citizens. I didn’t realize that the Philippines was in this condition because of America’s influence on the country.

“‘There is something curious about this – curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that take 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’” (Twain, 2002, 64).

With the United States impacting the Philippines and its people comes assimilation within the two different cultures. One of the biggest impacts that America has on the Philippines is in the educational systems. Attending classes at the Philippine Women’s University and visiting other college campuses, I quickly realized that lectures were taught in English and it is highly encouraged for students to learn and practice speaking in English. “With American education, the Filipinos were not only learning a new language; they were not only forgetting their own language; they were starting to become a new type of American. American ways were slowly being adopted” (Constantino, 1982, pg. 183). Visiting professors at Ateneo de Manila University, I found out that the university is even planning to get rid of Tagalog classes altogether in the near future. With English being taught and used in the educational systems, the different dialects of the Philippines are slowly disappearing. It upsets me that the national language of the Philippines is slowly disappearing because of the influence and power America has over the Filipino people.

As the program continued and our studies persisted, I learned about utang na loob and how the Philippines believes that “‘Mother America’ is owed a lifelong inner debt, or utang na loob, by the Filipino people she nurtured” (Ileto, 1998, pg. 3). Because the United States saved the Philippines from Spain and helped develop the country, the government and its people have this illusion that they are forever in debt to America. With this misconception, the Philippines have allowed the United States to transform the country into something they believe is correct. “Americans, having dismissed Filipinos as less civilized, wanted to transform Filipino culture, to ‘remake’ Filipinos to more closely resemble what Americans were used to” (Paulet, 2007, pg. 179).

Because of the power and influence America has over the Philippines, Filipinos are blinded by the truth in the country’s history with the United States, how America paid Spain to hand over the Philippines and then controlled the country and its people, even causing violence in order for Filipinos to cooperate. “The American view of our history turned our heroes into brigands in our own eyes, and distorted our vision of our future” (Constantino, 1982, pg. 180). Regardless, people still put the United States on a pedestal; whenever I talked to the local people about America and asked about the history, they would justify everything by saying that America has done so much for the country and that the people will forever be grateful.

It made me upset that the United States have so much power over the Filipino people but reading the weekly assignments and being a part of a group with Kristen, Catalina, Ben, and Mary Jane gave me a new perspective on the readings and the program’s course description.  Each person comes from different backgrounds and interpreted the class material in their own way, giving the whole group a huge discussion when it came down to talking about the assigned readings. When it was our turn to present the second week’s readings, the group was given Ileto’s The Philippine-American War: Friendship and Forgetting, Twain’s To the Person Sitting in the Darkness, and Zinn’s Invasion of the Philippines. Each reading revolved around the theme of theorizing American occupation, speaking from the time that the United States took the Philippines from Spain to slowly influencing the Filipinos to assimilate to American culture. These three readings were difficult to understand at first because they were so heavy and were filled with information; but once my group met together to work on the class presentation, we were able to answer one another’s questions about each reading.  From this, I was able to benefit being a part of a group and recognize what other people’s perspectives are on the course material that are different from mine as well as receive a better understanding of the readings with the help of my classmates in my group.

Picture taken by Richard Jarabe

Our group dynamics crossed over smoothly when we began working on the class project; it was confusing at first for us to start working on the final project because we didn’t know what the guidelines were. After brainstorming ideas of what we wanted our topic to be, the group finally decided to research on skin whitening, another symbol of colonial mentality in the Philippines. Colonial mentality is a notion of “internalized oppression following colonialism” (David & Okazaki, 2006, pg. 241). Everywhere we went, there were advertisements promoting either skin whitening products or depicting light skinned models endorsing different products. These images are a subtle way of giving Filipinos the want to have lighter skin instead of being content with the skin tone that they have already. With this comes the idea of American influence in the Philippines, creating one more thing for Filipinos to mimic in hopes of becoming more American-like. Before conducting our research, the group came up with our thesis for skin whitening and its influence within the people of the Philippines. Skin whitening is a physical manifestation of American occupation in the Philippines and colonial mentality. It is one of the top selling markets in the Philippines, but many Filipinos are unaware of the harmful health effects. Though many are unaware, there still Filipinos and organizations that exist who advocate for self-love and national pride.

Skin Whitening product

The plan for our group project on skin whitening was to look for studies that show the effects skin whitening products have on people and to interview people about their opinion on the issue and whether or not they knew if the products had any health effects. In the beginning of our project, we came together and had a discussion of how we wanted to go about the presentation, each person contributing ideas and thoughts on what to do. As a group, we made decisions by taking a vote on each suggestion and compromising if the idea was too hard or complicated. By the time we were done discussing what we wanted to do, we decided on making a movie of all the interviews we planned on conducting while adding in slideshows that gave statistics about skin whitening, its effects, and the assigned readings we related to the issue. We took the time to brainstorm together what questions we wanted to ask people and what information we were hoping to receive from each interview. It was difficult conducting how to go about researching for the project at first because we were dealing with a typhoon and lost internet connection in the dorms but once we were able to figure out transportation, Catalina, Ben, Mary Jane, Kristen, and I all headed for the mall.

Each person was given the task to find readings that relate to our topic and be in charge of that assigned reading, rereading the material, and finding quotes that relate back to what we were talking about. In additional, Mary Jane and Ben stayed at UP Town Center to do online research on the effects skin whitening products have on people while Catalina, Kristen, and I went to SM North to find random people in the mall to interview. When we were interviewing Lance and Lawrence back at the dorms, the whole group was interviewing them, asking individual questions each person had that related to our assigned readings that we were in charge of as people took turns recording the interviews. Once we gathered all the material we needed for the presentation, Catalina volunteered to be in charge of making the video. The rest of the group helped her when written material needed to be added into the video, such as quotes, statistics, and summaries of studies. Whenever there was an interviewee speaking in Tagalog, I helped Catalina with the subtitles by translating what each person was saying. We all contributed pictures we had of skin whitening and footage of interviews. The final class presentation was definitely a group effort.

Throughout this whole process of working within a group expanded my horizons and forced me to step out of my comfort zone, voicing my opinion more. Our group dynamic was very diverse as everyone had different backgrounds and was experiencing the Philippines study abroad program from a variety of perspectives. With these new perspectives, I was able to open my mind and see the different angles my other classmates view the Philippines and interpret the weekly readings. Being a quiet and reserved person in a classroom setting did not help when it came to presentations. I was forced to speak up and talk about the weekly readings and skin whitening with the class. While conducting research for the final group project, I had no choice but to step out of my comfort zone once again and speak to strangers, asking them for an interview and asking them questions about skin whitening. This was good practice for me though because as a strategic communications major, I need to become comfortable speaking in front of people and to strangers. The final group project not only gave me an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone but also see what skin whitening really does to people. Before the presentation, I didn’t know much about the issue and didn’t realize its health effects on people. Doing the final group project on skin whitening was an eye-opener for me, portraying the influence America has on the people of the Philippines on a whole other level.

Looking back at the month long quarter, I learned a lot about the United States’ influence on the Philippines and how it affects the Filipinos as well as working within a group with Kristen, Catalina, Mary Jane, and Ben. But during those 30 days, I also learned more about myself. Throughout the trip, I did my best to keep my promises of keeping an open mind to everything around me in the Philippines and to always try new things, even if it meant getting out of my comfort zone. Looking back at my experiences throughout the trip, I definitely came out of my shell; riding on top of the jeepney, hiking, learning the art of arnis, zip lining, singing karaoke in front of new people, going on the twin hanging bridge, and taking part of an unfamiliar religion’s ritual are just a few activities I took part in that I never imagined myself doing before the program began. I learned how to take chances and push myself beyond my limits while being in the Philippines. What people say about studying abroad is right; you learn more about yourself and you change in such a short amount of time. Interacting with the local people and learning about their story gave me not only a better understanding about them but also a better understanding about myself.  

I saw how passionate Filipinos can be when they find something they’re willing to work hard for; talking to some of the PWU students I learned that some of them had to go against their parents’ wishes of studying a “practical course” and study their desired course instead while juggling work in the mix. While multitasking work with school is normal in the United States, it is very unusual to do so in the Philippines. Listening to the students’ stories of juggling work with school brought me to the realization of true passion and hard work of a Filipino and reminded me of the struggles my parents went through in order to make it to America.

All my life I’ve wanted to move to the Philippines; I would constantly tease my parents that I would find work in the Philippines and live there for the rest of my life. My father would retort and tell me how difficult life is in the Philippines, especially if I were to move there. I didn’t realize what he meant until we had a discussion with the PWU students during one of our lectures. One student spoke about Filipino Americans being in the Philippines to work, using English to their advantage to find jobs in the Philippines, making it harder for locals to find jobs themselves. Louie then commented that it isn’t our fault that we were born in America and have English as our first language. Even though we have the privileges of living in America, we will never fully belong in America or in the Philippines. We are caught in between the two countries. Reflecting on this, I realize that what Louie said relates to me. I may seem very close to my Filipino culture and could pass as a true Filipino to people in America but speaking Tagalog in the Philippines alone proved it wrong, seeing that the people in the Philippines have commented that I speak slang Tagalog. Because of this new insight, I realized that there is more to both the Philippines and the United States than what meets the eye. We came to the Philippines in order to break down barriers and deconstruct the stereotypes. The mentality of “hurry up and wait” that the group abided by did not only teach me to speed up the process of getting ready in the morning and also the art of becoming patient and considerate of other people, not only within our study abroad group but the people in the Philippines. I believe that if we continue interacting with the Filipinos and they continue interacting with Americans, we’ll be able to create a better understanding of one another, deconstructing one stereotype at a time.

References:

• Twain, Mark. “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” Vestiges of War. Ed. A. Shaw and L.H. Francia. New York Press: New York, 2002. 57-68. Print.
• Constantino, Renato. “Miseducation of Filipinos.” Vestiges of War. Ed. A. Shaw and L.H. Francia. New York Press: New York, 1982. 177-192. Print.
• David E.J.R. & Okazaki. “The Colonial Mentality Scale (CMS) for Filipino Americans: Scale         construction and psychological implications: A review and recommendation.” Journal of Counseling Psychology. 2006. 53 (1), pp. 1–16. Print.
• Ileto, Reynaldo C. “The Philippine-American War: Friendship and Forgetting.” Vestiges of War. Ed. A. Shaw and L.H. Francia. New York Press: New York, 1998. 3-21. Print.
• Paulet, Ann. “To change the world: The use of American Indian education in the Philippines.” History of Educational Quarterly, 2007, 47 (2), 173-202. Print.