Tylor Final Reflection

            Through this course, I learned more about knowledge construction and the role education plays in the development of our self-identity and group identities, such as ethnicity, race, gender, and nation. As a class we studied this through the effects American colonial relations with the Philippines.

 America through their imposition of an education system changed how Filipinos view themselves. This education system was modeled after the one used in America to pacify the native populations and make them more accepting of integration and assimilation into the American system. In the Philippines, the bringing of education was used to justify the American presence and taking of resources from the Philippines.

America came into the Philippines at a time of rising nationalism as the population was struggling against their Spanish colonizers for independence. America came into the war under the guise of liberators but through a deal with Spain stayed as colonizers. The independent Republic of the Philippines only lasted a few months before being disbanded by the American government. The education system had to find a way to lessen the role of Filipino elites in the liberation from Spain and heighten the importance of America as liberators. The Americans portrayed themselves as bringing to reality the desires of the ilustrado elites like Jose Rizal, who were the spark that ignited the revolt against Spain. While at the same time, the Americans needed to dismiss the rebellion against American colonialism and the Philippine Republic as proof of the Filipinos need for American tutelage.

The new education system shaped Filipino understandings of their nation, ethnicity, and race, which led to an understanding of themselves as inferior to Americans and other Western powers. To be White became the image of beauty and intelligence. To be Brown was to be savage and in need of tutelage. Since the Filipino national movement was circumscribed by the Americans, Filipinos were taught to not take pride in their being Filipino. Instead many strived to be American. Many left for America, taking with them this inferiority complex. Those who stayed also adopted more American ways of acting, dressing, talking, and being entertained. Even after America left the Philippines as a colonial power, American music and movies still over-shadow more indigenous forms of entertainment and locally produced forms of entertainment.

This feeling of inferiority we learned is called Colonial Mentality. This leads to both Filipinos and Filipino-Americans feeling the need to assimilate to a more American way of life. This also leads to parallel oppression as more assimilated Filipinos judge less assimilated Filipinos as inferior. This feeling of gratitude towards America for bringing civilization and democracy to Filipinos leads to a feeling that Filipinos do not have a History. However, this course worked to show us that Filipinos do have a history and to resist colonial mentality.

Before taking this course I had little interest in studying the Philippines when taking courses within my major, Southeast Asian Studies. I decided to take this course because I started to question my reasons for not being interested in the History. This course changed my mind of the Philippines by showing me where this thinking came from. Many of the ideas came from America’s educational policies and shaping of the mainstream understanding of Filipino history. I was not interested in the Philippines because it did not seem to have as deep of a history as places like Indonesia. However, it is just not as well studied because America wished to show the Philippines as a place of disorder before American intervention. Also the Islamic past might make it less desirable of a thing of study for many nationalist Filipino scholars who identify as Catholic.

Through going on field trips to places I was able to see the rich history and achievements of the Philippines before it was the Philippines. I saw the shrine of the muslim warrior, Lapu Lapu who killed Ferdinand Magellan. This history shows the uniting factor of Islam and the strength and organization of the early Philippines before colonialism. We also saw places like the Banaue rice terraces. This place showed the great engineering achievements of the Philippines before colonialism. The groups were self-sufficient before American and Spanish involvement. Now Filipinos rely on a global system led by countries like America for their daily needs and this has caused a great divide between poverty and wealth.

            Learning about the colonial factors in the current understanding of Filipino history has led me to want to continue studying this topic in graduate school. The regions that now fall into the states of Indonesia and the Philippines before colonialism had very connected and similar histories. However, after colonialism and differing understandings of nationalism through the education system, these two countries have developed differing understanding of their past. I feel like studying the current national histories and nationalisms of these two countries with the colonial education policies as well as taking in account the ways that before colonialism these regions’ histories were similar, would give me a better understanding of nationalism, history, colonialism, education, and southeast asia in general.

            Being able to engage directly with the Philippines was one of the most valuable aspects of this course. Through our group project, I learned a lot about the Filipinos’ self view. My group focused on music in the Philippines. Many musicians told us it was difficult to be a musician in the Philippines because there is not enough financing for proper recordings. These less financed bands have to compete with the well-produced bands of America. Many people we talked to stated they preferred American music and there was not much good music coming from the Philippines. The musicians told us there were gems in the Philippines. However, they are just harder to find because no one is looking and they need financing. Through our project we wanted to document some of the music coming out of the Philippines that showed that Filipino music was not inferior to American music.

I felt that there was very little conflict within my group because we were all people who are greatly interested in music and had similar opinions on what we wanted to show with our documentary. The only problem we had was time and figuring out how to divide the roles. I was mainly in charge of getting in contact with people involved with the music scene and interviewing them. However, Tory, Cristian, and Claudette also did some of the interviewing. Tory accompanied me to many concerts and filmed both the performances and interviews. Cristian and Claudette did most of the editing and decisions involving what footages to use and how to incorporate them into the film to get our thesis across.