Colonial Mentality

Hi! Hello! It's been a while since my last post .. So here it goes :)

Last week in English class, the "barkadas" (groups) were assigned a chapter in Kevin Nadal's book Filipino American Psychology and we have to teach it to the class. My barkada choose "Colonial Mentality of Filipino Americans". One of the things that really stuck to me was the effect of colonialism on how Filipinos saw and still see beauty as.

Filipina actress, Angel Locsin

One thing that Filipino and Filipino American communities highly value is being mestiza or mestizo. Nadal says word translates to someone who is part spanish or multiracial Filipino and White. However, now the word mestiza/o is used to describe anyone who is light-skinned. Then he goes on to say that because being mestiza is highly valued, Filipino and Filipino Americans try to get the look of being light-skinned. To do this, they invest in skin bleaching creams and products. 

This caught my attention because people in my own family are part of the community of people that want to get that mestiza look. When I think of Filipinos, I think of dark hair, dark eyes, and dark skin. That's changed. I like to think of it as the "new" generation of Filipinos, but now the typical look of Filipinos and even Filipino Americans is dark hair, dark eyes and light skin. As seen through Filipino television, stations like TFC and GMA .. and for me, through my family members. 

To me, its not that Filipinos aren't proud of being Filipino, and by that I mean their roots, the indigenous Filipino people .. the ones with the brown/dark skin, but that the "new" generation doesn't identify themselves with those Filipinos. That's the biggest influence of colonialism in my eyes when it comes to appearances of Filipinos. Or what comes to mind when you think about what most Filipinos now look like. I'm not saying that wanting to be mestiza or mestizo is a bad thing, it's just effect of colonialism. And it has become a part of colonial mentalities. There are many other colonial influences that effects Filipinos' and Filipino Americans' mentality .. but I think I'll save those for another post haha!

Til next time .. Happy readings (: 

Filipinos in San Diego with Judy Patacsil .

This post is a bit long overdue .. On October 4th the class went to the San Diego Book Fair at City College to meet Judy Patacsil and learn about her book Filipinos in San Diego. Judy is a counselor at Miramar College and she is also a founding member of the San Diego chapter of the Filipino-American National Historic Society. Her book is co-authored by Rudy Guevarra and Felix Tuyay, the book is a collection of pictures of the first Filipinos to come to San Diego. Through the pictures readers can experience how life was for Filipinos back then. I found the presentation especially interesting because; one, it was about Filipinos (which I am always eager to learn about because there is so much I don't know yet) and two because its based on Filipinos in San Diego, where I've lived my whole life. And I think it's nice to learn about how Filipinos lives were back then in the city I've always called home. Like I've mentioned before, whenever I come across something written and published about Filipinos I get excited because there is a lack of knowledge about them. So reading about and seeing things that validate Filipinos existence, historically speaking, interests me and makes me proud of where I come from.

Before going to the book fair and learning about Dr. Patacsil's book, I didn't really know how big of a Filipino community there was here. Maybe that has to do with the fact that there aren't any landmarks or buildings that show the public that Filipinos were a major part of the San Diego community. Personally I would have loved to see the Manila Cafe still up, as a landmark or something, just to have a piece of the past generations still with us, for the new generation of Filipino and Filipino Americans.

Til next time .. Happy readings (:

"The Learning"

A couple weeks ago, my English professor, Mr. Aronson invited the class to watch a screening of a documentary, "The Learning". It is about Filipina teachers coming to the U.S. to teach public schools in Balitmore, Maryland and their transitions coming here and the struggles that they faced. Watching it, my first reaction was to the feelings of how hard it was for the four women to leave their families in the Philippines. I can relate to the feeling of leaving your family behind, I, personally haven't left any family but I've felt and seen the sadness of that through my aunts and uncles that have recently come to the U.S. to work. As it went on, I felt that I could relate to their struggles and the difficulties of transitioning into a new kind of culture. Because when my aunts and uncles were in the same situation as them, I was there with them trying to help with anything I could and in a way I felt their pain and struggle.

Another thing I noticed was that the teachers faced a culture shock of how different schools in the Philippines are from the schools in the United States. Even though, I don't think it was made such a huge thing in the film. In the Philippines, the teachers have the respect of the students almost immediately, versus the time it takes to gain students' respect, if at all, in schools in the U.S. Before even watching the film, I had a good idea about how students behaved in the Philippines and I was aware of little differences between schools there and schools here. I thank my cousins back in the Philippines for sharing that information with me and opening my eyes to just how different the two cultures are.

From what my cousins told me about their school life in the Philippines and what I told them about going to school here, I found a lot of different little things that were different. For one, they told me that every morning when the teacher arrived to the classroom, all the students would stand up and in unison say "Hello or Good Morning, Miss or Mister". Where here, we don't usually do anything like that. Another thing they told me was that the class stays quiet unless the teacher asks them something and they would rarely speak up or ask questions, and if they do have questions they would either wait till there was a time for it or after class. In my experience going to school here, students would, not intentionally, interrupt the teacher while they were talking to ask a question.


I think that that has to do with the different respect that students in the Philippines have for their teachers. Not to say that student here don't respect their teachers but students in the Philippines have a different kind of respect. The last difference I saw was how seriously students take school and their education. In the Philippines it is considered a "privilege" to go to school since even elementary school has to be paid for. So for student who go to school they feel the need to take it seriously and not mess around. While here, public school is well free. Not so much in college, but in high school I saw that a lot of students don't really take their education seriously. Watching the film also brang up a lot of other realizations and reactions, but I think what most caught me was the cultural differences in school systems between the Philippines and America. Even when the Philippines adapted a lot of American ways of learning to their educational systems.

Til next time .. Happy readings (:

Growing up Filipino !

In our textbook Filipino American Psychology, Kevin Nadal talks about four major Filipino cultural values that Filipinos live by. The first cultural value is "kapwa" or fellow being, this means when a group of people feel a togetherness & connectedness to each other. For example, Filipinos tend to gravitate towards other Filipinos because they feel more connected to one another through culture, language, interests etc. And so they feel comfortable being around each other or getting together.  The next value is "utang ng loob" which translates into debt of reciprocity, or simply put .. returning or compensating for favors to others. A good example of this could be me taking care of my Lola now that she is getting older, in return for her taking care and raising me when i was little. Returning the time and care my Lola gave me, back to her.

"Hiya" is the third value that Nadal talks about. This is defined as shame or loss of propriety; it is important because this also means to represent oneself or one's family in the most honorable way .. Basically not to bringing shame to your family. The last value is "pakikasama" or social conformity, for FIlipinos this means getting along with everyone and not causing conflict and if there is conflict, it is ignored just for the sake of getting along. These values are important to know to better understand the dynamics of Filipino families.

My Lola & Me !

I say it is important to understand these values to understand Filipino families because I see these in many families, especially in my very own. Growing up, my family (mom, aunts, and Lola) instilled these basic values in my cousins and I. The first value that immediately made me think of my family was "utang ng loob" because of the example of my Lola, I used at the start of the post. When my cousins and I were born my Lola spent everyday with us. She fed us, dressed us, taught us tagalog .. even though we didn't realize it, and walked us to school. And now that I'm older, I take care of her. Which I'm more than happy to do because she's my grandma! I don't feed or dress her but I take her to doctors appointments, I help her cook, and do things around the house that she has a hard time doing. Just by doing little things for her, I feel that I'm slowly repaying her.

It always felt kind of normal growing up with these values in me. I always knew about them but when i read and saw them through Nadal it made them more real in a sense to me. He gave me names to put to things I already knew. By "real" I mean that reading about it made me realize that it's instilled in not just my family but many other families. Knowing that other Filipino families also live by these values makes me proud in a way, because it shows me that there are still original (indigenous) Filipino values being shared worldwide. And that even though the Spanish and American values are an important parts of growing up Filipino, I'm glad that those values stuck and can be passed on.

Just a small part of my family.

Til next time .. Happy readings (: