Becoming Me @becomingmeselfportrait-blog - Tumblr Blog

Family Heritage

I’m a first generation U.S. citizen of Filipino, Spanish, Scottish, and Irish descent. I come from a large extended family. In 1972, my great grandparents, Andrew and Maruja McCaw, immigrated to the U.S. from a barrio in Mindanao, Philippines with 10 of their 11 children. Barrio life consisted of living in a village where people would farm, fish, and hunt within the natural terrain (see Photo Set below, photograph 1). My grandfather, Robert, is the eldest of the 11 children (top middle in photograph 3), and he followed shortly after with his own family in 1973 to make the move stateside. His family included my grandmother Eufemia (bottom, 2nd from left in photograph 5), my father Al (top, first to the left in photograph 5), my Uncle Bernard (top right in photograph 5), and my Aunt Mae (bottom, 2nd to the right in photograph 5). My father was seven years old upon arrival in Los Angeles while his brother was five and his sister was four.

"Family Heritage" Photo Set

*Note: Click on an image for full view and caption

Colonial History

Spain colonized the Philippines for over 300 years from 1565 to 1898. Spaniards brutally suppressed and abused Filipinos throughout their rule. Filipino natives were treated as second-class citizens, basically slaves, by those in power. The colonizers did not share their knowledge with Filipinos— even to the point of refusing to teach Filipinos the Spanish language. Filipinos lived under fear with barely any freedom while under Spanish colonization. In 1898, the U.S. acquired the Philippines from Spain along with Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Treaty of Paris. This political cartoon was created by an American around the same time as the Treaty of Paris. It shows the U.S. President at the time, William McKinley, grasping the neck of a native Filipino child, who acts as the representation of the Philippines, near a cliff that has a sign that says, ‘To Spain,’ while the globe stands on the sideline as a spectator. The mediated scene attempts to show the American public that McKinley only has two options: he must either (1) give the petrified, helpless child back to Spain, which the cartoon illustrates as throwing the child off of the cliff, or (2) keep the child and offer him aid and assistance. The option that should be rightfully proclaimed is Philippine independence rather than new colonial rule, but that was never an option in this political satire.

U.S. Territory

In 1898, the U.S. strategically bought the Philippines from Spain for $20 million in order to have American military bases in Southeast Asia, obtain a larger supply of raw materials, and engage in new markets in neighboring countries. However, Americans hid their motives from the public, and instead, the media explained how the U.S. planned to treat Filipinos as allies instead of slaves, which was referred to as “Benevolent Assimilation”. Filipinos quickly became Americanized through Western education (as shown in political cartoon 1 in the Photo Set below). To this day, English is still taught in all schools throughout the Philippines making it one of only two countries (the other being Singapore) in Southeast Asia where the majority of the population is fluent in English. Americans called Filipinos their ‘little brown brothers’ in an attempt to shine a positive light on their colonization. U.S. propaganda was such that both American and Philippine citizens told the U.S. was occupying the Philippines in order to teach them to be “civilized” so that one day they would be strong enough to govern on their own.

Japan invaded the Philippines from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. For this duration of time, Japan inflicted many atrocities on Filipinos, including the Manila Massacre. Image 2 (see above) was released by the U.S. in the Philippines as a continuous display of their benign role as allies to assist Filipinos during times of peril. After all the damage had been done, over a million Filipinos were killed by Japanese forces. Thus, image 3 depicts ‘Filipino-American Friendship Day’ on July 4, 1946, which is when the Philippines gained complete independence from Japanese occupation. In this cartoon, the Philippines happily holds the hands of Cuba and Hawaii while celebrating Independence Day.

"U.S. Territory" Photo Set

Mixed Culture & Heritage

As a consequence of U.S. colonization for over four decades, Filipinos have adopted many aspects of American culture as their own, including language, politics (i.e. democracy and capitalism), movies, fashion, and music. Spanish and American influence on Filipino culture can be seen in both a positive and negative manner. On one hand, some Filipinos believe that their national identity is in a state of crisis since it is no longer authentic due to being so heavily mixed with that of their colonizers. On the other hand, other Filipinos invent their own works and/or add new meaning to previously learned ideas and works that have come from the U.S. and Spain. Here is an example of a Filipina, Charice Pempengo, giving a new kind of cultural significance to a song originally by Whitney Houston in the early 1990s. (Click attached audio below to hear the file.) Through this song, Charice has helped to create a more unified sense of national Filipino identity. Before the United States ruled over the Philippines, there were hundreds of different dialects spoken throughout all of its 7,000 islands. But now that the English language has been taught in nearly every school, Filipinos are able to identify with this emotional ballad and connect with each other through it’s heartfelt choruses and verses. Today, Charice’s song is heard all over the Philippines by children and the elderly alike, from the mega-malls of Manila to karaoke bars to the smallest barrios in remote islands, and Filipinos all across the board are able to come together and sing along.

Visit Original Link

Song: "I Will Always Love You" by Charice Pempengo

Who I am

Spanish and American cultural and political hegemony over the Philippines, as reinforced by mass media/propaganda over the years, has tainted the idea and standard of beauty for Filipinos. Filipino “mestizos” or Filipinos with mixed ethnicity particularly those of a Caucasian blend (largely of a Spaniard and/or White American parent) are held in the highest regard in terms of attractiveness and are also assumed to be better off socially and financially. Most celebrities in the Philippines, including singers and actors, are fair skinned. Filipinos with brown, darker skin are viewed as less appealing and of lower socioeconomic status who make up the vast majority of the Filipino labor class. Sadly, these notions are beheld as truths by many Filipinos because of a colonial mindset that controlled them for nearly four centuries. That is to say, the subordinate class was simply trying to fit in and somehow relate to the ruling class. (This type of racism toward the indigenous population was, in fact, quite common of Spanish colonialism worldwide.)

As for me, it is easy for other Filipinos to classify me as a mestiza Filipina since I am, in fact, ethnically mixed as well as born and raised in the U.S. Nonetheless, I believe that people should extend their cognition and perception towards all of the senses rather than falling into the trap of visuality provided by the media. After 65 years of independence, now is the time for Filipinos to steer past colonial constructs of thinking.

My identity has been largely shaped by my family, cultural upbringing, social factors, and mass media, but it does not encompass my entire being. I interpret these aspects of my identity to be tools that have helped me to view the world through various lenses. My sense of self continues to evolve as time goes on with the knowledge that I am able to develop and invent my own, unique insights while taking in the world of representations that I live in today.

"Who I Am" Clip: Filipina? Mestiza? White? Spanish?

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Becoming Me