This is my message to you, Pilipina to Pilipina.
Since the Spaniards arrived in the late 1500’s to early 1600’s we have been subjected to follow the ideals and image of what our colonizers wanted and saw their own women to be. We were told our ways were sinful & lustful. They degraded us, we who were equal with men. We, who were spiritual leaders, who were respected, who inherited land rights, were educated, were able to take on positions when our husbands couldn’t. We who had the right to divorce our husbands, take charge in our sexual acts and pleasure, and keep our own properties. We who were not treated as properties but as fellow humans with rights and freedoms as men.
They changed the strong and independent women to the Maria Clara image, of submissive, modest, god fearing, soft spoken, obedient, and quiet. They raped us, broke us, stripped away our freedoms and rights, and changed our societies from an egalitarian to patriarchal society.
They stripped away our identities, they taught us that our brown skin were ugly. Since then we have this ingrained notion that light, white skin is beautiful and that our proud kayumanggi skin that used to glow as we wore our tattoo’s and gold bracelets, necklaces, and earrings that complimented our beautiful sun kissed skin was inferior.
They killed our babaylans, katalonans, bailan, mumbaki, mamaluyan, because they feared the spiritual power and leadership of these women who were second to that of the Datus, Lakans, Rajahs. They turned the communities against these women and labeled them as brujas and feeding them to the crocodiles.
Over 400 years of colonization and of self internalized racism, we still face this today. Our mothers, tita’s, lola’s, manangs, yell at us for getting to dark and to stay in the shade or use skin whitening soaps like Papaya. We are told to act like a woman, to clean the house, to be graceful, to be a lady and not be masungit and to be mabait.
We face sexual harassment, exploitation, abuse, and fetishization by both our own men and foreigners. In telenovelas constantly you see women portrayed as weak, to be slapped around and abused physically and sexually by our boyfriends and husbands. This along with the fact we don’t have the right to divorce anymore due to the church’s grip hold on the law and politics, thus so many are stuck in abusive relationships.
We have been through so much but I call out to you, my kapwa, to tell you a message. That we are all beautiful, whether you are a light skinned mestiza to a kayumanggi whose roots all come from the islands to even those who are mixed with other ethnic groups, our Mexipinas, our Blackapinas, our Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. mixed Pilipinas. All of you are maganda and your roots and blood stem from the islands no matter how far removed you are or how distant you are from the islands and culture.
They have called us monkeys, seen us as sexual objects, as maids, as nannys, as domestic help, as dogeaters, as plenty of other stereotypes that our people have faced and continue to face.
We are beautiful. Brown. White. Black. Straight hair. Wavy hair. Curly hair. Skinny. Fat. Thin. Thick. Tall. Short. We are all beautiful, molded from the centuries of living off the islands we call home and of our ancestors.
Be empowered, recall the strength of our mothers, sisters, lolas, titas, our ancestors, who flow through your veins. Recall their strength of being a strong, independent, woman, of being the providers of life, of spiritual growth, of warriors.
Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, and then open them and look into the mirror at your reflection looking back at you. Look at her and smile, laugh, and embrace being who you are, of throwing away all the colonial mentalities that have been ingrained in us since birth that we should be a Maria Clara, that we are inferior to men, that we have no voice. Look at the young girl, woman, elder, facing you and see the beauty that is you, as a Pilipina, as someone hailing from the rich, diverse, warm, and blessed tropical islands of the Southeast Asian Pacific and let no one try to take that away from you ever again.
2087
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