It's been a hot minute since the last time I posted here. Quick recap, for the one year and 4 month since I've written: Kapwa Collective has successfully hosted three women who are T'boli people from Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, Philippines for a month long stay in Toronto (T'boli X Toronto) in which they were able to give presentations, meet First Nations leaders and build relationships with our communities here; also Kapwa Collective had our month-long installation in Scarborough's Guild Park as part of Restless Precinct; our all-women collective Pantayo has played several fun events, including Taking Place Concert | Whippersnapper Gallery, Labour + LOVE: A Celebration of Caregivers, part of Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts and Les Rues des Refusés. As for me, I am happily working full time as a settlement worker, serving newcomers to Toronto, and helping them connect with services, resources, and privileges afforded to people who live in this beautiful, vast country. It seems that I have taken a leave from living in my mind to live in the world, and although my blogging has been neglected, I find myself in a happy place in my life. It's always interesting to go back to personal writings from some time ago and see how much I've changed. I've been out of Academia for two years now, and have only recently began reconsidering returning. The thoughts and insecurities that I've had in the past about my belonging in that place certainly helped me to get out and change my path. Now I am certain that--at least in Canada--I would rather apply theory than help create it; though I liked engaging with it as a student. Now, though, I've been asked to participate in a (art and design) university symposium on the contributions of LGBTQ Filipinos in the Diaspora as a "community worker, performer, and artist" and although the presentation could be a performance, dialogue, or paper, I can't help but reflect about my work so far, and to try to think about it in an academic sort of way. I learned a little bit from my friends and kapwa Jen Maramba and Jo SiMalaya Alcampo about creating art for the public through Kapwa Collective's participation in Restless Precinct, where we worked together to create the Kulintang Healing Garden. I learned through them that art-making is the process of brainstorming and working together to birth an idea (or several), adapting to the problems at hand, and using creative resources to meet problems within a certain time period. Finding solutions creatively could even mean bringing in other people to work with. I have no idea why this sounds like a Project Management guide. But, essentially, the core of our work is in constantly giving space to and trusting each other's ideas and skills, but also ensuring that we are doing the same for ourselves. It was a real pleasure to travel to the Guildwood Park together (as our project was site-specific) and spend time there with ourselves and the space. Jen taught me that the earth vibrates in different ways according to what's underneath our feet. I walked barefoot on the earth to feel how solid and steady it was on the Bluffs, and I felt like an organ for inner listening was introduced to me. We came up with some ideas about how to incorporate the kulintang gongs in our work, and the best solution we thought of, based on our skill sets, was to create paper mache pots. I went to the studio regularly to work on these paper mache pots with Jo, who taught me that it was good to continue with what you have come up with is the best solution to a problem, until you discover a better one. That ended up to be something that happened serendipitously. While working on this project, I happened to mention it to my friend, Robeco, who is an entrepreneur and engineer (he worked with me with Pinoy Culture). He reminded me that his current project is to work on living walls, where plants are placed in modular pots on a wall....anyway, collaborating with him is how we came up with the iconic Kulintang Healing Garden
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In less than a month, I've realized, I have received teachings from some strong, creative, and spiritual women for my mind (Action>Archive>Action), body (Movement Creativity Lab), and spirit (Awakening the Temple Priestess). I feel very energized and whole, as well as thankful, and in my feeling of richness also feel compelled to return some of these gifts back to the Earth. Today I was reading about the Tar Sands Healing Walk some people are undertaking in Canada, and sent up a prayerful thought and wish for the animals, plants, and minerals that are being decimated and destroyed for the sake of Big Oil. It is my wish that I can contribute somehow to the continuation of good and beautiful things in the world.
200 Limited Edition 12" Vinyl Record << $25 >> Vinyl Cover by Jen Maramba Hand Printed Collaboration by Santa Guerrilla & Jeff Garcia >mangopeeler.ca Cold Tea Saturday, July 13, 2013 5pm - late night MUSIC: Big Tweeze FOOD: Lamesa Filipino Kitchen LIVE PERFORMANCES BY: SANTA GUERRILLA, Pantayo & DATU Santa Guerrilla Vol. 1, 12” Vinyl Release Santa Guerrilla (SG) is inviting all music lovers to come out and experience a musical moment resonance. They are releasing a 12” record independently as Santa Guerrilla Vol. 1 on July 13, 2013 at 7:00 PM at Cold Tea Bar (60 Kensington Avenue). As a 10-piece music and performance collective formed in Toronto in 2009 out of a basement at Kapisanan, a Filipino Arts Centre. Santa Guerrilla has been creating and learning with gongs, kulintangs, drums, chants, dance and electronic instruments. They have been fusing Filipino Tribal elements with modern influences, uncovering roots and richness while exploring a new frontier in music and culture. Santa Guerrilla’s past achievements include a rating of 4 out of 5 Ns in NOW Magazine at NXNE and playing to thousands of people at Yonge-Dundas Square. Santa Guerrilla Vol. 1 now exists as another offering to struggling people everywhere. Music and Performance BY: Alex Punzalan Romeo Candido Rudy Boquila Myk Miranda Christine Balmes Haniely Pableo Kevin Centeno Kevin Polangco Robin Lacambra Album Artwork by: Jen Maramba (Vinyl) Jeff Garcia / Mangopeeler (Vinyl) Jo Maramba (Digital) Free Album download: http://dump.oldeyorke.ca/Santa_Guerrilla-Santa_Guerrilla_Volume_1.zip Updates http://santaguerrilla1.bandcamp.com/ #santaguerrilla #pacificblues SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO SUPPORTED AND COLLABORATED WITH US THROUGH THE YEARS> WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE. ~SG
The final night at the discussion den
It's June! Second month of Spring, and 2013 has been very kind to me in terms of giving me opportunities for pursuing projects. It all started when the generous people at the Whippersnapper Gallery had the brilliant idea to offer their space for free to individuals and groups who want to hold discussions. They called their project, aptly enough, Discussion Den Space. As a result, from February 13 to April 24, 2013, I held a bi-weekly discussion on readings on Filipino topics at the Whippersnapper Gallery. After deciding to take a break from academia and being also "free" from having formal work, I had a lot of time on my hands. It turned out to be a perfect time for learning much more about Filipino culture. We discussed academic and researched papers on everything from Filipino art, history, relationship with Mexico (through the Galleon Trade from the 16th-19th century), cuisine, and of course, culture. The discussion series is documented on its Facebook page. There are also some academic and researched papers available there for perusal. Also at the same place, I was able to do a lot of practicing of kulintang music every other week. I had intended it to be practice time for the whole ensemble, but unfortunately more often than not, it turned out to be just me playing alone. Nevertheless! It turned out to be a fruitful endeavour because being there by myself forced me to put up a Facebook status inviting people to come and join me if they want to learn the music. And that is how I came to be joined by two graduate students who have since become good friends of mine, Valerie Damasco, and Conely de Leon (we all have chapters in Filipinos in Canada: Disturbing Invisibility, University of Toronto Press, 2012). Happily, the ensemble did come around, and we did rehearsals twice a week for a month at OISE (Ontario Institute for Studies in Education). Out of the efforts of playing kulintang on the regular, we were able to make connections with other artists in the community. Paul Limgenco is a visual artist and also a martial artist who practices arnis. Bea Palanca is a spoken word poet (we worked together on In:Transit). Pantayo, joined by newly-inducted-to-kulintang Valerie and Conely, performed beautiful music for the Roxana Ng Memorial Symposium at OISE on May 28. An excerpt of our performance, with Paul Limgenco doing arnis demonstrations, is available on our FB page. I feel very blessed to be able to do these things for myself and for my community. Salamat, Thank you, Miigwech. // We had our first "Readings on Filipino Topics" discussion today. We read Katrin de Guia's "Theories of Filipino Personhood" (2008) from Kapwa: The Self in the Other. First, I was disappointed because people came at 7:00 PM instead of 6:00. And a handful of people who said they would come ended up bailing. I spent the first hour eating my dinner and playing kulintang at the Whippersnapper (Pantayo practices are held there every other Wed. when we're not meeting for the reading group so my instrument was there). But when 7:00 came around, people arrived and we had a very vigorous discussion. Our discussion about Sikolohiyang Pilipino (S.P., or Filipino Psychology) moved from trying to understand why "hiya" and "utang na loob" could possibly be interpreted as a good thing; to making connections about why we act the way we do, why our parents and relatives behave the way they do; and finally, how we could possibly reconcile our Filipino selves with our Canadian selves in the classroom, at the dining table, and in our minds. And I freaking loved it.
One of the attendees was a young filmmaker who is writing a few scripts that centred on Filipinos. Now, he has some familiarity with the topic since he's lived in the Philippines for a period of time, has read and had discussions with people about Philippine culture, and so forth. So in the beginning he kept pointing out instances of how Filipino culture is no good. How "utang na loob" could keep a person in "permanent debt" and how older Filipinos would never see a younger person as their equal, how "hiya" kept a person from advancing, etc. All very good and to him, true things, because he experienced it himself. Well, the very convenient thing is, that de Guia has an answer to these points. The fact is that most of what mainstream people think of as "Filipino psychology" has in fact, a colonial origin. de Guia, quoting Enriquez, notes that those who were teaching Filipino psychology did not make a distinction between "Psychology in the Philippines" and "Philippine psychology. The former is "Western psychology" imposed upon Filipino minds, behaviours, etc. The latter is culturally-fair psychology using methodology more in tune with the Filipino way. On top of that, according to Enriquez's "From Colonial to Liberation Psychology," when "Psychology" began to be taught at UP, most of the teachers who taught it were not Psychology majors but American-trained Filipinos who knew how to speak English well and taught from a book. Not to mention that some of the values they said Filipinos have were chosen precisely because they allowed us to be more easily controlled by the American colonial powers. For example, de Guia says, "utang na loob was singled out by the American social scientists as an important aspect of the Filipino character because it promoted the colonizers as benefactors." Eventually, throughout our history, these values that came to be recognized and identified during the American period became "common sense." That is, people started internalizing them and thinking of them as true reflections of the Filipino. So in a way, it began to corrupt our minds. It began to make us think that our culture was inferior. (Renato Constantino would call this an example of the "miseducation of the Filipino.") During the discussion I kept pushing the group to adopt some objective distance between themselves (who experience having to "answer" to their elders, cultural clash between themselves and their parents, etc.) and these values we were learning about. "What could possibly," I asked, "push generations of Filipinos over thousands of years to value things like 'utang na loob' and 'hiya,' as well as the other values listed by Enriquez like 'kapwa' and 'pakiramdam'? What good could they possibly have seen in them to continue to uphold them and pass them on to their children?" One person asked whether de Guia and Enriquez were, in a sense, creating a new generation of Filipinos who have a different value system. Another responded, is it that these values are new, or that they had always been there but were never defined or stated. I think that both of them are correct. These values of the Filipino had been there for generations, were present before colonization, continued to be there during colonization, and continues to be there. Even within us, these values remain. Even if our parents fail to teach us the Filipino language, by their behaviour and the way they are in the world, they teach us how to be like them. But, what de Guia and Enriquez and other scholars in Filipino psychology are doing are "uncovering" these values through their appropriate methodology and "legitimizing" them as Filipino values by publishing books and teaching Sikolohiyang Pilipino within the university settings (incidentally, S.P. was the first Indigenous Psychology besides Western Psychology that was taught within a university setting). And, in fact, what we were doing tonight was the same thing. By discussing S.P. and reading about them and learning about them (and hopefully, mindfully applying them in our lives, our work in the arts, in the community, and so forth), we are part of the inherently decolonizing project of S.P. It is a project that Enriquez described as a counter to the negative perception of Filipinos by non-Filipinos, and I would add, by Filipinos with a colonial mindset. // Just when I was getting around to internalizing (and therefore learning) the idea that an artist should be entrepreneurial, I'm struck by the question: could it be the case that educators now, in this post-economic- crisis, multicultural, globalized period, also need to be entrepreneurial? Could I possibly pull off a career as a freelance educator? Does such a thing exist?
I'm one of those lucky Millennials who was able to study the major I wanted to in University (or rather, I grew to like what I was studying, and then ended up switching my degree to focus on that which I enjoyed studying). I focused on Asian Studies, with a specialty in the Philippines (including Filipino American). So what does one do with a degree like that? On the one hand, I see the value of the things I was learning. Finding out about well-researched, culturally-fair writings on the Philippines, reading academics who write in Filipino because they understand the need to speak with other Filipinos...these are so important. This is the kind of work that is decolonizing. It counters non-Filipinos' and colonized Filipinos' negative opinion about the Philippines. But on the other hand, how exactly does one make a career in decolonizing? As I see it, there is a hunger and an excitement that I see in Filipino Canadians to learn and read anti-oppressive, anti-racist, culturally-rooted works about them. But currently there is no space where I can "teach" what I know. At the University of Toronto, about the same time that I was starting to conceptualize how I can share my new-found knowledge (gained by reading materials I had collected over the years on Filipino topics), they gathered academics together to meet and brainstorm what could be included in a class about the Philippines. So that's a cool thing that's happening within an institutional setting. But the learning about Filipino topics needs to happen now, because Filipinos are here now. And it needs to happen on the ground, with people who may not necessarily be within the walls of academia, and can't afford or can't go through the hurdles required to be in a university class. So I didn't go to those meetings at U of T. Instead, I read on my own. And what I was reading was so powerful and so satisfying. Like standing in front of a mirror and liking what I saw, when for years my reflection was always crowded with what I thought was ugly. I knew, just from being friends with Filipino artists and young people, that they would find these things important too. So when the opportunity came up to have a space where discussions can take place (through the Whippersnapper gallery, a local art space), I jumped at the chance. And I started emailing and writing Facebook statuses and telling people about this reading group, and people have been just as excited and interested as I am. But to get back to my original point, the question now is how I could earn my coin. This work is needed and I enjoy doing it but at the same time I need to eat, live, move within this capitalistic world. Currently there is no place or institution that would pay me to do this work. So that's how I got the conclusion that maybe I need to apply entrepreneurial strategies to do this work. Is it really the case that community work is always non-profit?? There must be a different model. There is also the hurdle of the pre-conceived notion that to do what you love means you don't care about the money. But I have already gone past that hurdle when I was able to equate artistic work = entrepreneurial work. You need to get paid, and it's OK to love what you're doing. And vice versa, it's OK to love what you're doing, and find ways to get paid doing it. Now, to apply that to teaching decolonizing topics to Filipinos in Canada.... I have always been of the persuasion that languages, like men, are born equal. They just grow up differently, in different households, so to speak, in different economies and cultures. Like people and countries, they grow up and grow rich, they fall into poverty, they engage in commerce (they import and export), they dominate others, they stagnate or thrive. I insist that they are never inferior, they are only sometimes afflicted with an inferiority complex in regarding themselves against others. The only way to guard against such feeling is to use any language constantly, in every manner, in all human activity--commerce, industry, science, art, love, understanding others. It is only in exercise (by being spoken and written) that language can stay alive, assert itself and become capable and robust. Otherwise, language withers and dies. Or becomes a ritual remnant like Latin (though ritual as a literary property of language is another story). Here are some beginning thoughts from the early part of December 2012 on the issue of settler-indigenous alliance from my position as a person of colour, which I had texted to a friend and who has generously kept my thoughts for me and re-sent them by email last week.
In late 2012 I was going through a questioning phase about what the correct position was for me knowing who I am (an immigrant to Turtle Island, a.k.a. Canada from the Philippines, a post/colonial nation that has its own Indigenous populations) and what my goals are as a person of knowledge and responsibility. Expressing my thoughts has been further complicated by the fact that writing in English has become problematized for me since I started becoming aware of and deeply thinking about the fact that English has been the main way that I have formed my thoughts and expressed them to others. Even though I work as a Filipino language instructor, when attempting to explain complex ideas to myself and to others, I rely on English, the language used to educate me and the language used on things I often read. This self-awareness and critiquing meant that I couldn't rely on writing (in English) to work out difficult concepts. So in resistance and response, I've tended towards having discussions with friends in person (in cars, walking across Toronto, etc.). Instead of writing, I started talking with people. One time, heading home from a night out, these thoughts I had been harboring came tumbling out and I started texting my friend, Jo, who is a colleague from the Kapwa Collective, with whom I had been having discussions about this sort of thing. Thankfully, it has worked out that she has kept my words for me and I have been able to express my thoughts (in English!) in a coherent way. With some minor edits, here are the text messages: I went through a process of critiquing within me the act of writing in the English language, the language of the colonial and the imperial and the hegemonic. So writing in English for me has become belaboured and problematic. At the same time it is the language that has the most facility for me and even as a part of me resists, another part just chooses the easiest path, for the sake of necessity. What I've been turning and feeling and twisting in my mind is this idea as a Filipino Canadian of my privilege and its twin, responsibility. As someone who has my particular history and experiences, I often feel this kind of gratitude and deep sense of being blessed when I go out for dinner where I could order what I wanted, to be in places with my friends and intellectual equals and people who understand me, living well. Not worried about my health or my basic needs. Maybe because I have known in my life how it was not being able to have what I wanted because my family couldn't afford it, now being able to buy what I want when I want (not everything, but there isn't a lot I want) highlights for me my good position. Precisely because I have experienced being with and sharing stories with Indigenous People, this sense of having a good position brings with it a sense of deep responsibility. In order to pay more attention to what that discrepancy means, the universe has conspired to make me unemployed and out of school so that I have a wealth of time available to me. Rather than just making me feel well, I also have a sense of guilt like a thin film of dust over the surface of my days. So to assuage that guilt I have seriously problematized and centralized myself. I am very mindful and aware and I am listening. My sense of guilt and awareness has pushed me to contact Filipin@ professors and ask them about the state of Filipino studies around the world. The globalized, diasporic and multicultural millieu where we are right now, as well as my doubly privileged position as a student of both Western academia as well as having access to professors of colour who resist and make room for indigenizing and decolonizing processes makes it possible ...to be continued 2:59am Christine Balmes For me to conduct this research. As a diasporic Filipino I am fighting for decolonization, for equality, against oppression, against racism. I pledge solidarity with minorities, the prosecuted, those who could not practice the good life as they define them because another, more powerful or richer group is preventing them from doing so. But as a Canadian immigrant I am complicit in the oppression, the ravaging of natural resources and stealing of land from indigenous people. 3:25am Christine Balmes In my period of questioning and crisis I thought deeply about where my position lay. Because of my sense of disorientation and not knowing my place I even thought of returning to the Philippines. I thought the simplest way was the best way. Since I want to work with IPs then I should go where the IPs are in the Philippines. But at the same time I know that to go there isn't as easy as packing my bags and going. I had to prepare. There are a lot of logistical things I couldn't quite figure out. What would I do when I got there? These were the questions I tried to figure out and which led me to search by asking. 4:16am Christine Balmes This asking took the form of actually asking: teachers who are concerned about similar topics like Lily Mendoza, Leny Strobel, Sarita See, Paul Dumol, Analyn Salvador-Amores. But also it meant adopting a mindset and being that was both open and seeking. And a constant self-checking to see how I was doing. So that in the process of living my life and reading things and being in the world I was still seeking. And things I read or thoughts I had became part of that mound of knowledge that I was accumulating to help me in my search. In a way I was like a bird collecting odds and ends that although they seemed random were put together according to their own logic and intuition. The logic and intuition have a mysterious quality to them, that slowly is making sense. As the year inches slowly towards the end, or even that enigmatic 12-21-2012 date that some are spreading now to be the purported end of the world according to the ancient Mayan civilization, the bird that is in me is readying to move on to the second stage. The collected odds and ends will be the material for my nest where I can lay my egg and incubate it to hatch the plan: my offspring, my continuation, my contribution to the continuing of life. 4:32am Christine Balmes Something I read today that I want to add to this is the instance of the Dalai Lama explaining Dharamsalla, the Tibetan community in India where he and his people live in exile, as a kind of sanctuary place where he and his people can continue to practice and nurture and grow their spirituality, their culture and language, since they face prosecution from the Chinese in their own homeland of Tibet. In a way it made me think that my placemaking in Canada is just as important as being in the Philippines because this is where I can practice my culture(s) and language(s) and help my kapwa Filipinos have a deeper understanding and appreciation for indigenous philosophy, knowledges, systems and practices. I can nurture that love and grow that awareness even in exile in Canada. As much as that sounds like a solution though I'm aware that there is an important piece missing here, which is: what is my responsibility to indigenous people in Canada vis-a-vis my role as an immigrant settler? As important as this question is, I feel that I cannot yet handle trying to answer this alongside the first goal of working for my people. But I will just leave it here as a reminder that it continues to be an issue that is important. Perhaps in my work of educating and nurturing Filipino hearts and minds I can keep this question in mind and I can then seek for an answer in the same way. xx I attended the International Conference on the Philippines (ICOPHIL-9) at Michigan State University this year. Afterwards, I was fortunate enough to be able to have conversations with academics at a dinner party held by some of the Filipino community in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I also met with an old professor of mine, Sarita See, and we talked about a project she is working on called the Center for Art and Thought based in University of California Davis which aims to bridge the gap between academics and artists. According to her, the project is fueled by her disappointment, and in fact rage, in witnessing and experiencing a kind of devaluing of some academics by university administration. Since then I have been thinking about some of the things that we talked about regarding academia and how it treats the people within its walls, and how it relates to conversations I've had with my friends in graduate school for social sciences and humanities, and also with my work now with the Kapwa Collective.
More and more I am coming to the conclusion that, in this world we now occupy which stands on the brink of ecological disaster, academics have an important and immediate role to play to become leaders in society. But, despite the fact that academics are some of the more brilliant minds in society, who are the most educated and highly skilled in different areas, they are also some of the unhappiest and I dare say, oppressed people I know. On the one hand, academia has become its own self-sustaining system that feasts on the intellectual powers of its students and educators, but also their complicity in their own powerlessness with regards to things like fair wages and job security and how they can play a more active role in society. On the other hand, in my experience, the larger community has a sense of disconnection from academics--for some reason, the communication gap between academics and the community has become de rigueur. For the average person, unless academics make a conscious decision to do so, the work produced by academia is inacessible. And it this kind of double structure that is in place and which prevents academics from playing a larger role in the transformation of society for the better, in helping create a society that could have been used to resist the capitalistic system which works to take money from people and which abuses Nature and her resources in order to do so. I recognize that leadership can also come from people who are not academic, and that not all academics may want to take on that leadership role in the community. Nevertheless, academics are people who devote most of their working life in learning and becoming the most knowledgeable about specific subjects. Right now, besides teaching, researching and publishing are the main means by which academics make their mark in the world. But as my recently-graduated sister reminds me, these publications are generally not available to people in the public. And I also want to acknowledge that academics are some of the most overworked people I know. This too impinges upon their ability to work with and make an impact on the community. All of these factors have led me to believe that there is a great untapped potential in academics and their capacity as leaders for social transformation--in fact there is a system in place in academia which prevents them from fulfilling that potential. What I know for certain is that all people, including academics, need and want to have that connection with other people and with a greater power, and most people desire for their work to be relevant and in accordance with a greater cause, whatever that may be. My question is, how could academics start playing a more active role in transforming society? How can they recognize the similarities in their situation and to mobilize so that they can, in the words of Paulo Freire, "struggle to change the structures of society that until now have served to oppress" them? Zeus Salazar is one of the foremost scholars in the Indigeneity Movement of the Philippines. Speaking about the post/colonial Filipino consciousness in his article Pantayong Pananaw, Salazar (1989) makes a distinction among four different perspectives (pananaw). Each perspective explains the positions of the speaker in relation to the listener—whether they are in the group or out of the group: pantayong pananaw (speaker and listener both in the group), pansilang pananaw (speaker and listener both out of the group), pangkaming pananaw (speaker in the group, listener out of the group), pangkayong pananaw (speaker out of the group, listener in the group).This particular theory is important when considering how the intellectuals and scholars who concerned themselves with the question of nationhood through Philippine history thought about their audience. Salazar points out that the Filipino intellectuals in colonial history have been too busy trying to prove themselves as equals to the colonial powers using a pangkami perspective; always speaking to the colonizers about ourselves. This is a futile project because the Filipino is then always attempting to “catch up” to the standards of the colonial power.
Salazar then proposes that people who are interested in the project of nationhood should really be practicing how to use pantayong pananaw. This means we should be speaking to other people in our nation about ourselves and each other using our own meanings and knowledges. Within the context of decolonization and what Nishnaabe scholar Leanne Simpson (2011) would term “re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence” this is a process that draws on Indigenous Knowledges. But the centuries of being a colonized nation have dulled our language skills, our understanding of our indigenous consciousness, our ways of thinking. So, Philippine consciousness is shattered. To this day there is no coherent, shared, single worldview that encompasses the entire Philippine nation. But, as Salazar proposes, there is hope. Salazar argues that the ethnic groups, the indigenous groups of the Philippines—who have resisted colonization, continued to practice their native cultures—have retained the ability to use pantayong pananaw. "Sa madaling salita, ang namamayani sa panahong kolonyal ay ang pansila at pangkaming pananaw, samantalang nanatili ang pantayong pananaw sa loob ng mga grupong etniko, pananaw na hindi naisipang gamitin sa pangkabuuan, para sa kabuuan ng bansang itinatag." (Salazar, 1989, Ang Pantayong Pananaw sa Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas, last para.) In short, what has dominated in colonial times are the pansila and pangkami perspectives, while pantayong pananaw has remained within ethnic groups. It is a viewpoint that nobody had thought to use for the whole, for the entirety of the founded nation. [Translation mine] Salazar published Pantayong Pananaw more than twenty years ago, and in this particular instance does not delve too deeply into what that process of relearning a “pantayong pananaw” with the aid of Indigenous/ethnic groups would comprise. But his idea that the indigenous groups hold the key towards a project of nation-building is a timely issue. I bring up Salazar`s theory because it marks an important place where Filipino scholars interested in questions of nationhood constantly find themselves. Given the fact that the Philippines as we know it is a product of colonialism, how can Philippine nationhood be anything but always resisting, always a resistance? But if we reimagine or reconceptualise the Philippine project and move away from the act of struggle and resistance and into “re-creation, resurgence, and a new emergence” by reconnecting, as Salazar suggested, with Indigenous Knowledges, Systems and Practices (IKSPs), then how can we ensure that we do it in a way that is not itself a form of cognitive imperialism? These are twin issues that need to be answered together. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let us tarry for a moment on the idea that a deeper understanding of IKSPs is essential to the project of nation-building. I would like to explore this idea by using my own story as a case study. My reason for using an autoethnographic method to explore this question is two-fold. First is the idea put forth by Simpson (2011) that “storytelling is at its core decolonizing because it is a process of remembering, visioning, and creating a just reality” (p. 33). According to her, storytelling presents us with tools that allow us to reimagine our way out of “cognitive imperialism” and to create models and mirrors that allow us to “experience the spaces of freedom and justice” (p. 33). I am deeply interested in the project of a Philippine re-creation, resurgence, and a new-emergence, using a deeper understanding and connection to the Indigenous cultures in the Philippines. As expected, this is not a straightforward project and contains within it a whole set of problems and questions including those of authenticity, appropriation, essentializing, and so forth. These questions contain within them implicit criticisms against the act of creating; criticisms whose counter-arguments I will not be answering in this paper. Keeping in mind Simpsons’ warning that “We must not spend all of our time interrogating and criticizing. We need to spend an enormous amount of energy recovering and rebuilding at this point. Critique and revelation cannot in and of themselves create the kinds of magnificent change our people are looking for” (p. 55), I would like instead to spend more time on the creative process and in doing so contribute to the recovery and rebuilding projects. The second reason why I am interested in an autoethnographic method is that I have spent most of my adult life, some of it within academia, with reconnecting, rediscovering, and practicing aspects of indigenous culture and sharing it with my Filipino Canadian peers and family when I can. Part of this process includes a lot of traveling across the seas from Canada to the Philippines and the U.S.A. and reconnecting with family members and scholars who are interested in the same project. While this process has coincided with my own research and while I have been fortunate to find the means to channel my interests in the Philippines into my academic work, this journey remains for a me a very personal one. The autoethnographic process is a way for me to not only share my story but also to analyze and to put some order in it. It is my hope that exploring my story in this two-part way could aid other Filipinos in the diaspora who hunger to find a deeper connection to themselves, their families, and their ancestry through a journey of rediscovery and reconnection to the Philippines. Learning about Indigenous Knowledges in a deep way is productive in the sense that the scholars who write about this topic embody similar struggles for recreation and resurgence that people like Salazar speak about. To approach the decolonizing project in a personal way is to approach it in a constructive, rather than deconstructive, perspective. As Simpson noted, “Indigenous thought can only be learned through the personal; this is because our greatest influence is on ourselves, and because living in a good way is an incredible disruption of the colonial meta-narrative in and of itself” (p. 41). To begin talking about ourselves is not always an easy process, especially if we are talking about ourselves within the academic context. But the power of narrative is not to be underestimated. Simpson said that “storytelling at its core is decolonizing” (p. 33) because it is “an important process for visioning, imagining, critiquing the social space around us, and ultimately challenging the colonial norms fraught in our daily lives” (p. 34). I would like to begin my story by looking at my relationship with the educational institution and how it has allowed me to carve out my own worldview and had provided me with the tools to negotiate my multiple identities. Inherent in the academia is a structure of power wherein our roles are either subjects or creators of knowledge. I am an immigrant, queer Filipino woman. Seemingly as far away from the white, heterosexual, male founders of academia as possible. But I have been educated in the institutions of Western universities and I have benefitted from its theories. It is a place where I have gained power even as I have struggled against this power. And my access to this power has always been mediated or helped by my teachers and professors. I am a subject as well as producer of knowledge. I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. My parents are working class immigrants and I migrated with them to Canada when I was fourteen. There would have been no reason for me to consider attending an American university save for the fact that years ago, my mother’s oldest sister, my godmother, had immigrated to the U.S. and lived there, teaching the Filipino language at the University. She was the one who financed my education and invited me to study in Michigan. She, in turn, was a benefactor of the Philippine government’s state-building policies in the 1960s. The Philippine government sent its brightest students to study in American universities, with the intent that they return to the Philippines and take leadership roles in its various institutions. But life intervened. My godmother met her American husband while studying in Ann Arbor. She did not return to live in the Philippines, but instead settled in Michigan. There she got a position as a Filipino language teacher and became a leader in the Filipino community. Part of her self-assigned role is to host and provide shelter and community to scholars and other Filipinos who visited Ann Arbor. Another part of that is to push for a Philippine Studies program at the University of Michigan, and while I was there I believe that I benefited from her efforts. It is thanks partly to her efforts that different Phililppinist scholars were available to teach me. My education is partly comprised of her guidance and encouragement to take certain classes, and later on, partly comprised of my own mission to seek out professors who could teach me Filipino topics. I originally intended to graduate with a Biology degree, and took a lot of classes in the Sciences. But I also took classes in Asian Studies, including Filipino Level 4, where I had my first tantalizing encounter with Zeus Salazar and other scholars writing in Filipino about the Philippine nation. And in my third year after some soul-searching I switched to an Asian Studies degree with a focus on Southeast Asian studies. As I learned more about Filipino history, culture, and language, spoke to my professors in and out of the classroom, spent time interviewing graduate students in Asian American history, I realized the immense project of reclamation, nation-building, and re-creation that faced post/colonial, diasporic Filipinos. More than that, I realized that I could play a role in this immense project. It is a personal project that has repercussions beyond myself. And as the handful of graduate students, professors, and instructors demonstrated by being there, it is definitely a viable option for life work. They were my first encounter with Filipinos outside of the archipelago in important position. My role models. Philippines as a nation-state is a product of the colonial enterprise. First colonized in the 1500s by Spanish conquistadors, the Philippines remained a Spanish colony until 1898, when it was then sold to the United States for two million dollars in the Treaty of Paris. The Americans stayed in the Philippines until 1946, but many scholars problematize the idea of the Philippines as a truly post/colonial state due to the fact that it retains close economic and military ties to the United States. For the modern Filipinos, colonialism and post/colonialism is all we have known. But there are pockets of the Philippines where the long hand of colonialism had not reached in too deeply. There are Indigenous peoples in the Philippines whose cultures and way of live have remained intact. And currently, there is an ongoing movement by scholars, artists, and culture bearers in the Philippines and the U.S. to reacquaint themselves in a deep way with IKSPs. These are the scholars, artists, and culture bearers associated with the Center for Babaylan Studies. There is a quote from one scholar in the Philippines, Dr. Rhoda Galanco, head teacher of the School of Teacher Education at the University of Baguio, who encapsulates the philosophy of this group. In the website for the Kapwa 3 conference organized by the same people from the Center for Babaylan Studies: Now, more than ever, we should not ignore the importance of having a cultural identity. We are living in a multicultural society where we eventually become acculturated with diverse cultures and consequently lose track of our own identity. In my classrooms, I encounter several students suffering from a cultural identity crisis. They do not know their roots. They do not know their heritage. Their parents are partly responsible because they did not pass on to their children their culture. The schools are partly responsible because we failed to re-acquaint our students with their roots. These talks on cultural identity and IKSP should be disseminated to a wider audience, and if possible, to students in the academe. (Galanco, 2010, Conference Objectives section, 2nd para.) Galanco's statement is parallel with a similar call for resistance and resurgence by Nishnaabe writer Simpson (2011): In essence, we need to figure out who we are; we need to re-establish the processes by which we live who we are within the context we find ourselves. We do not need funding to do this. We do not need a friendly colonial political climate to do this. We need our Elders, our languages, our lands, along with vision, intent, commitment, community and ultimately, action. We must move ourselves beyond resistance and survival, to flourishment and mino bimaadiziwin [the good life]. (p. 17) --- It was during my undergraduate years at the University of Michigan that I became accidentally acquainted with kulintang music. A friend of mine, a first generation Filipino American, invited me to take a mini-course with him. I agreed reluctantly. Kulintang music, which until now remains an integral part of the lives of Maguindanaoan, Maranao, and T’boli peoples in Southern Philippines, was not something that I originally had an affinity for nor problematized. It just was not part of my life until then. But when I graduated from university, my ability to play the instrument would serve to be an important factor in my growth. When I joined a Philippine arts and culture centre in Toronto, it gave me an edge over my Filipino Canadian peers who were in the same project of reconnecting and re-creating. And I was a founding member of Santa Guerrilla, a group of Filipino Canadian musicians based in Toronto who played kulintang instruments in our music. And, because I have continued to imbibe in academic theories even as I have honed my skills at playing this music, I have come to develop an uneasy relationship with this music form. In February 2009 Santa Guerilla, a played for the first time in public at SuperSkillz, a talent show whose contestants were mostly other Filipino Canadian bands. What made us unique was that while the other bands were playing Western music, we were using kulintang ensemble instruments in a non-traditional way. We had singers, a rapper, and even two dancers. Kulintang music is not usually played with vocals. But we were not playing traditional music. We could not even if we wanted to. It was not an instrument that we grew up with. But kulintang instrument was something that brought all six of us together, even as we come from different backgrounds and familiarity with Philippine culture. And when we stood up at that talent show where no other bands were playing the kulintang instrument, we represented something radical, almost subversive. We relished in the kind of confusion and awe that we thought we presented to our peers. Because we were playing music that came from the homeland. Because we embodied the Philippines in a new way. But kulintang music over the years has become for me the embodiment of the twin problems I described earlier: that of using Indigenous Knowledges, Systems, and Practices (IKSPs) in the name of the nation-building project for Post/colonial Philippines, even as I am neither Indigenous nor have ties to the Indigenous people whose lives revolve around this art form. The latter problem is summarized by the idea of appropriation. We are tribeless and all tribes are ours. We are homeless and all homes are ours. We are nameless and all names are ours. -Eman Lacaba (1986), Philippine poet and revolutionary Excerpt from “Open Letter to Filipino Artists” (p.221) There are two main critiques that the academic institution directs towards scholars involved in the project of identity formation within a decolonizing context: essentialism and appropriation. Yet, incredibly, IKSP provides within itself a means to solve this problem. The first one is the idea that similar to First Nations, Filipinos are people who have lived and struggled to survive colonialism. And many of the experiences of destruction experienced by First Nations people in Canada are shared by Filipinos. Yet it is true that there are indigenous people in the Philippines who continue to experience their own oppression and marginalization by the Philippine state. This is a fact that adds another level of complication to the matter of decolonization, and which is beyond the scope of this paper. But it is important to pause for a bit on the point of identification between Filipinos and First Nations as post/colonial peoples. In recognizing that shared oppression between Filipinos and First Nations, possibilities for learning from each other, and for alliance building are opened up. This is an important lesson and one that could lead to constructive work. The charge of appropriation and essentializiation of Indigenous People in the Philippines should not be used as an argument against or obstacle towards First Nations and Filipino peoples’ meeting together in their project for decolonization, re-creation, and resurgence. This is not to say that the rights of Indigenous People in the Philippines are secondary or not as important. Rather it is helpful to think about the need for Filipinos to decolonize themselves, to rediscover themselves in ways that are not dictated by their colonial history. Also, it is important to note that the Philippines being an archipelago, there are numerous ethno-linguistic communities that exist. These ethno-linguistic communities in precolonial times were Indigenous peoples themselves and some were slowly absorbed into the Philippine nation-state, a nation-state which as I described earlier was a result of colonialism. This is another fact that might be considered when we begin to theorize about Filipinos and Indigenous People. As Marie Battiste and James Sa’ke’j Youngblood Henderson (2000) point out, “It is not always clear whether a particular group is a minority or an Indigenous people, and the difference is largely a matter of perspective and degree” (p. 61). What would it mean for Filipinos who have been absorbed into the nation-state to begin considering themselves as once Indigenous People who over time have been disconnected from their Indigeneity? What kinds of possibilities for resurgence would be afforded by that kind of identification? How would that dictate their responsibilities towards the Indigenous peoples in their own nation state? The second day of our three-day quest to learn from Danny Kalanduyan. It is Spring of 2010. We had travelled all the way from Toronto to meet this Maguindanaoan master kulintang player who is now based in San Francisco. I have been playing the kulintang for five years, one year of which was with the band Santa Guerrilla, who like me had no real connection to the peoples to whom these instruments belong. We arranged the sarunay practice gongs on the floor and began repeating the same patterns Guro Danny showed us. Another friend videotaped the whole lesson. For A and I this was our first encounter with a kulintang musician who grew up with this music and who had been playing this music since he was a child. I was very careful not to make mistakes, but still it was difficult for me to follow the teacher. I have learned this music in university from ethnomusicologists, scholars who have transcribed the notes on paper so that I could follow it on my own time. This oral tradition way of playing, where the master plays and you play after him was hard for me to get used to. But when he played the other instruments of the ensemble, not the main melody of the kulintang, I found that I was much better playing the same rhythm over and over again. Part of me struggled to learn the rhythms at the moment, and part of me was concerned about documenting it properly for future use. But a running thought in my head, which was impossible to ask, is what he thought of A and I playing this music in a non-traditional way, music we did not grow up with. We played kulintang music in our band in front of hundreds of Filipinos and Canadians. The issue of representation is for me, the elephant in the room. We simply did not have the proper teachers and access to the knowledge that Guro Danny had in our part of the world. We knew this, but we strove on. Our need to play these instruments fulfilled a hunger for a connection to the motherland that we struggled to fulfill. Guro Danny has taught numerous students who have gone off to start their own traditional kulintang ensembles all over the world. People who have studied it for years. Finally after two hours of music playing, we finished our lesson. Guro Danny told us that he once heard of a kulintang ensemble in another part of the U.S. They didn’t play the instruments traditionally either. “But that’s OK,” he said, “as long as you play together.” He only said this in passing, but it is something I need to hear. Some sort of validation from this person I looked up to, some indication that our own project of playing kulintang music for our peers were relevant in its own way. In Chapter 7 of her book, Leanne Simpson notes, “I have no role models in my family or my community for what I am trying to accomplish.” And for many of my peers and for myself, this reconnecting and rediscovering of the Indigenous for the very personal and yet community-oriented projects of re-creation, resurgence, and new emergence is something that is new. Perhaps for anyone who embarks upon this personal project it will be always new. It will be new because it is different from what we would have been raised to see, know, and believe about the world. But in the book, Leanne Simpson seeks out stories, conversations, and meanings from Elders. As Filipinos, our Elders may or may not have the knowledge that could connect us to our Indigenous past. The project to reconnect will be a lifelong process. And more and more in our search, as diasporic people, we are realizing that our Indigenous peoples might be able to help us in this process. It is time that we seek them in our conversations and humbly go to them in our quest to find ourselves. Resources: Battiste, Marie and James Sa’ke’j Youngblood Henderson. (2000.) Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage.Saskatoon: Purich Publishing Ltd. Galanco, Rhoda. (n.d.). Kapwa 3 conference: Indigenous knowledge in the academe bridging local and global paradigms, Center for Babaylan Studies. Retrieved from http://kapwa3.blogspot.ca/p/about.html Lacaba, Eman. (1986). Salvaged Poems. Manila: Salinlahi Publishing House. Salazar, Zeus. (1997). Pantayong pananaw: Isang paliwanag. Retrieved from http://www.filipiniana.net/publication/pantayong-pananaw-isang-paliwanag/12791881608498/1/0 Simpson, Leanne. (2011). Dancing on our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing. |
Words, images, & fripperies by Christine Balmes unless otherwise stated. Archives
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