Foreign to Familiar

Foreign to Familiar: A Guide to Understanding Hot- and Cold-Climate Cultures
by Sarah A. Lanier

If the world were roughly divided into "hot climate" and "cold climate" cultures, what could one half of humankind learn from the other? Lanier---the daughter of missionaries and an experienced world traveler---writes insightfully on topics including relationship vs. task orientation; direct vs. indirect communication; individualism vs. group identity; and different concepts of hospitality.

Cracks in the Parchment Curtain

Cracks in the Parchment Curtain, and Other Essays in Philippine History

by William Henry Scott

William Henry Scott is a Filipino nationalist with a white skin. The 17 essays in this new collection - CRACKS IN THE PARCHMENT CURTAIN - give clear proof of this statement. For here we glimpse unknown facets of Filipino life glinting through the shadows of three centuries of Spanis rule and a turn-of-the century struggle against a new night of foreign aggression. Scott's essays make a Filipino proud to be a Filipino. His patient scholarship among musty books and documents in libraries and archives here and aborad, his travels in the provinces to dig out decaying parish records, and his friendship and interviews with surviving historical resources--all provide intimate glimpses of a virile people yearning for dignity and freedom in the face of inexorable odds.

Pasyon and Revolution

Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910

by Reynaldo Clemena Ileto

Ileto's book is a wonder and the first to ever draw parallels between Western and Southeast Asian traditions especially the practice of the Pasyon. Outwardly, the pasyon looks every bit a practice that can be deemed bizarre. Participants reenact Jesus Christ's punishment and crucifixion. Ileto enables the reader to draw insight between the practice and draw its origins from from both Western and Eastern trraditions. A must for any student of Southeast Asian studies.

Pasyon and Revolution, unlike earlier Philippine historical writings that use largely the Filipino educated elite's categories of meaning, seeks to interpret Philippine popular movements in terms of perceptions of the masses themselves. Ileto submits to varied kinds of analyses standard documents as well as such previously ignored sources as folk songs, poems, and religious traditions, in order to articulate hidden or suppressed features of the thinking of the masses. Paramount among the conclusions of the book is that the pasyon, or native account of Christ's life, death and resurrection, provided the cultural framework of movements for change. The book places the Philippine revolution in the context of native traditions, and explains the persistence of radial peasant brotherhoods in this century. Seen as continuous attempts by the masses to transform the world in their terms are the various movements that the book analyzes - Apolinario de la Cruz's Cofradia de San Jose, Andres Bonifacio's Katipunan, Macario Sakay's Katipunan, Felipe Salvador's Santa Iglesia, the Colorum Society, and other popular movements during the Spanish, revolutionary, and American colonial periods.

A further interesting dimension of this literature on peasant social movements is the scope it provides for writing "history from below" in my view. Iletos excellent examination of the Philippine peasantrys experience of Holy Week and the meaning of the "pasyon" gives us local perspectives and details on peasant protest.

A Past Revisited

The Philippines: A Past Revisited
by Renato Constantino

This book is Constantino's attempt at a major breakthrough in Philippine historiography: he looks at the oppression of the Filipino masses from earliest time to 1941 and the struggle of men like himself to crack through the stereotypes hitherto propagated by Spaniards and Americans about the Filipinos.

Noli Me Tangere

Noli Me Tangere
by José Rizal

In more than a century since its appearance, José Rizal's Noli Me Tangere has become widely known as the great novel of the Philippines. A passionate love story set against the ugly political backdrop of repression, torture, and murder, “The Noli,” as it is called in the Philippines, was the first major artistic manifestation of Asian resistance to European colonialism, and Rizal became a guiding conscience—and martyr—for the revolution that would subsequently rise up in the Spanish province.

Noli Me Tangere was Rizal's first novel. He was 26 years old at the time of its publication. The work was historically significant and was instrumental in the establishing of the Filipino sense of national identity. The book indirectly influenced a revolution although the author actually advocated direct representation to the Spanish government and a larger role for the Philippines within Spain's political affairs.
José Rizal (1861—1896) is known as the hero of the Philippines and the greatest champion of Filipino nationalism and independence. He angered the Spanish authorities with Noli Me Tangere and its sequel and was executed.

Clash of Spirits

Clash of Spirits: The History of Power and Sugar Planter Hegemony on a Visayan Island

by Filomeno V Aguilar, Jr.

This book, based on the author’s doctoral thesis at Cornell University, is a history of sugar planting in Negros, a Visayan island in the Philippine archipelago. The author, who is from the Philippines and until recently taught in Australia, identifies himself as a Roman Catholic, but offers a balanced, often critical, account of the historical forces, including the Roman Catholic Church in Spain, that have shaped power relations and hegemonic formations on the island.

Aguilar’s book is a wide-ranging study of the rise of sugar haciendas and the sugar-planter class from the Spanish through the American colonial periods. It is rich in detail that ranges from the anecdotal to the statistical, derived from archival materials in the Philippines, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom; from published scholarship; and from fieldwork involving key-informant interviews, observation of rituals, and documentation of folklore. The analysis is in two parts: the first a reconstruction of the history of the Visayan Islands under Spanish colonial rule from the late sixteenth century to 1855, when the sugar economy was established; and the second an eclectic and complex account of power and hegemonic formations surrounding the sugar-planter class since 1855. The rich material is organized around the author’s well-defined theoretical positions: that the social structure is essentially fluid; that political economy is intrinsically and dialectically intertwined with culture; and that the relationship between structure and agent is mutually determining and dialectical.

We read about indigenous indios, Chinese, Chinese mestizos, waves of Augustinian and then Franciscan friars, foreign merchants, and representatives of the colonial state, all intermingling in a complex society that cannot be straightforwardly explained in terms of simple power relations. In different situations and historical circumstances, each social category possesses and utilizes varying levels of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital. The study examines the transformation and shifting fortunes of each social category over time and in response to external circumstances. The mestizo sugar-planter class, for example, appears quite weak in relation to a scarce indio labor force under the “neutral” Spanish colonials, but during American colonialism becomes a powerful socio-economic force whose dominance is later subject to the influx of foreign capital and technology.

Aguilar employs the cockfight, a prominent feature in local cultural practice, as a dominant metaphor to shed light on fluid developments in the socio-economic structure. Around the cockpit, gamblers play a skilled and calculated game of manoeuvre, casting their bets on cocks that have, notionally, an equal chance of winning, but whose “inner strength” – that differentiating winners from losers – only a skillful gambler can detect. Social relations were similarly ambivalent, the site of complex and risky negotiations and manoeuvre. Individuals and classes that gambled skillfully rose in prestige and power, but could just as easily fall into decline as a result of misfortune or bad judgement.

Aguilar also explores the dialectical connections between myths and folk histories on the one hand and developments in social, economic, and political structure on the other. Indio shamans such as “Papa” Isio, whose grotesque imitation of Catholic signs and ritual was an effective mode of anti-colonial resistance, had supernatural powers that commanded the following of large numbers of indio plantation laborers who had broken their debt obligations to mestizo sugar-planters. Fantastic stories were spun around prominent mestizo leaders such as Juan Araneta, who communed with a powerful preternatural spirit, was invincible to bullets, and boldly committed acts sacrilegious to Catholicism. This story relates quite clearly to the celebration of anti-colonial heroism and the anti-Catholicism of Masonic capitalism that was on the rise. We read about Kanlaon, a volcano that is really an enchanted city with a centrifugal mill producing sugar for “America” and manned by engkantos or golden-haired, blue-eyed spirits of fair complexion.

Aguilar’s study is an ambitious and original attempt to reconstruct an important component of Philippine history, explaining historical dynamics in terms of local culture as a simultaneously determining and determined site of power and hegemony. Aguilar brings together a wide range of existing scholarship on Philippine history and anthropology, which he uses with concepts from cultural theory to analyze, often very convincingly, his own material obtained from archives and fieldwork. His writing is always clear and often vivid. Only its broad coverage may make it difficult for the reader to follow the central lines of argument. Strategically placed summary paragraphs and a concluding summary would not only help orient readers (as would a glossary of non-English terms), but would also integrate the material more effectively. On the other hand, this colorful and engaging book has many interesting accounts that make it accessible to a non-academic reader. Students would find in this book useful historical and ethnographic material illustrating the complex processes of negotiation under weaker forms of hegemony.

"Why Did Tupas Betray Dagami?"

"Why Did Tupas Betray Dagami?"

by William Henry Scott

The Dagami Revolt was a revolt against Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. It was led by the Chief Dagami of Gabi (now part of Cordova). The revolt actually began in 1565, but is sometimes dated as 1567, the year of Dagami's execution.

On May 22, 1565, a party of 16 led by Chief Dagami and four other chiefs hid themselves outside of the stockaded Spanish settlement in Cebu, intending to kill some Spaniards. At dawn of the following day, May 23, Pedro de Arana, a member of the personal company of Spanish Governor Miguel López de Legazpi, came out of the fort alone. As he walked along the beach near the war party, they speared him and cut off his head. They returned to Gabi and made a great celebration and feast with it. The murder went unsolved at the time, and Dagami continued as Chief of Gabi and continued to foment revolt.

In December of 1566, after two Spaniards were killed and three others nearly died inside the fort after drinking poisoned wine purchased from Cebuana wine-sellers, Legazpi sent for Rajah Tupas and his fellow datus, accusing that some of them were behind the killings. The chiefs protested their innocence , and Legazpi told them that their guilt could only be absolved by handing over the culprits. The following day, Tupas handed over two women who, under torture, implicated two others. Three of the four were sentenced to flogging and deportation, and the fourth sentenced to death. The condemned woman was executed and her body was drawn and quartered, with the pieces of the body displayed along the road between the Cebuano settlement and the Spanish fort. The following day, Tupas betrayed Dagami to Legazpi.

Dagami was condemned to be drawn and quartered the next day in the place where Pedro de Arana had been killed. Dagami's head was displayed on a pole in that place and the four quarters of his body were displayed on poled along the beach.After this was carried out, Tupas lauded Dagami as having been among proudest in the islands, ans said that when they were thinking of making peace with the Spaniards in 1565 had advised him not to make peace, had hindered him from doing that and that after the signing of the Treaty of Cebu, Dagami continued to be rebellious against the Spaniards and in favor of revolts and war, and that the governor had given him his just deserts.

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450-1680, Volume One: The Lands below the Winds

by Anthony Reid

The history of Southeast Asian societies, like those of East Asia, had developed greatly before European seafarers arrived. It was a region that ``was subject to many of the same climatic, physical, and commercial pressures and thus developed a very similar set of material cultures.'' Reid gives numerous contemporary foreign accounts of life in Southeast Asia on the eve of western imperialism and colonialism in a skillful, analytical, and critical way.

In The Lands Below the Winds--the first volume of a two-volume set chronicling the rise of Southeast Asian culture during the years from 1450 to 1680--Anthony Reid vividly explored everyday life in the different societies of the region, from diet, housing, commerce, and law to sexual and family relations, patterns of warfare, and popular entertainment. In doing so he enables us to perceive the underlying coherence and splendid variety in the complex mosaic of Southeast Asia.

"Trade in Prehispanic Philippine Complex Societies"

"The Organization of Intra-Regional and Long-Distance Trade in Prehispanic Philippine Complex Societies"
by Laura Lee Junker

"In this paper, I have made a preliminary attempt to construct such a model through ethnohistoric analyses of Philippine lowland societies examining systems of social stratification, the nature of chiefly authority and regionally integrating political structures, and chiefly control over the regional economy, in the early to mid-second millennium. Focusing specifically on the central role of the chiefly political leader in coordinating and controlling both intra-regional and inter-regional systems of resource mobilization and exchange, I examined archaeologically testable predictions about the development of these economic systems, using data on regional settlement and artifact distribution patterns from one region of prehistoric complex society development in the Philippines."

"Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino"

"Looking for the Prehispanic Filipino: Mistranslations and Misconceptions"
by William Henry Scott

This posthumously-published masterwork of the leading scholar of the pre-Spanish Philippines is a wonderful argument for the centrality of Philippine evidence for a reconstruction of Southeast Asian societies. Scott is very cautious himself about drawing parallels or larger pictures, confining himself to answering the question, "What did the Spaniards actually say about the Filipino people when they first met them?". As a long-term resident of the Philippines his primary aim is to correct popular Philippine misperceptions, especially the unfortunate Beyer "wave theory" of migration which enabled "Filipinos who had grown up under Spanish domination [to] consider themselves a different people from those who had not... It is precisely this social amnesia which today stigmatises as cultural minorities those Filipinos who resisted colonial acculturation"

History of the Philippine Islands

History of the Philippine Islands, Vol. I & II

by Antonio de Morga

Morga suffered important failures in both his military and political capacities. The same cannot be said for his work as historian. In 1609, he published the work for which he is now remembered — Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas (Events in the Philippine Isles). This work, perhaps the best account of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines written during that period, is based partly on documentary research, partly on keen observation, and partly on Morga's personal involvement and knowledge.

The history was published in two volumes, both in 1609 by Casa de Geronymo Balli, in Mexico City. (The work had circulated for years before this in manuscript form.) New Spain Viceroy Luis de Velasco authorized the publication and granted Morga the sole right to publish it for ten years, on April 7, 1609. On the same date, Fray García Guerra, archbishop of Mexico, approved the publication of the work. The history covers the years from 1493 to 1603. Political, social, and economic phases of life, both among the natives and their conquerors, are treated. Morga's official position allowed him access to many government documents.

The work so impressed Philippine independence hero José Rizal (1861-96), himself a man of letters and of action, that he decided to annotate it and publish a new edition. He began work on this in London, completing it in Paris in 1890. He wrote:

If the book (Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas) succeeds to awaken your consciousness of our past, already effaced from your memory, and to rectify what has been falsified and slandered, then I have not worked in vain, and with this as a basis, however small it may be, we shall be able to study the future.

An English translation by E.H. Blair and J.A. Robertson was published in Cleveland in 1907, and an edition edited by J.S. Cummins was published by the Hakluyt Society in 1971.

The Filipino Americans

The Filipino Americans
The People of North America Seriesby Jennifer Stern

The earliest Filipino Americans to arrive in the New World landed in 1763 and created a settlement in Saint Malo, Louisiana. They were pressed sailors escaping from the cruelty of Spanish galleons and were "discovered" in America in 1883 by a Harper's Weekly journalist. Other Filipino American settlements appeared throughout the bayous of Louisiana with the Manila Village in Barataria Bay being the largest. Some immigration occurred with the need for menial rural labor in the late 1800s, with Filipino Americans settling primarily in Hawaii and California. Roughly another two hundred years would pass before significant numbers arrived in the Americas in the last half of the 20th century starting in the 1970s, mostly settling in California and the South. Some came looking for political freedom, but most arrived looking for employment and a better life for their families.

As Flip As I Want To Be

As Flip As I Want To Be
by George Estrada

As Flip As I Want to Be is a collection of columns from Estrada’s work with the Philippine Times of Las Vegas. Here you will hear the pounding rains of Quezon City, feel the mass exultation of a U.S. citizenship ceremony, ponder the beauty of fake Rolex watches, listen to Tom Cruise speaking in Russian, and meet a Filipino NFL quarterback. You will rock out with a Filipino heavy-metal god, meet a Filipino rapper, and go all-in in a high stakes poker tournament. Saddle up and take another wild ride through the Filipino American experience.

Filipino Americans

We Are America: Filipino Americans
By Carolyn P. Yoder

An overview of the history and daily lives of people from the Philippines who immigrated to the United States. A good book for younger children.