Actually, There Is No "Filipino Culture"
Random musings from an Indigenous Filipino
This is part of a series called “Kwento” which means “story” in Tagalog. Expect posts in this series to contain lots of different mini-stories ♡
Indigenous Filipinos Were Put Into Human Zoos
Did you know that indigenous Filipinos were put on display in human zoos at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair?
Yesterday was Indigenous Peoples’ Day, yet our histories must live on beyond one day. Also, it’s still Filipino-American History Month so…there’s that. :)
Many people don’t know this because American Imperialism is not often *properly* taught in American schools, but the United States “acquired” the Philippines as a colony after the Philippine-American war ended in 1902. Two years later in 1904, a world fair was held in St. Louis, Missouri that was attended by nearly 20 million people.
In an effort to introduce America’s most recent exploits, thousands of indigenous people were trafficked from the Philippines and put on “display” in human zoo-like exhibitions at the fair. The exhibits displayed over 1,100 indigenous Filipinos from over 30 tribes. The most popular village? The one that featured Igorots.
“IGOROTAK” – “I’m Igorot”
As many of you may already know, I am Igorot. I am indigenous. But… I didn’t always know that. Let me explain.
My mom is Ibaloi and I’m fortunate to have a pretty strong connection to my culture. My mom made a huge effort to expose my brother and I to Igorot/Ibaloi culture and traditions to ensure that we stayed connected to our roots. I’m so glad that she did. She had a baby-sized divit (traditional Igorot clothing) made for me when I was two years old. I attended my first kanyaw (an Igorot ceremony) when my mom took me to her hometown when I was four years old. I was able to witness, first hand, spiritual practices and even be exposed to my great-grandma’s ‘healing’ powers (this is another story for another day haha).
In fact, most of the “Filipino culture” that I know is actually Igorot culture. Igorots are a minority group in the Philippines, which actually reflects the situation for most indigenous groups worldwide. As a result, our diaspora is much smaller. Most of the Filipino diaspora comes from other low-land regions of the Philippines and the cultures that they brought with them are much different from the one that I grew up with.
I remember when I first saw tinikling performed by a Filipino-American college dance group when I was like seven years old. I didn’t know what it was. But all the Filipinos around me seemed to know exactly what it was. I asked my mom why I didn’t know what this was and she basically said “that’s not our culture” LMAO. What I knew were the dances that my family performed at kanyaw. Not only were the dances different, but the clothing that we wore and the music that was played were completely different, too.
When Disney UK released a Christmas ad featuring a Filipino family, I have to admit that it didn’t quite have the same emotional impact for me, the way it did for other Filipinos I saw responding to it online. Don’t get me wrong: it was so exciting to hear “baluuuuut” yelled at the beginning and seeing mano po. But the key component of this ad were the parols. When I first saw this ad, I didn’t know what those were. I literally had to Google it. As it turns out, these Christmas ornaments have Spanish roots.
The Igorots were never colonized by the Spanish and the Spanish failed to Christianize the Igorots, so parols don’t have much of a cultural significance in the region where I’m from. Neither my mom, grandparents, nor great-grandparents were Christian/Catholic so there was no parol-making in our household haha
American vs. Spanish Colonization
While Spanish influence permeates the low lands, the Cordillera Mountains remains relatively untouched by Spanish influence and culture. Instead, you can see the American influence.
The Spanish failed to colonize the Cordilleras, so Igorots were able to maintain our cultures up until the American annexation of the Philippines. Why did America annex the Philippines? Well, for the usual reasons—white supremacy and profit. Anyway, after America invaded the Philippines, they made their way up the Cordillera Mountains and started their pacification campaign and building infrastructure so it was easier for Americans to travel between cities for business.
In 1903, the Americans built a military installation called Camp John Hay in Baguio, where my family is from. If you’ve ever been to Baguio you might notice that there are a lot of street names and parks with American names (Session Road, Burnham Park, Wright Park). You may even notice that many of the people that live there have American last names.
When the Americans started to colonize Baguio and other areas of the Cordilleras, they wanted to do a census. A problem that they ran into was that Igorots don’t have surnames; prior to colonization we just had given names. So the Americans “gave” Igorots last names. This is the reason why many Igorots have American last names while low land Filipinos have Spanish last names—simply colonized by different colonizers.
Random funny story: the Americans gave my mom’s best friend’s family the last name “Johnson”, but whoever was working in the census office that day wrote it the Filipino way, so her official last name is “Djanson” hahaha
The Struggle Between Mixed, Black, Asian, and Indigenous Identity
I already had issues with my identity growing up as a mixed person, but it was intensified by being indigenous too. In general, there was not much representation of Filipino people or cultures in American media and even when there was, they were depictions of cultures that I was unfamiliar with. I already didn’t feel “Filipino enough” as a mixed person, and as an indigenous person I didn’t feel “Filipino enough” because I was the only Igorot that I knew. When tinikling is dubbed the “National Dance of the Philippines” but I didn’t even know what that was, it honestly made me feel less Filipino. Most of the Filipino-Americans around me spoke Tagalog but when I go back home, my family speaks nothing but Ilokano (Ilokano is the lingua franca of the Cordilleras).
When I moved to the Philippines in 2004, I was ten years old and was starting the fifth grade. When my classmates had their daily “Filipino” language class, I had to be physically taken out of the class to be privately tutored because I didn’t speak fluent Tagalog. Think of it like an ESL student, except the other way around haha. In my first session, my tutor asked me to write down all the Tagalog words that I already knew. So I took my pencil and started writing down all of the words that I learned from being around my family all the time. The gag? Nearly half of all the words that I wrote down weren’t even Tagalog…they were Ilokano LOL. I didn’t even know the difference!
Side note: this is why it’s wild to me that the languages of the Philippines are often incorrectly referred to as “dialects” instead of languages. These languages are not mutually intelligible—if I spoke Ilokano to a Tagalog, they would have no idea what I’m talking about.
“Savage” and “Uncivilized”
During my first trip to the Philippines, my mom took me to an Igorot cultural museum. I was four years old and I had zero concept of race or culture. I didn’t know that I was Black yet, I didn’t know that I was Asian yet, I didn’t know I was mixed yet, and I most definitely didn’t know that I was indigenous yet. Igorot huts were displayed in an outdoor exhibit of this museum. I remember looking at them and then asking my mom, “where are all the Igorots?” My mom turned to a four-year-old Asia and said “they’re all in school”
You see, the imagery that I consumed from American media made me believe that indigenous people existed only in the past. Even if I was only four years old, I had already internalized that. Indigenous people don’t live in modern times. Igorots don’t go to school. Igorots don’t live in houses, they live in huts! And the funniest part about this whole story is that I didn’t even realize that *I* was Igorot.
This is something I’ve seen reflected for other indigenous groups especially here in America—lots of non-Indigenous Americans truly believe that Natives are a thing of the past. They don’t realize that Native people still exist and live in houses and go to school and drive cars. In a 2018 report released by Reporting Native Truth, it was revealed that “Forty percent of respondents did not think that Native people still exist.” But these respondents aren’t four years old, they’re grown adults. Mass media and our education systems need to do a way better job at representing Native people and teaching Indigenous past & present.
*The study also found that the largest barrier to public sympathy for Native rights was “the invisibility and erasure of Native Americans in all aspects of modern U.S. society.”
Even in the Philippines, Igorots are still perceived as uncivilized savages. At a Filipino-American History Month event that I attended in Los Angeles in 2018, a young Filipino man asked me if it was true that Igorots have tails. I think maybe he was joking, but what poor taste. It’s not clear where and when this stereotype exactly came from. Regardless, generations of Igorots have been at the receiving end of discrimination because of this belief; “othered” and dehumanized. I promise you that I’m not the only Igorot to be asked this question.
“They” vs “Them” vs “Us” vs “We”
My brother probably doesn’t know this, but he helped me come to terms with my identity in a very subtle yet powerful way. When I was in high school, I still hadn’t come to terms with my identity yet. I was not yet comfortable saying that I was Black and Asian. Truthfully, I didn’t fully understand who I was yet. When I was a sophomore, I remember talking to my brother about Igorots. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but I do remember referring to Igorots as “them” or “they”—essentially separating myself from them. My brother got irritated and cut me off, saying “WHY do you keep saying them? You’re also Igorot” and that one sentence flipped a switch in my brain. It’s like he gave me permission to be Igorot. From that point on, I started working on becoming more comfortable in my racial identity. It was no longer “them—Asian”, “they—Black people”, or “them—Igorots”…it was “us” and “we”. I felt more comfortable verbalizing who I was. My brother probably doesn’t remember this at all. Shoutout to my bro.
I love talking about my identity and indigeneity because there aren’t many places where our authentic stories are told. It certainly isn’t happening in traditional media spaces.
While many cultures in the Philippines do overlap, it’s important to remember that there isn’t really a singular “Filipino culture” just because of how diverse the country is—the Philippines isn’t like South Korea for example, which is relatively culturally and ethnically homogenous. There are over 175 ethnolinguistic groups and over 120 spoken languages in the Philippines. The Philippines is like the polar opposite of homogeneity lol
Regardless, I still use “Filipino culture”. It still makes sense in most everyday contexts. Like I said there’s still tons of overlap between cultures in the Philippines, especially when you take colonization and nationalism into account. I guess I just wanted to emphasize that while the country is not culturally homogenous, we can always (and should) celebrate the beautiful diversity of our cultures and be unified in our differences instead of divided by them.
*Disclaimer: All stories told here are my own personal experiences and may differ greatly from other Igorots in other families, cultures, cities, or regions. This is just one Indigenous experience. Not even Igorots are homogenous!
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VIDEO: 1904 World's Fair: Exhibition of the Igorot People | Asian Americans
I love this piece! Your random funny story about American names written in the Filipino way is relatable because I have so many friends and family who had troubles with their papers because the names in their birth certificates were spelled differently than the one they knew. It was messy because the process of correcting their names was long. Also, I learned about the Igorot village in the 1904 World Fair through the book Wild Song by Candy Gourlay.
Inspiring Igorot history dear.. Have learned much and u made us proud to be one. Miss u with those photos