Proposing a New Method for Decolonization: Fil-Am Home Archaeology

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Proposing a New Method for Decolonization: Filipino American Home Archaeology & Reflection Towards A Fil-Am Ontology Gabrielle Mangaser

SPRING 2019 Dr. Rachel Chapman ANTH 499

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Contents Introduction

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A (Very) Brief History

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The Things I Hadn’t Known

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Current Methods of Decolonizing

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Home Archaeology

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Discussion

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Conclusion

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References

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Introduction During my autumn term of 2018, I took a historical archaeology course where we participated in public scholarship through the form of a blog. Each week we were asked to post findings from our labs and discuss required readings. The following winter term, I took an archaeology course called “Sex, Bodies, and Colonialism” through Dr. Sara Gonzalez and an introductory medical anthropology course with Dr. Rachel Chapman. The topics that were discussed between the two classes were intimately similar but in slightly different contexts, in terms of imperialism, colonialism, representation, and oppression. I became more curious about these topics in the context of the Philippines and within Filipino Americans; they were subject to both the Spanish and the United States and the Philippines is home to one of the world’s largest populations of ethnic-national groups, yet has a seemingly small representation in Asian communities.

I created the blog, ugat (meaning “roots” in Tagalog) as a way to present my research into the topic. It began with the question of where were all the Filipino anthropologists that I could learn from, and soon morphed into a project with much broader questions that I wanted answered; the main facet was looking into the effects of Spanish colonialism and U.S. imperialism on the Philippines and in Filipino Americans today. I started reading all the literature I could find on decolonization and current studies on Filipino Americans from psychology to sociology to anthropology to art. I first began this project after I realized I wanted to use anthropology to create a better understanding of myself, my family, where I come from, and what it means to be Filipino. Coming from a large family of Philippine immigrants and finding virtually no

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ideas on the topic was bewildering. The Philippines was, and is a place of so much history from foreign invaders; why is it not a topic of study for decolonization? After a lot of deep-digging I found that such discussions on Filipino and Filipino American decolonization and identity are a relatively new area of study. It has only recently emerged within the past 30 years, and this is just the beginning.

A (Very) Brief History The Philippines is an archipelagic nation of around 7,128 islands and home to one of the world’s largest populations. The original inhabitants are the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Visayans, Cebuanos, and the Kapampangans but since colonization these groups are now considered minorities. The oldest of tribal groups are thought to be the Aetas, darkly pigmented people settled in northern Luzon. In 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, took Spanish claim over the land now known as the Philippines. Though he suffered a bloody death under Lapu-Lapu, a chief of island Mactan, the Spanish had already successfully established colonies in the Philippines. For almost 300 years, the Spanish controlled the Philippines until the Filipinos rebelled and partook in revolution against the Spanish. Originally with the United States’ help, they were successful in ridding the islands of the Spanish. But the Philippines proved to be full of valuable resources that interested many other imperial powers.

The Philippine-American War began in 1899 which proved perilous for the Filipinos, killing 200,000 civilians. With American occupation came the first waves of immigration into the United States as pensionados—men and women qualified to earn

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degrees—or as U.S. nationals. Nationals were able to freely migrate between the Philippines and the United States for the sole reason of finding work but were prohibited from the same rights and protections of an American citizen. Once the pensionados were finished with their education, they were to return to the Philippines.

On the other half of Filipino nationals were farmworkers, who provided the United States with cheap plantation labor. Anti-miscegenation laws prevented members of the “Malays” from marrying white women, as it was illegal to marry outside of your U.S.-designated race. The United States took on the role of being a “big brother” to their “little brown brothers” across the Pacific, resulting in saving the childish and savage Filipinos from themselves and into a Western-idealized culture by introducing a public school system taught in English and legislation to the benefit of the U.S. Since then, Filipinos have migrated across the globe from the homeland to find work, known as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), to help support themselves and their families.

The Things I Hadn’t Known One of the greatest overarching themes I found from the literature as well as conversations with other Filipino Americans is the importance of finding awareness about foreign relations to the Philippines. Until this year, I virtually knew nothing about greater Asia to Philippine relations only to find that the Philippines is a land of laborers to be exported outside of the country in what is deemed a labor brokerage state (Magalit Rodriguez 2016:33). The perpetuated system is tied to the neocolonial relationship between the United States and the Philippines and exports highly educated Filipino professionals to the United States in what Rodriguez calls legal

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human trafficking. In addition to exporting Filipino professionals, the Philippines also exports gendered labor in the form of Filipina maids, nannies, nurses, and sex workers (Velasco 2018:198). However, it falls short of providing agreeable rights for laborers and preserves a system of punishment and exploitation in favor of those who can capitalize upon it.

I also knew nothing about the program of “benevolent assimilation” that the United States had imposed upon the Philippines during President McKinley’s time in office (Campomanes, 2016:35). I discovered only recently about the display of hundreds of indigenous Filipinos at the St. Louis World Fair in 1904. It was by far the most visited exhibit at the fair as well as propaganda to justify the “good” that the United States was doing by civilizing the people of the Philippines. Additionally, during the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1902, General Jacob H. Smith installed a “Kill Everyone Over 10” policy, where Filipinos over the age of ten were fair game for the American soldiers. Not to mention, that the University of Michigan holds one of the greatest collections of Philippine memorabilia and documentation sitting in the museum archives instead of being put on full display. To do so would mean to accept accountability for their direct participation in United States occupation (See, 2016:300). Growing up all my life in America and subconsciously knowing about a U.S. presence in the Philippines, it took me 20 years to discover such crucial history.

Among other themes, I found that my experiences growing up Filipino in America aligned with many others. Through Anthony Christian Ocampo’s The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race, I found some similarities between my own experience growing up in America versus the case studies of people my age

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growing up in California: “the only history I know is that we got invaded”; “we’re like the Mexicans of Asia because we do all the labor work over there [in Asia]”; “the fact of Asian Americans is an East Asian face, literally. Not a Filipino one” (81). These are sentiments I had heard before and whole-heartedly agree with. There is little representation of Filipinos in Asian communities, as well as awareness of the fact that the tools of oppression are still present today through naming and language and religion. Notably, some of the participants identified themselves more with a Latinx community than I would, but nonetheless the similarities between Latinx and Filipino Americans are uncanny.

The ever-present effects of Catholicism are another large theme within the Philippines and Filipino Americans. Though certainly it would not do to generalize all Filipinos as Catholic, there is a clear majority within Filipino communities. From personal experience, my family raised their children as Catholic which has a strong presence within our own house: we have an altar above the staircase that displays Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, a figurine of the Virgin Mary, as well as numerous rosaries hanging from the iron of the altar. Historically, Catholicism was brought over by the Spanish through the friars and missionaries. As a justification for salvation and the sentiment “you will be treated well if you convert”, it is still very much alive today emerging as the most dominant religion in the Philippines.

Current Methods Toward Decolonizing The idea for this new method stemmed from the combination of my independent research, a film photography class, a visual anthropology class, and the

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previous archaeology courses I had taken. In my photography class, we were asked to freelance a project of something we wanted to communicate and present, and surprise, there was no way I could wrap my head around anything other than something that had to do with Filipino-ness. I named my project Fil-Am Ontology, meaning the study of being a Filipino American. But how could I possibly take pictures of what it means to be Filipino? I searched for Filipino artists to help with what I wanted to communicate about what it means to be Filipino to my peers. I expected to find pre-colonial art to honor the originally indigenous Filipinos before the Spanish came. I expected to find a “Filipino aesthetic” without really understanding what I wanted to find: maybe something remotely “Asian” like something to do with bamboo or rice fields or tribal tattoos. There are “Japanese aesthetics” and “Chinese aesthetics”, so how hard would it be to find a uniquely Filipino art?

I came across an article from Sarita Echavez See’s The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance called “Reanne Estrada, Identity, and the Politics of Abstraction” in which she discussed how Filipino racial art was not necessarily pertaining to a Philippine aesthetic: “abstraction is a tactic employed by artists, an aesthetic practice that is but one of a number of strategies of indirection, trickery, and mimicry at the heart of Filipino/American decolonizing culture...aesthetically, they enable the artist to negotiate cultural meaning through abstraction” (128). See cites Estrada’s One Thousand One Hundred Eight, in which straight hair lines are neatly aligned onto a bar of ivory soap. We can all agree that finding hair on soap is gross. Any kind of shared bar of soap in a common household with a piece of hair is revolting to find. It is something you would remove with disgust and maybe swirl it onto the

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shower tiles or flick down the drain, only to find it is still entangled on your fingers. But the way the hair is arranged so unnaturally perfect and pristine to symbolize the dirtiness of a Filipino, versus the context of finding a piece of hair on soap in your actual shower is similar to what Filipino artists are doing today.

Jerico Domingo’s video Philippine Neapolitan depicts three common ingredients in Filipino treats and sweets: coconut, mango, and purple yam, otherwise known as ube. The music is cast to eerily filmed figures eating the fruits in ice cream form and is a play on the original Italian Neapolitan with vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry flavors.

In another portion of the video, the uses of each are played upon Domingo’s body: rubbing coconut oil on the back, creating scratches on skin to mimic the grid-like cutting of the mango, shaving legs similar to how one would skin a purple yam. The importance of Domingo using these three fruits are synonymous as to how Americans use apples, oranges, and bananas: they are popular staples in the Filipino gastronomy, but they also emphasize how specifically “racial” art does not always, nor need to, express a particular aesthetic.

I took inspiration from Daniel Ballesteros’ Midwest Filipino (2017), his own endeavor into creating and defining his unique identity, bridging the blood of his ancestors to where he grew up in St. Louis. He mentions his disappointment in knowing nothing about the Philippines and his grandfather’s experience. Because of this, he decides to document a “new culture” of very literally, a Midwest Filipino:

Through visiting the Philippines I began to understand my grandfather's possible motives for withholding his past. He could very well have felt there was simply

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nothing in his past worth sharing or perhaps he wanted to give his descendants a clean slate, not be beholden to any traditions or pasts. By doing so he would give us the opportunity to be Midwest Filipinos and forge a new culture and identity. So when I returned from the Philippines I set to telling the story of the Midwest Filipino fabricating a past where there were gaps in my family story and documenting the present and continuing story of the Midwest Filipino as it unfolds.

Ballesteros furthers the conversation on non-racial racialized art. The photos of his ongoing project are everyday materials, from work clothes to the rust stain made on cement from outdoor tables and chairs. His photos manage to show both the connection and the disconnect between being Filipino and having that culture lost to him, by taking photos of significant materials from his own life and creating “a new culture”. The mould of fitting some kind of Filipino aesthetic is broken with these artists and their feelings toward colonization and imperialism are exemplified through their art.

Continuing with more independent research, I came across Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans by Leny Mendoza Strobel. She defined decolonization as the “search for cognitive knowledge about Filipino and Filipino American history and culture, positive confrontation with the emotional aspects of this process and search for a new way of constructing knowledge in a language” (96). Strobel also presents a definitive framework called Naming, Reflection, and Action (148):

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Naming

To decolonize is to:

Reflection

Action

name internalized oppression, shame, inferiority, confusion, anger

develop the ability to question one’s reality as constructed by colonial narratives

decide to give back to the Filipino American community

acquire cognitive knowledge about Filipino culture and history

develop critical consciousness that can understand the consequences of silence and invisibility

learn to question

understand the understand the need to meaning of “loss of recover memory cultural memory” and its consequences

support and become involved in developing community institutions

understand how the loss of language affects Filipino identity

understand the generational gap as being constituted as historical realities that shape each generations’ experience

take leadership positions in moving the Filipino American community towards visibility and empowerment

heal the self, heal the culture

understand ideological struggles within a multicultural context and the relationships of power within these struggles

tell and write one’s story, that in the telling and writing, others may be encouraged to tell their own

name the oppressor and the oppressive social structures

understand need for connection with parent culture

recognize the orality of Filipino culture

ask: where do I go from here?

In her dissertation, she creates this framework based upon commonalities between all her interviewees. Strobel presents a basis of how one can begin to understand themselves and their origins. Naming, Reflection, and Action is not limited to these criteria, but is continuous and further developing. It gives those wishing to understand themselves and their own histories, a place to start. Arguably, one of the

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greatest tools of colonialism is the ability to dominate a language with naming.

Without a doubt are many Filipino names Spanish-influenced: Bautista, Padilla, Villena, Cruz, Rivera, and Alonzo are all surnames of Filipino actors. Strobel’s framework reclaims this ability by naming and recognizing the ingrained systems put in place that have impacted the Filipino mind and body. “Reflection” examines being aware of these tools, and how it is possible to dismantle them, while “action” is about doing something meaningful with what you have learned and contributing to a greater discussion.

Other existing frameworks include a newly emerging feminist approach. In Asian American Feminisms & Women of Color Politics (Fujiwara and Roshanravan, 2018) two authors suggest considering a unique path towards Filipino decolonization and liberation, embodied within Filipina migrant workers’ rights. Thomas Xavier Sarmiento states “Filipino decolonization and liberation not only rests on anti-racist and antiimperialist stances but also necessarily involves critical engagements with antisexism and antiheteronormativity” (100). He analyzes Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters and Gangster of Love as key examples of fictionally debriefing real-life events in Philippine politics as well as the exploitation of Filipino bodies. In Dogeaters, the main protagonists Daisy and Joey are enlightened to intergovernmental political corruption after chapters of slowly and individually discovering the inequalities of everyday life.

Gina Velasco focuses on gendered labor migration and proposes that the “struggle against hyper exploitation of gendered Filipino labor under capitalist globalization and an explicitly anti-imperialist framework that foregrounds the violence of US imperialism as the key historical condition of possibility for Filipinos in

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the United States” is what distinguishes Filipino American feminisms. She talks about the unfair prejudice of Filipina bodies and suggests for a better understanding of human trafficking. The current assumption is that sex work is synonymous with sex trafficking, but this is not the case. Velasco references the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) which prohibits non-governmental organizations from receiving U.S. funding unless they have a policy explicitly opposing sex work.

Awareness of current labor patterns in the Philippines are necessary towards a better perception into decolonizing. In relation to Velasco’s chapter, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas’ Illicit Flirtations goes further and gives us a look into the lives of the so-called sex-trafficked Filipina hostesses in Japan, whom of which in 2004 and 2005, were the largest group of sex-trafficked persons in the world under the assumption of their ‘sexual exploitation’ (Parreñas, 2011:4). She spent time with the hostesses in the Tokyo clubs and found they arrived there of their own accord without being forced or coerced, which remains the fine line between work and trafficked. Though the two should be differentiated, this does not negate the hostesses’ feelings towards their line of work. Parreñas terms such as indentured mobility, where the financial gains afforded by labor migration come at the expense of their freedom (7). She especially emphasizes the hostesses’ own distinction between their profession as legitimate entertainers versus prostitution while addressing the fact that the two are still often paired in news and media: “the public in Japan, the Philippines, and the United States still view all hostesses as victims in need of rescue from forced prostitution” (146). This pairing does a great disservice to hostesses, for being under constant scrutiny of being trafficked. However in the case of both, the narrative of being sex-trafficked—though

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not meant to disprove nor disregard those narratives in any way—perpetuated by the media and organizations does more harm to the hostesses and prostitutes by preventing them from obtaining necessary services.

Home Archaeology All of these elements have come together in what I propose as another method into decolonizing the Filipino body. From compiling a list of what I wanted to photograph and convey about Filipino American ontology, I found I was really creating a storyboard of “artifacts”. The archaeological studies and excavations we conduct today were once at a present point in time; the artifacts we find left behind once had purpose, were used a certain way, or meant a great deal to their owner. But one of the few shortcomings of archaeology is the inability to describe the subjects’ thoughts and identities, unless stories were passed down and we would be able to ask another, whom of which holds more knowledge. If we were to look back on my single-family home 5,000 years into the future, archaeologists would find a range of different items, from Jufran banana ketchup glass bottles, to a print of The Last Supper in our dining room, and possibly sherds of a rice cooker. They would find items specifically from Baguio City, Philippines, in a small town in Washington and wonder the story behind how they arrived almost 7,000 miles away from their origin. Assumptions far from the truth would arise, and much like a disservice archaeology has done towards so-called “basket-weaving societies”, entire cultures and multiplicities of identities would be defined as Catholic banana ketchup users who traveled across the Pacific Ocean and decided to settle north of Seattle.

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I propose a new method for individual decolonization called home archaeology, because I also found myself asking questions of my parents of what certain items were.

It seemed to emphasize one of the main elements of modern-day archaeology in which we ask and include the knowledge of those who do have a better understanding, or experience of the object, when we as archaeologists and anthropologists have no inference or reference to base a hypothesis upon. It refers to more than physical and material objects and includes the importance of orality, through stories as well as thoughts. Many of the stories of my parents and their siblings, as well as my grandparents, are stories that have never been written down, but passed down through conversation and constant questioning. Home archaeology highlights the significance in passing down stories, as a way to pass down knowledge and possibly to a better understanding of one’s own origin. Beyond asking about stories of the past, it also involves asking questions of their thoughts about the present with current issues and international relations as well as being aware of such.

Through tangible materials, “artifacts” are whatever is considered to be significant to one’s story that they wish to tell. For example, in my own case, my father’s military uniforms are items of what I consider to be artifacts: they raise the questions of why did you join the military, what did you do in the military, was it something you enjoyed doing, and did it instill a sense of patriotism. Much like how antique French baroque gowns can communicate the extreme extravagance displayed during a certain period in French history, the same can be said about his uniform six hundred years from now. In the case of my immediate family, the U.S. military has served an important role in the life my parents provided for us; it may have also influenced my

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own thoughts and opinions on the military compared to someone else’s thoughts on the military who have not grown up in a military family. Someone without any background knowledge of my personal family history may find a military uniform similar to any other and surmise that whoever owned the uniform was a chief petty officer, and possibly wanted to join the United States Navy; that is why he reached a fairly respectable rank. They would not be able to conclude that enlisting in the United States Navy was an “easy” way that my father could be able to provide for him and his wife, and the two daughters he would have later on in his career. Among other things and only looking solely at the uniform itself, they would not be able to conclude he was a Filipino immigrant.

The method of “home” can be misleading, because it denotes that the method is solely relegated to a physical house. It applies to items outside the house, or any family house for that matter, and can be applicable towards individual experience being Filipino American such as every day or common rituals or thoughts. In this example, I think of my family’s cars: my parents insist on having a rosary hung upon the rearview mirror, as well as them making the sign of the cross before driving out on the road. To protect you anak, is the reasoning my mother gave when I first began driving. Another great commonality one would observe is the removal of shoes inside any house. The first time I went to a friend’s house, I noticed they did not take their shoes off when we entered the house: you don’t take your shoes off when you get home? But why wouldn’t you take off your shoes inside the house? It tracks in dirt and any number of germs from people spitting on the ground or dried gum on the cement, or old cigarette butts.

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The same rule applies to the difference between outside clothes versus house clothes: outside clothes are dirty and you cannot sit on the bed unless you change into house clothes.

This method also applies to significant places other than the family home, and can be used to decipher time and place in a world of globalization as well as awareness of the effects on other Filipinos. One of the first places of significance that comes to mind are Seafood City and Jollibee. The former is a Filipino chain of grocery stores and notably smells like fish, and in lay terms the latter Jollibee is the McDonald’s of the Philippines. Before the two franchises came to Washington state, trips to Seafood City and Jollibee were very special excursions when my family would visit California, where it was primarily only located for a long time. Since it has arrived in Washington however, once or twice a month, my parents will make the hour-long “adventure” past Seattle to grab fresh fish and order Chowking and Jollibee, and pandesal and mamon.

Particularly in front of the popular Filipino fast-food franchise is a gigantic red, yellow, and white bee, Jollibee—a symbol of “Filipino spirit of light-hearted [and] everyday happiness” (The Economist 2002). In 2018, the Jollibee Foods Corporation was suspected by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as one of the top companies practicing labor-only contracting, a prohibited scheme that allows large agencies to hire employees so they can bypass labor laws as well as easily dismiss employees (Parrocha 2018). As Jollibee and sister franchises are not located solely in the Philippines but across all continents, it remains another perpetrator in continued labor brokerage.

Because home archaeology is tailored to an individual experience, there is no doubt there will be biases when recounting stories or “explaining artifacts”. Details of

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stories can be forgotten, or even altered by the storyteller. Orality falls short when it comes to including the perspective of more than one person, but it is the best method of passing down a narrative. I will not be able to tell the story of my parents’ immigration as detailed as they themselves will ever be able to, but the importance of knowing their story and being able to understand their experience is a more meaningful approach than having it written anywhere.

With the importance of orality, it is also crucial to engage with current issues.

Upon hearing my interest in labor migration, my mother began to talk about her grievances of the Philippines’ subordination in world relations. Kapit sa patalim, she said. It’s like being on the edge of a knife, in reference to the overseas Filipino workers, otherwise known as OFWs. They suffer abuse, but sometimes they get good superiors, but they have no choice. According to Aurora Almendral of National Geographic, 10 million Filipinos work overseas out of the Philippines and send back remittances that amount to around 30 billion dollars a year. Many workers immigrate to other countries fresh out of university or vocational schools. Others are not as lucky as those who are unable to find jobs within the Philippines—though educated—often work as nannies in the Middle East where they do indeed, suffer abuses.

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My mother also mentioned how the relationship between China and the Philippines is much like a bully-to-peer relationship. The Chinese are buying properties in the Philippines because they’re rich. You should look it up. Chinese investors have been buying properties and settling investments in the Philippines as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build Build Build” initiative. However, the cost of real estate has soared and only further displaces or prevents locals from buying or renting in these

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areas: “soaring real-estate prices have forced low-to-middle-income Filipinos to move away from metropolitan Manila in search of more affordable homes on the city’s outskirts” (Camba, 2018). In addition, the three-B initiative does not necessarily create any more opportunities for local Filipinos as claimed by multiple Philippine news outlets such as ABS-CBN, with the influx of Chinese workers (Mourdoukoutas, 2019; Mclaughlin, 2019).

As an outsider into Philippine international relations, I must identify the biases in both my mother’s sentiments and apprehensions, as well as the news outlets the information is coming from. But important to this method is the awareness of these events and understanding the perspectives especially from someone who has family that could be impacted in the Philippines, as well as one who has more complete knowledge, having grown up in the Philippines, compared to someone who grew up in America who is just beginning to learn about the Philippines in an international context.

Lastly, home archaeology is incredibly archival. I was lucky enough to have a mother who insists on documenting life through photos and video. Because of her, I have a good five hours of home videos from my own childhood and hundreds of photos to sift through and ask every five or so minutes, “who is that?” I think your dad’s exgirlfriend is one of those girls, my mom said over one photo. Another album documents my mom as a young girl traveling with her lolo Federico and lola Felicidad Villena in the United States, as well as preserves Federico’s love letters to Felicidad. In another album, I found my two sets of grandparents together in the Villena house in Valenzuela. I asked my mom why they were all together. She says simply “that’s

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mamanhikan,” as if expecting me to know what mamanhikan meant. Pamamanhikan is a form of courtship in the Philippines, in which the groom asks formally for the hand of his to-be bride. Its literal meaning is to climb the stairs of the fiancée’s house to ask for her family’s blessing. On a historical account it is called pamamanhikan since houses were originally built on stilts with stairs, while animals lived below the main living

space. Though it is not required to get married, it shows the retention of old specifically Filipino traditions into the modern day. It remains as a sign of maintaining pre-colonial histories.

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Gapan, Nueva Ecija Enero 26, 1939 Felisa: Forgive me for writing to you again, I apologize for the trouble, although you probably grasp the purpose of this letter. The truth is, I feel so restless and can’t calm myself because every time I close my eyes, your face is the only one I see. When I’m sleeping you’re the only one I see in my dream. Is this what it means to love?

I have been meaning to plead for your response but afraid to ask because you might just pity me. I have nothing to offer, no gold nor elegance. I’m just a humble man who begs you to accept my noble intention.

Please grant me a moment of your time so I can propose personally. Remember that this yearning for your response is killing me. A rejection of your love is going to become my endless chain of misery.

Yes, Felisa, my love for you is pure. I swear to God that I will love no other but you and only you.

Trust me Felisa.

Waiting, Eding

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In today’s age, archaeology is lucky to be able to digitally archive photos and pictures of artifacts, if under any circumstance, the actual physical item is absent. The experience of looking through family albums and asking questions is another facet of the method, as well as documenting artifacts through photography. In regard to visual ethnography, photo albums share intimate details in life that the photographer— mostly my mother—wanted to capture. She has photos of moments from her and my father’s first years of marriage as “hip, young” people in their mid-20s in the late 1980s, to Navy photos, to mine and my sister’s baby albums. It displays the life they had as Filipino Americans.

Discussion The thought had occurred to me while I was taking photos of these souvenirs my parents had stored in the house. These were objects my mom had probably picked up from a tourist shop in Baguio but I saw them as small connections to the Philippines.

They resembled the Philippines in an American household. The questions that repeated in my head were what if someone were to find these in the same condition, in the same location, 500 years from now? What would they think about these future artifacts?

What kind of stories would they come up with and how would they be classified?

If one is creative enough, they can extract a story surrounding the artifact, which cannot be proven unless one was able to travel back in time or the accompanying artifact had a description of its uses and significance. The artifact and its story would become a general assumption and over time, would be thought to be true.

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With all the discussion of colonialism from archaeology classes I came to ask the question of where does my Filipino-ness come from? It was clear that at least my father’s side had some sort of European ancestry, but I wanted to know how I could be Filipino. What were the family links to those who came before the Spanish, if we even had any?

I realized I had stumbled upon what was uncharted territory and knowing generally very little about specifically Filipino culture, and within that, I only knew what my parents and history books could tell me. I also understood very little about the multitudes of different cultures in the Philippines. Where my father grew up versus where my mother grew up they had different expectations, different lifestyles, and even different dialects, so of course there could not be a singular definition of what it means to be Filipino. At the beginning of this project, I was concerned with a general Filipino American perspective without referring to my own or trying to understand how I saw, felt, or am consciously, a Filipino American.

I knew the basics: my mom’s side came from Manila, but my grandma Mila came from Calapan, Mindoro. I knew the story of how my mom came to be. I knew my dad’s side came from La Union in the Ilocos region and grew up in Pangasinan before moving to Manila. I knew the stories of them living in the province and the reason my dad sometimes pours coffee over his rice is because when he and his siblings were younger, the coffee gave it flavor. I knew where they lived in Manila, where he lived on the same street as my mother: P. Halili. I became familiar with the story of their immigration to the United States in the late 1980s and the knowledge became stunted at that point.

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The retaining of folk superstitions and traditions in our house became evidence to me that we had ancestors that were Filipino and eventually became introduced with a European ancestor. At this point, the knowledge is lost of genealogies and family histories from before my great-great grandparents but there is reassurance in knowing that even so, we are Filipino. As someone primarily concerned with the question of what it means to be Filipino and is my family even truly Filipino, I realized that it would remain pointless to answer these questions if I did not consider the Philippines’ long history of colonization. Nonetheless it would not have mattered if we were mostly colonizer, or mostly native, because the Philippines was mostly conquered.

Either way, what makes one Filipino is the pride in being Filipino and understanding the tangled mess of suppression in the Philippines. This realization came from understanding that Filipino bodies and minds were undoubtedly colonized with the tools of naming, breeding, religion, and dehumanizing through the Filipinos’ traditions, beliefs, and appearances.

Conclusion Coming from a family of Filipino immigrants and growing up in America exposed me to many differences between Philippine culture versus Western ideals.

Unfortunately, as a child I chose not to explore what it meant to be Filipino as well as take pride in where my family comes from. Even identifying as an Asian American, it is difficult to see the definition of Asian being generalized as either Chinese or Japanese considering there are almost fifty countries within Asia each with very different languages and customs and heritage, with even smaller cultures and communities

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within each country. For the Philippines, as a subject to hundreds of years of subjugation as well as its role in providing menial labor around the world there are still many things left unsaid, under wraps, and made invisible that deserve and need to be recognized and addressed.

What began as a small project inspired by archaeology and anthropology and a surprisingly small amount of literature on the topic, has morphed into another method to be considered for decolonizing. Admittedly the term decolonizing has become a buzzword where its meaning has been skewed over the years but in terms of home archaeology, it refers to recognizing coming from a culture whose indigenous people have been colonized, understanding that process, and trying to deconstruct the ingrained structure through asking questions and making connections. I present home archaeology as a framework for decolonizing the Filipino mind and body. As it is currently in development, the process is a starting point for both me, and anyone hoping to gain more understanding of where they come from as a Filipino American.

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33 References Camba, Alvin 2018 The winners and losers in Duterte’s China play. Electronic document, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/2166070/winners-and-losers-duterteschina-play David, EJR Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino-/American Postcolonial Psychology Fujiwara, Lynn & Roshanravan, Shireen 2018 Asian American Feminisms & Women of Color Politics. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Manalansan, Martin & Espiritu, Augusto F. 2016 Filipino Studies: Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora. New York City: New York University Press.

McLaughlin, Timothy 2019 The Philippines, a Key U.S. Ally, Turning to China to ‘Build, Build, Build’. Electronic document, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/05/philippines-us-allychina-investment/58 8829/ Mourdoukoutas, Panos 2019 Filipinos Are Beginning To See The Ugly Side of Chinese Investments. Electronic document, https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/03/21/filipinos-are-beginning-tosee-the-ugly-side-of-chinese-investments/#20edf26554f0 Ocampo, Anthony Christian 2017 The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar 2011 Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Parrocha, Azer 2018 DOLE to fine, prosecute labor-only contracting companies: Palace. Electronic document, https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1036726 See, Sarita Echavez 2009 The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Strobel, Leny Mendoza 2015 Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans.

Santa Rosa: Center for Babaylan Studies.

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