Hello fellow students! I am Chino and I am in fourth year and doing a combined major in Computer Science and Biology. I am excited to meet and be able to learn from conversations, hopefully with each one of you, over the course of the term!
I grew up in Manila, Philippines, a country that was a colony of the Spanish Empire for over 300 years and under American rule for almost 50 years immediately afterwards. As such, I have experienced processing things from the side of the indigenous. The high demand for skin-whitening products in the Philippines may seem trivial, but is actually evidence of a colonial mentality in Filipinos, suggesting a desire for fair skin among other European features.
I came to Canada to attain a degree at UBC, expand my knowledge, and gain new perspectives in a global setting. UBC is indeed on the traditional, unceded lands of the Musqueam people and is a space I use every day to learn. Out of respect and curiosity, I look forward to again deconstructing colonial narratives, this time learning and examining through the perspective of Indigenous Canadian peoples.
I believe that literature is integral to preserving the traditions and culture of civilizations. Certainly, the prevalence of Western culture in the United States and Canada has drowned out the voice of indigenous peoples. Besides being displaced from their homes on which their people have lived for centuries, forced assimilation was employed to prevent the persistence of Indigenous culture into the next generation. I am excited to learn from studying Indigenous literature, and to be critical especially towards Canadian literature that narrates with a colonizing perspective.
The blogging format of this course is entirely new to me. I am nervous but also excited about how I will be able to manage a platform for my own personal learning, which can also be used to facilitate discussion with peers. I think this is going to be a nice perk of this course format and we should use this technology to this advantage.
Thank you for reading and hope you are having a great day!
Chino
Works Cited
Dimacali, T. “Is the “racist” BAYO Advert Real?” GMA News, 06 Jun. 2012, https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/hashtag/content/260881/is-the-racist-bayo-advert-real/story/. Accessed 12 Jan. 2020.
Imperial, C. “The Beauty In Me.” 15 Jul. 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20070715193304/http://www3.niu.edu/ptaa/beauty_in_me.htm. Accessed 12 Jan. 2020.
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. “Stage Three: Displacement and Assimilation.” Library and Archives Canada, 08 Feb. 2006, http://webarchive.bac-lac.gc.ca:8080/wayback/20071211050833/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg13_e.html#42. Accessed 12 Jan. 2020.
Vox Media. “How the US Stole Thousands of Native American Children.” YouTube, 14 Oct. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGqWRyBCHhw&list=PLT-89r4OoDJlYglotft8Em9y0t2PThUif. Accessed 12 Jan. 2020.
Hi there Chino! Well done on blog post number 1!
I really appreciated how you have related your experience growing up in the Philippines to the scope of this course. I also think that you are spot on with how you have linked the process of forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples in North America and the colonization of the “Canadian” narrative. The Canadian government has repeatedly enforced their narrative on the Indigenous peoples, through targeted acts of cultural genocide such as the implementation of the Residential School system, the Potlatch Ban and prohibiting nations from speaking their own languages. In separating families, banning congregating and silencing their use of language, the colonizers aimed to absorb and assimilate the Indigenous peoples into their narrative or vision for Canada. Language is integral to storytelling, especially when spoken language is the way of preserving oral storytelling. Literature also plays such an important role, as you mentioned, to preserving history and stories, especially when it is often the colonizers writing the textbooks and histories of the nations they have stolen. My question for you, Chino, is if you have observed, in your experience going to school in both the Philippines and Canada, ways in which the education system has excluded or altered the histories/narratives of the Indigenous people or other minorities?
Hi Lauren, thanks for reading my blog!
I remember learning about Philippine history early in elementary school in my social sciences class. Most of it was about the Spanish and American colonial periods and how the nation we knew came to be. Even if there was not as much focus on the histories of Indigenous peoples in elementary, I remember also being taught about some general things about the different indigenous tribes in the Philippines, including how they build their homes, what kinds of food they eat, and religious practices. Also, for my Filipino language class in high school, I read and analyzed an epic poem, which was passed down over generations orally, originating from the Ilocos region of the Philippines. Overall I appreciate how elements of indigenous peoples’ culture were integrated in my primary and secondary education back home.
Cheers!
Chino