America Is In The Heart: Channeling The Spirit Of Malcolm X...

Upon Macarthur’s return on October 20, 1944, he announced over the radio, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” and in dramatic fashion the Filipinos rejoiced in celebration.  In their mind, they were finally being rescued from the ruthless treatment administered by the imperialistic Japanese during their occupation of the archipelago.  Interestingly enough, the Filipinos did not see it as a return to colonial captivity but rather only liberation from the “three years without God.”

Prior to WWII, during the time the U.S. had complete colonial responsibility of the Philippines; the Filipinos were inundated with American popular culture. Through American movies, magazines, comic books, music records, and candy bars Filipinos were given a misleading glimpse to what life was like in the States. Santiago Bose, a Filipino writer from Baguio, recalls memories from his childhood of going on the U.S. base that was constructed within the city as, “...our first taste of ‘America’ via chocolate and bubble gum. It was to John Hay we went to play mini golf or to take our ugly blind dates and enjoy the live music, or to have a real steak at Main Club. It was in the library that I read all of the Hardy Boys mystery books and books about art and painting...”

And that’s just historically speaking. If we press fast forward on our time machines, what we will come to notice is that these same themes follow us to the present in a steadfast and unwavering manner.

Earlier this week, we went to watch an indie film about the Philippine American War. I was excited and interested in seeing how the movie would represent America, the Philippines and the “special relationship” held between the two countries. Being that this was in the Philippines and it was labeled an indie film, I assumed that this would be an unfiltered depiction of what really happened during this forgotten war. In my mind’s eye, I imagined scenes of Admiral Dewey and General Aguinaldo speaking aboard the flagship Olympia with Dewey reassuring Aguinaldo that the U.S. had no need for colonies and that America would only assist the Philippines in gaining their independence from Spain, similar to Cuba. Then through dramatic music and shrewd editing, the deception and dishonesty by the U.S. government would become more obvious than Kool-Aid stains on white dress shirts. Oh how I was wrong.

The movie was a generic-wack-water down-came in the plastic bag at the bottom of the shelf and not the real cereal box- version of anything resembling the Philippine American War. Ok, maybe I went too far. My mom did buy that cereal for my family, so I won’t diss that. But everything else, I stand behind.  100 percent.

To say the movie had a bias would be an understatement (I’m not even going to get into the fact that the Director/Writer was a white man from Schenectday, New York). Americans were shown as friendly amicable soldiers that over time developed a bond with the Filipinos within the barrio they were occupying.  Only Filipinos and Chinese cadavers appeared on the movie screen. The closest an American soldier came to getting injured was when one was shot in the hip. Now granted, the commanding officer was depicted as a douche bag but that was one out of a handful.

Now I’m far from advocating violence committed against anyone, that’s not my style. I am all for some peace. I didn’t need the movie to show American soldiers getting cutting up Julienne by Filipino soldiers wielding bolos with menacing facial expressions.  I wasn’t expecting the film to cover the entire war or the events that led up to it. However, what I was hoping for was the Philippine American War be represented, as it should be—sans Pro-American filter. But instead, I was privy to a far less than accurate portrayal of an atrocity that brought about rape, concentration camps, and unwarranted deaths of unarmed civilians—by the thousands.

I believe this movie only perpetuated stereotypes of Americans and Filipinos alike, as well as skimming over the surface about a period in history not taught properly in the textbooks or classrooms. I lower my head in disappointment at the missed opportunity of revealing enlightenment and truth to the world.

Now ladies and gentlemen, lets adjust the lens on our microscope and analyze what happens when such images and attitudes are inculcated into a group of people over the span of 100+ years.

Simply put, in my most plain and basic and perhaps inappropriate relaxed vernacular I can formulate at the moment-- the result of having over a century of American indoctrination imposed upon Filipino people has psychologically fucked them up.

An inferiority complex has been formed. The belief of anything American being better than anything Filipino has infiltrated deep into the depths of the collective sub-conscious of the country.

During the late 1940’s and 1950’s, the choice of music for many Filipinos came from America. These pop songs were placed on a pedestal due to the fact that they were English, which gave them prestige.

Around this same time period, in Manilla, moviehouses that showed American films were the best in comfort and luxury. Filipinos idolized John Wayne, Doris Day, James Dean, and Audrey Hepburn. Movies that were shown in Tagalog were seen as lower class and made for ignorant and gullible audiences.

This Americanization of the Philippines through education and popular culture created a desire within the Filipino to be American. They emulated Bob Dylan in style and dress. They memorized rock’n’roll songs. They grew their hair long and bought American products for the status. But as Santiago Bose put it, “... No matter how many American appliances we owned, and how well we could mimic the songs broadcast on American airwaves and how closely we mimicked the postures and phrases of the Americans, we would always be little brown interlopers, never anything than second-class.”

Now let’s keep in mind that prior to America colonizing the Philippines, Spain did, for almost 400 years. Then let’s take into account the appearance of both the majority of Spaniards and Americans that came to the Philippines were white. THEN add into the equation the proliferation of the erroneous image of Jesus being also the same complexion. And what do we have here? A self-hatred the brown man has held in his heart for half a millennia because everything that has controlled him (physically, mentally, and spiritually) has resembled something outside of himself. So it would only be logical for the brown man to want and to strive to become more like the person that is in control. By doing so, perhaps he can become governor of his own sovereignty. Which leads us to the predicament we have on our hands today, with brown folks wishing they were white because they have the status in this world.

If we return once again to the present, we can find giant billboards with white actresses parading all over them, smiling and enjoying the spoils of wealth and success (that image can be quite alluring to a young child begging for pesos, growing up in poverty). There’s whitening cream being sold at the grocery store right on campus. Whenever I add a contact into my local cell phone, I am presented with the option of adding a small-computerized picture that will pop up whenever that person contacts me. Coincidentally enough, every pre-programmed picture is a person being ambiguous in ethnicity but having either brown or blonde hair. And the glaring similarity amongst them all is that they all have blue eyes (with the exception of one but he is wearing sunglasses).

But let’s pull back. Perhaps that’s too much.

Let’s say that not all Filipinos abide by this notion of sub-consciously striving to be white Americans. That’s a grand generalization that I don’t want to be responsible for defending. Let’s instead say that for many, this self-hatred is more allusive to detect. It hibernates far beneath the surface and is repressed deeper and deeper as time goes on. And what manifests is sentiments and attitudes of not being good enough, believing in self-imposed limitations, and a victim consciousness that believes in some twisted and warped way that all of these heinous acts committed against them throughout the years is deserved. This manifestation becomes habits that over time evolve into character traits. These traits are then passed down to the subsequent generation. This subsequent generation follows suite and passes similar characteristics to their children and so forth. Before we know it, this becomes part of the overall cultural ideology. Thus further perpetuating the self-hatred. Not only do Filipinos get constantly bombarded with new confirmations for the self-hate (refer to the previous paragraph) they have it embedded within their cultural identity. And if self-hatred is too rated R for you then you can easily substitute the word with its interchangeable cousin-- internal colonization.

So where do we go from here?

I don’t want to come off as cynical or a downer in any way shape or form. But the truth as I see it, must be told.

I’ll be honest, perhaps I am writing so passionately about this topic because I recognize the self-hatred within myself. For so many years, I went unaware of it, let alone the detrimental side effects that rendered me depressed and angry.

But all of that will be reserved for another blog at another time.  Bearing my soul right after I gave the critical analysis of my life would be excessive.

And so I’ll end it here with my hypothesis as to how to resolve a dilemma of this magnitude. The only way to cure self-hatred and internal colonization is through unadulterated, uninhibited, genuine love for one self. Yea I know, probably the most cliché idea I could of come up with, but regardless, its more true than you may care to admit.

I’ll be with you through it all even if saving you sends me to Heaven,

John Eklof