Introduction

disclaimer: my history didn't begin in 1898.

I am a student who hails from the vibrant and bustling province of  Pampanga in a country that is composed of 7,107 islands. I love listening to Kapampangans. I love being surrounded by people who speak my language. The language itself is seemingly made up of idiomatic phrases, supplemented with vulgar eye gestures and loud vocal projections. I miss Pampanga, with its culinary prominence and ostentatious celebrations. My perennial concentration as an upperclassman high school student will highlight the convergence and intersection of photography, culture, and knowledge: three facets that I consider to be instrumental to my personal growth.I am an unabashedly political activist. Political indignance, photography, and literature are three tenacious tutelages that exemplify the of raucous of my decolonization 

 

HYPHENATED IDENTITIES

The Filipino-American demographic ranks as the second largest Asian migrant population in the United States. Yet, the under-representation of the country's culture is undeniably massive.  In comparison to the other Asian groups, there is a notable dearth of Filipino restaurants, shops, festivals, and awareness. Such vigilance for heritage is also internally weakened, as most Filipino-Americans acquire colonial mentality and crab mentality. When we aren’t yelling “Pinoy pride!” gaudily, we are consistently denying our heritage. The myth of ahistorical forgetfulness is an egregious justification of chosen ignorance of one’s history. How can we? Fifty years of direct Anglo hegemony is more than enough to burgeon constructs and systems that subconsciously pillage our identity. We are reminded when we are mistaken as either “Chinese” or “Mexican”. We are reminded when car dealerships assume that we cannot afford certain cars due to our gleaming brown skin. We are reminded with the Laglag Bala backlash, which was the first thing a white staff in this school said to me after he learned I was Filipino; the second thing this white man said was, “Don’t you guys eat birds or something?” We have reminded me when textbooks misconstrue our stories by touting a monolithic concoction of Emilio Aguinaldo as a celebrated independence fighter that had to salvage his country by acquiescing to the demands of the brash jingoists; while the latter is accurate, Aguinaldo was also a fledgling despot of an autonomous government of Biak na Bato. Regardless of our affinity to deny our ethnicity through language, clothing, and skin bleaching products, there are the intangibles that will incessantly remind us. The brown complexion transcends even the dedicated use of papaya soap or glutathione. Brown skin is more than the surface, but it is a generational tattoo present in all Filipinos to serve as a reminder of our convoluted heritage.  

 

DISRUPTION AND ASSIMILATION

Assimilation is not just a discernible process of linguistic and behavioral nuances, but a subconscious and churlish rumination of tangible and intangible aspects of culture. It doesn’t exist in a dichotomy where you can separate each part perfectly. It’s incessant and unscrupulous that mongers the lives of people of color. Because of the model minority status, the majority of White Americans attain misunderstandings of Filipinos. This general ignorance of their white peers permits Filipinos heritage to be invisible; there is a dubious dearth for solidarity because the oppression is in deleterious forms of microaggressions. I’m unperturbed of acquiescing with ambiguity. It’s impossible to contrive a substantive plan for decolonization. 

The visceral significance of ‘Disruption’ is a response to the misrepresentation of Filipinos as a purported monolithic model minority in the United States. Filipinos are haplessly seen as docile, the lesser Asians amassed as a check to institutions’ diversity criterion. Through these concatenations of 12 photographs, the goal is to illustrate the imbroglio of my assimilation and decolonization as a Filipina immigrant. The two forces are seemingly “disrupting” one another; however, such disruption construes a convoluted identity. While I wholeheartedly consider myself as a full blooded Filipina, it would be inexcusable for me to deny the subconscious aspects of linguistic, physical, and gastronomical assimilation to the American culture. As a staunch nerd to the post-colonial literature akin to Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters and Isabel Allende’s House of Spirits, these photographs also exemplify the Filipino youth as living legacies of the polemic and mercurial neocolonial relationship of the Philippines and the United States. “Disruption” might monolithically sound kindred other similar narratives about being stuck in two countries, but I hope to divest from the cosmetics of that idea because underneath is a louder, more indignant and vigorous answer to the acquiescent of assimilation and staunch decolonization. It is the unabashed and intentional marriage of photography, heritage, and politics. “Disruption” is being a foreigner in both lands, thus burgeoning the necessity in the creation of a new identity through cyclic reconciliation and decolonization.

 

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page 231, Leche by R. Zamora

Kris: I’ll make it simpler. Do you identify more as Asian-American or Fil-Am?

Vince: Neither.

Kris: Then what?

Vince: Filipino.