Posted by Kaapuikinaea on October 29, 2009 at 3:33pm
I see this as a sign. A bunch of things came into issue this week and it's definitely a sign. This past Monday I got my DVD of NOHO HEWA. It was an awesome film!GMO: In it some things were covered, aside from militarism and tourism as 2 entities that help destroy our 'aina and our people (ethnic cleansing & diaspora were mentioned), they mentioned GMOs. That was scary. I was ignorant about it before not wanting to understand it since it seemed too complicated but I saw the movie Food, Inc. I tried to make myself more aware of it. And recently with the video on GMOs posted here on MW, that really opened my eyes.It's kinda scary to see that we've come to this point in our lives or rather to the point of history where we are being under someone else's control and being manipulated. Not only do we have to worry about non-organic substances but now GMOs. I really should blog a separate entry about GMOs but just wanted to touch on it since these all tied in to my hoailona post as one things popped up after another when I had a mental block and didn't know how to word my thoughts together in this blog regarding a few things. But they kept on coming so now is the time to blog.LANGUAGE IMPOSITION - FORM OF NAZISM: The main reason to blog was because of this issue, but it actually started out with an article that my friend sent regarding Cebuano (another ancestral language for me) being banned on Big Brother in the Philippines. This caused many Cebuanos to be outraged and some of the things I saw written were just ridiculous, really not worth justifying why they shouldn't ban it. In any case I printed it out for my co-workers whom I refer to as Tagalog Nazis on occasion, for the reason being that they always consider - TAGALOG to come first, and fuck every other language spoken in the Philippines. I've known Filipinos to be very, very colonized and this is part of the result.A co-worker saw it, she speaks Ilocano as a first language and felt that they SHOULD ban Cebuano. Her reasons were:1) no one else could understand it besides Cebuanos2) because "Tagalog" is the national language3) no need to use subtitles for reason #2I mentioned subtitles, first she said that she can understand if it's in a movie, but for a t.v. show, no. I told her we have it here all the time and especially with reality shows if they are whispering they'll provide subtitles. Seriously, would they ban them from whispering? Then she used the excuse of Tagalog being the national language and they need to speak that and I told her if that's the case, she and other Filipinos shouldn't be speaking Tagalog here (California). Again, a national or official language doesn't equate to actually banning the non-national or non-official languages. She kept on swimming around with lousy excuses, but my point here is these people are so colonized to actually believe that it is okay.Now this is how it bothered me more or why it bothered me more. Because I've witnessed this type of effect. In fact, we all have, coming from the Hawaiian islands, even in the 80s I recall how at work they stressed NOT SPEAKING in a language other than English. These are all the results of imposing the dominant language which was English post-1898. I grew up that type of society, with that type of mentality and I have every right to be offended. A Mexican co-worker said she understands and that they shouldn't be speaking in the work place. I told her that was silly but then she described her situation with, surprise, surprise, TAGALOG speaking people! But in my co-worker's situation, it was rude because they were with her and purposely excluded her and I told her that was different and explained why her situation was valid. But my point was that when I worked in Hawaii at one place, even if it was on break time and they were speaking and excluding people who came into the lunch room, etc. afterward, they made these Samoans and Ilocanos feel uncomfotable. That was wrong to me and it bothered me then.This is why today many of us do not speak our ancestral languages. It doesn't take much to ingrain it into people's minds that speaking a cultural language will hinder one on the socio-economic scale. But we know for a fact that isn't true, yet it happened. They actually discouraged people (which I'm sure many have witnessed themselves) from speaking Hawaiian or Filipino or Japanese. They should've been encouraging multilingualism, not encourage ENGLISH-ONLY.I decided to look up the ban of Hawaiian in school of which I've done before but came across this interesting link.http://downloads.k12.hi.us/other/070426hawaiianmediumact133/070426hawaiianmediumact133.pdfI didn't realize, or maybe just never was smart enough to put two and two together, that although Punana Leo was started in 1984, in order for them to continue teaching in Hawaiian, that ban implemented back in 1898 had to be removed. That didn't occur until 1987.And then that link provided statistics where I've heard it so many times before on how the literacy rate was high back in those days. And then it dropped significantly a century later, but now with the graduating students from the immersion schools, that changed and they have proof of it too.I've always been so against language imposition, but to actually experience it yesterday with such a colonized person, it's like you want to give up, or I wanted to give up. But if we all felt like how I did yesterday (not that hopeless but more like disappointed), we wouldn't be where we are today. I should rephrase it to say that if we had people who weren't onipaa in their support to perpetuate Hawaiian, we wouldn't have these graduating students today.
Many foods that we eat are GMO: Cereal, soy, pop tarts, etc. That is why I plant veggies in my garden. I do not want any of that genetically modified crap!!! LOL
I only recognized some numbers (don't want to think about which numbers they were. lol) and that brings back memories when I went there in 2004 w/ those tricycles. I loved those!
eh Kalani - you might like this.
Maybe you heard of a filmmaker - good friend of O. Penaranda I mentioned before.
Here is a linkto Eil Africa filmmaker /teacher: http://eliafrica.multiply.com/video
look for "Selling Songs of Leyte" here only a 30 minute TRAILER
I saw the entire film at my friend Oscar's home before I left to come here...
It brought me to tears to have Oscar tell me the singing of the song and in your grampa's language is tradition when selling in the market place...check it out.
Thanks again for posting this blog.
In Spirit,
Judy
Thanks for taking the time to read through my wordy blog, this one I knew would be just rambling kinda.
She was adamantly opposed to the outwardly classist Tagalog.
Ah, that's what I should've said, I couldn't think of the word - classist! That's what they do, they automatically try to put you into a certain class. In this case, it was superior/inferior.
The fact that they truely believe that the darker complected ones are more the laborous & poor types whereas those mixed w/ some Euro-ancestry are the ones who move up this socio ladder that they believe in, just makes me sick. And it's passed on generation to generation.
The part about the prostitutes, never heard of that but I've heard or witnessed TAGALOG NAZIS equate "inday" as MAIDS! Yes, they say that they usually refer "inday" to maids b/c many of the maids were/are from the Visayas. So, just b/c a Nazi says that, doesn't mean that inday=maid now, whether it's in Tagalog or Cebuano. To me, Inday will always be the term of addressed for the younger female and so I still use it when appropriate if I have to. I did use it on that ilocano girl whom I referred to in my blog but now I don't b/c she really doesn't deserve that type of respect.
But yes, it's critical. When I went to take a trip to see where my grandfather was from, a tiny island called Maripipi, my relatives there asked if I spoke Filipino. I told them there's no sense in speaking Tagalog if they are also learning English. Makes logical sense, but I also told them that our grandfather (they're from my grandfather's 1st wife, I'm from the 2nd wife) probably didn't speak Tagalog. But I'm not certain for sure on that, but it seems he didn't.
Then they asked if I spoke "bisaya" and said I knew some words and said the words that I knew. My grandmother was from Cebu so of course the words were Cebuano and they said, "ah, cebuano." I never heard Waray before until I met my cousins on my paternal grandfather's side.
But as I learned more about that side of the family, I still saw the struggle w/ the language, how they taught Tagalog and taught in English and although they default to Waray, it seems that NO FOCUS WAS ON WRITING IT! How ironic, yet how predictable when you have a dominant language like English and Tagalog. Seriously, these people do not see that.
Sure they are an isolated group of people on Maripipi where their waray is unique, a true dialect of Waray spoken in Samar & Leyte, where as it was described to me, kinda like Waray, Cebuano & Bikolano & maybe Masbateno all mixed together given that Maripipi sits all in between these areas. And that they have their own mannerisms, colloquialisms, habits, etc. But it only starts w/ the language first, then comes everything else to see it go away. Hell, we almost saw it with Hawaiian and some Filipino languages are no longer spoken too, so it can happen if they don't take any precautions.
Thank you for this piece on language and the self hate most colonized cultures exude. It's not just shameful - it's bloody immoral. To attempt to remove a people's language is an attack of a people's soul.
As I proudly said before - my mother is Cebuano. Bisaya. It's important for me to claim these origins - not just because of some form of pride - because face-it ... I was born & raised on NDN land - on the Great Turtle Island - but I was also raised by the same people who helped to raise my father - Pinoys. Manong. They came on the last two boats from the Bisayas. They forged a pathway for generations to come. They endured a life I personally would have crumble under in one day had I been faced with what they survived. These 'sacada' gave birth to women like my mother who would never ever allow me to learn Tagalog in college. She was adamantly opposed to the outwardly classist Tagalog. I heeded my mothers sort of "nationalism' or regionalism...but later understood it was more than that. She was defending and protecting our way of life and language as apeople from the south and Visayan Islands - and I have a good friend Oscar Penaranda who came to amerika when he was 12 years old and he still speaks Waray-Waray. I am not as versed in the ethnology of my own peoople in the Visaya's - yet I've recently traveled to the PI so that I could learn and be humble and give my respects to my relatives who gave up their son's and brothers during those years in the early 1900's.
My mother - she really confused for many years. I 've had so many Pinoy firends in the Bay area. But now I know her stance more than ever.
Before I left the mainland - I met with an old friend form SF City college. That's where he workd ion EOP. He's Pinoy amerikan. He had dinner in my home and he sat respectfully with my mother and talk story for hours.
Before he left when the evening was coming to a close - I opened a webpage of great interest to me - it want to share with him what I was going to make my next project from
. It was this website http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/visayans.html. It isn't much. But is was the most I had found in all my years in Ethnic Studies/Pilipino Studies at SFSU.
This man - an old friend of mine part Ilocano and part Visaya peered at the site and before he headed to the door said to me, "yeah, that looks like it'd be a good project, and did you know that all the prostitutes in the PI are Visaya?"
WT Hell?
Again. I am not as versed in the ethno-dynamics of one region to the next in the PI.
YET - I do know a colonial mentality when I see one. And no I am not named after some king from spain named Phillip.
I love you brother.
You raise a very critical point. A very dangerous reality...
The death of a language is in turn the death of the soul of a people.
Comments
http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/science_and_impacts/scie...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/business/worldbusiness/05crop.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/world/europe/12clone.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business/yourmoney/01frame.html
I only recognized some numbers (don't want to think about which numbers they were. lol) and that brings back memories when I went there in 2004 w/ those tricycles. I loved those!
Maybe you heard of a filmmaker - good friend of O. Penaranda I mentioned before.
Here is a linkto Eil Africa filmmaker /teacher:
http://eliafrica.multiply.com/video
look for "Selling Songs of Leyte" here only a 30 minute TRAILER
I saw the entire film at my friend Oscar's home before I left to come here...
It brought me to tears to have Oscar tell me the singing of the song and in your grampa's language is tradition when selling in the market place...check it out.
Thanks again for posting this blog.
In Spirit,
Judy
Thanks for taking the time to read through my wordy blog, this one I knew would be just rambling kinda.
She was adamantly opposed to the outwardly classist Tagalog.
Ah, that's what I should've said, I couldn't think of the word - classist! That's what they do, they automatically try to put you into a certain class. In this case, it was superior/inferior.
The fact that they truely believe that the darker complected ones are more the laborous & poor types whereas those mixed w/ some Euro-ancestry are the ones who move up this socio ladder that they believe in, just makes me sick. And it's passed on generation to generation.
The part about the prostitutes, never heard of that but I've heard or witnessed TAGALOG NAZIS equate "inday" as MAIDS! Yes, they say that they usually refer "inday" to maids b/c many of the maids were/are from the Visayas. So, just b/c a Nazi says that, doesn't mean that inday=maid now, whether it's in Tagalog or Cebuano. To me, Inday will always be the term of addressed for the younger female and so I still use it when appropriate if I have to. I did use it on that ilocano girl whom I referred to in my blog but now I don't b/c she really doesn't deserve that type of respect.
But yes, it's critical. When I went to take a trip to see where my grandfather was from, a tiny island called Maripipi, my relatives there asked if I spoke Filipino. I told them there's no sense in speaking Tagalog if they are also learning English. Makes logical sense, but I also told them that our grandfather (they're from my grandfather's 1st wife, I'm from the 2nd wife) probably didn't speak Tagalog. But I'm not certain for sure on that, but it seems he didn't.
Then they asked if I spoke "bisaya" and said I knew some words and said the words that I knew. My grandmother was from Cebu so of course the words were Cebuano and they said, "ah, cebuano." I never heard Waray before until I met my cousins on my paternal grandfather's side.
But as I learned more about that side of the family, I still saw the struggle w/ the language, how they taught Tagalog and taught in English and although they default to Waray, it seems that NO FOCUS WAS ON WRITING IT! How ironic, yet how predictable when you have a dominant language like English and Tagalog. Seriously, these people do not see that.
Sure they are an isolated group of people on Maripipi where their waray is unique, a true dialect of Waray spoken in Samar & Leyte, where as it was described to me, kinda like Waray, Cebuano & Bikolano & maybe Masbateno all mixed together given that Maripipi sits all in between these areas. And that they have their own mannerisms, colloquialisms, habits, etc. But it only starts w/ the language first, then comes everything else to see it go away. Hell, we almost saw it with Hawaiian and some Filipino languages are no longer spoken too, so it can happen if they don't take any precautions.
As I proudly said before - my mother is Cebuano. Bisaya. It's important for me to claim these origins - not just because of some form of pride - because face-it ... I was born & raised on NDN land - on the Great Turtle Island - but I was also raised by the same people who helped to raise my father - Pinoys. Manong. They came on the last two boats from the Bisayas. They forged a pathway for generations to come. They endured a life I personally would have crumble under in one day had I been faced with what they survived. These 'sacada' gave birth to women like my mother who would never ever allow me to learn Tagalog in college. She was adamantly opposed to the outwardly classist Tagalog. I heeded my mothers sort of "nationalism' or regionalism...but later understood it was more than that. She was defending and protecting our way of life and language as apeople from the south and Visayan Islands - and I have a good friend Oscar Penaranda who came to amerika when he was 12 years old and he still speaks Waray-Waray. I am not as versed in the ethnology of my own peoople in the Visaya's - yet I've recently traveled to the PI so that I could learn and be humble and give my respects to my relatives who gave up their son's and brothers during those years in the early 1900's.
My mother - she really confused for many years. I 've had so many Pinoy firends in the Bay area. But now I know her stance more than ever.
Before I left the mainland - I met with an old friend form SF City college. That's where he workd ion EOP. He's Pinoy amerikan. He had dinner in my home and he sat respectfully with my mother and talk story for hours.
Before he left when the evening was coming to a close - I opened a webpage of great interest to me - it want to share with him what I was going to make my next project from
. It was this website http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/visayans.html. It isn't much. But is was the most I had found in all my years in Ethnic Studies/Pilipino Studies at SFSU.
This man - an old friend of mine part Ilocano and part Visaya peered at the site and before he headed to the door said to me, "yeah, that looks like it'd be a good project, and did you know that all the prostitutes in the PI are Visaya?"
WT Hell?
Again. I am not as versed in the ethno-dynamics of one region to the next in the PI.
YET - I do know a colonial mentality when I see one. And no I am not named after some king from spain named Phillip.
I love you brother.
You raise a very critical point. A very dangerous reality...
The death of a language is in turn the death of the soul of a people.
Kaquina's,
Mahalo!
In Spirit,
Judy