My Reflections

Headfirst into Hist 3, I had shallow expectations of what I would learn. I simply thought that I would just learn about the various indigenous people in the Philippines and learn about their culture, basically just knowing them from a shallow perspective. Though my initial attitude towards this subject did not harbor any negativity, I truly am eager to learn about them as I am ignorant of the different people in the Philippines; I even thought that Igorots and Ifugao were different tribes. The first lecture was an eye-opener for me. Our professor explained to us a concept of his on why this subject mattered namely the three Rs which meant “Recognition”,” Representation”, and “Revolution”. This concept basically tackled the general challenges and problems faced by the indigenous people and what we could do to change that. I was an example of people who was part of this problem due to my ignorance of these people. After learning about what the three Rs represented, I realized that some indigenous people are deprived of the treatment that they deserve as fellow people. I believe that when we want to be recognized for something unique, we have the right to be differentiated and feel proud about it. I feel that is that this is the same way that these people feel for their situation, that they want to be truly recognized, that they are not just a collective bunch but are comprised of different ethnic groups with varying beautiful cultures. Furthermore, what I understood from the three Rs was that raising awareness about their recognition would result in rightful representation about them, consequently, a revolution would occur in our minds, as once these things happen our attitude towards these people would change for the better. Because of this introductory lecture, my expectation of History 3 changed. Just like the various ethnic groups in the Philippines, History 3 is more than meets the eye.

One of the first main topics we tackled revolved around the idea of ethnicity. My idea of ethnicity before was that it was synonymous with race but had more factors. After learning about the topic, what I understood was ethnicity is dynamic; ethnicity is comprised of many different things: race, origin, place, culture, ascription, phenotypical features, and etc. however defining one’s ethnicity is not strict as having all these factors to be identified to be in a particular ethnic group. Learning about these concepts helped me in determining my ethnicity because even before, I struggled to identify my ethnicity. My bloodline is composed of my father being a full-blooded Ilonggo who grew up as a Tagalog in Manila while my mother who grew up in Manila was already living long enough in Pangasinan to be fluent in the local dialect when she met my father. Furthermore, since I’m living with my maternal-side family, they never self-identified as Pangasinenses. There was a time in my life that I had to say I was Tagalog because I couldn’t understand people talking to me through Pangasinan and so that they would talk to me in Filipino. I even had to hesitate joining a Pangasinan-based organization in UPB because I can’t speak the local dialect. Me reflecting on these things made it hard for me to determine my ethnicity. However, learning more about the concepts of ethnicity made me understand that my ethnicity could be any of these and it just depended on me on which one I want to be.

The next topic we tackled was the various IP groups in the Philippines wherein we also had to make an infographic about the chosen IP group, in our case, the Balangao group from Natonin, Mountain Province. During the research process, that was the time I was educated that Igorot was actually a collective term for the ethnic groups in the Cordillera region. I felt ashamed for being ignorant about this then I was reminded that recognition truly is a problem for them as I have failed in knowing them; I also thought about how many people could have been in the same boat as me. Regarding the Balangao, they were like a subgroup within a subgroup and they were relatively new compared to the neighboring groups. I noticed that one of their alternative names was Bontoc which was a name of another indigenous group of very similar culture. Again, this made me think about how truly representation is a problem faced by the indigenous people for they are being generalized like this. This also made me think about that particular line in an article in the ethnohistory section saying “…highlight the fact that Filipinoness is not just Tagalogness; it is more."

The last eye-opener for me was the TED talk of Chimamanda Adichie about the danger of a single story. I quote from her, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” Certainly, what she said is an undeniable truth and the problem with it is causes more problems. Stereotypes, as said by our professor, lead to prejudice and discrimination by people who believe in the stereotype; they start to harbor incorrect and invalid feelings and actions towards people affected by the stereotypes. Chimamanda made more great points throughout her talk but my takeaways are stereotypes only close our minds and attitude towards the people affected; all it entails is negativity. I have witnessed this in real life as I have also had stereotypes specifically for the Chinese because all I have heard about them are negative things, that they are rude, dirty, etc. Because of this, I learned to have these wrong feelings and ideas about them that whenever I see a Chinese, I automatically think about their negative traits. But after that TED talk, it made me think about the Rs again which are recognition and representation thus making me change my mindset; the new mindset is that the action of a few people is not a basis to represent the whole. Just like what Chimamanda had said, stereotypes aren’t untrue; there truly are rude, bad, and dirty Chinese people but having them represent the whole without even knowing the whole is obviously unfair thus the no recognition and misrepresentation which we should fix.

Throughout my experience so far in History 3, not only have I learned more about the different cultures and the hidden challenges faced by the various indigenous groups, I have also learned to be a better person due to the changes of my attitude towards the recognition of people.