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[Message #1]
Amy Lawlor:
According to "The Marriage of Maria Clara and Uncle Sam: Colonialism and the Education of Filipinos" who are the colonial influences in the Philippines?

What are the various cultural characteristics that each country has left behind?

How do each of these cultural characteristics vie for attention in the stories/poems?

[Message #2]
Christina Romero:
hello everyone. remember that one line in the the story on page 85 that answers the first question. it starts out with "The Malay influence is seen ..."

[Message #4]
Christina Romero:
the three influences are the indigenous, the Spanish, and the American. the religion comes from the Spanish. the materialism comes from America. the superstition comes from the natives

[Message #6]
Richard Pelorin:
yea and all of this has kind of left them alone with no real identity

[Message #7]
Richard Pelorin:
i be right back i need to get a hand out

[Message #9]
Christina Romero:
yea i agree. or maybe too many identities to deal with

[Message #10]
Mark Mandapat:
plus, theyve only been an independant nation for about 60 years

[Message #12]
Richard Pelorin:
and it shows that filipinos strive to be american...or live the american style a lot.

[Message #13]
Richard Pelorin:
anything with a usa on it is like gold over there

[Message #14]
Richard Pelorin:
whether it's nike or target

[Message #15]
Richard Pelorin:
the spanish last names behind as well as some language

[Message #16]
Christina Romero:
i think the americans had the last words on the situation because they colonized last. if the Spanish had taken it after the Americans i think it would be different

[Message #19]
Christina Romero:
even though the Spanish left their last names and religion, more Filipinos speak American than Spanish

[Message #20]
Mark Mandapat:
a sense of nationalism is really difficult to establish since the Philippines consist of thousands of islands, each with their own individual culture, then colonizers come over and lump the entire mass of islands as one nation

[Message #22]
Mark Mandapat:
sorta like the formation of the countries in africa

[Message #23]
Richard Pelorin:
true and it also said that some filipino children learn spanish and english but don't learn their native dialect

[Message #25]
Christina Romero:
yea. our political borders mean nothing when it comes to culture. we lump certain areas together and assume that they are all the same when they might not even consider themselves alike

[Message #27]
Mark Mandapat:
Thats why in the the island of Mindanao they're trying to become an independent muslim nation

[Message #28]
Richard Pelorin:
i never thought about it but i'm filipino and i speak english and know more spanish than i do tagalog that sucks (random thought)

[Message #30]
Christina Romero:
i didn't know that. that's really interesting...

[Message #33]
Richard Pelorin:
how do you think the characteristics fight for attention in the stories and poems?

[Message #34]
Amy Lawlor:
(include Malay as a cultural influence even though it was not a colonizing influence)

[Message #35]
Mark Mandapat:
the culture of the colonizers is in conflict with the native culture because the colonizers sought to establish their superiority and class distinction over native culture

[Message #36]
Richard Pelorin:
well filipinos are very close to malay like the the dress up garments in their native dances

[Message #37]
Richard Pelorin:
i have malay friends and they look exactly the same as filipinos

[Message #40]
Christina Romero:
cause i'm not filipino this is really cool for me to hear you guys talk about this stuff. do you see some of the same situations from the stories reflect your own lives?

[Message #42]
Richard Pelorin:
there was an example in negros when they put the jacket on the auntie who was posessed. the trekkie one. which i personally wouldn't wear but she valued it with her life

[Message #43]
Richard Pelorin:
yea a lot of this reflects my life...like when they speak taglish

[Message #44]
Richard Pelorin:
if you wanna see a pretty close example of a filipino household check out "The Debut"

[Message #46]
Richard Pelorin:
it's a movie...which is at blockbuster right now

[Message #47]
Christina Romero:
at home do you speak taglish with your family? i want to see the debut but my filipino friends tell me i wouldn't understand half of the jokes

[Message #48]
Christina Romero:
yea i work in a video store so we sell it

[Message #49]
Richard Pelorin:
no i was born here and i don't really know too much tagalog and my american accent butchers the dialect

[Message #50]
Richard Pelorin:
but my relatives use sentences with half tagalog and half english

[Message #51]
Mark Mandapat:
the tradition of the debut/cotillion is a spanish one isn't it?

[Message #52]
Richard Pelorin:
yea it's just different ages right

[Message #54]
Richard Pelorin:
a cotillion is what fifteen and is a debut 18 or 16?

[Message #57]
Mark Mandapat:
plus, catholicism was brought over by spaniards

[Message #58]
Richard Pelorin:
and that old stereotype of asian women liking american guys happens in the philipines

[Message #63]
Christina Romero:
remember that one story we read with the young girl who married the old man and hanged herself...

[Message #64]
Richard Pelorin:
and in the ghettos people really do eat only a lot of rice cause it cheap and have very little entrees

[Message #66]
Christina Romero:
i think it was the bride. you're right. i can relate to the rice thing because growing up i ate a lot of rice cause it was cheap

[Message #68]
Richard Pelorin:
what nationality are you anyway

[Message #69]
Christina Romero:
mixed. i don't really identify with any. puerto rican, spanish, english, german, scottish, welsh, polish

[Message #74]
Richard Pelorin:
that's cool....the poem about the boy and the lunch was a perfect example of filipino wanting to fit in america or be as american as possible

[Message #75]
Christina Romero:
you took the words right out of my mouth!

[Message #76]
Christina Romero:
i was just looking at that poem

[Message #79]
Mark Mandapat:
yeah, it especially rings true for the kids who had no filipino friends in elementary school

[Message #80]
Richard Pelorin:
but he gave up GREAT filipino food for that weak ass lunch

[Message #83]
Richard Pelorin:
so you were filipino with no filipino friends

[Message #86]
Richard Pelorin:
oh i thought you were refering to self sorry dude

[Message #87]
Mark Mandapat:
heh, like 70 percent of my class was filipino

[Message #88]
Richard Pelorin:
yea cause it's hard the accent is ugly it's not cute like japanese or whatever and you know you can just tell when someone is forigen

[Message #89]
Richard Pelorin:
i've been guilty back in the day to make fun of them....what a shame

[Message #90]
Richard Pelorin:
really mine too but the last college i went to was like 80 percent white

[Message #91]
Mark Mandapat:
yeah, and when the other kids in that poem probably traded stuff in the lunch, they made fun of him

[Message #92]
Christina Romero:
i only knew a few filipino kids in elementary school and i thought they only liked other filipinos cause they stuck together but now i know they probably felt different...

[Message #93]
Richard Pelorin:
yea..i had like one full filipino friend growing up and one half white half filipino friend but a lot of them are clicky like most races....i think here more than like in napa at least that's what i observed

[Message #96]
Richard Pelorin:
it was so sad when he couldn't eat that food because he was ashamed of it...i feel him like when my grandma used to pull a napkin of bread she stole from the place where we ate...and eat it somewhere...i was always embarrased when i was younger when she did that