THE BROWN FACE OF COLONIAL AMNESIA: FILIPINO LIBERALS AND THE AMERICANIZED GAZE
- Jan Writer
- Oct 27, 2024
- 4 min read
What does it mean to wear the mask of another?
Imagine: A brown-skinned Filipino stands, not in front of the red, white, and blue of his own archipelago, but in front of another nation’s flag, speaking a language passed down through occupation. He reads American authors, watches American television, and, perhaps, carries a fascination with "democracy," "liberty," or "the American dream."
But underneath it all, there lies something less idealistic and far more complex—a deeply ingrained colonial mindset. How did we get here?
Colonial history in the Philippines forged an identity split between indigenous roots and the pervasive influence of Western thought. A quick review of colonialism's impact on Southeast Asia reveals a consistent pattern: colonizers, here the Americans, left not only their laws and language but also imprinted on their subjects a desire to mimic.
In the Philippines, American education and Catholicism worked in tandem to build a population shaped in part by the colonizer’s expectations. Filipino elites, particularly those educated in institutions like the University of the Philippines, Ateneo, or La Salle, often emerge with a peculiar ideological tension—a simultaneous pride in Filipino identity and an almost unconscious alignment with Western, especially American, ideologies.
The Colonial Classroom: American Dreaming
After the Philippine-American War, the United States government built a system to educate Filipinos—not for Filipino progress but as an experiment in Western indoctrination. This was not education in its liberating sense but rather education as domestication.
By 1901, the U.S. had established hundreds of schools, and thousands of American teachers arrived. Filipinos learned to love their colonizer's language, culture, and, ultimately, values. Those educated in American-run schools became the nation's first “brown Americans,” holding Western ideals close and Filipino ones—well, if they had them at all—closer to the ground.
“To the victor belongs the spoils,” the Americans said, and the spoils included the Filipino mind.
The reality today isn’t so different. Elite educational institutions, the so-called “big three” of UP, Ateneo, and La Salle, reinforce Western perspectives while branding themselves as bastions of “critical thinking.” Ateneo students are imbued with Jesuit philosophy but often emerge with a worldview aligned, almost unconsciously, with Western liberalism—a mirror image of American social and political thought.
Does this constitute education or indoctrination? After all, how many Ateneans or Lasallians can articulate a coherent Filipino philosophy, free from Western influence?
The Politics of Color: Brown, But Not Quite Asian
In the U.S., "Asian" often defaults to East Asian. Brown Asians, including Filipinos, are left in a nebulous space. Southeast Asians, perceived as poorer and “less successful,” confront stereotypes that do not apply to their East Asian counterparts. Brown Asians are frequently excluded from the larger Asian narrative, only tokenized when convenient—examples of either "struggling minorities" or the "success story" that supports the American model minority myth.
This selective representation, frequently criticized by activists, underscores a certain invisibility in which Filipinos are the “other Asian,” often only recognized when they embody stereotypical roles, such as domestic workers or caregivers.
American of Filipino descent scholar E.J.R. David describes this as feeling like an outsider even within Asian-American communities. A community sidelined by East Asian representation, brown Asians are only brought into conversations around Asian identity to serve specific narratives, such as dismantling the model minority myth or contextualizing American imperialism.
Many brown Asians therefore feel “used” rather than included, which fosters a bitter awareness among Filipino communities about the duality of their ethnic and cultural identities.
Liberalism With a Colonial Accent
Here lies the irony: many Filipino liberals position themselves as advocates for “democracy” and “progress” without recognizing the Western baggage attached to these ideals. Like a bad marriage, the relationship between Filipino liberals and American liberalism is fraught with unaddressed issues, particularly regarding identity and autonomy.
To an outsider, Filipino liberals may look like progressive thinkers, but under the surface, they mirror their colonial past in a troubling way. This allegiance to Western ideals over indigenous ones serves, knowingly or not, as a subtle reinforcement of white American superiority, wherein Western methods are seen as modern and Filipino customs as antiquated.
Moreover, as American of Indian descent journalist and political pundit Anand Giridharadas has pointed out, the American dream has a nasty habit of erasing the struggles and identities of those it claims to embrace. Filipino liberals, consciously or not, often replicate this erasure, adopting American discourses on social justice, feminism, or economic freedom while ignoring the specific socio-political dynamics of the Philippines.
The result is an intellectual colonialism that sees Filipino liberalism dressed up in American ideology, subtly dismissing or outright rejecting indigenous ways of thinking as inferior.
The Colonial Burden Remains
If Filipino liberals see themselves in the American mirror, it’s time they looked away. The weight of colonial history is real, and it has shaped the Filipino mind in subtle, insidious ways that are hard to unlearn. The Western gaze permeates Filipino culture so deeply that it is almost unnoticeable—a silent expectation to conform, to assimilate, and to forget.
If Filipino liberals are truly invested in justice, perhaps it’s time to consider what justice means outside of Western frameworks.
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