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This bulletin board collects web based resources you are welcome to use for the paper that's due 12/12. If you find other sources, please email them to Professor Aronson at haronson@swccd.edu so we can "curate" all of them for our future use and for next year's cohorts.

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Effects of Colonial Mentality on Filipino Mental Health 

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Effects of Colonial Mentality on Filipino Mental Health 

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By Joriene Mercado

In a survey of San Diego public high school students, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a striking 45.6% of Filipino-American female adolescents have thought about committing suicide, which was the highest rate among all ethnic groups in this study (Wolf, 1997). Data collected by the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health showed that the depression rate was 13.6% among Filipino-American female adolescents, which is a higher rate than other Asian American adolescents (Kim & Chun, 2013). The literature lacks information on Filipino-American males. While it is clear that mental health issues disproportionately affect this population, there is an alarming dearth of information on why incidences of suicidal ideation and depression are so high.

Research suggests that this health disparity may be linked to the psychological phenomenon of colonial mentality. People who possess colonial mentality have a perception of ethnic or cultural inferiority that is a specific consequence of colonization. For Filipinos, this involves an automatic and uncritical rejection of anything Filipino and an automatic and uncritical preference for anything American or white. Studies show that Filipino-Americans who possess colonial mentality have poorer mental health.

I've been able to recognize my own colonial mentality growing up, particularly not being satisfied with my appearance and wishing I looked more white.

When I first learned about Philippine history during my sophomore year of college, I discovered that my negative self-perception was rooted out of colonialism in the Philippines.

And today I am still healing from the intergenerational trauma that affects Filipinos. We should collectively heal by learning about our history so we can better understand the source of mental health issues in our community.

Filipino-American psychologist E.J.R. David argues that it is critical for Filipinos to know and understand the catalysts of their colonized thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors. This entails learning about the tragic history of colonialism in the Philippines. Since colonial mentality and poor mental health are linked, Filipino-Americans can better understand their own mental health with knowledge of the history of colonialism in the Philippines.

My struggles with mental health and the impact of learning my people's colonial history have inspired me to educate Filipino-American high school students about mental health and our collective history. Partnering with the Filipino Mental Health Initiative, a grassroots organization striving to improve the wellness of Filipinos in San Mateo County, we've developed workshops for our community that teach the history of colonization in the Philippines and how it relates to mental health and ethnic identity development. In addition to facilitating the workshops, we examined how participants' perceptions of mental health and ethnic identity changed based on the use of a decolonization framework in the workshops.

Based on the findings from our workshop, students have an increased awareness about their heritage, ethnic identity, and mental health. Throughout the workshop, they reported feelings of inspiration and empowerment and found value in learning about their peers' personal experiences and connection with the topic. Additionally, their attitudes towards colonization changed to being completely negative, and they drew connections between colonization and mental health and ethnic identity. These preliminary outcomes suggest that educators should consider the sociopolitical forces and structures that may influence the mental health of marginalized communities.

We must continue to learn and share our ethnic histories as a means of empowerment and healing.

I call upon community health initiatives to think critically about how our histories of oppression have influenced the wellness of our communities. How does teaching youth about their collective history impact their ethnic identity development and mental health? What will happen to our youth if they are not exposed to their collective history? I would have been much better off if I learned about my collective history when I was younger, and I believe all students deserve to learn about their collective histories.

Joriene Mercado is a recent graduate from Stanford University with an interest in education and mental health. As an aspiring educator, he aims to work towards developing an education system that's reflective of the histories and legacies of marginalized groups.

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The Effects of Colonial Mentality on Filipino-American Mental Health - Kubo

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By Joriene Mercado In a survey of San Diego public high school students, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a striking 45.6% of Filipino-American female adolescents have thought about committing suicide, which was the highest rate among all ethnic groups in this study (Wolf, 1997).

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Filipinos, Colonial Mentality, and Mental Health

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Filipinos, Colonial Mentality, and Mental Health

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I was just in the Philippines recently, where I saw skin-whitening products and clinics everywhere. It is also where I saw the pervasive vestiges of Western colonial influences, from the widespread use of English and it being regarded as the language of the educated or upper class, to the abundance of Western restaurants and shops that make Manila seem more Americanized than many places in America itself.

All of these, of course, are remnants of the Philippines' long history of colonization under Spain and the United States. So colonialism - and its most insidious legacy, colonial mentality (CM) - has been on my mind.

And it seems like it has been on other Filipinos' minds lately too. For instance, the viral AJ+ video featuring Kristian Kabuay shows that his quest to revive Baybayin is his attempt to restore and repair the immense cultural damage that colonialism brought onto Filipinos. Also, Asia Jackson's viral AJ+ video on colorism and anti-dark skin attitudes among Filipinos touch on colonial mentality as well. And even further, I definitely made sure I brought up colonial mentality with major media executives and politicians while I was in the Philippines, so it was at least temporarily in their minds.

So yes, colonial mentality-particularly skin-whitening-has been on many Filipinos' minds lately. But as Philippines Vice President Leny Robredo acknowledged when I asked her about it, it's a centuries-old issue, and there's been plenty of work on it, going as far back as Jose Rizal. Indeed, many folks have documented and shared their painful stories, struggles, confusions, and heartaches about colonial mentality throughout the years.

And over the past 15 years, there have been some efforts to quantify and "scientifically" capture colonial mentality among Filipinos. First, there's the Colonial Mentality Scale (CMS), which is a typical questionnaire that directly asks people if they exhibit some signs of colonial mentality.

The CMS asks people to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with statements such as, "There are situations where I feel inferior because of my ethnic background," "There are situations where I feel ashamed of my ethnic background," "I would like to have a skin tone that is lighter than the skin tone I have," "I make fun of, tease, or bad mouth Filipinos who speak English with strong accents," and "Filipinos should be thankful to Spain and the United States for transforming the Filipino ways of life into a White/European American way of life."

However, because people may easily lie, deny, or not know too much about their own attitudes and behaviors to accurately report it, I also developed the Colonial Mentality Implicit Association Test (CMIAT), which attempts to capture whether Filipinos have strongly and automatically associated Filipino culture with inferiority.

Although far from being complete and perfect, tools such as the CMS and CMIAT have allowed us to attach some "numbers" to the very real stories that people have been sharing for generations.

And so, what does the data tell us about colonial mentality among Filipinos?

Here's an easily-accessible infographic summarizing some findings, and below it are a few more details:

Based on the CMS, there seem to be at least five indicators of CM among Filipinos:

1. Feelings of inferiority for being Filipino;

2. Feelings of shame, embarrassment, resentment, or self-hate about being a person of Filipino heritage;

3. Denigration of the Filipino body (regarding white physical characteristics as more attractive, advantageous, and desirable than typical Filipino physical traits such as brown skin and flat nose);

4. Discriminating against less-Westernized Filipinos (e.g., making fun of people from the provinces-"Promdi"-or indigenous peoples and regarding them as "backward"); and

5. Tolerating or minimizing historical and contemporary oppression of Filipinos (because such oppression is accepted as the appropriate cost of civilization).

The CMS also allowed us to estimate how common CM is among Filipino Americans. When explicitly asked about colonial mentality, approximately 30 percent of Filipino Americans admitted to having at least one of the five "symptoms" of colonial mentality. Only around 1 percent admitted feeling ashamed and embarrassed about their heritage, and 9.6 percent admitted to feeling inferior for being Filipino. Only around 3.5 percent admitted to discriminating against less-westernized Filipinos, and 10.5 percent admitted to regarding Filipino physical traits as less desirable than white physical traits. Finally, 16.4 percent admitted feeling fortunate for having been colonized and feeling indebted to their past colonizers.

However, when the CMIAT was used-a more subtle and less-direct way of capturing CM-approximately 56 percent of Filipino Americans showed a tendency to automatically associate inferiority with Filipino culture and superiority with American culture. In addition to providing us with what is probably a more accurate estimate of the prevalence of CM among Filipinos, what the CMIAT studies also suggest is that CM may exist and operate outside of our awareness, intention, or control. In other words, it seems as though many of us may have internalized the oppression of our culture and ethnicity so deeply that it now exists and affects us automatically.

And as previously mentioned, CM has existed for generations. So how is it passed down intergenerationally? Research suggests that our peers, family, and community seem to influence the development of CM among Filipino Americans. Overall 96 percent of Filipino immigrants to the United States report being exposed to Filipino-inferiorizing messages while they were still living in the Philippines. Specifically, 85 percent reported seeing CM from their family, 88 percent from their friends, and 90 percent from their general community.

Perhaps the most egregious example of CM in the Philippines is the abundance of skin-whitening products and clinics being advertised and sold everywhere. According to a survey conducted by Synovate Philippines (2004, Skin Whitening in Southeast Asia), at least 50 percent of Filipinos use skin-whitening products. Furthermore, recent research also shows that skin-whitening use is most common among Filipinas, and among the lower class and less-educated people in the Philippines.

Research also suggests that current experiences of racism are also related to CM among Filipino Americans. That is, the more Filipino Americans experience the denigration of their culture and ethnicity, the more likely they are to develop CM. And research shows that 99 percent of Filipino Americans report experiencing racism in the past year. Thus, it is very likely that many Filipino Americans may hold CM.

But so what if Filipinos have CM, and so what if they've had CM for generations? Is having CM such a bad thing?

According to the World Health Organization, the use of skin-whitening has been associated with mental and physical health damage. Overall, using tools such as the CMS and the CMIAT, CM has been shown to relate to poorer mental health. Specifically, it has been shown to be related to lower levels of self-esteem, more depression symptoms, more anxiety symptoms, and lower levels of life satisfaction. These correlates of CM are concerning as research also shows that they typically co-occur with other troubling conditions like alcohol and drug use, and poor school or job performance. So yes, having CM is a bad thing.

Although we have continued to improve our understanding of CM, there are still plenty of research questions that we still need to explore concerning CM and its implications. I truly hope that the tools we have now will make it easier for us to engage in these explorations and that more Filipinos will take up the task of tackling these questions.

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Filipinos, Colonial Mentality, and Mental Health

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I was just in the Philippines recently, where I saw skin-whitening products and clinics everywhere. It is also where I saw the pervasive vestiges of Western colonial influences, from the widespread use of English and it being regarded as the language of the educated or upper class, to the abundance of Western restaurants and shops that make Manila seem more Americanized than many places in America itself.

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An episode of This Filipino American Life podcast.

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Do you still mano po? Do you still call your siblings ate/kuya or manang/manong/ading? Do you know the recipes that your grandparents used in their cooking? Do you miss the local Filipino restaurant or store that no longer exists? Do you wear barongs or baro't saya? What markers of Filipino culture do you still preserve in your family and community?

As Filipino Americans, many cultural practices that many of us grew up with may be slowly fading away. Some may completely vanish, but others may still be preserved. Many practices may even take on new forms, yet keep the same meaning behind them. Change is inevitable in this fast-paced world, but what cultural practices get preserved in our community and why? In this episode, the TFAL crew discusses some cultural practices that our parents and grandparents may have passed on to us, but are slowly changing due to the realities of living in the United States.

Listen through the embedded player below, download directly here, or subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts here. For folks who are on Spotify, you can take a listen to us here.

What aspects of Filipino culture have faded away? What aspects do you still practice? Let us know by leaving a voicemail at (805) 394-TFAL (8325) or email us at thisfilipinoamericanlife@gmail.com.

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Do you still mano po? Do you still call your siblings ate/kuya or manang/manong/ading? Do you know the recipes that your grandparents used in their cooking? Do you miss the local Filipino restaurant or store that no longer exists? Do you wear barongs or baro't saya?

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New generation of Asian-American women are fighting to normalize mental health treatment

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New generation of Asian-American women are fighting to normalize mental health treatment

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New generation of Asian-American women are fighting to normalize mental health treatment

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AJ +

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Why Do We Call Asian Americans The Model Minority? | AJ+

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Why Asian Americans are not the Model Minority

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Why Asian Americans are not the Model Minority

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Why Asian Americans are not the Model Minority | Alice Li | TEDxVanderbiltUniversity

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Tweet Thread

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@kevinnadal In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need.

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@kevinnadal In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need. https://t.co/D06tuJf2zl

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@kevinnadal also did an amazing job synthesizing identity, psychology, & mental health research to produce the groundbreaking one-stop resource for Filipino American Psychology: THE book!

Published in 2011! 

Still lots of work left to do, but work has been done! Pay attention! https://t.co/QNEzLvcUnU

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In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need. pic.twitter.com/D06tuJf2zl
— E.J. Ramos David, Ph.D. (@ejrdavid) October 28, 2019

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@kevinnadal In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need. https://t.co/D06tuJf2zl

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@kevinnadal also did an amazing job synthesizing identity, psychology, & mental health research to produce the groundbreaking one-stop resource for Filipino American Psychology: THE book!

Published in 2011! 

Still lots of work left to do, but work has been done! Pay attention! https://t.co/QNEzLvcUnU

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
@kevinnadal In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need. https://t.co/D06tuJf2zl

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@kevinnadal In addition to how colonial mentality (CM) is related to poorer mental health among FilAms, CM is also related to weaker social support & lower help-seeking. Thus, CM psychologically damages FilAms, makes them socially isolated, & keeps them from the help/services they may need.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
@kevinnadal also did an amazing job synthesizing identity, psychology, & mental health research to produce the groundbreaking one-stop resource for Filipino American Psychology: THE book!

Published in 2011! 

Still lots of work left to do, but work has been done! Pay attention! https://t.co/QNEzLvcUnU

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The psychology of the Filipino: navigating the difficult conversation of mental health

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The psychology of the Filipino: navigating the difficult conversation of mental health

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Asian Journal

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The psychology of the Filipino: navigating the difficult conversation of mental health

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Notes from the 2019 Filipino Mental Health and Wellness Summit ON Saturday, April 13, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, Special Service for Groups and Filipino American Service Group, Inc. hosted the 2019 Filipino Mental Health and Wellness Summit, an all-day, all-encompassing conference focussed on the past, present and future of mental health...

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In the Philippines they think about gender differently. We could too

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In the Philippines they think about gender differently. We could too

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The Guardian

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We were excited young film-makers, sitting in one of our first pitch sessions, a panel of executives lined up against us. They had flicked through our script, looked at our mood boards and praised our song choice for the sizzle reel (Man! I Feel Like A Woman). Then the question dropped: "Which one of you is the alphabet person?"

I realised I was the only one holding my hand in the air. Then the guessing game began, as the executives ran through the letters - LGBTQIA+ - until they landed on one that gave them some understanding of who I am.

In this day and age of diversity, Australia is making great strides as a country in promoting and celebrating our differences, but in other ways it feels like it sits frustratingly behind the curve. It might have to do with how we label ourselves.
Osher Günsberg: the TV host on anxiety, dating and if there'll be a gay Bachelor
While diversity sometimes relies on labels to facilitate communication, those labels are also historically loaded. Each letter of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow denotes something in particular for the communities represented by them, but also comes with derogatory associations imposed by others.

But what if we start to rethink these labels - or even start to look at others?

Bakla is a Tagalog word that denotes the Filipino practice of male cross-dressing, denoting a man that has "feminine" mannerisms, dresses as a "sexy" woman, or identifies as a woman. It is an identity built on performative cultural practice more so than sexuality. Often considered a Filipino third gender, bakla can be either homosexual or heterosexual, and are regarded as one of the most visible LGBTQIA+ cultures in Asia - an intersectional celebration of Asian and queer cultures.

The bakla were renowned as community leaders, seen as the traditional rulers who transcended the duality between man and woman. Many early reports from Spanish colonising parties referenced the mystical entities that were "more man than man, and more woman than woman". Even today, many bakla in the Philippines retain high status as entertainers and media personalities.

When I was eight years old, on my first and only trip to the Philippines, I met my older cousin Norman. He had shoulder-length hair, wore lipstick and eyeliner, and would walk around in heels. His father affectionately called him malambut (Tagalog for "soft"); his siblings called him bading, but he told me he was bakla. He wasn't an outsider; he was part of the family - my family - and being an eight-year-old who liked to sing karaoke and play dress-up, I didn't give it a second thought. But on returning to Australia, I told all my friends about Norman and they scoffed - the early seed of masculinity training at play - and when I asked my parents what the word meant, my mum replied, "it just means ... bakla ". It didn't translate directly to English.

Later, I learned that many people problematically mistranslate bakla to "gay" in English. As an identity not tied to sex, the word does not correspond directly to western nomenclature for LGBTQIA+ identities, sitting somewhere between gay, trans and queer. As Filipinos moved to countries such as Australia and the United States, the bakla were mislabelled as part of western gay culture and quickly (physically) sexualised. Even worse, the word can sometimes be heard in Australian playgrounds, used in a derogatory way. When I was younger, we were banned from calling each other "gay", so the boys accused each other of being "bakla" instead. It was quite confusing to my ears when hearing the word used in a negative way, its meaning truly lost in migration. I even made a film about it.

As my mother often explains when speaking about the differences between her inherited and migrated cultures, westerners point with their fingers, but Filipinos point with their lips in a general direction. Similarly, Tagalog does not categorise people with limited gendered pronouns, and English can be constricting.

The joy that comes from embracing trans identity shouldn't be so rare | Andy Connor

Bakla and similar identities, such as hijra in India and the Native American concept of two-spirit, hint at the striking fluidity that can exist in humanity, often suppressed by the western identities pushed upon them. We are seeing more intersectional (queer and ethnic) groups rise up in Sydney alone, and hearing more and more conversations about non-labelling, so perhaps the next generations of the queer community are moving towards a fluid sense of self.

As someone who is often mistakenly identified (the result of an apparently unisex name), I can only see this non-labelling as a positive. By undefining ourselves, we free ourselves from the performative aspects of our respective queer cultures, and can embrace the intersectional diversity Australia has to offer.

* Vonne Patiag will be appearing at the All About Women festival at the Sydney Opera House on 10 March
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In the Philippines they think about gender differently. We could too | Vonne Patiag

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We were excited young film-makers, sitting in one of our first pitch sessions, a panel of executives lined up against us. They had flicked through our script, looked at our mood boards and praised our song choice for the sizzle reel (Man! I Feel Like A Woman).

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Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies

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Welcome to the Welga Digital Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies
The Welga Digital Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino American Studies focuses on preserving and presenting the broad aspects of the Filipino American experience.

The Welga Project was officially merged into the Bulosan Center for Filipino American Studies, hosted at the UC Davis Asian American Studies Department. Please click this link to view the official press release. The Welga Digital Archive will serve as the digital research center for the initiative. For reference questions, please contact archivist Allan Jason Sarmiento at ajsarmiento@ucdavis.edu. Please note that reference inquiries will generally be answered after 5pm during the weekdays.

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Welga Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies

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Welcome to the Welga Digital Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies The Welga Digital Archive - Bulosan Center for Filipino American Studies focuses on preserving and presenting the broad aspects of the Filipino American experience. The Welga Project was officially merged into the Bulosan Center for Filipino American Studies, hosted at the UC Davis Asian American Studies Department.

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The Guardian

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There aren't many historical episodes more firmly lodged in the United States's national memory than the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is one of only a few events that many people in the country can put a date to: 7 December 1941, the "date which will live in infamy," as Franklin D Roosevelt put it. Hundreds of books have been written about it - the Library of Congress holds more than 350. And Hollywood has made movies, from the critically acclaimed From Here to Eternity, starring Burt Lancaster, to the critically derided Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck.

But what those films don't show is what happened next. Nine hours after Japan attacked the territory of Hawaii, another set of Japanese planes came into view over another US territory, the Philippines. As at Pearl Harbor, they dropped their bombs, hitting several air bases, to devastating effect.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was just that - an attack. Japan's bombers struck, retreated and never returned. Not so in the Philippines. There, the initial air raids were followed by more raids, then by invasion and conquest. Sixteen million Filipinos - US nationals who saluted the stars and stripes and looked to FDR as their commander in chief - fell under a foreign power.

Contrary to popular memory, the event familiarly known as "Pearl Harbor" was in fact an all-out lightning strike on US and British holdings throughout the Pacific. On a single day, the Japanese attacked the US territories of Hawaii, the Philippines, Guam, Midway Island and Wake Island. They also attacked the British colonies of Malaya, Singapore and Hong Kong, and they invaded Thailand.

At first, "Pearl Harbor" was not the way most people referred to the bombings. "Japs bomb Manila, Hawaii" was the headline in one New Mexico paper; "Japanese Planes Bomb Honolulu, Island of Guam" in another in South Carolina. Sumner Welles, FDR's undersecretary of state, described the event as "an attack upon Hawaii and upon the Philippines". Eleanor Roosevelt used a similar formulation in her radio address on the night of 7 December, when she spoke of Japan "bombing our citizens in Hawaii and the Philippines".

That was how the first draft of FDR's speech went, too: it presented the event as a "bombing in Hawaii and the Philippines". Yet Roosevelt toyed with that draft all day, adding things in pencil, crossing other bits out. At some point he deleted the prominent references to the Philippines.

Why did Roosevelt demote the Philippines? We don't know, but it's not hard to guess. Roosevelt was trying to tell a clear story: Japan had attacked the US. But he faced a problem. Were Japan's targets considered "the United States"? Legally, they were indisputably US territory. But would the public see them that way? What if Roosevelt's audience didn't care that Japan had attacked the Philippines or Guam? Polls taken slightly before the attack show that few in the continental US supported a military defense of those remote territories.

Roosevelt no doubt noted that the Philippines and Guam, although technically part of the US, seemed foreign to many. Hawaii, by contrast, was more plausibly "American". Although it was a territory rather than a state, it was closer to North America and significantly whiter than the others.

Yet even when it came to Hawaii, Roosevelt felt a need to massage the point. So, on the morning of his speech, he made another edit. He changed it so that the Japanese squadrons had bombed not the "island of Oahu", but the "American island of Oahu". Damage there, Roosevelt continued, had been done to "American naval and military forces", and "very many American lives" had been lost.

An American island, where American lives were lost - that was the point he was trying to make. If the Philippines was being rounded down to foreign, Hawaii was being rounded up to "American".

One reporter in the Philippines described the scene in Manila as the crowds listened to Roosevelt's speech on the radio. The president spoke of Hawaii and the many lives lost there. Yet he only mentioned the Philippines, the reporter noted, "very much in passing". Roosevelt made the war "seem to be something close to Washington and far from Manila".

This was not how it looked from the Philippines, where air-raid sirens continued to wail. "To Manilans the war was here, now, happening to us," the reporter wrote. "And we have no air-raid shelters."

awaii, the Philippines, Guam - it wasn't easy to know how to think about such places, or even what to call them. At the turn of the 20th century, when many were acquired (Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, American Samoa, Hawaii, Wake), their status was clear. They were, as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson unabashedly called them, colonies.

That spirit of forthright imperialism didn't last. Within a decade or two, after passions had cooled, the c-word became taboo. "The word colony must not be used to express the relationship which exists between our government and its dependent peoples," an official admonished in 1914. Better to stick with a gentler term, used for them all: territories.

Yet a striking feature of the overseas territories was how rarely they were even discussed. The maps of the country that most people had in their heads didn't include places such as the Philippines. Those mental maps imagined the US to be contiguous: a union of states bounded by the Atlantic, the Pacific, Mexico and Canada.

That is how most people envision the US today, possibly with the addition of Alaska and Hawaii. The political scientist Benedict Anderson called it the "logo map", meaning that if the country had a logo, this shape would be it:

The problem with the logo map, however, is that it isn't right. Its shape does not match the country's legal borders. Most obviously, the logo map excludes Hawaii and Alaska, which became states in 1959 and now appear on virtually all published maps of the country. But it is also missing Puerto Rico, which, although not a state, has been part of the country since 1899. When have you ever seen a map of the US that had Puerto Rico on it? Or American Samoa, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, the Northern Marianas or any of the other smaller islands that the US has annexed over the years?

In 1941, the year Japan attacked, a more accurate picture would have been this:

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A map of the 'Greater United States' as it was in 1941

What this map shows is the country's full territorial extent: the "Greater United States", as some at the turn of the 20th century called it. In this view, the place normally referred to as the US - the logo map - forms only a part of the country. A large and privileged part, to be sure, yet still only a part. Residents of the territories often call it the "mainland".

On this to-scale map, Alaska isn't shrunken down to fit into a small inset, as it is on most maps. It is the right size - ie, huge. The Philippines, too, looms large, and the Hawaiian island chain - the whole chain, not just the eight main islands shown on most maps - if superimposed on the mainland would stretch almost from Florida to California.

This map also shows territory at the other end of the size scale. In the century before 1940, the US claimed nearly 100 uninhabited islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Some claims were forgotten in time - Washington could be surprisingly lax about keeping tabs. The 22 islands included here are the ones that appeared in official tallies (the census or other governmental reports) in the 1940s. I have represented them as clusters of dots in the bottom left and right corners, although they are so small that they would be invisible if they were drawn to scale.

The logo map is not only misleading because it excludes large colonies and pinprick islands alike. It also suggests that the US is a politically uniform space: a union, voluntarily entered into, of states standing on equal footing with one another. But that is not true, and it has never been true. From its founding until the present day, the US has contained a union of American states, as its name suggests. But it has also contained another part: not a union, not states and (for most of its history) not wholly in the Americas - its territories.

What is more, a lot of people have lived in that other part. According to the census count for the inhabited territories in 1940, the year before Pearl Harbor, nearly 19 million people lived in the colonies, the great bulk of them in the Philippines. That meant slightly more than one in eight of the people in the US lived outside of the states. For perspective, consider that only about one in 12 was African American. If you lived in the US on the eve of the second world war, in other words, you were more likely to be colonised than black.

My point here is not to weigh forms of oppression against one another. In fact, the histories of African Americans and colonised peoples are tightly connected (and sometimes overlapping, as for the African-Caribbeans in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands). The racism that had pervaded the country since slavery also engulfed the territories. Like African Americans, colonial subjects were denied the vote, deprived of the rights of full citizens, called racial epithets, subjected to dangerous medical experiments and used as sacrificial pawns in war. They, too, had to make their way in a country where some lives mattered and others did not.

What getting the Greater United States in view reveals is that race has been even more central to US history than is usually supposed. It hasn't just been about black and white, but about Filipino, Hawaiian, Samoan and Chamoru (from Guam), too, among other identities. Race has not only shaped lives, but also the country itself - where the borders went, who has counted as "American". Once you look beyond the logo map, you see a whole new set of struggles over what it means to inhabit the US.

ooking beyond the logo map, however, could be hard for mainlanders. The national maps they used rarely showed the territories. Even the world atlases were confusing. During the second world war, Rand McNally's Ready Reference Atlas of the World - like many other atlases at the time - listed Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Philippines as "foreign".

A class of seventh-grade girls at the Western Michigan College Training School in Kalamazoo scratched their heads over this. They had been trying to follow the war on their maps. How, they wondered, could the attack on Pearl Harbor have been an attack on the US if Hawaii was foreign? They wrote to Rand McNally to inquire.

"Although Hawaii belongs to the United States, it is not an integral part of this country," the publisher replied. "It is foreign to our continental shores, and therefore cannot logically be shown in the United States proper."

The girls were not satisfied. Hawaii is not an integral part of this country? "We believe this statement is not true," they wrote. It is "an alibi instead of an explanation". Further, they continued, "we feel that the Rand McNally atlas is misleading and a good cause for the people of outlying possessions to be embarrassed and disturbed". The girls forwarded the correspondence to the Department of the Interior and asked for adjudication. Of course, the seventh-graders were right. As an official clarified, Hawaii was, indeed, part of the US.

Yet the government could be just as misleading as Rand McNally on this score. Consider the census: according to the constitution, census takers were required to count only the states, but they had always counted the territories, too. Or, at least, they had counted the continental territories. The overseas territories were handled differently. Their populations were noted, but they were otherwise excluded from demographic calculations. Basic facts about how long people lived, how many children they had, what races they were - these were given for the mainland alone.

The maps and census reports that mainlanders saw presented them with a selectively cropped portrait of their country. The result was profound confusion. "Most people in this country, including educated people, know little or nothing about our overseas possessions," concluded a governmental report written during the second world war. "As a matter of fact, a lot of people do not know that we have overseas possessions. They are convinced that only 'foreigners', such as the British, have an 'empire'. Americans are sometimes amazed to hear that we, too, have an 'empire'."

he proposition that the US is an empire is less controversial today. The case can be made in a number of ways. The dispossession of Native Americans and relegation of many to reservations was pretty transparently imperialist. Then, in the 1840s, the US fought a war with Mexico and seized a third of it. Fifty years later, it fought a war with Spain and claimed the bulk of Spain's overseas territories.

Empire isn't just landgrabs, though. What do you call the subordination of African Americans? Starting in the interwar period, the celebrated US intellectual WEB Du Bois argued that black people in the US looked more like colonised subjects than like citizens. Many other black thinkers, including Malcolm X and the leaders of the Black Panthers, have agreed.

Or what about the spread of US economic power abroad? The US might not have physically conquered western Europe after the second world war, but that didn't stop the French from complaining of "coca-colonisation". Critics there felt swamped by US commerce. Today, with the world's business denominated in dollars, and McDonald's in more than 100 countries, you can see they might have had a point.

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Flags on top of the fortress in Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. Photograph: Anton Gorbov/Alamy

Then there are the military interventions. The years since the second world war have brought the US military to country after country. The big wars are well-known: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. But there has also been a constant stream of smaller engagements. Since 1945, US armed forces have been deployed abroad for conflicts or potential conflicts 211 times in 67 countries. Call it peacekeeping if you want, or call it imperialism. But clearly this is not a country that has kept its hands to itself.

Yet among all the talk of empire, one thing that often slips from view is actual territory. Yes, many would agree that the US is or has been an empire, for all the reasons above. But how much can most people say about the colonies themselves? Not, I would wager, very much.

It is not as if the information isn't out there. Scholars, many working from the sites of empire themselves, have assiduously researched this topic for decades. The problem is that their works have been sidelined - filed, so to speak, on the wrong shelves. They are there, but as long as we have the logo map in our heads, they will seem irrelevant. They will seem like books about foreign countries. The confusion and shoulder-shrugging indifference that mainlanders displayed at the time of Pearl Harbor hasn't changed much at all.

will confess to having made this conceptual filing error myself. Although I studied US foreign relations as a doctoral student and read countless books about "American empire" - the wars, the coups, the meddling in foreign affairs - nobody ever expected me to know even the most elementary facts about the territories. They just didn't feel important.

It wasn't until I travelled to Manila, researching something else entirely, that it clicked. To get to the archives, I would travel by "jeepney", a transit system originally based on repurposed US army jeeps. I boarded in a section of Metro Manila where the streets are named after US colleges (Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Notre Dame), states and cities (Chicago, Detroit, New York, Brooklyn, Denver), and presidents (Jefferson, Van Buren, Roosevelt, Eisenhower). When I would arrive at my destination, the Ateneo de Manila University, one of the country's most prestigious schools, I would hear students speaking what sounded to my Pennsylvanian ears to be virtually unaccented English. Empire might be hard to make out from the mainland, but from the sites of colonial rule themselves, it is impossible to miss.

The Philippines is not a US territory any more; it got its independence after the second world war. Other territories, although they were not granted independence, received new statuses. Puerto Rico became a "commonwealth", which ostensibly replaced a coercive relationship with a consenting one. Hawaii and Alaska, after some delay, became states, overcoming decades of racist determination to keep them out of the union.

Yet today, the US continues to hold overseas territory. Besides Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and a handful of minor outlying islands, the US maintains roughly 800 overseas military bases around the world.

None of this, however - not the large colonies, small islands, or military bases - has made much of a dent on the mainland mind. One of the truly distinctive features of the US's empire is how persistently ignored it has been. This is, it is worth emphasising, unique. The British weren't confused as to whether there was a British empire. They had a holiday, Empire Day, to celebrate it. France didn't forget that Algeria was French. It is only the US that has suffered from chronic confusion about its own borders.

The reason is not hard to guess. The country perceives itself to be a republic, not an empire. It was born in an anti-imperialist revolt and has fought empires ever since, from Hitler's Thousand-Year Reich and the Japanese empire to the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. It even fights empires in its dreams. Star Wars, a saga that started with a rebellion against the Galactic Empire, is one of the highest-grossing film franchises of all time.

This self-image of the US as a republic is consoling, but it is also costly. Most of the cost has been paid by those living in the colonies and around the military bases. The logo map has relegated them to the shadows, which are a dangerous place to live. At various times, the inhabitants of the US empire have been shot, shelled, starved, interned, dispossessed, tortured and experimented on. What they haven't been, by and large, is seen.

The logo map carries a cost for mainlanders, too. It gives them a truncated view of their own history, one that excludes part of their country. It is an important part. The overseas parts of the US have triggered wars, brought forth inventions, raised up presidents and helped define what it means to be "American". Only by including them in the picture do we see a full portrait of the country - not as it appears in its fantasies, but as it actually is.
How to Hide an Empire: A Short History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr will be published by Bodley Head on 28 February. Buy it at guardianbookshop.com
* Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.
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There aren't many historical episodes more firmly lodged in the United States's national memory than the attack on Pearl Harbor. It is one of only a few events that many people in the country can put a date to: 7 December 1941, the "date which will live in infamy," as Franklin D Roosevelt put it.

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This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp

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This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp

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Little Manila Rising is among one of many nonprofit groups suing UC Regents for their usage of SAT scores. #FAHM #FilipinoAmericanHistory #FAHM2019 https://t.co/dHmDbUJL6A

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This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp
— Kevin Nadal, Ph.D. (@kevinnadal) October 29, 2019

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This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp

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Little Manila Rising is among one of many nonprofit groups suing UC Regents for their usage of SAT scores. #FAHM #FilipinoAmericanHistory #FAHM2019 https://t.co/dHmDbUJL6A

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
This is huge! Not only is this case important for all students of color, it is important in advocating for Filipino Americans, who are still significantly underrepresented in UC system. I salute @littlemanila for leading this initiative. #DawnMabalonIsInTheHeart #FAHM2019 https://t.co/POyZ4inLTp

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Little Manila Rising is among one of many nonprofit groups suing UC Regents for their usage of SAT scores. #FAHM #FilipinoAmericanHistory #FAHM2019 https://t.co/dHmDbUJL6A

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Why Asian Parents Don't Talk about Mental Health 

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Why Asian Parents Don't Talk about Mental Health 

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Nextshark

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Emily Wu Truong struggled with feelings of depression and isolation while growing up. A Taiwanese-American who had moved from Arkansas to California, Truong was taught that speaking about her problems would bring shame.

However, Truong eventually spoke up and shared with her family about her suicidal attempt.

They responded that her thoughts were "selfish."

For many Asian Americans, talking about mental health issues, especially to their parents, is like pulling teeth. Asian Americans are actually three times less likely to seek mental health services than other Americans, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America . Anxiety, depression, and mental health issues aren't really topics discussed in Asian households and are considered taboo. Often times, we are told to "get over it" and "we had it so much worse than you, you should be grateful."

Why do Asian parents not understand mental health?

Cultural differences are the root cause for many Asian parents' lack of understanding and sympathy towards their children's mental health concerns. Infamously known as " tiger parents ," parents from Asia are thought to be abnormally strict towards their offspring, speak to them harshly, and punish them if they are anything less than perfect. In 2010, a Vietnamese-Canadian student was sentenced to life in prison for hiring hitmen to murder her own parents as a result of her traumatically strict upbringing.

Asian Americans, and many other third culture children, are often spoken to in a way that would shock their White American counterparts.
"You really are useless." "Why are you so stupid? Do you even use your brain?" "What was the point of raising you?" "You've gotten fat."
We asked experts for their insight on why Asian parents are so callous towards their children. Dr. Yesel Yoon , a clinical psychologist based in New York, told us that these parents may not even recognize what they're saying is "harsh" and are simply parenting the same way they were treated.

"I don't think a parent would necessarily see what they are saying or how they are saying their messages as 'harsh' and instead they may defend their words as 'honest' or 'truthful,'" said Dr. Yoon.
"It's all relative based on their experiences and for some parents...it is important to recognize the role of intergenerational trauma, parenting, and expectations about behavior. Asian parents often relay similar messages they have heard and do so in the same manner they were experienced. Their own experiences inform how and what they share with their children."
The behavioral differences between Asian and Western cultures may have a deep lasting impact on a child's outlook on life. Growing up, I idealized the families portrayed on 90s sitcoms such as "Full House". No matter what kind of mistake or situation one of the Tanner children got themselves into, they would be met with a hug and affirmation of their love and worth. As a child I was left wondering why our families were so cruel in comparison, and why they didn't "love" as us much as other families. I didn't understand at the time that love isn't universally shown the same way.

, a clinical psychologist based in Berkley, California explained that an Asian parents' strict behavior may be motivated by survival.

"For those who have immigrated to the U.S. or are refugees, their mindset is around survival. And to survive, you have to be strong and be able to weather the storm. For some parents, being harsh is to help their kids build resiliency, and is done out of love." Dr. Hall explained.

Echoing a similar sentiment above, Dr. Hall added, "If Asian parents themselves were raised with this kind of harshness, it may be all that they know."

Mental health who?

Another reason that Asian parents may not be supportive of their children's mental health issues is that many Asian cultures simply don't believe that they exist. Mental health is very much a Western concept with much of its development and theories originating in Western countries. In Asian cultures, it is a black and white concept. Feeling sadness and hopelessness is believed to be one's own fault for not trying hard enough. Depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues do not hold the same significance in other cultures as it does in Western societies.

"What we consider 'mental health issues' are described in very specific medical model language from a very Eurocentric lens. This means that what we consider 'depression' and symptoms of 'depression' are described very specifically and not in a way that translates well or is recognizable to Asian parents," said Dr. Yoon.

Other cultures, especially in Asia, tend to be superstitious and may blame that for negative feelings.

"In many Asian cultures, mental illness is attributed to a lack of willpower or weakness, a lack of emotional self-control. Other Asian cultures may view what we describe as mental illness as something caused by evil spirits, or a lack of harmony of emotions," Dr. Hall commented.

How to heal and grow

It's not always easy to seek help, especially if you've spent years of your life having your concerns ignored or invalidated. However, you are not alone. Together as a society, strides are being made to fight the mental health stigma. Here are steps you can start taking to heal from emotional distress and take control of your mental health.

Build a support system

Seek support from people you trust in a safe, supportive space. Whether it's friends, siblings, or other family members, speaking up and acknowledging your concerns is the first step to dealing with them

According to Dr. Hall, "connection is a fundamental human need and feeling supported by those we feel connected with is important for healing."

There are many groups of people who feel the same way that you do. Asian American-affirming spaces such as , are a supportive and safe group to talk about what you're going through.

As Dr. Yoon puts it, "the healing power of validation from others is immense."

Seek professional help

Having a professional mental health provider can help you process your emotions and thoughts, and eventually heal from them.

Sometimes it's hard to comprehend everything that goes on in our lives. At times, we don't even know why we feel or react a certain way. Having a trained mental health professional can help you cope with your feelings and provide the tools you need to take charge of them. Dr. Yoon expressed that it helps to have a third-party member, which alleviates stress when talking about family or friends. As a therapist herself, she hopes that a supportive professional will validate your stories and empower you.
"If one of the goals you have is to have a conversation with your family about your mental health concerns, a therapist may support you in that process and may even provide a shared space for the family to come together to have that conversation."
Break the cycle with your parents

If you feel safe enough to do so, attempting to talk to your parents again about mental health illnesses can help break the cycle of misunderstanding. After all, your Asian parents could even have mental illnesses themselves but were never given the resources and knowledge that you may have now to treat them.

"See if you can get to a place of understanding, empathy, and acceptance. Our parents are doing the best with what they've got. Many have experienced trauma or other stressors themselves, and when our parents haven't healed, the trauma gets passed down," Dr. Yoon explained.

When we can reach common ground and empathize, we can help each other heal.
If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis and is contemplating self-harm, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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Why Asian Parents Don't Talk About Mental Health (and How to Heal From It)

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Emily Wu Truong struggled with feelings of depression and isolation while growing up. A Taiwanese-American who had moved from Arkansas to California, Truong was taught that speaking about her problems would bring shame. However, Truong eventually spoke up and shared with her family about her suicidal attempt.

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Inquirer.net - open this link a new window.

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Is celebrating Thanksgiving an instance of "colonial mentality"?

To us growing up in the 1970s, the idea of "colonial mentality" was something to be shunned. There was a move to teach the alphabet in Filipino-"A" is for atis, we were told, not apples. It also helped that the inflation and devaluation of the peso in the martial law years made apples prohibitively expensive.

No one would even think of dyeing one's hair blonde, or lightening the skin. The '70s extolled the virtues of the kayumanggi, and the artists who worked for the Marcos regime helped by providing a mythology and iconography, including a native creation story, epitomized by Evan Cosayo's infamous painting of the President and first lady as Malakas at Maganda stepping forth from a split bamboo.
Indifferent
Today, we're not less insecure about our national identity, but more indifferent.

We're also more diverse. If Kelsey Merritt can identify herself as Filipino, even if she looks as ethnically androgynous as the other models on the Victoria's Secret runway, so, too, can many people who grew up elsewhere with different accents, surnames and religions.

Being Filipino is pointing with your lips and knowing how to pick up slippers with your toes. But it is also, more than ever, a personal and performative choice as much as it has to do with physical features or ascribed characteristics.

There is scant desire to resurrect the bogeyman of "colonial mentality," which had us trying to watch "Sesame Street" dubbed in Tagalog. But in the wake of the extreme fluidity of traditional markers of national identity for what constitutes an ever more slippery concept of "Filipino-ness," we tend to hew ever more closely to the customs and practices of our immediate community.

For example, there are a number of us who celebrate Thanksgiving-upper-middle class, American-educated, with relatives in the United States, or who perhaps grew up there. And after all, it was a regular Philippine holiday until the outbreak of World War II.
Bizarre
The Marcoses killed Thanksgiving by moving it to Sept. 21, to commemorate the implementation of martial law in 1972. It was bizarre, to say the least.

Imagine if the current President moved Christmas to Jan. 29 to immortalize the launching of "Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded."

Because of our colonial past
-or maybe because we're just like that-we end up being magpies, appropriating things we find in our travels. And because of the Filipino diaspora, our pickings are from far and wide.

Meanwhile, the urban centers have become more and more globalized. Because of our children's friends, we end up celebrating Guy Fawkes, Diwali and the end of Ramadan.

As a child, we trooped in solemn silence on Nov. 1 to the cemetery to pay our respects to our departed kin. There was no raucous trick-or-treating, and Halloween costumes were seen as typical of American wastefulness. (We have decided not to pass on this lugubrious tradition.)

And because of my parents, we continue to celebrate Chinese New Year and the mid-autumn festival, though there's a lot of syncretism in the way we do it. I don't think our Xiamen ancestors had a lechon followed by a dice game to win prizes from S&R.

Oddly enough, American traditions tend to be the ones denigrated as being an outcome of "colonial mentality," while Spanish traditions tend to be seen as heritage.

Those who cling to the "old ways" spend Holy Week praying the rosary, doing the "Visita Iglesia" and watching movies like "Jesus Christ Superstar" or "The Ten Commandments."
Cultish devotion
The Nazareno has never been accused of being "colonial"
-but what could be more symbolic of the power the friars and the Church wielded over Manila than the cultish devotion to the Black Nazarene?

Which brings us to the question that our family has been grappling with. Because we don't belong to any community, or because we belong to too many communities, we don't have a prescribed way of observing the holidays.

Authentic

What's an authentic Filipino way of celebrating Christmas?

Simbang Gabi, bibingka and puto bumbong, fruitcake and queso de bola, Excelente and Majestic ham, lechon, nativity school play, Yulo strawberry shortcake, Cuerva mango torte, carols at The Peninsula Manila, driving up to Baguio and putting on your chaleco after passing the stone lion.

These days, Christmas is equally likely to be about weird dancing unicorns or albino giraffes at Rockwell, boozy dinner at M Dining, and maybe Boracay instead of Baguio.

Who knows? Traditions were meant to be broken, or at least tinkered with. The world alternates between Apollonian and Dionysian moments, and the last few years have certainly been the latter: upheaval, breaking with the past.

Change is coming. Change has come. Change will come again.

But our parents, for whom the last remnants of the American past still lingered in the background, were right to be vigilant about "colonial mentality."

It's just that colonial mentality turned out not to pertain to culture and consumption, but to geopolitics and economics.

They didn't realize that their children and grandchildren would be begging to be colonized, to come under the colonial rule of a foreign power, not armed with the sword and the cross but with loans, bridges and promises.

Shame on us all for squandering the legacy of independence.

Now we can eat all the apples we like-they are from Shandong. -CONTRIBUTED

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Is celebrating Thanksgiving an instance of "colonial mentality"? To us growing up in the 1970s, the idea of "colonial mentality" was something to be shunned. There was a move to teach the alphabet in Filipino-"A" is for atis, we were told, not apples.

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4 Ways Colonial Mentality Taught me How to Hate Myself

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4 Ways Colonial Mentality Taught me How to Hate Myself

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Everyday Feminism

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4 Ways Colonial Mentality Taught Me To Hate Myself And How I Fight Against It Every Day

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Often, colonized peoples shame those who are less “Western” and more “FOB-y” when, really, we should be shaming our colonizers.

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NPR

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‘Model Minority’ Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks

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The perception of universal success among Asian-Americans is being wielded to downplay racism’s role in the persistent struggles of other minority groups — especially black Americans.

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Philippines: LGBT Students Face Bullying, Abuse

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Philippines: LGBT Students Face Bullying, Abuse

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Human Rights Watch

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(Manila, June 22, 2017) - Students across the Philippines experience bullying and discrimination in school because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. While Philippine law provides protections against discrimination and exclusion in schools, lawmakers and school administrators need to take steps to ensure they are fully implemented.

The 68-page report, " 'Just Let Us Be': Discrimination Against LGBT Students in the Philippines," documents the range of abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students in secondary school. It details widespread bullying and harassment, discriminatory policies and practices, and an absence of supportive resources that undermine the right to education under international law and put LGBT youth at risk.

"LGBT students in the Philippines are often the targets of ridicule and even violence," said Ryan Thoreson, a fellow in the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch. "And in many instances, teachers and administrators are participating in this mistreatment instead of speaking out against discrimination and creating classrooms where everybody can learn."

Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with 98 students and 46 parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, service providers, and experts on education in 10 cities in Luzon and the Visayas. LGBT students said that existing protections are irregularly or incompletely implemented, and that secondary school policies and practices often facilitate discrimination and fail to provide LGBT students with information and support.

Lawmakers in the Philippines have recognized that bullying in secondary schools is a problem and have taken important steps to address it, Human Rights Watch said. In 2013, the Philippine Congress passed an anti-bullying law and the Department of Education issued regulations prohibiting bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. During the 2016 presidential campaign, too, Rodrigo Duterte vocally condemned bullying and discrimination against LGBT people.

"President Duterte has spoken out against bullying and discrimination against LGBT people in the past, and he should do so now," Thoreson said.

Yet Human Rights Watch's research shows that LGBT students still encounter physical bullying, verbal harassment, sexual assault, and cyberbullying in schools. Many students were not aware of anti-bullying policies or did not know where to seek help if they were persistently bullied.

"When I was in high school, they'd push me, punch me," said Carlos M., a 19-year-old gay student from Olongapo City. "When I'd get out of school, they'd follow me [and] push me, call me 'gay,' 'faggot,' things like that." (Names of students quoted in the report were changed for their protection.)

The hostility students face in school is often exacerbated by discriminatory policies and practices, Human Rights Watch said. Schools in the Philippines impose gendered uniform and hair-length requirements without exceptions for students who do not identify as their sex assigned at birth. These inflexible requirements cause many LGBT students to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome at school, be turned away by school guards, or skip class or drop out.

"The failure to pass an anti-discrimination bill puts LGBT kids at risk of discrimination and violence," said Meggan Evangelista of LAGABLAB Network. "If lawmakers are serious about making schools safe for all students, they should stop delaying and pass anti-discrimination protections as soon as possible."

Harassed students seeking help are hindered by the lack of information and resources pertaining to LGBT youth at the secondary school level. LGBT issues are rarely discussed in school curricula - and when they do arise, teachers often make negative or dismissive comments about LGBT students, including instructing their students that being LGBT is sinful or unnatural.

"They say that gays are the main focus of HIV," said Jonas E., a 17-year-old gay boy in high school in Mandaue City. "I'm a bit ashamed of that, because I was once in section where I'm the only gay, and they kept pointing at me." Virtually none of the students interviewed had received LGBT-inclusive sexuality education, leaving them ill-equipped to navigate relationships and keep themselves safe.

Very few students have access to teachers or counselors who are trained to provide support for LGBT students as they grow and develop. While LGBT student groups have been highly successful at providing peer education and support at the university level, few exist in secondary schools.

Authorities at every level of government should take steps to promote student safety, equality, and access to education in schools, Human Rights Watch said. Congress should pass anti-discrimination legislation that protects LGBT students in schools. The Department of Education should survey schools to ensure anti-bullying protections are being fully implemented, train teachers to be responsive to the needs of LGBT students, incorporate LGBT issues into curricular modules, and promulgate model policies prohibiting discrimination in schools. At the school level, administrators should strengthen anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to ensure LGBT youth are safe and respected.

"Prohibiting bullying against LGBT youth was an important first step," Thoreson said. "Now lawmakers and school administrators should take concrete steps to make those protections meaningful and promote respect for LGBT youth throughout the Philippines' school system."

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Philippines: LGBT Students Face Bullying, Abuse

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(Manila, June 22, 2017) - Students across the Philippines experience bullying and discrimination in school because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. While Philippine law provides protections against discrimination and exclusion in schools, lawmakers and school administrators need to take steps to ensure they are fully implemented.

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Stockton’s Little Manila, Journey for Justice, and the Legacy of Dawn Mabalon

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Stockton’s Little Manila, Journey for Justice, and the Legacy of Dawn Mabalon

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Episode on This Filipino American Life focuses on Dawn Mabalon's book about Fil Am history.

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Stockton, California, an agricultural city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, was the center of Filipino life in the United States for much of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1920s, thousands of Filipinos called Stockton home. The intersection of El Dorado and Lafayette Streets in downtown Stockton was the heart of what was fondly called Little Manila. Yet, much of this rich history is unknown to most of America, and sadly, to the majority of Filipino Americans.

However, the history of Stockton's was not lost to one Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon. Dawn was a born and raised Pinay Stocktonian who spearheaded the reclamation of Stockton's Filipino American history. As developers threatened to demolish the three remaining buildings of Little Manila, she helped to organize community members to stop the further erasure of Filipinos in the city. Ever the scholar, Dawn also documented the history of Stockton's Filipinos in her much lauded book, Little Manila is in the Heart. She was truly a pioneering scholar and leader of the Filipino American community.

Dawn Mabalon. August 17, 1972 - August 10, 2018.

TFAL was set to interview Dawn Mabalon along with two other community leaders on August 19. However, Dawn passed away a week prior to the recording. In this episode of TFAL, Joe and Gerlie speak with two of her compatriots, Gayle Romasanta, co-author with Dawn of Journey for Justice, a children's book about the life of labor leader Larry Itliong, and Dillon Delvo, Executive Director of Little Manila Rising, an organization dedicated to the well-being of Filipinos in Stockton. In the episode, Gayle and Dillon remember the life and legacy of Dawn Mabalon, her impact in their respective work, and the importance of reclaiming our history as Filipino Americans.

Listen through the embedded player below, download directly here, or subscribe to us on iTunes here!

To donate to the good work of Little Manila Rising, go to their website here: http://www.littlemanila.org/donate/

To purchase Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong, go here: https://www.bridgedelta.com/purchase/journey-for-justice-the-life-of-larry-itliong

For more on the history of Stockton's Little Manila, check out this video:

To see the power of Dawn Mabalon, check out her speech during the dedication of Little Manila in 2002:

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Episode 28.5 - Stockton's Little Manila, Journey for Justice, and the Legacy of Dawn Mabalon

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Stockton, California, an agricultural city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, was the center of Filipino life in the United States for much of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1920s, thousands of Filipinos called Stockton home. The intersection of El Dorado and Lafayette Streets in downtown Stockton was the heart of what...

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Where Stereotypes About Asian-American Men Come From

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Where Stereotypes About Asian-American Men Come From

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Where Stereotypes About Asian-American Men Come From | Take Back | NBC Asian American

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Culture, Race, Gender, Orientation

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Find your voice. Find your narrative. | TFCU Talks Seattle: Live Your Legacy

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Podcast episode on This Filipino American Life about "colorism", a manifestation of "colonial mentality"

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" Don't play out in the sun. You'll get too dark!"

Most Filipinos have heard this phrase from parents or elders numerous times when they were children. For Filipino Americans, this phrase might strike a chord as an example of Filipinos' preference for lighter skin. For some, it may conjure up memories of being bullied, traumatized, and socially excluded for having darker skin. For others, the phrase may simply be a reminder of how to maintain a certain privilege for having lighter skin. Regardless of one's memory of that phrase, skin tone has unfortunately shaped all of our lives.

Colorism, the prejudice and discrimination based on skin tone, is a centuries-old practice of class stratification in many societies. In the Philippines, light-skinned folks have a tremendous amount of social privilege compared to those who are dark-skinned. Filipino celebrities, for example, go to great lengths to maintain the light-skin tone in contradistinction to their largely dark-skinned audience. As such, colorism has fueled a multi-billion dollar world-wide industry based on skin-lightening products. But where and how did it originate?

Colorism predates European colonialism and has been prevalent in many complex societies all over the world where field and domestic labor under the sun is not valued highly. The practice of among the Panay Bukidnon, for example, where young women were shielded from the sun in order to attract higher suitors, predates Spanish arrival in the Philippines. Nonetheless, three centuries of colonialism has solidified and exacerbated colorism in Philippine society. Colorism is a sad reality and it affects many people, including Filipino Americans.

However, folks like Asia Jackson and her #MagandangMorenx movement and the backlash from colorist ad campaigns from skin lightening products have made inroads into trying to change the cultural perception that light-skinned is better. Many Filipino and Filipino Americans have been slowly changing the discourse around skin tone with phrases like " Brown is Beautiful" and owning the term, kayumanggi. It's an uphill, yet necessary battle.
Joanne Rondilla, SJSU Professor
In this episode, we talk about our experiences with colorism and where we've seen it manifest. Then, we speak to Joanne Rondilla, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at San Jose State University, who has done extensive research on colorism in the Philippines and in the United States. Listen as she discusses the history of colorism in Philippine society, the "secret" of the skin-lightening industry, the limitations of "colonial mentality" as the sole explanation for colorism, and suggestions on how to deal with colorism in your family. It was a tremendous privilege to have Joanne on TFAL and we hope you enjoy the episode as much as we did.

Listen through the embedded player below, download directly here, or subscribe to us on iTunes here.

What are you experiences with colorism? Do people tell you that you're "too dark." Let us know by leaving a voicemail at (805) 394-TFAL (8325) or email us at thisfilipinoamericanlife@gmail.com.

Finally, a special shout out to our TPALs who emailed us some of their comments and questions. Here's a picture of TPAL, Toni Geurts, and her beautiful mother:

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Episode 88 - Colorism in the Filipino Community

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"Don't play out in the sun. You'll get too dark!" Most Filipinos have heard this phrase from parents or elders numerous times when they were children. For Filipino Americans, this phrase might strike a chord as an example of Filipinos' preference for lighter skin. For some, it may conjure up memories of being bullied, traumatized,...

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Episode on "hiya" from podcast This Filipino American Life

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"Ay nako...walang hiya ka!" or "Walang hiya si ________." Many of us have heard these phrases before. It may be the ultimate insult, or the start of a juicy gossip story. But what is hiya?

Hiya closely translates to "shame" in English. To say "walang hiya" is to accuse someone of having no shame. It's a form of social relations embedded in Filipino culture with countless unwritten rules. It's a way for Filipinos to regulate themselves in a community. It's a tool to discipline and socialize their children. While it's also a vehicle to maintain class status and create false aspirations and desires, in some ways, hiya can also serve to level hierarchical power structures even for a brief moment.

In this TFAL episode, we discuss a bit of our experiences with this concept of hiya. How does it bind us together? How does is restrict us? How do we navigate and negotiate the rules of hiya in our families? How is hiya still with us in the United States? We only scratch the surface, but hopefully it'll lead to new revelations and discoveries.

Listen through the embedded player below, download directly here or subscribe to us on iTunes here!

What are your experiences with hiya? Let us know! Email us at thisfilipinoamericanlife@gmail.com, leave a voice message, or even text us your thoughts at (805) 394-TFAL.

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"Ay nako...walang hiya ka!" or "Walang hiya si ________." Many of us have heard these phrases before. It may be the ultimate insult, or the start of a juicy gossip story. But what is hiya? Hiya closely translates to "shame" in English. To say "walang hiya" is to accuse someone of having no shame.

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In the Age of Duterte, These Filipino Millennials Are Teaching Men to Treat Women Better

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In the Age of Duterte, These Filipino Millennials Are Teaching Men to Treat Women Better

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An article on shifting gender roles.

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VICE Asia is calling 2019 " The Year We Woke Up ." This year, we saw young people stand up, push back, and take matters into their own hands. We celebrate the fighters, the change makers, the movements that have shaken us wide awake and reminded us of our own roles in realising change. This story is part of a series.

In the age of Rodrigo Duterte, misogynistic comments are commonplace. The Philippine President has no problem catcalling women during his speeches, signalling to Filipino men that they can do the same too. How does one fight sexism with someone like that in power? That's what this group of millennials is trying to address, in the most un-millennial way.

Usapang Lalaki (UL or literally, "Boy Talk") is a series of talks that discusses gender issues like toxic masculinity and feminism. They started in February, when a group of young Filipinos realised that Duterte could care less about the negative influence of his non-stop sexist comments.

"It was the instance where Duterte asked a married woman to kiss him in front of the international press; that was one of the actions we felt needed accountability. People don't understand that although the girl gave consent, it isn't really consenting when there are power relations," Adrienne Onday, one of the founding members of UL told VICE.

In June 2018, Duterte told a married woman to kiss him on stage during an event in Seoul.

"[Duterte] doesn't really challenge the status quo and always pushes the same standard, that men should be strong and aggressive. What about the people who are hurt by his actions?" Onday asked.

So now, she and her team - comprised of both men and women - are working to rid the Philippines of the machismo that's embedded in its culture. Not by "cancelling" these men and calling them trash, as is the trend today, but by doing something much harder - listening.

Eschewing comments sections and "cancel culture," UL brings together men and women of all sexual identities so they can talk face to face. Everyone is welcome, including those who have admitted to doing some terrible things.

"It is truly an open space that tries to encourage earnest discussions of feminism and gender issues, Eugene Ong, a regular attendee, who has admitted to treating women badly in the past, told VICE.

"For people like me, a big part of taking responsibility and letting myself be held accountable for my wrongs is having a community, a support system of people with the common goal of self-awareness and self-improvement - to be better men for women."

Patricia Ramos, one of the women in the community, agrees. Although she will always doubt men, she said UL gives her a glimmer of hope.

"I'm the kind of person who harbours a lot of suspicions so it does get difficult to be around men with a history of toxic masculinity or gender-based violence, but knowing that this is a safe and secure space with the potential for transformation and renewal in a time of toxic call-out culture, I can rest assured knowing that I and other women's voices can be heard, as opposed to the cold and easily dismissible anonymity of the internet," Ramos told VICE.

Through these events, men learn to be vulnerable and nurturing, straying away from the low standard Duterte has set for them.

While they encourage communication, the UL organisers assure that they are not acting as apologists for problematic men.

"We definitely do not apologise for them for what they did; rather what we work on doing for them and for others who haven't gotten to the point of realisation yet is to help them come to that consciousness and awareness on their own, by asking questions that might get them thinking and reflecting," Onday said.

"It is up to them to apologise for what they said or did - even if we really want them to - because spoon-fed conclusions and coerced apologies don't help us heal."

A typical UL event consists of at least 20 people. To keep it casual and intimate, they gather in small cafes and co-working spaces around Metro Manila. Attendees spend 3 to 4 hours discussing one topic, like the basics of feminism, gender roles in relationships, and emotional labour.

These issues usually spark tense discussions but UL events are surprisingly calm. By leaving judgements out the door, the men open up more and allow themselves to be vulnerable. The discussions are open, but the emotions heavy.

"We want to mainstream the idea that when we're talking about these issues, it's supposed to be a conversation. As progressives, we want to build relationships and eventually, a community that can replicate the method."

These sessions have helped men reach moments of clarity. In one event discussing emotional labour, the men initially doubted and asked, "Why do we have to be vulnerable in a specific way?" But as soon as the organisers asked, "Who do you run to when you have problems?" the men realised that they are always drawn to women when they needed to share something emotional.

Noticing the patterns in their behaviour, the organisers then asked, "Why women?" This led to a break-out session where the men divulged their family problems, the difficulties of being gay in a conservative community, and mental health issues - a type of honesty you wouldn't think to hear in a room full of strangers.

"What I see in Usapang Lalaki is the opportunity to redefine male engagement in feminism into something far more sincere and introspective, where we look at ourselves and ask how we have contributed to oppression and trauma and hurt and discomfort, even in our more mundane everyday interactions, instead of only pointing at the other men as the problem, and challenging ourselves to truly change the way we live and think," Ong said.

"I would definitely recommend this to people like me - men who want to take responsibility of their sorry record of hurting women while [identifying as] 'feminists,' and men who want to be truly better for women."

Ramos felt that the experience was therapeutic and extremely eye-opening for women like her.
Find Lia on Instagram and Twitter. This article originally appeared on VICE ASIA.
"It's great to know that there's a space where we can reach an audience who needs it. I would definitely recommend UL for both men and women, but men most especially. There isn't a lot about my current knowledge on gender issues that it changed but it's great to know that there's a space where we can reach an audience who needs it."

It is this need for genuine connection that pushes UL's organisers to do what they do.

"It's really such a big need that isn't addressed by most conversations. At a time when mental health is on the rise, aside from biochemical issues, it's this lack of being able to connect with people," Onday said. "This detachment and isolation is why people develop apathy. Community is what people really need right now."

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In the Age of Duterte, These Filipino Millennials Are Teaching Men to Treat Women Better

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VICE Asia is calling 2019 " The Year We Woke Up ." This year, we saw young people stand up, push back, and take matters into their own hands. We celebrate the fighters, the change makers, the movements that have shaken us wide awake and reminded us of our own roles in realising change.