One wonders about the part where relatives treated the children of mixed Filipina/Black marriages as servants: Perhaps not "racism" but culture: because here, most richer folks have Chinese or Spanish blood (Chinoy or metziso) and the farm workers tend to be darker, and the Aeta, who tend to live tribal ways, very dark.
But there still is intermarriage with American service men: At least one of our neighbors is an American black from the south married to a local lady...
Another article about the Philippine attempt to prevent the American takeover in 1898, along with information about the Buffalo soldiers and their dilemma in shooting insurgents who they probably agreed with HERE.
Mark Twain was one of the American writers who opposed the war.
Lolo's family, like many from this area, were opposed to the American takeover.
On the other hand, the rebels were actually fighting for their traditional leaders, not for personal freedom...this was a feudal society, and the bad news is that, after the war, the Americans let the important families run things anyway...
yet they also rebuilt the education system by sending the Thomasite teachers, which is allowing folks from less important clans to escape poverty,
The Thomasites transformed the Philippines into the third largest English-speaking nation in the world. These teachers also introduced the country to the notion that education is not only for the elite but for ordinary people as well.
although usually it means finding a job in Saudi, since even our farmers, who now own their traditional fields, cannot make a good living despite land reform...so their kids migrate elsewhere to work and send money home so they can send their siblings to school and have a decent house (concrete, not bamboo, with electricity, TV, and a cellphone)...
No comments:
Post a Comment