Browse Exhibits (5 total)
Literature and the newspapers
The early 20th century marks the golden age of Philippine literature in Spanish and Tagalog and the beginning of Philippine literature in English. However, much of this literary production was linked to the success and proliferation of the periodical press. Newspapers such as La Oceanía Española were responsible for publishing translations of European novels into Spanish, both in serialized form in the newspaper itself and later in book format. Moreover, newspapers and magazines frequently included texts by the most prominent literary figures of the time in the country and dedicated articles to commenting on the national literary scene and its international connections.
A century of wars and revolutions
Between the end of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, the Philippines were subjected to three colonizing powers (Spain, the U.S., and Japan) and fought for their independence three times before obtaining it from the U.S. in 1946.
The memory of the Philippine Revolution (1896 - 1898) against Spain and the subsequent Philippine–American War (1899-1902) remained, despite its anticolonial connotations, a reference in public discourse in different languages. Due to the defeat of the revolution, the Philippines would take part in the three biggest conflicts of the century together with the U.S.: the Cold War (1947-1965), World War II (1939-1945), and even World War I (1914-1918).
Despite the Philippines' allegiances, magazines and newspapers would pay close attention to conflicts that preceded World War II from a distinctively Filipino perspective, such as the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945), the Spanish Civil War (1939-1939), and the Chinese revolution (1921-1946); and during the Cold War, to the Korean (1950 –1953) and Vietnam wars (1955 and 1975).
By doing so, the Filipino press would, before and after independence, root public discourse in the specific geopolitical context of the archipelago and its past, negotiating a national identity between Europe, America, and Asia.
Women and Journalism
Newspapers and magazines are the medium through which news and ideas are spread to a large number of people. During the period between 1895 and 1945, the Philippines as a country experienced many important events. However, throughout history, men were considered to be the ones who should govern and rule. Thus, they were the ones provided with education, the means and the abilities to write. As women’s opportunity to be educated increased, so did their involvement in society: women too started to take on jobs as journalists and writers.
In this itinerary we lay the importance on women: how they were represented in newspapers, what they wrote about and how their fight for suffragism was perceived and pictured. Last but not least, we take a look at women’s magazines that were created especially for the female readers.
Minorities in the Philippines
The following sections explore how cultural minorities in the Philippines were represented in images and writings from the Spanish era to the two decades after Philippine independence in 1946. In particular, it focuses on Muslims and Chinese in the Philippines. For this purpose, we have retrived images and articles from the rare periodicals repository of the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Library, which allow us a glimpse on the ideas disseminated to a wide population, including the ways in which diverse inhabitants of the Philippines were portrayed. Understanding the representation of minority groups affords us reflections about belongingness and cultural plurality, and to confront mutual prejudices in the present day.
The ethno-legal classifications for Muslim and Chinese inhabitants of the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era were ‘Moro’ and ‘Sangley’, respectively. The presence of populations of different faiths and cultures, and their embeddedness in trade networks, conflicted with the colonial goals of dominating trade and ‘civilizing’ and Christianizing the local population. In this sense, the institution of categorical differences between local ‘Indios’, ‘Moros’, and ‘Sangley’ was seen as a strategic and administrative necessity.
Reports on Japan in the Renacimiento Filipino
Renacimiento Filipino (1911-1913) was a nationalist Philippine periodical, published bilingually in Spanish and Tagalog. Some of the articles on Japan on its pages point to a fascination with the advanced development attained by Japan in comparison with the Philippines and other Asian nations.