1. Presented by: Shiella H. Nacorda

2. To understand ideas on Filipino Identity
through the different situations presented in
Zialcita’s essays.

3. CULTURALLY WE ARE ALL
MESTIZOS
derived from the latin
“mixtus” .
The word originally has
nothing to do with skin
color, it can therefore
refer to anyone who is of
mixed origins.

4.  Cultural schizophrenia
 Split-personality
Psychological terms for
madness which is use to
describe our culture.
The society or the people are
crushed between 2 or more
cultures disabling them from
balancing the dictations of
the culture.

5.  Cultural Schizophrenia can be attributed on an individual
and institutional level. Even the institution of the family can
perpetrate this phenomenon. Families who raise a child to
believe that they need to be better than what they are to
achieve equality with white peers is a false assumption based
on fear of not being good enough.
 An individual who despises their black heritage, or their skin
color, features or hair texture can be prone to cultural
schizophrenia. The impingement of linguistic efficiency
through speech lessons and a dominant language system can
also create confusion. Some of these conditions attribute to
mental health problems.
http://www.baatn.org.uk/Resources/Documents/Training/
cultural%20schizophrenia.pdf
Cultural Schizophrenia
Dr. Isha Mckenzie-Mavinga 2011

6. PAGE 212
 “A culture is the product-in
process, over the course of
time, of many individuals who
may differ from each other in
personality, social class and
religion.”
 “We cannot expect the result to
be harmonious in every
aspect.”
 “In any complex society we
should expect to find 2 or more
traditions coexisting together.”
 “Culture is shaped according to
their needs”

7.  The Central Javanese
 The Maranao
 The Germanic People
Scenarios:
Each
tradition, imported
practices may coexist
with local ones.
What the terms split
level and schizophrenia
cast as abnormal may
in fact be normal.

8. THE CENTRAL JAVA
 The heart of the world’s
largest Moslem nation.
 They honor the “spirit of the
rice” .
 They offer gifts to the
founding spirit of their
village.
 They fear certain places as
the abode of the spirits.
Survivals from
the original
animist religion

9. Traditional ethnic beliefs and rituals
are still practiced in the more remote
areas. Pagan gods must be
presented with regular offerings and
are believed to dwell on mountain
peaks as well as in soil, plants, or
animals.
The souls of the ancestors are also
believed to exert direct influence on
the everyday life of their
descendants. One example is the
belief that Monday is a special day
for bringing live chickens to grave
sites. They are to be offered to
the arwah, or spirits of the
deceased, in order to obtain their
help in making a better living.
http://kcm.co.kr/bethany_eng/p_code/80
1.html
Cleansing: Items of journalistic equipment such as tape
recorders, bags, ID cards and cameras are assembled for
a jamasan (purification) ritual at Gandok Seni Tingal building in
Magelang, Central Java, on Saturday. The ritual was part of
National Press Day celebration. President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono will take part in the ongoing National Press Day
celebrations in Manado on Monday. (Antara/Efizudin)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/02/11/cleansing.html

10. Hundreds of residents from the
western valley of Merbabu Mountain
in Magelang, Central Java, walk in a
procession while carrying hampers
filled with cone-shaped yellow rice, or
tumpeng and other traditional foods
during the tradition of Nyadran held at
an ancestral burial site on Thursday.
The tradition normally conducted
before Ramadan is held to respect
the spirits of elders and to pray for
blessings and safety in daily life.
(Antara/Hari Atmoko)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2
011/07/22/the-nyadran-tradition.html

11. THE MARANAO
 Islam emphasizes that, in
case of an offense, only the
individual offender should be
held liable.
 Maranao practice collective
kin responsibility.
 SPLIT LEVEL CHARACTER

12. presents several studies on
feuding or clan conflicts,
popularly known in Mindanao
as rido.
The studies in this volume deal
with a type of violent conflict
variously
referred to as feuding, revenge
killings, blood
revenge, vendetta, inter-tribal
warfare, and clan conflicts.
Characterized by sporadic
outbursts of retaliatory
violence between families and
kinship groups.

13. THE GERMANIC PEOPLE
 Referring to the ethnic group
of the ancient Europe.
 German literally means
“Spear man” which was the
common weapon in ancient
German society.
www.odinsvolk.ca/GermanicPeoples.htm
 Accepted christianity in the
fifth century.
 Pre-christian religion
continued to persist.

14. PROBLEMS WITH THE
CONCEPT OF CULTURAL
SCHIZOPHRENIA POSITIVE OUTLOOK
 1. It ignores the possibility
that tensions between
opposing traditions may
eventually resolved over the
course of centuries;
 2. It overlooks the possibilty
that the tension itself may
give an institution complex
but dynamic relationships.
 The fusion of indigenous
and western styles over the
course of centuries has
resulted in blends that draw
on the strengths of both
styles;

15. Centralization
Were to be completely
ignored and all power turned
over to the local
government, then the Filipino
nation-state would cease to
be
Local Autonomy
Were ignored, cities and
provinces would continue to
have little incentive to plan for
their future
LOCAL GOVERNMENT CODE

16. FEAR OF ILLEGITIMACY
 Intercultural mixing is not
like marriages across racial
lines. The realm of culture is
symbolic; it is made up of
codes invented by human
beings. p. 219

17. FALLACY
BASTARD FROM WHOSE
PERSPECTIVE?
 Interracial marriages
produce abnormalities;
 Intercultural unions create
“bastards”
Birth outside a formal union, half-
breed denotes a fusion that is
awkward, for it does not fit in with
any established category.
p.218
There is no law of nature that
forbids human beings from
borrowing ideas from each other.
p. 220

20. The concept of “race” is seen as the only
way to classify humankind on the basis of
physical qualities.

21. If blood type were
used as the basis for
classification, then
people who differ in
skin color will be found
to resemble each other
in their blood type…
p. 220

22. From the point of view of physical
anthropology, there is no Filipino Race, nor Malay
Race, nor for that matter a German or Japanese or
Chinese race. But there is a Filipino, German or
Japanese culture.
p. 220

23. RACE
PHYSICAL
CHARACTERISTICS
BIOLOGICAL
PATTERN
CULTURE
WAY OF LIFE
BEHAVIOR
Identity should be interpreted Culturally.

25. “they always
associate it with
indigenous spices
which Philippine
cuisine does not
have” p.240

26. It is hard to believe that
their ancestors enjoyed
spicy meals before the
coming of the
Spaniards. Or that
contemporary Ilocano
farmer taste is
“confused”. p.240
Portuguese traders
introduced the chili.

27. “Often they assume that since the costume, the
music, the architecture, and the literature of lowland
Christian Filipinos have an obvious Hispanic
component, they cannot be Asian, for to be Asian
means to be non-Western...” p. 241

28. “In this article, I would like to show that the Filipino
should not feel embarrassed about not being
sufficiently “Asian”, for this Western-invented
construct has no clear content. He should not feel
embarrassed either about being westernized, for the
West is a syncretism-in-process- Zialcita.”
Page 242

29.  Asia in simple geographic terms encompasses
Europe. So if the two are to be set apart from each
other, there must be sufficient common denominators on each
side of the Ural line which do not exist on the other.
• Does Asia have such a common identity, some positive
denominators?
• Or is it too big, the home of too many civilizations?
• If so, Asia exists only in the negative sense of being non-European
— which is the European definition.
by Philip Bowring
February 12, 1987 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/geography/geo_whatis.html

30.  “We hear talk of an “Asian look”. Supposedly this means
being nonwhite. The fact is that representatives of the
Caucasoid race, the same race to which Europeans and
Americans belong, form the majority among the
Arabs, Jews, Pakistanis, Iranians, and Afghans. In
India, the white skinned Aryans constitute the upper
castes while the dark skinned Dravidians form the bulk
of the lower castes. On the other hand there are the
Mongoloids to which the Chinese, Japanese, and the
Southeast Asians belong. There is no Asian look.” –
Zialcita, p.246

31. for Asia as a whole, we would be hard put looking for
a unifying Asian-based language.
There are different language families in Asia.
The lingua franca is English.

32. ORIENTALISM
Simple and degrading
stereotype of the orient.
CONTINENTALISM
The habit of dividing
the world into
continents and
imagining that each
has an unchanging
Platonic essence.

33. “This dichotomy has made us forget that ideas have
flowed from East to West and vice versa over
millennia” p.244
Westerners easily forget the artistic debt to Asians.
(e.g. pointed arch was invented in the Near East in the
seventh century A.D. and introduced into the West in
the 11th to the 12th century.)

34. “We can conclude that there is no single
definable, coherent cultural tradition that embraces
all the Asias together. When people, therefore, say
that the Filipino is confused because Westernization
has altered his pristine Asian identity or that he is
neither Asian nor Western we should ask what being
“Asian” means in the first place.” p. 253.

35. Toynbee “syncretism” which refers to the fusion of
different cultural traditions to form new ones. For
Toynbee, many civilizations are syncretistic. p.254
To appreciate Filipino culture in its singularity, we
should suspend our preoccupations with what is or
is not Asian and reflect on our concrete experience
of particular Filipino artifacts. p.262

37. “Emotive, meaningful symbols that are
shared together create an oikumene, a
moral and aesthetic community that
embraces diverse cultures and races”
p.269

38. WHAT IS AN OIKUMENE?
To inhabit
Populated
Or civilized part of the world.
United by a shared great tradition
Meaningful symbols that are shared together
create an oikumene. p. 269

39.  Has Southeast Asia been an
oikumene?
 What communalities embracing
the entire region to rise?

40. There are laudable efforts to create a Southeast Asian
consciousness on the basis of similarities in art-
form. In general we can notice these tendencies:
1. An emphasis on commonalities shared by aboriginal art forms in
the region.
2. An emphasis on commonalities given by two great traditions: The
Indian and the Islamic.
3. A de-emphasis' of art shaped by the two other Great Traditions: The
Chinese and the Western.
p. 279

41. The prevailing tendency is to imagine “Southeast
Asia” as a piece of a larger jigsaw called “Asia”, that
is, as a bounded cultural unity with definable
boundaries that neatly set it apart from other cultural
unities in the world jigsaw puzzle.
It may be better to imagine it as a collage whose
different materials cluster and overlap with each
other, while extending into the surrounding space.
p. 280

42. HISPANIZED YET SOUTHEAST ASIAN
The art of Hispanized Filipinos is deemed “out of
place” in Southeast Asia. But so, likewise, is the art
of the Sinicized Vietnamese. Forgotten is that both
Islamic and the Indic influences were also originally
intruders centuries earlier: eventually they fused
with indegenous traditions. The same thing has
happened to hispanic influence in the Philippines
and to Chinese influence in Vietnam. p.280-281

43. Cooking
Allegedly, what defines the Southeast Asian flavor is
the heavy use of chili pepper.
The fact is that the chilli pepper was domesticated in
Mexico centuries before the Europeans came and
may have first entered Southeast Asia via the
Manila Galleon. p. 280

44.  Costume
When people think of linkages between the Philippines
and the region in terms of costume, they think of either
tribal costumes or the costumes of the Moslem ethnic
groups.
In fact the costumes of the Hispanized majority do fit in.
As was mentioned in an earlier essay, the barong
tagalog, as a loose shirt worn over long pants, relates to
two traditions: the Indian and the Chinese. p. 282

45. Houses
It is thus unfair to insist that wood-and stone Filipino
houses are “Spanish” copies that have nothing to do
with either Southeast Asia or Asia in general. Yes
they are Hispanic, but also SOUTHEAST ASIAN. p.
293.

46. Ways of Grouping Cultures
 A Family of Language
societies with related languages share common myths.
 Responses to a Common Ecosystem
societies with similar ecosystem are faced with similar
challenges from the environment.
 Shared tradition

47. Thank you…

48. Zialcita, Fernando Nakpil. 2005. Authentic Though not Exotic. Essays
on Filipino Identity. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 340 pages, ISBN 971-550-479-5
http://www.baatn.org.uk/Resources/Documents/Training/cultural%20sc
hizophrenia.pdf
http://kcm.co.kr/bethany_eng/p_code/801.html
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/02/11/cleansing.html