In high school, we learned the basics. How pilgrims came to America, how states were formed, the Gettysburg Address and the Oregon Trail. We learned about American history throughout our lives. However. it took me until college to realize that what we learned wasn’t the full story. I decided to take a Filipinx cultural history class that focused on the history of Filipinx immigrants and their struggle within U.S. society. I grew up with immigrant parents and heard their stories about coming to America.
However, I never fully realized the struggle for Filipinx people until taking this class.
High school teaches you the successes that the U.S. has had to become the first world power they are today, but they don’t teach you what kind of things they had to do in order to be so successful. Colonization occurred all throughout the world, and with colonization created a loss of culture for those nations that fell victim, the Philippines being one of them. The U.S. made the Philippines their puppet, and their effects are still taking course today. You can see it through the westernization of cities, and the weak economy and infrastructure, as well as the number of overseas workers forced to work outside of their home country in order to provide for their families.
The many reasons why the Philippines is considered a third world country are because of the injustices the U.S. made during times of colonization, and decades after as well. The Philippines is not alone in this. You can see the same effects in nations like Guam, Puerto Rico, countries in Africa, and Cuba.
In high school, I knew I was learning about history, but I never felt it to be my own. I just read about a bunch of old white dudes passing laws and winning wars. I never learned about what kind of work my own people did to help this country. I didn’t learn about the kind of work other ethnicities did to help this country. We are known to be the melting pot of the world. People all around the globe come to the U.S. to live the “American Dream.”
But if we were so diverse, how come my curriculum wasn't?
Fast forward to this quarter, winter of my sophomore year in college, I decided to take this Filipinx History class in order for me to learn about my culture. I didn’t expect it to teach me things about myself as well. With every lecture, I could connect to each one of the stories. I felt the struggle as a Filipina student and hearing about other Filipinx people fighting for their culture in a place where assimilation was more accepted. I learned about the work that Filipinx people did creating worker unions, creating social change, and helping build a sense of community in a country that didn’t want them.
While in these classes, I wondered why I hadn’t learned about this before. Why was the history I was taught so whitewashed? I get that people of color are the minority within the U.S. However, the work they’ve done for the country was definitely important enough to learn in a high school classroom.
What I’m trying to get at is, as people of color, we need to reach out and learn more about ourselves. Learn the struggle of our people here in the U.S. Histories of colonization and assimilation should not stop us from understanding who we are as a race. For schools, I hope to see curriculum diversify. I should not have to teach myself about myself. Rather, I should have the opportunity to learn about people of color within the classroom.
What I learned while taking an ethnic studies course was that my people’s struggle for equality is no different than other ethnicities. We are all essentially fighting different battles in the same war. We all hope to have a larger voice within our college campuses, within the community, within the country. It is important for all of us to learn about each other’s histories in order to better understand each other. I also learned about who I was, and it made me want to fight harder for the representation of my people within society.
People of color cannot be easily dismissed. We have a voice, and it is growing louder and louder every day.
I want to live in a country where my kids are able to learn about their own histories and look up to historical figures as role models. I need them to learn about the people that kept our culture alive, and not about the ones who took it away.
