Nearly six months of practice erupts into a five hour medley of song, dance, and acting on May 20, 2004. In one night, Kababayan at UCI celebrated 30 years of existence and 25 years of tradition staging an event called Pilipino Cultural Night, or PCN. The PCN itself is a collegiate phenomenon that has been occurring for the past few generations on campuses across the nation. Nearly one year is taken to plan the event and students often give up their most valuable resources, time and money, in order to stage this elaborate production. The event has been ingrained within Pilipino-American organizations at such a level that holding the event is no longer questioned and even leadership positions within the organizations are created in order to plan and manage the production. During the mid 19th century, another form of entertainment called the minstrel show began to take shape, extremely racist in overtone, the popularity of these shows would continue to the mid 20th century. While it is without a doubt that times have changed since then, in the film Bamboozled, Spike Lee questions whether or not Blacks themselves continue the spirit of minstrelsy. This year also marks the centennial of the St. Louis World’s Fair, another form of overtly racist entertainment in which Pilipinos and other groups were put on display for America to view. In reflecting upon the change time has brought, the question must be asked: a hundred years later, are Pilipino college students themselves recreating the World’s Fair? While the purposes may be different, PCNs are actually modern day minstrel shows. By performing PCNs we put ourselves on display and perform for an audience; however do we produce the PCN or do we allow the PCN to produce who we are? In further examining this phenomenon we must take a look at the formation of identities, the production of culture, the building of both real and “imagined” communities, and the history of both Pilipinos and entertainment in America in order to better examine the social impact and the roles colonialism and ideas of nation play in creating the environment in which students feel it is necessary to stage these productions.
As I stated previously, the PCN is a practice that goes unquestioned, both sarcastically and seriously speaking: you cannot have a Pilipino-American organization that does not put on a PCN. The initial question that I asked those interviewed was what they felt the purpose of PCN was, why stage the performance in the first place? My first respondent replied: “To educate others about the culture and history of the Philippines and Filipino-Americans.” Another respondent had a similar but more critical look about the purpose of the PCN. They feel that the “PCN is a production of an idea of ‘culture,’ by Pilipino Americans, for the consumption of Pilipino Americans desperately wanting to prove that they ‘get it.’ Get what it means to be Pilipino, get what it means to be American.” This statement aligns with what Theodore Gonzalves writes in his work: “The Day the Dancers Stayed: On Pilipino Cultural Nights.” Gonzalves writes that “culture” is commodified, packaged, and implied through the PCN. Certainly it goes without question that Pilipinos have not been represented within the public educational system, this is what creates the environment in which Pilipino-American students wish to prove they understand themselves, and to educate others about who they are. My last respondent was actually a professor of mine, when asked the same question he responded: “I can imagine that students in big American universities were compensating for: “1) The absence of Philippine culture classes in the curriculum; and, 2) The denial of Philippine culture among earlier Filipinos in the U.S.” Another point that needs to be recognized is that PCNs are limited to the privileged few that are given the opportunity to obtain college degrees. Further more, he said that “the PCN was a way for many Filipino-Americans to reclaim, demonstrate and assert their cultural identity.” Ultimately, PCNs can be boiled down to a staged identity crisis in which students prove and assert, in front of an audience, that they do understand who they are.
You cannot have a performance without an audience, so logically the next question that entered my mind was: for whom is this performance targeted? Referring back to my first respondent they felt that the production was meant to educate others about the culture of the Philippines by showing them the dances of the archipelago while presenting contemporary issues that Pilipino-Americans face today. But when looking at the audience that night, it was noticeable that the majority were both 1st and later generation Pilipino-Americans. Respondent number two replied: “Going back to the first question, PCN is an identity crisis staged for others to consume. EVERYONE in the family and community is called to gather to deal with its trappings, regardless of their interest in it. I say regardless, because the whole collegiate community is often put on hold to perform the production and families are required to spend the time driving and sitting through these often excruciatingly long PCNs.” It should be noted that this year’s production lasted a little over five hours. While believing the production was geared towards Pilipino-Americans, my last respondent felt the implicit audience was White America, “it is a way to prove to white society that Filipinos also have a culture.” While determining who the audience is, is relative depending who is asked, one can conclude that we, ourselves, as Pilipino-Americans are also the target, as well as others whom we wish to display and prove our culture to.
Issues of identity are a large part of what builds the need to have PCNs, these productions would not occur if there were no feelings of marginalization in the “melting pot” culture of America. To ignore and not discuss the fact that Pilipino-Americans do face an identity crisis at least once in their life, let alone multiple or even a continued crisis, would be a failure for anyone wishing to truly understand the PCN and its complexity. Following the conclusion of World War II, the world became a smaller place. Europe’s world powers were forced to let go of their colonies due to the economic collapse that follows war torn nations in the wake of the fighting. Being granted independence from their former colonial masters, many new states began to emerge. However, this would become problematic because in building what we know as a “nation” there must be a definition of who belongs to that nation and who does not. Identity crises arise as a result of the ideas of “nation” and national identity. What is not recognized is that merely becoming or being a legal member of a state does not mean they are a full citizen of a nation; there is also a covert idea of cultural acceptance that comes along with these beliefs of citizenship. Minorities must struggle with the fact that they are not a part the dominant culture. Because of this there is a feeling of being regulated to a “third space;” neither belonging to where they currently reside, nor identifying with their previous society or the culture which they’re ancestors came from. There are often feelings of needing to align with one particular group or the other, which ends up causing more confusion. Some immigrants or later generation Pilipino-Americans feel compelled to over-assimilate and essentially become the “110% American.” A similar identity crisis occurs with a few gays and lesbians within the homosexual community being marginalized by the trappings of their sexuality and sexual preference. Due to the fact that they do not feel they embody the socially constructed identity of what their genders supposedly are, they resort to becoming overly effeminate or masculine. Interestingly enough, I would argue that what occurs with PCNs is a reversal of this notion, through the PCN and these dances there is a desire and a need to connect with the mother land, to become “110% Pilipino.” By prescribing to the notion that there is such a thing as a “Filipino” or a “Filipino-American” we not only devalue the experiences of other marginalized groups within an already marginalized group, but also fail to realize that identities are actually fluid, they are constantly being constructed, redefined, and articulated throughout our lives.
Due to the lack of curriculum surrounding the Philippines and Pilipino-Americans, PCNs are a means, and often the only means people turn to, of educating not only others but also ourselves, about what it means to be Pilipino and Pilipino-American. As a result, the PCN does more than educate, it is actually serves as a production that defines what it means to be a Pilipino-American. Gonzalves writes “Certain versions of Filipino and Filipino American histories are being authored, passed around, issued down, and (mis)handled each year.” Embedded into the name of the event is the word “culture,” but what exactly does this mean in the first place? Is it merely dances and costumes? Like identity, culture is a fluid idea that is constantly being reconstructed; however this is not an idea that is fostered by the PCN. The PCN defines what the Pilipino and Pilipino-American experiences are, and just like ideas of nation and identity, by defining what culture is, you also define what is not a part of that culture. As a result, again marginalization occurs. During production, in defining what is truly “Pilipino,” questions of authenticity are often raised about the dances and the costumes. Ironically, in questioning the authenticity, no one questions the fact that many of these dances and costumes are no longer even performed or worn in the Philippines. My second respondent articulated that PCNs are“a mechanical machine designed to pop out conscious Pilipino Americans now able to recognize that they are Pilipino enough to proclaim it through dance steps they often don’t know the meaning of.” What is occurring is that Pilipino-Americans are constructing, what Benedict Anderson coined, an “imagined community.” It is a perception of what we view the Philippines as, and what we perceive the Pilipino-American culture to be. By consuming the culture as displayed by the PCN we buy into the belief that this “imagined community/culture” is who we are. We then allow the PCN to produce our definition of what it means to be Pilipino and reject the fact that our culture is performed and articulated not just in one night, but in our everyday lives.
The 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was an event that is shrouded by the clouds of history. I do have to admit that prior to my studies in Pilipino and Pilipino-American history, the only exposure I had of the event was an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart and his friends made a trip hoping to visit the World’s Fair during their Spring Break. The reality of what occurred was not as light hearted as that episode. The event marked the premature “declaration” of the end to the Philippine-American War. America basked and indulged in its moral and scientific superiority over other peoples as it celebrated its entrance as an Imperial World Power. At the same time there was a counter movement known as the Anti-Imperialist league. The Fair was held in order to devalue this movement and justify the country’s morally defunct actions half a world away. Various indigenous tribes were mislead and tricked into traveling to St. Louis as “authentic” Philippine villages were “recreated” to show the Americans what “real” Pilipinos were like. They were asked to perform their ritual customs and dances for an audience of Americans while the latter gawked in awe as they patted themselves on the back for being so “cultured” and “civilized.” These Americans became enveloped in a “colonial gaze” as they were spoon fed an “imagined community” of Pilipinos. This image of “authentic” Pilipinos was purposely created in order to dehumanize them and promote the belief of Social Darwinism. What occurred was the commodification of cultures for an American audience to consume for the purpose of entertainment.
At the same time another popular form of entertainment was already in full swing. The minstrel show had been created nearly 70 years prior and had actually become a respected form of entertainment by the Western world. A dictionary definition of the term is a comic variety show presenting jokes, songs, dances, and skits, usually by white actors in “blackface.” The act of blackface was painting one’s face black using burnt cork or grease, obviously to give the appearance of an African American. The purpose of such shows were to mock African Americans and further dehumanize them; the most famous caricature arising from these shows was “Jim Crow,” who was supposed to be a stereotypical lazy slave. Minstrelsy would not end with the emergence of movies and TV. In the early forms of the modern entertainment industry nearly all depictions of Blacks would be incarnate in dehumanizing stereotypes. Degrading even more so, early Black entertainers would actually be forced to perform in blackface, what occurred were Blacks in even blacker faces. What Spike Lee attempts to relay in Bamboozled is that one does not need to physically paint themselves in order to perform in blackface. He believes that entertainers today: athletes, musicians, rappers, actors, etc. are the modern day minstrels. Through the roles that they play they serve to perform and create what it means to be Black to the audience of America. Bamboozled is an examination of the complicity of Blacks in perpetuating their own oppression.
Is the performance of the PCN actually a form of oppression? What occurs within the PCN has all the trappings of a minstrel show for the new millennium. The production of the PCN is an art form that has been practiced and refined proving to be both complex and formulaic. Cultural dances are performed, neatly packaged in the form of “suites,” loosely held together by a skit that encompasses the “theme” of the PCN. Throughout the skit, cultural jokes are inserted and songs are performed, Kababayan going so far as to create groups along side the “traditional” suites dedicated to the production of comedic commercials and a choir. Nearly all PCNs are opened with the performances of the national anthems of both countries: the “Star Spangled Banner” and “Pambansang Awit,” in order to show solidarity between the two identities of Pilipino and American. In order to reassert the authenticity of the production’s “Pilipino-ness” the title themes are always done in Tagalog, which, Gonzalves also states, shows the regional shift of Pilipino-Americans from being Ilocano to a Tagalog dominated population. The striving for authenticity in the production of “culture” in the PCN can be seen as the desire to become the quintessential “110% Pilipino.” However, when the question arises about the presence of “blackface,” or “brownface,” the answer lay in none other than the production itself. Through the costumes and skit we are constantly performing in brownface. The need for authenticity in both the costumes and dances is our blackface. In the very production of PCN itself, we strive to paint ourselves browner than brown.
Simultaneously the PCN serves as a recreation of the St. Louis World’s Fair, with a few different spins. “Cultural” dances are performed in order for the audience to consume. What occurs is similar to the “colonial gaze,” I would argue that the colonial gaze is actually reversed and we ourselves are struck in awe of the “exotic-ness” and distance that these dances are to our everyday lives, both in mileage and time. Returning to the third respondent’s statement about the target audience, while the explicit target audience is Pilipino-Americans, White Society is the implicit target. Through the celebration of PCN, Pilipino-Americans showcase their heritage and culture in attempts to prove their culture is worthy of being a part of American culture, hence the need to connect and constantly reiterate their identity includes an American one. If this was not the case why would these organizations hold the belief that America needs to be educated and shown what it means to be Pilipino-American? While the aims of the World’s Fair were to dehumanize Pilipinos, the PCN is the exact opposite. What occurs is what I believe to be a “cultural masturbation” of the sorts, the embracing of all the “positive” or “exotic” aspects of a culture, the parts that get a people off, while neglecting or ignoring the less glamorous aspects.
Can an event with progressive overtones actually be a reincarnation of racist forms of entertainment such as the World’s Fair and Minstrel Shows? Yes and no, again we must reconsider who produces the event and for what purpose. The purpose of both the World’s Fair and Minstrel Shows were to justify a racist America, dehumanize the “other,” and to reassert the superiority of Whites at the top of the “racial ladder.” This is definitely not the case in the production of the PCN. The second respondent states: “we still live in a society where claiming an “ethnic” identity is subversive and anti-thetical to a creation of a single unified nation, the completely cultural pluralistic nation.” The way I see the role of PCN is to claim and celebrate an identity, not to elevate it as a superior one. It is a space in which people whom formerly denied their ethnic identity to public claim that identity and be proud of both their heritage and who they are. While I feel that culture is performed the year round and not just in one night and those wishing to learn about culture should be able to in the space of a classroom or through books and other forms, it is the only compensation for the lack of Philippine cultural classes in the University. Though, one cannot ignore the other issues and problems not fully addressed within this paper such as, but not limited to: the fact that students suffer in academics, vast quantities of income are spent (the budget for this year’s production totaled over $30,000), and the fact that while PCNs are a space to articulate the problems faced within the community very little is done past dialoguing and articulating them.
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