Education and Capacity Building
The tragic in the Philippine experience in the diaspora, including that of Hawaii, is that so many of the Americanized Filipinos have not gone past the ‘service industry’ mentality.
If we scratch the surface, this mentality extends the very logic of the plantation economy, with the coming over of the first 15 Ilokanos to Hawaii in 1906.
That initial Ilokano participation would eventually involve other ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, with the Visayans joining the Ilokano farmhands in 1909.
With 1906 as the reference point, we have 105 years of presence, or the equivalent of more than four generations.
It is a long story—and history—this.
And despite our claims to the many ‘firsts’ in the state, such as a first governor of a Philippine descent, an exhibit of our capability indeed, we cannot show much further than that.
The burden of proof remains with us.
In a capitalist economic structure, those who have the money to invest remain the captains of a community’s day-to-day existential narrative, that narrative dictating among others who get to be employed in which job, given certain job requirements.
The playing field is not yet leveled, with social and institutional structures remaining the same as that of the plantation economy days.
The base—or the economic infrastructure—remains in the hands of the same people, or their surrogates, as that of the old days.
Simply put, you do not have the money for capital—or if you wish, big investment—you cannot set the direction on where the Philippine peoples would go for a work to make them live, even when they have those many multicolored dreams to live on.
The service industry—people who work for hotels, resorts, and the similar playgrounds of the rich and financially able—is still dominated by the same people as that of the plantation.
The site of service has changed, true.
We have gone away from the big plantations, even if some have remained rooted there with their soiled hands, gnarled fingers, and burnt skin.
But the service mentality has remained intact among the immigrant peoples of the Philippines.
And this service mentality has been passed on from generation to generation for reasons that are complex, including that infectious and contradictory idea, particularly among Ilokanos—and by extension among immigrants—that one does not have to get an education to get by in Hawaii.
The logic is simple and yet twisted—and reduces the believer to a zealot: ‘You get an education, you get and employment, you earn. You do not get an education, you get an employment, you earn.’
In Ilokano parlance, one of those distorted formulas we hear on the streets, it is called the logic of ‘da same ting.’
Elaborated, it means: with or without education, you earn a living.
Never mind that there are parents who believe otherwise.
The key here is the infectious capacity of that belief—and the reduction of the immigrant people into the new servants of the industry for which Hawaii is known.
Never mind that among the ranks of immigrants working as chambermaids and maintenance people are Philippine college-educated people with an accent, and because of that accent, cannot land in jobs requiring that one has to lose one’s accent.
There is lesson to be learned in this—and to be learned the hard way and with seriousness.
We cannot leave our young infected with this service mentality any longer.
Together with them, we have to explore doors for them to get to college.
Together with them, we have to make them see that going to college, and getting out with a degree, will give them some fighting chance to make their life better, better than what many of us know.
________________
We urge, therefore, our young people who are college-bound, and those who are dreaming of going to college, and their parents, to come and join as at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Experience on February 25.
A Agcaoili/
Observer Editorial, Feb 2012
UH Ilokano Program, UH Manoa Experience
Kallautang
Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
The UH Manoa Experience 2012 and
What It Means To Our Young People
The statistical data on college education retention and promotion among the ranks of children of immigrants in the islands remains something we can only hope for to change for the better—and soon.
In real terms, we have a lot to do to improve our standing in these numbers that remind us we have not done a lot yet.
In real terms, we have to yet to hit a number that will make us say that our immigrant peoples take college education as a matter of obligation to self and to community.
The Obama Administration has never been remiss in its constant reminder that our key to the integral development of the United States, to the enrichment of our community in general, and to the development of our individual capacities for a more qualitative life—in short, to the pursuit of a real and honest-to-goodness American Dream—is dependent on increasing the number of our peoples who have gone to college and have gotten out of there with new expertise, skill, value, and competence.
The production and reproduction of the right mix of knowledge for nation and community building is a nation-state’s political, cultural, and economic commitment.
It is also its best resource, its best capital.
We have an educated population, we have citizenship ideas and practices that are at the service of both our nation and our people.
We have people who are skilled with multicultural sensibilities and competencies, we have ideas and practices that are hewed on tolerance and understanding.
We have people who are skilled in industry and in the professions, we have people who are willing to take part in national development that is not only economic but also human and humane.
These are grand ideals—but all these are at the base of what the UH Manoa Experience is all about.
For several years, we at the University of Hawaii Ilokano Language, Literature, and Culture Program have taken part in this yearly gathering and re-gathering of cultural workers, educators, college students, high school students, and community members and partners.
At the UH Manoa Experience, high students and their parents are given the opportunity to understand what college life is all about.
Booths—some call them tents—are put up, and each both represents a number of the academic programs offered by UH Manoa.
Some other institutions outside the UH System also come to participate, which widens, and enriches, the scope of this academic experience.
The intent is to familiarize the high school students with options for college life, options that given the right mix of interest and abilities, might have help them choose their own career path.
We expect, therefore, a bunch of high school students particularly those with high English Language Literacy population to come and take part in this academic get-together.
Several of the lead participants in the UH Manoa Experience are various programs of the University’s Student for Excellence Equity and Diversity such as the Office for Multicultural Student Services (OMSS) through its Challenge Grant, and the GEAR-Up.
Two public high schools where Ilokano is taught as part of their World Languages curricular offerings have signed up to participate: Waipahu High School and Farrington High School.
The UH Ilokano Program has benefited much from the UH Manoa Experience. Through it, the Program has been able to reach out to many students who have come to take part in this one-day gathering.
In a more particular way, the UH Ilokano Program has been able to draw students across the various program of the University to its Indo-Pacific courses, such as Philippine Critical Discourses, Modern Philippine Film, Philippine Critical Discourses, Philippine Cultural Mapping, Modern Philippine Drama, Philippine Popular Culture, and Philippine Diasporic Literatures.
For those contemplating of going to college, the 2012 UH Manoa Experience is an opportunity for you to see what it takes to go to college, and get out of it with your own college degree.
Mark you calendar, please: February 25, at 9:00 AM, at the UH Manoa grounds.
Observer/
Feb 2012
Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
The UH Manoa Experience 2012 and
What It Means To Our Young People
The statistical data on college education retention and promotion among the ranks of children of immigrants in the islands remains something we can only hope for to change for the better—and soon.
In real terms, we have a lot to do to improve our standing in these numbers that remind us we have not done a lot yet.
In real terms, we have to yet to hit a number that will make us say that our immigrant peoples take college education as a matter of obligation to self and to community.
The Obama Administration has never been remiss in its constant reminder that our key to the integral development of the United States, to the enrichment of our community in general, and to the development of our individual capacities for a more qualitative life—in short, to the pursuit of a real and honest-to-goodness American Dream—is dependent on increasing the number of our peoples who have gone to college and have gotten out of there with new expertise, skill, value, and competence.
The production and reproduction of the right mix of knowledge for nation and community building is a nation-state’s political, cultural, and economic commitment.
It is also its best resource, its best capital.
We have an educated population, we have citizenship ideas and practices that are at the service of both our nation and our people.
We have people who are skilled with multicultural sensibilities and competencies, we have ideas and practices that are hewed on tolerance and understanding.
We have people who are skilled in industry and in the professions, we have people who are willing to take part in national development that is not only economic but also human and humane.
These are grand ideals—but all these are at the base of what the UH Manoa Experience is all about.
For several years, we at the University of Hawaii Ilokano Language, Literature, and Culture Program have taken part in this yearly gathering and re-gathering of cultural workers, educators, college students, high school students, and community members and partners.
At the UH Manoa Experience, high students and their parents are given the opportunity to understand what college life is all about.
Booths—some call them tents—are put up, and each both represents a number of the academic programs offered by UH Manoa.
Some other institutions outside the UH System also come to participate, which widens, and enriches, the scope of this academic experience.
The intent is to familiarize the high school students with options for college life, options that given the right mix of interest and abilities, might have help them choose their own career path.
We expect, therefore, a bunch of high school students particularly those with high English Language Literacy population to come and take part in this academic get-together.
Several of the lead participants in the UH Manoa Experience are various programs of the University’s Student for Excellence Equity and Diversity such as the Office for Multicultural Student Services (OMSS) through its Challenge Grant, and the GEAR-Up.
Two public high schools where Ilokano is taught as part of their World Languages curricular offerings have signed up to participate: Waipahu High School and Farrington High School.
The UH Ilokano Program has benefited much from the UH Manoa Experience. Through it, the Program has been able to reach out to many students who have come to take part in this one-day gathering.
In a more particular way, the UH Ilokano Program has been able to draw students across the various program of the University to its Indo-Pacific courses, such as Philippine Critical Discourses, Modern Philippine Film, Philippine Critical Discourses, Philippine Cultural Mapping, Modern Philippine Drama, Philippine Popular Culture, and Philippine Diasporic Literatures.
For those contemplating of going to college, the 2012 UH Manoa Experience is an opportunity for you to see what it takes to go to college, and get out of it with your own college degree.
Mark you calendar, please: February 25, at 9:00 AM, at the UH Manoa grounds.
Observer/
Feb 2012
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