Demystifying the root causes of Filipino migration
{This article appeared in the Philippine News Today. Oct.1-15,2007 issue}
 

The ‘Maleta’ Art Exhibit
Gallery Gachet
88 E.Cordova
Vancouver, B.C.

Analysis
By Ted Alcuitas

The Maleta (suitcase).

For every Filipino immigrant or overseas worker, it is an important piece of luggage in his or her journey to the outside world to escape the grinding poverty of the Philippines. Perhaps it could be said that each piece of luggage contains the hopes and dreams of its owner.

It is no accident therefore that Maleta was chosen as a title for this groundbreaking visual arts exhibition by the Vancouver-based Sinag Bayan Cultural Arts Collective which opened to an overflow crowd on October 5th at the Gallery Gachet in Vancouver’s downtown eastside.

“It is our attempt to open up the Maleta and reveal the untold stories of struggles for the millions of Filipino immigrants, and not just the typical ‘song and dance’ that is the public face of immigrant communities,” says Sinag Bayan coordinator Sean Parlan. A recent graduate of the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, the 29-year old graphic designer himself is a product of that struggle. “My parents came to Canada in the hope of ‘improving’ their lives but they faced the same obstacles of racism and exploitation that many of us encounter.”

Carlo Sayo, also an Emily Carr graduate and Sinag Bayan member says “there could be eight million Maletas all over the world waiting to be opened, “ referring to the eight million Filipinos working in practically every country in the world, whose dollar remittances remains the lifeblood of the moribund Philippine economy.

In an eye-catching piece with Allan Cortez and Christian Clamonte with assistance by Alexandria Bathan, the artists meticulously painted five maletas to depict a ‘family’ with each painted as a cartoon character portraying a mother, father and three children.

“ We tried to make the work ‘understandable and approachable and so we choose to do it this way”, he says of the installation which was a big hit with the children who attended the opening.

A collaborative work by 15 young emerging Filipino artists from Vancouver, the exhibit also feature the work of Montreal-based mural artist Wing Diocson- Yap who is artist-in-residence at Gallery Gachet during the month- long exhibition. Manila-based artists Mideo Cruz and Racquel de Loyola will join the group in a joint performance at the closing ceremonies on Saturday October 27.

Most of the young artists are members of the Ugnayan ng Kabataang Pilipino sa Canada – Filipino-Canadian Youth Alliance (UKPC/FCYA), Siklab (Overseas Filipino Workers Organization and the Philippine Women Centre of B.C., all housed at the Kalayaan Centre at 451 Powell St.

The 32-year old Yap, whose father is also an artist, studied Advertising Art at the University of the Philippines before coming to Canada.

“My work and in fact, all of the installations in this exhibition is a collaborative effort and my own mural is a result of hours of discussion with immigrant women, youth and others in the community to find a common thread in their journey of migration,” Yap says of his 19-feet long, six- panel mural. “I am just the instrument in putting the concepts arrived in these discussions into a visual rendition.” he adds.

The mural traces the transformation of the Philippines through periods of colonization from an agricultural economy to what it is today – the world’s largest exporter of people. His work examines the root causes of this massive Diaspora and its impact on the people themselves as they are ‘exported’ to all parts of the world.

Mideo M. Cruz and Racquel De Loyola are both well known in the Philippines for their performance-installation work and have exhibited in other countries. Together with the Sinag Bayan and other Canadian artists, they will close the exhibit with a performance on Saturday, October 27 at 8:00 PM.

Of his work, Cruz says there is no limit to imagination. “To create a better communication and understanding, creative works should not be limited by the established boundaries. All the necessary creative actions should not obstruct the attempts to stimulate all human faculties. It is irrelevant to provide definition to contemporary creative practice since the natural process of progression continues.”

Racquel De Loyola’s work addresses the issues of women, colonization, identity, migration, displacement, capitalism and globalization. Her ‘Mebuyan ‘ project based on an ancient myth of the Bagobo tribe is a contemporary rendition of the myth showing a multi-breasted creature that is the nurturer of the village.

“In contemporary times, it may mean the need to sacrifice in order for the community to continue to exist, or perhaps the motherland providing sustenance to her people,” she says of the project.

“We recognize Sinag Bayan for its innovative practice in expressing through art as a tool to tell stories of the struggles of the community and reach out to Filipinos and non- Filipinos alike,” says Irwin Oostindie, Gallery Gatchet’s general manager. “It is an honour for the gallery to have been chosen as the venue for this significant exhibition ,” he says, adding that the “City of Vancouver should also be acknowledged for its support of the exhibition, which raises the profile of the Filipino artists as an integral part of the Vancouver art community.”

Oostindie has a long association with the Filipino community in Vancouver. In 1999, together with the Philippine Women Centre of B. C., he helped launch the Purple Rose Campaign art exhibit at the Roundhouse Community Centre where he was Communications Coordinator. The exhibit was part of an international campaign to end the trafficking of Filipino women.

By putting up this exhibit of young emerging Filipino artists, Sinag Bayan has moved one step farther in its goal to bring to the Canadian public the stories and experiences of the migrant Filipino.

This exhibition is a departure from the stereotyped portrayal of ethnic communities, which is often depicted in ‘song and dance’. It challenges the viewers’ perception of the Filipino immigrant and deconstructs the image of the Filipino as just another ‘commodity’ serving the labour needs of Canada.

Gallery Gachet
www.gachet.org
tel. 604-687-2468

Kalayaan Centre
www.kalayaancentre.net
Tel. 605-215-1103

-30-

The Site of my Grandfather's House

by Dominador Ilio*

My father once told me that as a boy
he lived in an old mestizo house -- of wood
and thatch -- some dusty kilometers from town.
Set back a goodly distance from the road,
on a rise of land, it lay hid in a grove of trees.

He played kites in the field nearby,
ached with the wish to soar up with the kites
and ride the wind to see far off horizons.
He used to shinny up the orange trees
and from from the topmost branches glimpsed the sea.

Lagter, as a young man, he crossed the sea
and travelled many lands, but never once
returned to that old house. But talk, he did,
repetitively of its arithmetic
and surrounding geography -- the girth and height
of the posts, the many rooms, the termite mounds
that yielded mushrooms after a night of thunders,
the kakawate fence, and the sandstone outcrops,m
down the slope to the spring that never dried up.
He loved that house and loved to tell about it,
each fervid telling brining new architecture
and ghosts to the house.

And so the homestead became
a splendid country estate in my dreams,
with winding lanes under silv'ry trees
and sculptured angels along the sunlit byways.

In time, I crossed the unfamiliar sea
to end my errant father's odyssey.
I braved the aswangs and the one-eyed sigbins
just to see the site of grandpa's house.

A freshly graveled road and then the hillock
-- so overgrown with weeks, and yet so bare.
Unfenced, albino goats despoiled the grounds.
I traced a path that led to a grassy hollow;
the cleft on the layered rock had healed but still
a teary trickle seeped into the dirt
and kept the basin damp. Up on the knoll,
a carpet of green defined the house's geometry
and one one corner stood, good Lord,
a tall, disfigured totem pole.

                                                  Teary-eyed,
I scratched the muck around, hoping to find
a shard of pottery, a colored bead --
oh, any legacy from my forebears.
But all that turned up was clean, sticky clay.
And I choked. For I had found, and held
in my hands the sterile soil, the cruel earth
that drove my father on to his wanderings.

-------------------

Comment of Dom Ilio's student at the College of Engineering:

"Prof, perhaps without meaning to, has written with this poem an elegant apologia for footloose 'wanderers'; for all of them -- not only the boys and girls who left the barrios for the big city, but especially the Filipino expat professionals who streamed to North America beginning the late 1950's"

-----------------------

* Dominador Ibarra Ilio was born on November 5, 1913, in Malinao, Aklan. He used a number of pen names, including Isaias Topacio Domingo, Basilio, Crisostomo de la Cruz, and J.D. Ibarra.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and geodetic engineering from the University of the Philippines, as well as a master’s degree in hydraulics from the State University of Iowa. He also studied groundwater development at the University of Minnesota.

Ilio became part of the faculty of the University of the Philippines and the East Central Colleges, Pampanga; he was also dean of engineering of the Laguna College in San Pablo City.
 

A poet and fiction writer, Ilio attended Paul Engle’s Poetry Workshop in Iowa and received citations at the UP Golden Jubilee Literary Contest and Republic Anniversary Poetry Contest. In addition to becoming editor of The Vigil of Freedom magazine, he was a widely anthologized poet, with such poems as “The Vigil of Freedom” and “Icarus in Catechism Class” appearing in various publications. His books include The Diplomat and Other Poems (1955) and Collected Poems of Dominador I. Ilio (1989).

From: http://www.panitikan.com.ph/authors/i/dilio.htm

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