The following sections explore how cultural minorities in the Philippines were represented in images and writings from the Spanish era to the two decades after Philippine independence in 1946. In particular, it focuses on Muslims and Chinese in the Philippines. For this purpose, we have retrived images and articles from the rare periodicals repository of the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Library, which allow us a glimpse on the ideas disseminated to a wide population, including the ways in which diverse inhabitants of the Philippines were portrayed. Understanding the representation of minority groups affords us reflections about belongingness and cultural plurality, and to confront mutual prejudices in the present day.
The ethno-legal classifications for Muslim and Chinese inhabitants of the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era were ‘Moro’ and ‘Sangley’, respectively. The presence of populations of different faiths and cultures, and their embeddedness in trade networks, conflicted with the colonial goals of dominating trade and ‘civilizing’ and Christianizing the local population. In this sense, the institution of categorical differences between local ‘Indios’, ‘Moros’, and ‘Sangley’ was seen as a strategic and administrative necessity.
Credits
Frances Cruz