Reclaiming the other voice : a post-colonial study on image and identity in Maria Luisa Aguilar Carino's poetry.

• Main Author: Pascual, Michelle J.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 1999
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/1702
• Institution: De La Salle University

Abstract. The Filipino identity has been the topic of heated debate for a long time. It has proven itself elusive and difficult to define, mainly because of the Philippines' geography and history of colonization. Its geographic characteristic of an archipelago makes it difficult to pinpoint a unified identity, while hundreds of years of colonization has left the Filipinos with a hybridized existence that has seen the dominance of imperial influence on culture, practice, and mentality. Of the two, colonization has served as the greater force in othering the indigenous practices and values of the Filipinos. The belief of the West in their superiority has led to the propagation of stereotypes that portray the colonized as inferior and strange. In television, film, and literature, the Filipino is portrayed either as the domestic helper, the dog-eating savage, or the mail-order bride. These stereotypes have reflected the West as superior at the cost of marginalizing the colonized. Sadly though, even the Filipinos themselves have come to believe these stereotypes. This thesis will show that through the poetry of Maria Luisa Aguilar Cariño, the very stereotypes used to silence the voice of the colonized can be used to subvert the text. This subversion allows the reclamation this silenced voice as well as allows for a representation of the Filipino in a manner independent of the colonizer's damaging stereotypes.