Autobiography

Autobiography of a 2nd Generation Filipino-American

Looking back at my life, so many influences and events have shaped the way I am, now being
a 2nd generation Filipino-American UCLA student. From the time I was born on April 29, 1985 until I
entered my second year of college at UCLA, I grew up being oblivious as to how and why I was the
way I was, with my personality, my dealings with other people, and more approach towards education.
It wasn’t until halfway through my college career that I began to realize the impact that history had on
my life. Coming from a low-class family background, born and raised up mostly in Los Angeles and for
a few years in a city in the Philippines called Baguio, my decisions in life and consequently my
experiences leading up to the present times have been linked to history. Specifically, the history of my
own parents and the history of the Philippines are ultimately related to how my life experiences in the
past 21 years have come about.
Beginning with the history of my parents, it all traces back to our homeland, the Philippines. Both
of my parents grew up in small rural farming towns, miles away from the main city center of Manila.
Growing up in small towns, the only exposure they had to American life were their relatives who lived
in Manila during the 1970s. From these urban dwelling relatives, they had notions about the U.S. from
television and newspapers. My father was first exposed to the idea of joining the U.S. Navy from one
of those relatives. With the allure of gaining economic success, modern conveniences, and eventually
a life of prosperity, my father made the critical decision to move to the United States by joining the
Navy. From this decision, my father was able to come to America and settle in Los Angeles after his
term was over. As for my mother, she was never really exposed to American life as well, except from
her own uncle who was living in Los Angeles for about 20 years after migrating from Hawaii where he
worked at the Dole Pineapple Plantation during the 1930s. She was also told about the riches and more
prosperous life one can have while living in the United States compared to the life they already had in
rural Philippines. From this experience, my mother made the crucial decision to immigrate to the United
States in hoping to experience a new and better life. Clearly, both of my parents were highly influenced
by other Filipinos’ perspectives about American lifestyles.
Coming to America, they began to absorb and understand the American culture and with it, its
cultural beliefs and practices. This exposure to such American ideologies greatly influenced the
decisions I made growing up, especially when it came to education and the lifestyle I led. As a child
born and raised in the urban areas of Los Angeles, I grew up mostly around Latinos since there weren’t
many Filipinos in my neighborhood. From this lack of cultural connection to most of my friends, I never
really understood my own identity as a Filipino American. Even from my own parents, they never really
pushed for me to learn Tagalog or about the history of the Philippines. I did not know back then, but
the main reason why my parents never really promoted my brother and me to understand our Filipino
heritage was the fact that they themselves had an “American” mentality. This mentality included the
American cultural beliefs which they were exposed to and taught when they first came to the United
States. These American beliefs incorporated the idea that the only way to be successful in America is
to assimilate into the American way of living, one in which going through the American educational
system, with its lack of cultural/ethnic studies, will help in that success. Any other form of education,
such as learning about one’s own culture and history, was not seen as important. From this mentality
that my parents had, all they ever wanted me to do was to be very successful with my academics in
order for me to go to a top notch university and gain a degree that can get me a well-paying career. As
I was growing up, the family pressure to succeed well in academics for my parents dream to be realized
was always present in my mind and encouraged me to do successful which ultimately did occur. It was
not until my experiences in college and specifically, my involvement in a Filipino organization that my
whole life turned into something new and more challenging.
I came into UCLA as a naïve first year in the fall of 2003. During my first year, my only focus was
to become a pharmacist while being a chemistry major. However, my decision to choose chemistry as
a major and pharmacy as a career was highly influenced by my parents, not my own. This decision
became the worst decision of my life. I was nearly dismissed from the university and for the first time in
my life, I felt like I was a failure to myself and more importantly, to my parents. Additionally, I became
anti-social and I did not join any organizations, especially Samahang Pilipino, because of my lack of
connection and exposure to people of my own culture. From that down point of my life, I made an
important decision during my second year that helped me develop into the person I am today. During
that year, I decided to change my life around to make it completely different from my first year. I began
attending Samahang Pilipino meetings and decided to become a cast member and performer of
Samahang Pilipino’s cultural night and I switched my major from chemistry to history and then double
majoring in Asian American Studies. From these decisions, I became exposed to all the things I never
knew about myself, my parents, and of being a Filipino living in America. Being a progressive advocacy
group, Samahang Pilipino was able to introduce to me the historical reasons as to why my parents had
the “American” mentality. By going to Samahang events, I learned that due to the American occupation
of the Philippines during the early half of the 20th century, Filipinos were placed in an Americanized
educational system, which promoted American beliefs about education and careers. Both of my parents
had relatives who had general exposure to such American beliefs, including education. My parents took
those concepts into their minds and it ultimately transpired onto me and my brother. From this historical
fact of the American colonization of the Filipino mind in the Philippines, it became clear to me during
my second year at UCLA that all of the influences that my parents had on me in my decision to come
to UCLA and originally pursue a career in medicine was ultimately linked to the history of the
Philippines. My own discovery of the intersection of my life and Philippine history became the turning
point in the way I began to view the world, my Filipino culture, my family, and of myself. Ever since that
turning point in my life and my mentality, I have grown to recognize that Philippine history and
consequently my parent’s history undeniably account for why my own personal history has been shaped
the way it has.
Now, being a 2nd generation Filipino American fourth year UCLA student and an active member
of Samahang Pilipino, my life experiences and all the knowledge I have been exposed to in the past
three years have contributed to my desire to continually challenge myself in understanding the world
and while being a Samahang peer counselor, to help in developing the mentality of Filipinos/Filipino
Americans at UCLA into a less “colonized and Americanized” mind. The various aspects of my college
career, from being a history and Asian American Studies double major to my involvement in Samahang
Pilipino, have all influenced my own awareness of myself, something that I hope to develop with other
Filipinos/Filipino Americans for the future. After learning from my own life history, I have come to
understand that in order for one to begin to recognize the forces that influences one’s life, one must
look back to the history of one’s parents and more significantly, the history of one’s culture.

Biography
The Biography of Emilio Aguinaldo

Emilio Aguinaldo, (born March 22,1869, near Cavite, Luzon, Philippines— died February 6,
1964, Quezon City), Filipino leader and politician who fought first against Spain and later against the
United States for the independence of the Philippines.
Aguinaldo was of Chinese and Tagalog parentage. He attended San Juan de Letrán College in
Manila but left school early to help his mother run the family farm. In August 1896 he was mayor of
Cavite Viejo (present-day Kawit; adjacent to Cavite city) and was the local leader of the Katipunan, a
revolutionary society that fought bitterly and successfully against the Spanish. In December 1897 he
signed an agreement called the Pact of Biac-na-Bató with the Spanish governor general. Aguinaldo
agreed to leave the Philippines and to remain permanently in exile on condition of a substantial financial
reward from Spain coupled with the promise of liberal reforms. While first in Hong Kong and then in
Singapore, he made arrangements with representatives of the American consulates and of Commodore
George Dewey to return to the Philippines to assist the United States in the war against Spain.
Aguinaldo returned to the Philippines on May 19, 1898, and announced renewal of the struggle
with Spain. The Filipinos, who declared their independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, proclaimed
a provisional republic, of which Aguinaldo was to become president, and in September a revolutionary
assembly met and ratified Filipino independence. However, the Philippines, along with Puerto Rico and
Guam, were ceded by Spain to the United States by the Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December
10, 1898.
Relations between the Americans and the Filipinos were unfriendly and grew steadily worse. On
January 23, 1899, the Malolos Constitution—by virtue of which the Philippines was declared a republic
and which had been approved by the assembly and by Aguinaldo—was proclaimed. Aguinaldo, who
had been president of the provisional government, was elected president.
On the night of February 4 the inevitable conflict between the Americans and Filipinos
surrounding Manila was precipitated. By the morning of February 5 the Filipinos, who had fought
bravely, had been defeated at all points. While the fighting was in progress, Aguinaldo issued a
proclamation of war against the United States, which immediately sent reinforcements to the
Philippines. The Filipino government fled northward. In November 1899 the Filipinos resorted to
guerrilla warfare.
After three years of costly fighting, the insurrection was finally brought to an end when, in a
daring operation on March 23, 1901, led by Gen. Frederick Funston, Aguinaldo was captured in his
secret headquarters at Palanan in northern Luzon. Aguinaldo took an oath of allegiance to the United
States, was granted a pension from the U.S. government, and retired to private life.
In 1935 the commonwealth government of the Philippines was established in preparation for
independence. Aguinaldo ran for president, but he was decisively beaten. He returned to private life
until the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December 1941. The Japanese used Aguinaldo as an
anti-American tool. He made speeches and signed articles. In early 1942 he addressed a radio appeal
to U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur—who at that time was with the U.S. garrison holding out against the
Japanese on Corregidor Island—to surrender (the troops there did surrender in May 1942, but
MacArthur had already been evacuated).
The Americans returned to the Philippines in late 1944, and, after they had retaken Manila in
1945, Aguinaldo was arrested. He and others accused of collaboration with the Japanese were
imprisoned for some months before they were released by presidential amnesty. In 1950 Aguinaldo
was appointed by Pres. Elpidio Quirino as a member of the Council of State. In his later years he
devoted much attention to veterans’ affairs, the promotion of nationalism and democracy in the
Philippines, and the improvement of relations between the Philippines and the United States.