Open Collections

Description

Identity formation is a difficult process for members of the diasporic community, including the Filipino diasporic community. As the anonymous artist discusses, there are a lot of dynamics to consider – Am I abandoning people from the Philippines? To what extent do I embody a Canadian versus Filipino identity? How do people think about my English – is it too Filipino-accented for me to sound Canadian, or is it too Canadian-accented for me to sound Filipino? Ultimately, the big question is “Who am I?” While it’s a cliché to talk about this question, it’s a cliché precisely because of how commonplace it is. The anonymous artist decided to use a novel medium to explore all these ideas, and to ask a very important question – in the Filipino context, how might the interplay of colonial and nativist influences affect the experience of acculturation among Filipinos migrating to another context with an interplay between a different colonial influence, progressivism, and cultural protectionism?