La Leyenda Negra Myth Or Reality

The Filipino people value family, religion, selflessness and a hard work ethic. The culture of the Philippines is very family orientated, and the people value their Catholic religion above anything else. For the Experimental Learning Project, I interviewed Clavel Wells and she was born in the Philippines. She was fortunate enough to have grown up in a household that did not face extreme poverty, although that did not take away from her hard work ethic. Growing up in the Phillipines, everyone worked in the household to support the family. That has transpired into her life in America, and now she regularly works hard as her role as an LPN. She ensures to respect everyone she cares for, regardless of their cultural

“...We govern our children without their consent...Would not the people of the Philippines prefer the just, human, civilizing government of this Republic…” (Doc B, Albert J. Beveridge). I disagree with this black and white view of the world. The Filipinos are grown people capable of making the best decision for themselves. Children are not (due to their undeveloped frontal lobes). They do not need America to save them. They wanted freedom enough to attempt war with Spain, a global power, so they have earned that

14. La Llorona – Is based on an old Hispanic urban legend revolving around the ghost of a woman who drowned her children in a river. She is also known as “The Weeping Woman”, is said to let out deep cries. This story is often used by parents to scare children from wandering the streets at night.

The legend, La Llorona or the weeping woman is one of the best known classic Hispanic tales. Many versions of La Llorona are told universally, but has origin roots from Mexico. This folklore typically involves a restless, ghostly entity as a beautiful lady dressed in white who wanders at night and is seen or heard wailing for her dead children. Because of a heartbreak la Llorona killed her own children. It is said that her soul now wanders sadly calling her children appearing mysteriously in different areas especially along rivers, oceans or other bodies of water. Many believe myths or legends are only for entertainment, but some can have an underlying message.

Upon orders of the King of Spain and help from a beautiful young lady, Cortez is encouraged to return but won’t do so without his children. Upon telling Malinche of his decision and separation, she escapes with her two kids and is surrounded next to a lake by the men sent by Cortez. Having been inevitable to be captured, she stabs her children with a dagger to the heart and sends their bodies down the lake. Contemporary legends have transfigured the story of Malinche to attribute the legend of La Llorona. The story of La Llorona traces back to many years ago, referring to a woman of pure elegance and beauty. Having been the gem of her town, she belittles and neglects all the gentlemen with a pretentious attitude and superior ego. Claiming that she deserves, she awaits in anticipation the man made of perfection. Upon having met, they born two children but the appreciation he devotes to her has vanished. The attention and admiration has now gone to the kids and seemed to care nothing for her. After a few years, she’s insight of her husbands and kids with another

A Guatemalan native, a male graduate student that I work with in my research group at the University told this story. He came from the countryside, living in a small village back home. According to him, the story of La Llorona, involving a weeping woman, arose sometime in the 1700s and became well known both at school and home. Some claimed to have actually seen the weeping woman. Some disregard it as unscientific and implausible. No one is sure of the exact origin of this urban legend. This story was told to me and another graduate student in our research group while sitting in lab waiting for the experiment results. The story began as we started sharing our own background and the culture of our own countries when the storyteller

La Llorona developed long long time ago in the hispanic region. The myth was developed over 500 years ago in a small village that La Llorona was living in and where she died. La Llorona is a beautiful lady but very dangerous. She was crazy, well, that is what everyone says. This myth has been changed throughout the time.

At the age of eight, the rest of my family moved to the U.S, it was not a completely foreign country to us, American movies were played in Filipino theaters and I’ve heard plenty of stories about the country through my parents. Surprisingly, although Philippines is one of the third world country, almost everyone can speak English due the fact that English is one the primary languages spoken alongside

People haven’t been too sure that La Malinche is the same woman they have heard crying out being that there have been several different women depicted in these stories. So they just nicknamed her La Llorona (the Weeping Woman) just like in the story before.

Many people whom of which were for imperialism claimed that broadening the United Sates’ horizons would bring about trade and business, as well as religious opportunities. With the Philippines being so close to China, the U.S. clearly trade and new market opportunities that held the potential to boost the nations economy. Many protestant church missionaries saw that annexing the Philippines would be a prime opportunity to evangelize the inhabitants in order to spread what they believed to be the superior religion, Christianity. Many Anti-Imperialists believed that annexing the Philippines was against everything that the U.S. stood for. They believed that taking over new lands was unconstitutional and morally wrong. It was against the political culture and beliefs that had been established by generations of pioneers throughout the history of the United States. Clearly there were many reasons to debate over the annexation over the Philippines. Would the economic and religious endeavors be worth the cost of a great nations morally sound

The Philippines have various cultures because it was colonized by different countries which influenced most of the cultures. From what I experienced people in the Philippines are always open. They always have a warm welcome whenever they meet new people, they are always open to making new friends from what I have experienced. I think there is racism in the Philippines but I have never seen it or I have not experienced it. The people I associated with are not racist, they were very open, whenever there is someone that is not the same race. When it comes to families, our families treat each other like relatives and we trust each other. I grew up with Filipino and a little bit of Portuguese culture since my dad was Portuguese. I say that because there are some things we do differently and how my dad acts or protects us. We had the opportunity to socialize with people in our neighborhoods, we would always play outside like tagu taguan, agawan base, patintero and more. Tagu Taguan is a Filipino version of hide and seek, agawan base is basically there are two teams who has their own bases and

These reasons were one, we could not give them back to Spain, it would be cowardly and dishonorable; two, we could not give them to France or Germany, it would be bad for business and discreditable; three, we could not leave them for themselves, they were unfit for self government; four, there was nothing left to do but take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them. Our new policy of imperialism eventually caused the Philippines to revolt against

Because of this mentality, we suppressed the Philippines when we forced our religion onto them. The United States felt that Christianity was a superior religion and that all should have our religion. So we not only forced our religion but also our way of life on them. The Philippine nation, like others, did not have the forces needed to stand up against the United States and were forced to be under our rule. Democracy is also something we claim to believe in.

Another is that Filipinos have a culture of apathy and tend to use religion incorrectly and passively. People depend on religion and settle for what’s okay. In addition, the initial reaction of Filipinos to change is resistance, and this is why the country does not necessarily progress, or at least, progress at a continuous rate. Then, countries like Spain and Portugal only rode the “economic tiger” after “they realized that the only way to survive was change” (3.Y). Plus, according to another critic, the Philippines already had the experience of being under the parliamentary system during the time of Marcos which only resulted in a People Power Revolution. So why should the country bother going back to that? (4.Y)

Spain is one of the foreign countries that colonized our country for more than three hundred years. They are the reason why Filipinos experienced suffered, hardship, persecution etc. during their colonization. But the Spanish had also contributes good things in our country specially to us Filipinos.