The Philippines: The Culture Of The Philippines

The philippines is a country located in Southeast Asia in the Western Pacific made up of 7,107 islands. “The entire landmass of the Philippines is made up islands, making it the second-largest archipelago in the world (“Huffington Post”). Manila the capital city of the Philippines is ranked as number one with the highest population density in the world. With a growth rate of 2 percent every year it is also known as one of the fastest growing countries. The philippines and the United States have had what is known as a special relationship throughout the last few decades. In fact a research done by Research Center Global Attitudes Project says that Filipinos have a 85% positive view of Americans and America. The same Philippine respondents have also claimed that America has had a great deal of positive influence in their country.

As soon as Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris on December 10, this officially handed over the Philippines to American control. With adding more troops over the years to win battles, to win the confidence, respect, and loyalty of the population, America engaged in a great deal of what is today called “nation building.” Like the European colonizers, the United States poured more into their territories it acquired than it took. Many leaders have come through setting up parties and elections and making their mark of what they’ve done. Many years following the Spanish-American War, the United States would intervene in the affairs of Caribbean islands and Latin American

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

The Filipinos had been fighting the Spanish prior to the arrival of the U.S. Aguinaldo knew he needed a major power to help him with his struggle. Aguinaldo met with Dewey in Hong Kong and sailed with him to the Philippines. After Dewey’s naval victory in the Manila Bay, Aguinaldo believed he could begin Filipino independence so he formed his government based on the U.S. Constitution. However, the U. S. turned against him when they annexed the island nation. McKinley justified his position saying it would take them 100 years to understand what true freedom means (book, p.672).

To justify the case for the annexation of the Philippines, we must first look at a snapshot of the Philippine archipelago to understand the advantages the islands provided the United States. The Philippines was a vast chain consisting of over 7,000 islands, with 74 provinces, 43 different ethnic groups, and 87 different spoken languages. The population around 1899

The reason was for the American imperialism, which was the economic profit and the belief of the American supremacy. According to Albert J. Beveridge in his speech, he believed that Filipino people were seen as bad people (considered as a not self- governing race). But the Phillipines and the United States seemed to be all about profit with the trading. The islands were the base for trade with the East and provided power over the Pacific in case of future wars They consisted of a numerous amounts of: resources, vegetable and mineral wealth. Most of the wood of the Philippines can supply the furniture of the world for a century to come and the wood, hemp, copra, and other products of the Philippines supply. The economical reasons showed a mean to develop an important commercial power, and a commercial base in the Pacific. One of the solutions would be China due to the huge market and natural customers. But nothing is so natural as trade with one 's neighbors. The Philippines make the U.S the nearest neighbors of the East. But,

Over the last month I have had the opportunity to spend time with some friends of our family. The culture in which I had the privilege was the Philippine Culture in Hercules, California, where the entire town is predominantly Filipino. The culture is rich in heritage and tradition as will be expressed throughout the remainder of this essay.

Our country is rich in culture; the occupation of the Spanish, the American, and the Japanese gave the Philippines its diverse and unique culture. This exceptional culture we have in our country has produced numerous brilliant individuals, who up to this day are still well recognized. So it is safe to say that part of the reason why they became who they were is because of their culture; because of our culture. (Ong, 2011)

Filipino club welcomes many new members each year and some of those members aren’t only new to the club, but the country as well.

There was an establishment of a Spanish base in the Philippines. It was first encountered when Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the globe from 1519 to 1521. The philippines had been organized in miniscule competitive chiefdoms. The Spanish took them over between 1565 and 1650, and established full colonial rule. The Philippines remained a Spanish colonial territory until 1898. The Filipino society was the only major Christian outpost in Asia. The Spaniards introduced forced relocation, tax, tributes, and unpaid labor. There were periodic revolts by the Chinese population. The Spaniards expelled or massacred them several

 299.735 km²  Capital: Manila  92.337.852 inhabitants  45,2% living below US$2 a day (2006)

The terrain of the Philippines is very interesting to say the least. These islands are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire which gives them the origin of being mountainous and volcanic. The land of the islands are mainly composed of swift-running streams and very coastal plains. Even though the islands contain many rivers and plains, a few of them are large and very difficult to navigate. “The archipelago of the islands includes over 7000 island and the land has an area of 300,780 km²” (Maelstorm,

The Philippines, is a group of islands in Southeast Asia, sitting in the western Pacific Ocean. It is known as the Republic of the Philippines, and consists of seven thousand, one hundred, and seven islands, that are geographically split into three main divisions, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital is Manila, referred to as the Paris of Asia, and the most populated is Quezon City, which are both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has a population of close to one hundred,

Under the increasing pressures of a patriarchal society to follow their standards of a perfect woman, I was trained to dismiss my attraction to men’s activities and embody a fit and exaggerated feminine figure- all while maintaining a discreet and private lifestyle. As a low-income fulltime student, class has become a factor in my accessibility to obtaining a healthy and nutritious diet. This has prevented my ability to achieve a full, curvy womanly figure that social media has glorified. These ideal physical attributes contradict my Filipino culture’s idealization of mental attributes. While feminine qualities of the body are emphasized, my culture’s constructs of a private lifestyle de-emphasize excessive qualities and rather imposes women be submissive, pure, and domestic. This uptake of the private realm also placed implications on how I should do my gender, which arose negative stigma when I did my gender as a boy. Culture, gender, and class all interact to serve as proximate mechanisms that contribute to my current subject position as a skinny low-income female student under a patriarchy. The Gender Similarities Hypothesis and A Question of Class shaped my understanding of how blatantly accepting pre-existing truth claims without challenging them contributes to how my Filipino culture legitimizes gender expectations, which in turn imposes body expectations limited by class.

The foundation of the Philippine culture is a mixture of a variety of other cultures that has a long standing history within the