I Am an Archipelago

Abstract of ThesisI Am an Archipelago I am both the Colonized and the Colonizer. My research-based creative practice is a reclamation of my inheritances as a second-generation Filipina American. The violent American conquest of the Philippines that began in 1898 swiftly transitioned into placing education systems on the archipelago. It was a way to indoctrinate the masses into believing that the US, presenting itself as the benevolent benefactor, would always be superior. It systematically wore away remnants of ancestral ways of life. I am a legacy of this successful colonial experiment. How can this paradoxical identity generate both accountability and healing for the colonial trauma I carry? My research is based on Philippine American histories but is relevant for anyone who is questioning the way the United States teaches and remembers its own history. When erasure of histories is instituted in education systems, the result is a flawed public memory that perpetuates a glorification of the oppressor, the United States. The flip side of that is vilification of the oppressed. These are pledges of allegiance to bigotry and continued harm toward the most vulnerable groups in American society. Without accountability for these harms, it is impossible to heal. My practice of reclamation centers and re-envisions the grace, magic, ferocity, healing power, humor and scrappiness of my Filipina inheritance. It helps re-distribute the weight of the violent conquest of land, body, and mind that are the pieces of my American inheritance. My research-driven practice deploys ritual interventions at historical locations in Washington DC to account for and heal these dis-remembered pieces. Methodically, I reassemble my archipelago.

Author

• Villadolid, Tina

Language

• en

Keyword

• Philippine-US relations
• Colonial Mentality
• Inheritances
• Mourning as Resistance
• Reclamation
• Experimental Materiality

Date created

• 2023

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Fine Arts

Degree

• M.F.A.

Advisor

• Montoya, Maria del Carmen

Committee Member(s)

• Carlson, Michele
• Rigg, Siobhan

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/wm117p81x