Atmosfera Rizaliana: Metonymic Journeys of Storm Tropes in José Rizal’s Writing on the Philippines

Stormy weather appears in recurrent instances across the literary and political oeuvre of José Rizal, a nineteenth-century figure who is one of the most significant and well-known personages in Philippine history. This paper analyzes the manner by which he describes storms in a few of his personal and political works, and observes that there is a deployment of metonymic logic that undergirds not only the texts, but a variety of other movements across the nineteenth-century cultural, technological, and political landscape. The metonymic logic of storm tropes are, in this sense, not only a productive literary modality in understanding weather representations during the Philippine fin de siècle, but also become illustrative of political and historical developments during the period. Based on this overarching logic, the paper articulates the possibility of understanding global climate and climate change as a series of interconnected and associated postcolonial and ecocritical experiences that are able to figure the world at large through an alternative expansion. This paper also investigates previous critiques that categorize the Rizaliana’s weather as romantic, and interrogates the assumptions that are deployed in such categorizations – and what they might mean for Philippine postcolonial ecocriticism and its climate imaginaries.

Filipino Festivals in Southern California

Filipino festivals (also “Philippine festivals”) in southern California are lively, dynamic events that draw multigenerational and multicultural crowds to enjoy food, partake in traditional games and crafts, buy Filipino pride gear, and watch a variety of acts that showcase the talent and creativity of Filipino Americans. Inclusive of those who identify as immigrant, U.S.-born, and transnational, Filipinos from across the region convene to express pride and promote visibility as an overlooked and marginalized ethnic group in the United States. The first public performances by Filipinos in the United States were in exhibits curated by colonial officials at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 to justify colonization of the Philippines. Presented as an uncivilized people in need of American tutelage, this stereotyping of Filipinos as primitives motivated pensionados or students from the Philippines to represent themselves; they organized Rizal Day starting in 1905, which valorized national Philippine hero José Rizal, in order to highlight their identity as modern, educated people. New immigrants, who were mostly rural, single men from the northern Philippines, arrived in the 1930s and frequented taxi dance halls in which Filipino jazz musicians and dancers flourished. Yet the established Filipino community criticized these venues as places of vice that were lacking in family and traditional cultural values. Philippine folk dances were not prevalent among Filipino Americans until after the Philippine Bayanihan Folk Dance Company appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. Due to their influence, Filipino American folk dance troupes were established across the nation, presenting Philippine cultures through stylistically diverse dances such as the Indigenous or Tribal suite, the Muslim or “Moro” suite, and the Maria Clara or Spanish-influenced suite. Folk dance performance became a hallmark of festivals such as the Philippine Folk Festival, which has been held annually in San Diego since 1979 (renamed the Philippine Cultural Arts Festival in 1996). In Los Angeles, the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture began in 1992, attracting thousands from around the region. These large-scale public Filipino festivals in southern California offer opportunities to gain insight into the variety of ways in which Filipino Americans creatively express a range of experiences, interests, and concerns. While folk dance troupes and traditional music ensembles such as Spanish-influenced rondalla (plucked string instruments) are most visibly tied to representations of Philippine traditions, rappers, DJs, spoken word artists, hip-hop dance crews, R&B singers, and rock bands demonstrate Filipinos’ mastery of American popular forms. With origins in community celebrations since the early 1900s, Filipino festivals of the early 21st century reflect changes and continuities in California’s Filipino communities, which have adapted to internal dynamics, larger societal forces, and engagement with the homeland of the Philippines.

From Bohemia to Balintawak

This chapter provides a seemingly unusual, but potentially illuminating, vantage point from which to approach the cosmopolitan dimensions of the Philippine Revolution of the late nineteenth century — the Bohemian town of Litoměřice. It recounts the visit of Dr. José Rizal, the great Filipino novelist and celebrated progenitor of Philippine nationalism, to Leitmeritz and his relationship with Ferdinand Blumentritt, a local gymnasium teacher and avid student and scholar of Philippine history and society. The chapter provides a coherent narrative account, one whose emplotment follows the nationalist logic so prevalent in the study of Southeast Asian history. On the one hand, the revolution is said to have been led from above by urban — and highly urbane — educated young men familiar from Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, Filipino nationalists who emerged from Spanish colonial schools in the Philippines. On the other hand, the Philippine Revolution is also said to have been driven from below by a broader pool of the Filipino masses, by peasants and fishermen across the provinces of the archipelago, and by artisanal laborers in Manila and other port cities. The chapter argues that the struggles leading up to the Philippine Revolution can be understood in terms of what scholars have termed the “Culture Wars” of the late nineteenth century, a transcontinental if not global conflict pitting “anticlerical” scientists, Freemasons, liberals, and republicans against the Catholic Church in its ultramontane incarnation.

Factors Predict Employability of Graduates: Evidence in Jose Rizal Memorial State University

The goal of this research was to track graduates to their destination and employment status. The researchers used the modified survey questionnaire developed from the researchers and served as the method for data collection. Further, information was also obtained from yahoo and Facebook accounts and mobile or cellular phones. Of the 377 respondents, 288 graduates participated in the study and were drawn randomly from the master lists of 6,677 graduates of various academic programs offered from five-year spans School Year 2006 to 2010. The findings showed that the majority in their current position is casuals. It also showed that most of the respondents work in businesses or organizations related to education, wholesale and retail trade, financial intermediation, development, and public administration. Most of them, their present work is connected to the course they took at college. Programs with the highest percentage of working graduates, JRMSU ranked Engineering as the top program offered. Teacher education, on the other hand, has more employed graduates with the highest potential for full initial earnings. Finally, the profile information that best predicts the graduates' employment likelihood is gender, GPA, and licensure exam.

Unearthing Historical Violence in the Lives of Filipino Istambays Using Rizal’s Theory of the Colonial Philippines

This essay introduces the concept of ‘historical violence’ in the lives of young Filipinos, especially those who are unemployed and referred to locally as the istambay (on standby) phenomenon. Drawing on the work of José Rizal, a nineteenth-century Filipino social thinker and activist, the essay offers a dialogue between the past and present locating the istambay phenomenon in the colonial experience of a nation. It argues for the necessity of historicizing violence, and recognizing the violent effects of colonialism, in order to understand and challenge stereotypes such as those regarding young Filipinos’ attitudes toward work. Historical accounts demonstrate how colonization continues to affect life stages such as youth. Rizal’s narratives of sustainability, precolonial history, and globalization are linked to current sociologies of youth, religion, and public policy.

Movimientos asociativos en la masonería española en Filipinas

A partir de 1880 España no fue capaz de manejar el Pacífico español debido a su caduco sistema administrativo. La brecha entre peninsulares y nativos se fue agrandando y entre ellos se situó una emergente élite de filipinos educados en centros españoles, con una cuidada ilustración, que comenzó a tener ideas propias. La estancia de varios de ellos en la Península les brindó la oportunidad de agruparse en asociaciones e instituciones como la masonería y alrededor de destacados personajes como José Rizal o Miguel Morayta, con el único fin de dar a conocer la problemática filipina y conseguir reformas modernizadoras.