Displaying ‘wild Igorot savages’

HAPPY WEEKEND
Gina Dizon

“It was wrong of the United States government to allow the display of peoples from the Philippines for amusement,” editor John Dyte of ‘The Igorot’, official publication of Igorot Global Organization said.

Some 50 Igorots were exhibited as “dog-eating” Filipinos during World Fairs as St Louis Fair in 1904 and the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition (AYPE) in 1909. The Igorots were made to eat dogs almost every day in the exhibited Igorot Village in 1909. Same scenario was seen earlier in the 1904 St Louis Missouri Fair. The Igorots were part of a thousand Filipinos who were displayed during these early 19th century Fairs.

Australia-based Steffani Murray who traces her roots from the Mountain Province reminded fellow Igorots to heed the 1909 event, saying , “ no one should have to be paraded like freaks be they humans or animals. We’ve come a long way since then.”
During the 2009 centennial celebration held in Seattle recently first week of June, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was quick to acknowledge the wrong done in 1909.

In his speech during the opening AYPE ceremonies, Nickels said, “what our people did to your people in 1909 is an embarrassment to us and had it happened during our time, we would have never stood for it”.

As the event proceeded, Seattle-based Fil- Ams affiliated with Anakbayan demanded for public apology from the University of Washing ton and the City of Seattle for a ‘historic wrong’ done in 1909. They called the event as ‘racist’ which created stereotypes of Filipinos.

However, while she acknowledged the statement of Mayor Nickles, Mia Apolinar- Abeya, descendant of one of the Igorot participants to the 1904 and 1909 Fairs, said in her letter to Anakbayan-Seattle, “to ask a society that was not even present a hundred years ago to apologize for “displaying” our ancestors in a degrading fashion is a moot point by now”.
With the conduct of Fairs which apparently were meant to educate the public on the existence of ethnic tribes from different parts of the world, racial discrimination continues to be experienced especially amongst colored races through the stretch of the 19th century on to the early part of the 20th century. Critics say these freak Fairs instead legitimized racial discrimination.

Racial discrimination rears its ugly head at this present times such that Seattle Fil-Ams in their public campaign said, “many Filipino-Americans in Seattle and across the United States continue to be called racial slurs such as “dog-eaters”.

In the hope that the Igorot will be better appreciated of who he/she is and that she/he is one among the rest of the peoples as human with a distinct culture, the Igorot village was re-enacted as part of the three-day annual Pagdiriwang event of Seattle, with activities as rice pounding, rice-wine making, basket weaving, and woodcarving, and showing of an Igorot legend called Sleeping Beauty.

This year’s theme, "Igorot Village Revisited, honors the Igorot people of the Philippine island of Luzon as a tribute to the centennial of the tribe’s participation in the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition”. Dyte and other members of an Igorot panel who discussed related issues during the AYPE centennial celebration said, Igorots who were led to the 1909 AYPE in Seattle entered so under an employer-employee relationship. They said the Igorots were paid for their services. Dyte and the rest of the panel including Maria Luz Fang-asan and US –based Fred Cordova, Albert Bacdayan and Petra Angpao-Durrance were one in saying the Igorots were “were not coerced.”

The 2009 centennial celebration of the AYPE Centennial Celebration was jointly celebrated by the Filipino American Historical Society, the Filipino Cultural Heritage Society of Washington, BIBAK Pacific Northwest (PNW), BIMAAK District of Columbia (DC) and BIBAK British Columbia.

The City of Seattle gave a city grant in the amount of $5000.00 to fund the building of five huts for the Igorot Village, Gloria Golocan, PRO of BIBAK Pacific NW reports.
Michael Herschensohn from the Mayor’s office and Chair of the AYPE celebration said that BIBAK “efforts should be recognized by the larger Filipino community which in my view must make absolutely sure that there is an Igorot presence at every Pagdiriwang.” The $5,000 is part of the 2008 proposed budget of Seattle Mayor Nickels which provides $200,000 to begin preparations for the 2009 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific-Expedition (AYPE) centennial celebration.

The 1909 event opened its doors to the world with the first AYPE bringing Seattle worldwide recognition as an ambitious port city and commercial center of the Pacific coast. The 1909 AYPE was the first event to feature the Pacific Northwest on the scale of a World’s Fair and attracted 3.7 million visitors to what has since become the University of Washington campus.

It was in 1909 when the harsh realities of World War I and the Great Depression were years away that civic leaders decided it was ‘time to put Seattle on the map’ and stage the global AYPE to attract more residents and trade in both national and international dimensions.