Jose Rizal: A son of the Yellow Emperor?

In anticipation of the sesquicentennial celebration of Jose Rizal’s birthday on June 19, 2011, I’d like to say that I have always admired him and still do. His labor and ultimate sacrifice for the cause of our independence and the eventual formation of our nation-state would have been enough to maintain his place in my scanty list of Filipino heroes and heroines. But for me, there is much more in him than just being a national icon or a hero. A century and a half after his birth, he is still being defined and redefined. And we will not see the end of it because there is a certain je ne sais quoi about him. It is something that cannot be expressed by the limited appropriation of our national imaginings. It is something that does not reside within the borders of our national mind. It is something quite expansive but also unprotected since it is no longer ours. Specifically, what I have in mind is what the writer Lynn Pan alluded to in her book "Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora"-that the birth of Jose Rizal is the greatest contribution of China to the Philippines. And so, how has Jose Rizal become now? Who is he for others? How is he being remembered? In short, how is he being appropriated? Like many of our Filipino-Chinese population who had self-defined themselves as "Chinoys" rather than "Pinoys," Lynn Pan’s historical account of the global stretch of Chinese diaspora and its intersection with Western imperialism is captivating and illuminating. For her, it doesn’t matter whether Jose Rizal is a fifth-generation Chinese, a mestizo, or from another country, what matters is that like the other overseas Chinese immigrants and their families, he is now either by race, ethnicity, or lore regarded as a son of the Yellow Emperor-the progenitor of the Chinese race all over the world. For me, this makes perfect sense because I have always talked about the diasporic matrix of our identity as a multicultural and inclusive Filipino character, see my previous blog on The Social Construction of Filipino Identities. But most importantly, it makes perfect sense to me because of the persistent construction of our society as a "tradewind culture" and a place of diaspora. As an island nation, it situates us to continually grapple with people, ideas, and change that come to our seas, so to speak. Historically, our archipelago has always been a strategic location for global trade as well as a place of settlement for immigrants-Chinese, Indians, Arabs, British, Spanish, Americans, just to name a few, who came and landed on our shores. Clearly enough, this condition makes our identity inevitably a diasporic one. What is interesting about this identity is that it also simply reaffirms our baranganic origins of old. It could even be said that the barangay is more of a metaphor for journey rather than settlement. For example, consider how we ritually greet our friends with "Where are you going?" In Tagalog, "Saan ka pupunta?" In Ilonggo, "Diin ka makadto?" In Cebuano, "Asa ka paingon?" What does this tell us about how we think and behave? Why would we be concerned where one is going? Why would we make it as our business of knowing one’s destination? Doesn’t this sound rude, if not, crazy? I don’t think so. I think, it tells us how our social life sensitizes us to unconsciously perceive our diasporic condition. In other words, this particular greeting makes perfect sense when interpreted within the context of diaspora. According to Lynn Pan, the Chinese diaspora is embedded in the construction of a modern Filipino society. The Chinese immigrants contribution cannot be underestimated or ignored. Despite, the terrible prejudice and discrimination they encountered and are still encountering, they prevailed. They stayed, intermarried, and became successful begetters of a large segment of the Filipino intelligentsia, leaders, and economic elite of whom Jose Rizal is one of their best representatives and symbols. For me, there is nothing unique about the Chinese immigrants impact to the formation of Philippine society. I have always highly regarded and respected them as the true bourgeoisie of our own particular socio-cultural evolution. During the colonial times, they were a notable, and yet, secondary element of a predominantly agrarian and feudal Philippine society who embodied a different worldview of intellectual, economic, and social arrangement. Through their values, education, wealth, and business acumen, Chinese immigrants and their families imperceptibly sapped the traditional bases of theocratic and colonial domination of religion, land, politics, and economy. As a result, they undermined the footloose foundations of the Spanish mercantile capitalism as well as the American industrial capitalism and replaced it with their own version of capitalism, Confucian-style. Today, more than the impact of western imperialism, is the impact of Chinese diaspora that continually shapes and reshapes our country. Interestingly, our current President PNoy whose mother is former President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, is the great-granddaughter of Co Giok Kuan, Hispanized to Cojuangco, who left the Fukien province in southern China in 1841 or thereabouts for the Philippines. And so, when I think of Jose Rizal today, I think of him not only as a national hero, but also, like so many successful Chinese-Filipino in the various fields of endeavor who in their diasporic imagination, had symbolically returned home in a "silken robe."