The Ilustrado’s Orphan: Generational Misrecognition and the Filipino Self

Abstract

From being the language of the first Republic of the Philippines, Spanish practically vanished in the archipelago. Its disappearance was not a natural process, but a projected program aimed at erasing its role in building the Philippine nation and the Filipino self, starting from childhood. By constructing a new historical narrative and pedagogical intervention taught to infants, the United States of America created a generational break between Filipinos that ended in the estrangement with the written national heritage. This paper focuses on the beginnings of the process towards de-Hispanization during the first part of the American period, and the human and cultural consequences of such for generations of orphans without forefathers.