Jose Rizal: Pride of the Malay Race

By: Cesar Torres

Perhaps, unknown to the great majority of the 12 million Hispanics or Latinos who constitute more than 35% of the estimated 35 million population of California, the US most populous state, the more than one million Filipinos in California who come from Asia but with Hispanic and Latino sounding names, have so much in common with them. For one, with the exception of Brazil, the Philippines and many Latin American countries, especially Mexico, were colonies of Spain for centuries.

For the Filipinos, whose 7,107 islands now constituting their country was named after the much-married Spanish king, Felipe II — he was married four times — their association with the Spaniards go back to March 16, 1521 when the Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, with his starving and emaciated sailors, sailing under the Spanish flag, landed on Homonhon off the coast of Samar, the Philippines third largest island. Starting from that fateful encounter, the inhabitants of the islands, which the Ancient Chinese referred to as “Ma-yi”, were going to be herded to the Spanish empire for 333 years. And for generations thereafter, they were going to be governed by Spain through the Viceroy of Mexico.

What are some of the more lasting results of this association with Mexico and Latin America? For one, the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade lasted for two centuries and a half. Many towns in Catholic Philippines venerate the Santa Rosa de Lima of Peru, the first saint canonized in the Americas. When Pope Gregory XIII created the bishopric of Manila in 1578, he made it a “suffragan” to the archbishopric of Mexico. There is a town called Mexico in the Philippines, a name chosen by Mexican immigrants to that place. When the Mexicans had wrested their independence from Spain, the revolutionary government expressed its solidarity with the Filipino nationalists. University of the Philippines history professor Jaime Veneracion quotes a secret document shared among the Mexican revolutionaries: "... Should the Philippines succeed in gaining her independence from Spain, we must felicitate her warmly and form an alliance of amity and commerce with her as a sister nation. Moreover, we must resume the intimate Mexico-Philippine relations, as they were during the halcyon days of Acapulco-Manila trade."

In June 1823, a Mexican creole, Captain Andrés Novales, supported by some 800 Filipino soldiers and a group of adventurers from Mexico, creoles and mestizos from Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and other former colonies of Spain in South America, attempted a coup d’etat, a golpe de estado, in Manila. Of course, they failed, were captured and shot by firing squad.

Centuries of interaction has resulted also in many fruits, vegetables and plants being brought to the Philippines from Latin America. Filipino historian Carlos Quirino cites the following: pineapple, arrowroot, peanut, lima and yam beans, balimbing, cassava, chico, papaya, zapote, tomato and squash, tuberose, spider lily, canna, Mexican poppy, camachile for its tanbark, ipil-ipil as a hedge plant, the sensitive mimosa, indigo and achuete for dye, madre de cacao, periwinkle, campanella cactus, lantana, and some kinds of peppers.

From the Philippines comes the “Manila Mangoes”, the sweet, luscious, and cute mangoes sold by the Mexicans in California and a favorite among the Filipinos. And from the Filipino immigrants to Mexico, there are claims of a Filipino being one of the founders of the City of Los Angeles.

In more contemporary times, the Filipinos in California, who like their Mexican amigos were consigned to working in the back-breaking grape, asparagus and other agricultural fields of Califonria, were fated to join a common cause. The Filipinos led by some of their more audacious and courageous leaders such as Philip Vera Cruz, who was instrumental in organizing a union, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), initiated the great grape strike which reverberated around the world. Cesar Chavez, the leader of the Chicano/Mexican workers took over. Today, there is a holiday in California in honor of Cesar Chavez. Sadly, there are not very many Filipinos in America who are aware that a Filipino leader in the California great grape strike, Philip Vera Cruz, ever existed.

But it is in the area of language and culture that Mexico and Latin America on one hand, and the Philippines, on the other hand, are intricately tied together. Precisely because of the common heritage with Latin America, a generation of Filipino students were mandated to study two years of Spanish in high school followed by 24 units -- eight courses -- in college. Philippine policymakers wanted the Filipinos to establish closer relations with their Latin American counterparts in addition to learning the writings of their heroes, the foremost of which was José Rizal, who wrote in Spanish.

Considered a “Universal Genius”, “the Pride of the Malay Race”, “the Gift of God to the Oppressed Malays”, a “Towering Intellect”, Rizal was a doctor of medicine, a man of letters, a linguist, an agronomist, a man of the world. Escaping from the friars in the Philippines, he went to Europe, where he continued his studies in Madrid, Paris, and Heidelberg. Because of his writings, he inspired the Philippine Revolution which ended Spanish rule in the Philippines. He was accused of treason. The charges were baseless. Nevertheless, he was adjudged guilty. And in the morning of December 30, 1896, he was shot by musketry in what is now called the Luneta in Manila. He was 35 years old.

Mi Ultimo Adiós By José Rizal.	My Last Farewell Translated by Charles Derbyshire
Adiós, Patria adorada, región del sol querida, Perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido edén, A darte voy, alegre, la triste, mustia vida; Y fuera más brillante, más fresca, más florida, También por ti la diera, la diera por tu bien.	Farewell, dear Fatherland, clime of the sun caress`d Pearl of the Orient seas, our Eden lost!, Gladly now I go to give thee this faded life`s best, And were it brighter, fresher, or more blest Still would I give it thee, nor count the cost.
Yo muero, cuando veo que el cielo se colora Y al fin anuncia el día, tras lóbrego capuz; Si grana necesitas, para teñir tu aurora, i Vierte la sangre mia, derrámala en buen hora, Y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz!	I die just when I see the dawn break, Through the gloom of night, to herald the day; And if color is lacking my blood thou shalt take, Pour`d out at need for thy dear sake To dye with its crimson the waking ray.
Adiós, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía, Amigos de la infancia, en el perdido hogar; Dad gracias, que descanso del fatigoso día; Ad íos, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría; Adios, queridos seres. Morir es descansar.	Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away, Friends of my childhood in the home dispossessed! Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day! Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened my way; Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is rest!

In the evening before his execution, he wrote the heart-rending poem “Mi Ultimo Adios”. Some of the stanzas are reproduced here.

When America had taken over the Philippines after paying Spain $20 million and waging a terrible and merciless war against the Filipinos, many Filipinos were sent to study in American universities. One of them, Cesar Adib Majul, who became a famous Filipino thinker tells the story of being the object of teasing by his Mexican contemporaries when he was finishing his Ph.D. in Cornell. Because José Rizal was considered an important member of the Spanish “Siglo de Oro”, “Golden Century”, and a fervent nationalist, the Mexican nationalists had memorized “Mi Ultimo Adios”. In contrast, the Filipinos could only remember some lines of this immortal poem.

A Filipino patriot, Adelbert Batica, the undisputed expert on the Uruguayan political phenomenon of the “Frente Amplio”, escaping the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the ‘70s, ended in the highlands of Peru. In one celebration of Peruvian Independence to which he was invited, he was asked to say a few words. He recited some lines from Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios”. He noticed tears streaming from the faces of his Peruvian listeners.

The martyrdom of José Rizal has been commemorated in the Filipino-American community in San Francisco religiously. For two years now, however, the Philippine Consulate under the leadership of Filipino Consul General, Maria Rowena Mendoza Sanchez, has been celebrating Rizal’s martyrdom in the Filipino consulate with ceremonies befitting “The Pride of the Malay Race”, a towering tribute to the Spanish “Siglo de Oro”, the “Golden Century”.

[*Published in “The Filipino Insider”, a monthly supplement of the “San Francisco Chronicle”, of the major newspapers in America with a circulation of 500,000. This piece is in the January 2006 issue of the publication. The author was a former faculty member of the University of the Philippines. He can be reached at Cesar1185@aol.com.]