About a year ago, I received a text from Brown’s Southeast Asian Studies Initiative about an upcoming course, taught by SEASI and Filipino Alliance ally Grace Talusan: ENGL 1050Y: “Traces of Empire: Writing Filipino and American Experiences.” The title alone lingered with me — an invitation to follow the traces, to excavate what history had been buried.
While the American colonization of the Philippines is no secret, it is memorialized only in traces within the American imagination. But, the fact that many Americans have forgotten this story is no coincidence: It is the product of historical erasure, an erasure that endures at Brown. To begin undoing it, the University must confront its imperial legacy and offer Tagalog as an act of long-overdue redress.
In her Harvard Crimson op-ed, Eleanor Wikstrom detailed how Harvard’s former president helped spearhead the U.S.’s assault on the instruction of Tagalog, a Filipino language, on the islands. Equally culpable in this assault was Brown alum Prescott Jernegan, who authored the textbooks of the Philippine public education system, which bolstered this colonial subjugation. These books were then utilized by Ivy-educated U.S. soldier-teachers to eviscerate Tagalog.
However, Brown’s insidious ties to the Philippines transcend even this.
As U.S. Secretary of State during the Philippine-American War, John Hay was one of the men primarily responsible for the American colonization of the Philippines, calling the slaughtering of at least 250,000 to one million Filipinos a “splendid little war” — which subsequently pulverized the archipelago’s linguistic sovereignty. In light of this legacy, the least Brown can do is properly promulgate the language its alums have, for so long, aggrandized the erasure of.
Before arriving on campus, incoming Brown freshmen must read an edition of Brown’s Slavery and Justice Report, which elucidates the University’s ties to historical injustices. According to the report, retrospective justice should employ “a formal acknowledgment of an offense; a commitment to truth telling, to ensure that the relevant facts are uncovered, discussed and properly memorialized; and the making of some form of amends in the present to give material substance to expressions of regret and responsibility.”
When it comes to the Philippines — where the University has profited from a history built on the extraction of Filipino resources, labor and sovereignty — Brown has failed in all three arenas.
As per the report, retrospective justice “should reflect Brown’s specific nature as an educational institution,” for “what universities do best is learning and teaching.” By teaching Tagalog, Brown can reconcile its past with its professed commitments to diversity, equity and the ceaseless exhumation of truth, for “every confrontation with historical injustice begins with … upholding the truth, against the inevitable tendencies to deny, extenuate and forget.”
We have seen, via the introduction of Vietnamese courses at Brown, the power of representation. We have witnessed the Vietnamese Students’ Association fight tirelessly to carve out a space for their community’s language, inspiring us with their resolve. And we have seen the impact of Harvard’s ongoing and Yale’s forthcoming Tagalog programs.
I’ve co-led a petition to establish credit-bearing Tagalog classes at Brown — accumulating nearly 1,000 signatures and over 200 testimonies. While a language project may seem frivolous amid the present political uncertainty, the impending graduation of its leading organizers gives it urgency. Nearly half a century in the making, this effort may never be realized if Brown continues to deny, deflect and defer.
Across this campus, this country and the world, Filipinos are made to be invisible. Currently, diversity, equity and inclusion programs are eroding, traces of Filipino genocide are splintering into sanctioned amnesia and legislators are declaring English the official language of our multilingual nation. In this storm of silencing, a Tagalog program would offer our community a glimmer of hope.
Since Filipinos first arrived on America’s continental shores, we have enriched the culture and knowledge of the nation — remaining Ever True to Brown’s mission to preserve “knowledge and understanding” in both historical and contemporary contexts. Let us not forget this past. Let it echo with pride into the present, and let it guide us towards a future where every voice, every culture and every language is celebrated and preserved at Brown — where even the faintest trace of what was is honored, not erased.
Alexa Theodoropoulos ’27 can be reached at alexa_theodoropoulos@brown.edu. Please send responses to this op-ed to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
