By Ellen-Rae Cachola, exhibit curator
From October 19 to November 30, 2021, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hamilton Library (first floor Bridge Gallery) is featuring “Filipina/x in Hawaiʻi: Our Movements, Archives, & Memories” in observance of Filipino American History month. Some featured exhibit items have been digitized and stored at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Hamilton Library eVols institutional repository.
This exhibit features Urban Babaylan, a Filipina/x community group based on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi, that has committed to decolonization and demilitarization by responding to Indigenous movements in Hawai’i and in the Philippines. Members of Urban Babaylan mentored other community members to continue this work, leading to the creation of Women’s Voices, Women Speak (WVWS), Decolonial Pin@ys, among many organizations.
This exhibit offers some community-based and scholarly Filipin@/x diasporic research and dialogue with Kanaka Maoli (a term that Native Hawaiian people call themselves) principles and practices of living Aloha ʻĀina.
On the walls of this exhibit, are the visual art pieces of “Ilaw”, “Kalayaan”, and “Kaluluwa”, written in Baybayin, the Tagalog pre-colonial writing system. They also include batok designs used in traditional Ilocano and Cordillera tattooing. “Kalayaan”, has a mauna (mountain), symbolizing the artist’s message of calling Filipinos to support the Kanaka Maoli movement to protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty-Meter Telescope, based on a deeper understanding of our own heritages (Created by Chris Lipat).
A display case features Philippine Indigenous cultural items & art works, such as kali sticks, Tʻboli woven belt and handkerchief, as well as pictures and writings items that document the formation of Urban Babaylan and Women’s Voices Women Speak.
A handmade book of poems created by WVWS’s 2007 Delegation as a ho’okupu (Kanaka Maoli word for gift) to participants of the International Women’s Network Against Militarism gathering in San Francisco (Courtesy of Ellen-Rae Cachola).
Some of the campaigns of Decolonial Pin@ys weave the sovereignty struggles of Indigenous peoples of the Philippines and of Hawaiʻi are also on display.
There is also a computer monitor in the exhibition floor that plays an excerpt from a documentary “Women Against Militarism: Reclaiming Life, Land, & Spirit,” by Bernadette “Gigi” Miranda, which covers testimonies of Kanaka Maoli and Filipina organizers speaking out against the use of Kanaka Maoli land for military training for jungle warfare in Mindanao, Philippines.
Lumad Bakwit Cards are also on display created by Mindanao students from ALCADEV and TRIFPSS who advocate to Philippine and international communities to help them save their schools and lands from military and extractive industriess. (Courtesy of Reyna R. Hayashi).