Washington, D.C. is one of the greatest cities in the world. Over the decades, a myriad of minorities have come and gone in this renowned seat of American political power with many of them establishing residence there.
It is not widely known that Filipinos are intimately interwoven with Washington’s past. In “Philippine-American Heritage in Washington, D.C.”, Professor Erwin R.Tiongson provides us with an illuminating look at the historical, architectural, and cultural landscape of Washington’s past and Filipinos’ noteworthy association with it.
“Philippine-American Heritage in Washington'' is the product of Tiongson and his family’s research and collection of historical facts. It is on account of the Tiongsons that readers of this book will learn that Filipinos have been a living expression of the diversity and vibrancy of Washington, D.C. for a very long time.
Professor Tiongson is not a historian by scholarly trade. But the good professor shows more than a competent skill in historical retrieval and organization. Equally impressive is Tiongson’s grasp and understanding of how the Filipino experience in Washington has reflected the wider context of the U.S.-Philippine bilateral history.
Stemming from that patron-client historical background, Filipinos from the home country were subjected to the various push and pull factors that encouraged them to emigrate to America. Many of these immigrants---beginning with the “pensionados” at the start of the 20th century---would end up in the Washington, D.C. area where they would put down long-lasting roots. Filipinos would consistently and constructively apply their values, skills, talents, and sensibilities to the city’s private and public spheres.
First in thought and then in practice, generations of Filipinos would follow in their Washington, D.C. forebearer’s footsteps. From education to literature and the arts, from the diplomatic corps to the service industry, Filipinos were doing their part to affect Washington D.C. primed as they were with their cultural-personal themes and discourses, and with their shared historical legacy with America.
One of the revealing parts unknown in “Philippine-American Heritage in Washington” is how the design of Philippine architectural and open locales where people leisurely walked and congregated dovetailed in several ways with the man-made topography of Washington, D.C. This was neither accidental nor coincidental. Tiongson writes: “Such inspiration in architecture and public spaces flowed both ways,” meaning that building and public space influences were a two-way street joining Washington D.C. and the Philippines.
Tiongson refers specifically to the identifiable association and congruence that couple Manila’s revered Luneta Park with Washington D.C.’s National Mall. He does so by citing and quoting Daniel Doeppers, a historian of the city of Manila: “The Luneta’s conceptual similarity to the national mall in Washington, D.C. can hardly be missed.” Tiongson adds to Doeppers’s reading of one feature of the Philippine-American heritage by writing “remarkably, Manila's Luneta Park itself would subsequently reshape Washington's landscape.”
This landscape architectural process of becoming that ties Luneta Park with Washington, D.C. owes a debt to Helen Herron Taft, the wife of the first American colonial governor of the Philippines and the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft. During her husband’s Philippine tenure, Helen Taft was enamored with the Luneta after assorted flâneuristic diversions with Howard there.
This sentiment on Helen’s part would carry over into Howard’s ascension to the US presidency nine years after the turn of the century. Indeed, the memory of Luneta Park never left her as the First Lady sought to emulate the Manila site in Washington, D.C. The city’s Potomac Park was chosen by Helen to be fashioned, in her words, “into a glorified Luneta, where all Washington could meet, either on foot, or in vehicles, at five o'clock on certain evenings, listen to band concerts and enjoy such recreation as no other spot in Washington could afford.”
Tiongson did not have to look too much further past Potomac Park to give his conclusive take on the historical symmetry between Manila and Washington: “The two cities, D.C. and Manila, evolved together.” An eminent edifice that played a distinguished role in that trans-Pacific evolution is the White House, which has welcomed a long procession of Philippine luminaries over the years, namely Manuel Quezon, Sergio Osmeña to name a few.
Tiongson acquaints us with interesting details about how Philippine cultural items made their way into the White House decor. During the Truman administration, a mahogany dining table from the Philippines was presented to the residence. When Philippine President Diosdado Macapagal visited Washington in 1963, he added to the Kennedy White House furnishings with an artwork by Fernando Amorsolo, a national artist of the Philippines.
“Philippine-American Heritage in Washington, D.C.” is an excellent repository of a history grounded in a mutually beneficial---if hegemonic and controversial---symbiosis linking a former colonizer and its former colony. What Professor Erwin R. Tiongson concisely exhibits in his book are some of the merits of that requited exchange of ideas and variety of forms, particularly as they pertain to the singular institutional metropolis that is Washington, D.C.
ALLEN GABORRO
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