Castilian, or the Colonial Uncanny: Translation and Vernacular Theater in the Spanish Philippines

This paper examines the origins of nationalism in nineteenth century Philippines through cultural translation practices. Its central thesis is that Filippino nationalism did not originate with the discovery of an indigenous identity by the colonized and his/her subsequent assertion of an essential difference from the colonizer. Rather, its genesis lay in the transmission of messages across social and linguistic borders among diverse people whose identities and identifications were far from settled. The paper traces this process along three fronts: Spanish conversion practices, vernacular plays, and Phillipine nationalist activism. Due to a shortage of missionaries in the archipelago, Spanish clergy chose to learn the numerous languages of the colonized rather than preaching in their own, and in so doing, made translation into an evangelical instrument. This practice rendered native languages ‘foreign’ in some respects to their local users, and turned conversion into a way of identifying with the uncanny presence of alien messages from alien speakers, from within one’s own speech. Because missionary translation localized Christian discourse while at the same time retaining certain Castilian and Latin words deemed sacred in their original forms, translation also instituted a linguistic hierarchy that made local languages appear to be naturally subordinate to Castilian and Latin. Castilian words, most of which were unfamiliar to mass audiences, were also used in the domain of vernacular theater or Comedyas. Rafael argues that it was precisely a widespread mass belief in the link between Castillian’s untranslated foreignness and its perceived telecommunicative properties, which accounted for the popularity of vernacular plays. He thus understands Comedyas as performative modes which mobilized Castilian’s potential for communicating in and through different local languages, across geographic and social distances, and through the boundaries of class. Preceded by the drama of Christian conversion, Comedyas were also products of translation themselves, providing venues for domesticating alien places and alien sources of power lying at the basis of colonial-Christian authority. But, unlike Catholic prayers that were directed to God, vernacular plays relied on the recognition of an audience which was yet to consolidate its position as such. The comedya anticipated nationalist attempts to invest a second language with the capacity to recast vernacular languages and local identities into something other that could then be commonly shared. In forming a Filipino nationalist identity, appealing for the expansion of limits to citizenship and political representation under colonial rule, Ilustrado nationalists also sought to become agents of translation – using Castilian, a language deployed by those in authority. Thus, this paper argues that Filipino nationalism was a practice of translation, understood first as the coming into contact with the foreign and subsequently reformulating it into an element of oneself. This process entailed at least in its formative moments, discovering an alien aspect residing within colonial society and translating it into a basis for a future history.