Brief Background

With President Ferdinand Marcos’ signing of Proclamation No. 1081 on September 21, 1972, the Philippines entered an era of martial law, which was characterized by the arrest, torture, and killing of political opponents, restrictions on free speech, and other human rights violations (1). Although martial law was lifted in 1981, the Philippines remained under dictatorial rule until the People Power Revolution of 1986, when several days of mass protests led to the removal of Marcos from power (2).

In this same period, Filipino American activists were reckoning with the legacy and contemporary reality of racial discrimination in the United States, with martial law in the Philippines becoming an additional and closely related issue of concern (3). Following in the organizing tradition of the farmworkers’ movement, organizations like the U.S.-based Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipinas (KDP) actively opposed the Marcos regime, maintaining a transnational understanding of community issues (4). As part of their political activities during the martial law era, Filipino Americans were also producing a variety of artistic works—including paintings, poetry, plays, and musical recordings—that responded to or depicted events and issues in both the United States and the Philippines.

Transnational Perspectives: Filipino American Political Art, 1972-1986 is a digital, multimodal timeline project that attempts to locate political art within the context of its production, illustrate the transnational orientation of Filipino American activists, and convey how the Filipino American diaspora uses artistic work to understand its relationship to the Philippines, despite not living there.

Notes:

1. “Five things to know about Martial Law in the Philippines,” Amnesty International, April 25, 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/04/five-things-to-know-about-martial-law-in-the-philippines/.

2. Mark John Sanchez, "The People Power Revolution, Philippines 1986," Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, The Ohio State University, February 2021, https://origins.osu.edu/milestones/people-power-revolution-philippines-1986#page-content.

3. Rene Ciria Cruz, “Introduction: A Snapshot—The Life and Times of the KDP,” A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP), eds. Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, Bruce Occena (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), 3-20, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnsq6.5.

4. Michael Schulze-Oechtering, “Third World Studies and the Living Archive of US-Based Filipinx Activism,” Filipinx American Studies: Reckoning, Reclamation, Transformation, eds. Rick Bonus and Antonio T. Tiongson (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), 229-238, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2gmhh8s.23.

5. "History," The I-Hotel - San Francisco, accessed August 21, 2024, https://www.ihotel-sf.org/history/.