Kapwa, Kuwento, Kalaro: Engaging Filipino Children in Literary and Mediated Spaces

• In Event: Pakikipag-Kapwa: Filipino Indigenous Ways of Knowing for Decolonial Studies in Filipino-American Educational Research

Abstract

Purpose. This paper explores how Filipino and Filipino American children serve as cultural bearers who embody the core value of kapwa, which manifests in their lived experiences, narrative sense-making, and navigation of various spaces. Filipino American picture books serve as vessels that hold Filipino values, made more intricate and hybrid by the mixture of cultures and contextual differences, leading to assimilation of a hybridity of cultures and retention of Filipinoness at their core. Then, as interactional modalities change in the advent of technology, the Filipino/Filipino American child adapts, navigating digital spaces with empowered awareness of technology’s affordances and constraints and with a sense of community building that is truly Filipino.

Theoretical Framework. Covar (1998) developed a model for the concept of Filipino Humanity as a way of explaining kapwa, the core concept of Filipino shared identity. How much deep or shallow, and how wide and narrow, determines the depth of our pakikipagkapwa or relationship building. This paper is framed within Covar’s model of Filipino humanity, where aspects of kapwa and loob are unearthed within the child characters’ and gamers’ storyworlds.

Modes of Inquiry. Selected picture books were thematized based on how concepts of Filipino humanity are represented in both the narrative and the illustrations. Then, the transmediated experiences of selected Filipino children in their navigation of various technological platforms were analyzed through a proposed methodology called “techno-immersion,” where I facilitate the process of pakikipagkuwentuhan in their storyworlds.

Data Sources. Textual data come from 10 accessible picture books with prominent references to the Philippines, Filipinos, and Filipino Americans. The narratives of Filipino child gamers are also analyzed to link how core Filipino values transcend from the literary to the mediated, with the child at the center of the storyworld.

Substantiated Conclusions. In picture books, children are positioned as ibang tao/outsiders within various worlds: in spaces where Filipino identity is sought, where children are geographically displaced, and where children grapple for a sense of identity. Particularly for picture books with strong links to the Philippines in terms of production, the spirit of kapwa is strong: children are welcomed by the Filipinos around them so that they also become insiders/taga-loob. Filipino child gamers have become the culture bearers themselves as they facilitate pakikipagkuwentuhan while gaming and welcoming either adult gamers, who have become taga-labas in gaming spaces, into the worlds that game developers establish and children themselves create.

Scientific or Scholarly Significance. Filipino children play a role in continuing core Filipino humanistic values that defy geographical and technological spaces. Because of the inclusive nature of kapwa and how, through pakikipagkuwentuhan, traditions continue, children are proactive in promulgating Filipinoness in child-centric domains. Pakikipagkuwentuhan can be done in the case of technologically driven users such as children, and the intersections of childhood, identity, and technology can be theorized through a decolonized lens.

Author

• Cheeno Marlo Sayuno, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign