Justo Juliano And The Word Pinoy: Uniquely Filipino American From Chicago

By: Elaine Lehman

 

“I love Chicago. It’s a second Manila to me.
While I dream of that distant land of my birth, this great and wonderful city enfolds me in her arms!”
– Justo N. Juliano, 1926

Words are one of most important forms of communication bond. The word ‘diaspora,’ from the Greek word meaning ‘to scatter,’ may be perceived as the naming of the ‘other’ which carries a sense of ‘displacement’; that is, communities of people who have been dislocated or separated from their native homeland, as a consequence of colonial expansion, through the movements of migration, immigration, exile or voluntary aspiration to leave the country and these people contemplating a hope, or at least a desire, to return to their homeland at some point if the ‘homeland’ still exists in any meaningful sense.

The above quote exhibits the diaspora hovering between two worlds. It pronounces the diffi culties, ambiguities, and dynamism in the process of diaspora’s identity formation, adoption, and adaptation. While scattered across oceans and continents, diasporic individuals are linked by a common heritage, history, and racial/ethnic descent and consciousness. Over time, they are marked by hybridity and heterogeneity – cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and national. They are defi ned by traversal of the boundaries demarcating nation and diaspora.

The last vestiges of cultural affi liation in a diaspora is often found in community resistance to language change and in maintenance of traditional religious practice. But sometimes it is the evolving words of the overseas community that reaches; challenges the monologic exclusivity on which dominant versions of national identity are based and the cultural and historical mechanisms of belonging; and strengthens the bonds with their native homeland. This is the case with the words PINOY.

The term Pinoy was created by expatriate Filipinos born or living in the United States of America during the 1920s, to differentiate the experiences of those immigrating to America. It was later adopted by Filipinos in the Philippines. Today, it is now a slang term proudly used to refer to all people of Filipino descent.

In the United States, the earliest published usage known is a Philippine Republic article written in January 1924 by Dr. Justo Nicholas Juliano, from Manila, Philippines, and a member of the faculty of the Carl Schurz High School in Chicago – “Why does a Pinoy take it as an insult to be taken for a Shintoist or a Confucian?” and “What should a Pinoy do if he is addressed as a Chinese or a Jap?”

In the Philippines, the earliest reference of the word was in 1927, in a book titled “History of the Philippine Press,” which lists a publication “Pinoy; English-Spanish-Visayan; Weekly; Pinoy Pub. Co.; 12-27 -1926 Candaba, Pampanga”.

The term Pinoy also appears in the semi-autobiographical novel “America Is In The Heart” by Carlos Bulosan: “The Pinoys work every day in the fi elds…” (p. 120, 1946).

We were intrigued to learn that Justo N. Juliano had resided in Chicago and wanted to learn more about him. Juliano was a Filipino poet and advocate for Philippine independence. Born on December 6, 1887, in Manila, PI, he died on Friday, January 28, 1972, in Zephyrhills, Florida. His wife was Josephine (nee Meyer) They had two sons and a daughter. He was 84 years old.

His patriotic piece Sursum Corda” is the fi rst known Filipino poem published in English and appeared in the Philippine Free Press in 1907.

Juliano was a teacher at the Paco Intermediate School in Manila and was also the editor of The Filipino Teacher as well as the secretary of the Philippine Teachers’ Association. It seems that Juliano was forced to resign from both his position as a teacher and his roles within the PTA after his poem was published, although he was re-elected as General Secretary in May 1910. He was punished not for his verses but for his politics. His poem contravened the Sedition Law passed by the US Congress at the time, which also prohibited the public display of the Philippine fl ag. Refusing to retract his anti-colonial position on American occupation, he was, ‘forced to resign as a government teacher’; Afterwards, he immigrated to the United States of America and attended university in Chicago. To support himself, Dr. Juliano taught Spanish. and was head of the Spanish Department at Carl Schurz High School in Chicago until he retired in 1953.

There is still so much to learn about Dr. Justo N. Juliano, but his introduction of the word PINOY, his writings, and his life experiences help us to reexamine the Filipino heart and the meaning of home.