[196] Student Displays Filipino Heritage At MTSU's Peck Hall

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Nov. 10, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

STUDENT DISPLAYS FILIPINO HERITAGE AT MTSU’S PECK HALL
Images of Oppression Turn into Icons of Cultural Courage in Doll Collection

(MURFREESBORO) - Images of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis include such transformative, futuristic inventions as airplanes, motion pictures, automobiles and ice cream. Juxtaposed against these iconic images of 20th century engineering know-how were so-called “living exhibits” of tribesmen from the Philippine Islands in native garb. They were paraded before the mostly white, middle-class fairgoers to show the United States’ superiority over the supposedly “backward savages” and to validate colonialism.
Learning about the humiliation of the Filipinos who were displayed in these “human zoos” has inspired an MTSU student of Filipino parents to learn more about his ethnic heritage. And Laurence Tumpag is sharing his knowledge with others by placing his dolls, each depicting a different Filipino tribe, on display in rotation outside the Global Studies office on the second floor of MTSU’s Peck Hall during this academic year.
Tumpag’s grandfather fought for the United States in World War II. He petitioned the government to allow his daughter to be brought to America. At the time, she was pregnant with Laurence, who was born in New Jersey. However, he was sent back to the Philippines to live for three years while his mother tried to get a stable footing in the U.S.
“Ever since I was younger, I wanted to reconnect with my culture,” says the 25-year-old Tumpag. “I began collecting when I was 13 or so. I do my best to understand my heritage and appreciate it.”
Tumpag can provide background on each figurine and its culture. For example, he points to a doll representing the Lumad tribe and explains that the Lumad were able to preserve their culture by fleeing to the mountains as Spaniards, Americans and others invaded.
Next to the Lumad doll is the Moros doll. The Moros are Muslims who live on Mindanao and in the Sulu and Tawi-Tawi Archipelagos. They adopted Islam when it was introduced to the Philippines in the 1300s by Arab traders. However, the Arabs did not subjugate them as the Spanish and Americans did with the Christian tribes. In fact, says Tumpag, some Moros were allowed to form their own sultanates.
“There is a movement to try to preserve the nation by coexistence between the Muslims and the Christians,” says Tumpag. “But it’s really difficult because there is always infighting and religious tension.”

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Another doll represents the Igarots, known for their rice terraces on the northern island of Luzon. Yet another doll shows the Negrito tribe, black-skinned peoples who were the earliest inhabitants of the islands.
Tumpag says his own family is descended from the Tagalog, one of the largest predominantly Christian ethnic groups and the one from which the main language of the Philippines is derived. But cultural hegemony does not impress the soft-spoken social work major.
“In social work, we are taught to advocate and speak for people who do not have a voice,” says Tumpag. “I feel like their lives had meaning,” speaking of the tortured indigenous peoples, “and, even though they suffered these injustices, they still have something to share with the people of the future. We learn from the past.”


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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For color jpegs of Laurence Tumpag and his Filipino heritage dolls, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.


Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree—the only one in Tennessee—as a model program. This fall, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.