Gouache en acryl op papier

“Daniela Pila spent an hour after school one day scrubbing her brown skin with a bar of papaya soap, hoping it would turn white”.

This line from Agnes Constante’s How The Philippine’s Colonial Legacy Weighs on Filipino-American Mental Health fully resonated with me that Daniela Pila could be me or any other Filipina. 

My inspiration for this painting is the Filipina body and the generational rage stored within it. Centuries of colonialism have been deeply internalized by Filipinos that we have put the Western beauty standard on the pedestal. Internalized colonialism has been deeply embedded in our psyche that we even forget that the papaya fruit is not native to the Philippine but was brought by the Spanish colonizers. Five hundred years later, the same fruit is widely used in the skin whitening industry to oppress the Filipina body again.

However, this internalized oppression comes with rage that is so strong it permeates from within into the skin surface. I want to show that the Filipina body is also a space and landmark of rebellion and reclamation of our power and agency. My ancestors’ genes continue to activate the melanin production in my skin as an act of protection and rebellion against century-old and present-day oppression.