The New Kyoto Review of South East Asia Website

. This is your only reliable source for updates on the renovations at the AGI, whose reading room has been temporarily moved from the Casa Lonja to an inconspicuous, unmarked building across the street on Calle Sto. Tomás, No. 5. The temporary sala is much smaller and therefore the number of workplaces and individual table space is limited.

. Researchers in the United States may also want to check the microfilm collection of the Library of Congress’s Manuscript Division, which includes reproductions of select portions of Spain’s archives, acquired under the auspices of their Foreign Copying Program and through private donations.
. My favorite example is a popular song by the Andaluz band Chambao, Ahí Estás Tú, which was used for a national television campaign to promote tourism in Andalucía. The refrain, y ahí estás tú (“and here is where you are”) – pronounced yáyetatú – was utterly incomprehensible to Spaniards up north in Navarra. Those I spoke to insisted that it was not Spanish, even though the phrase was itself the title of the ad and was written prominently onscreen.

Do try to talk to the staff about what you learn – you might well be able to tell them something new about their Filipinas collection. One day, for a change of pace, I started looking at documents from the Philippine Revolution and found a special collection of photographs, which was described in the catalog as including pictures of insurrectos. Bracing myself for images of bolo-wielding Katipuneros either dead or about to be executed, I instead found an array of individual and group portraits featuring unidentified men in European dress, some of whom were definitely of pure European descent. One photograph was of an unidentified man who bore a striking resemblance to images of Andres Bonifacio I had seen in elementary school. The archivist was grateful for the possible identification, which he said would be noted in the catalog. He asked me who else I could identify, and I’m sorry to say that, because my research focus is neither on this late period nor on the Tagalog region, Emilio Aguinaldo was the only other face I recognized with any certainty. The European-looking insurrectos were a particular mystery, as they appeared in almost every photograph and, like the indios, were unidentified. This particular set of photographs is cataloged in Diversos,S.2, among the papers of General Camilo Polavieja, as “Diversos,37,n.3,d.1(s/f).” It requires special handling and must be requested at least a day in advance. If this interests you, make sure to view the other legajos within Diversos, especially 26, 27, and 33.

. In my case, the treasurer seemed so delighted to meet a Filipino who was willing to speak some Spanish that he expedited my order for me, making a show of calling the Photoduplication department and scolding them to speed it up so I would not have to pay the “ridiculous” 20 euro shipping charge. In retrospect, one could interpret his actions as paternalistic, or maybe even flirtatious – but 20 euros is still a lot of money.

. CSIC is Spain’s national umbrella research organization, and they sponsor research in the humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. The EEHA and its Residencia in Sevilla are both branches of CSIC. Spaniards pronounce the initials as “SE-sik.”

. There is currently no catalog that indexes the Philippines portion of this collection, but if anyone is interested, I can offer a work record that provides a rough outline of the contents for each volume and roll. The VFL also has a copy.

. The essential“Blair & Robertson” set has been placed on CD-Rom thanks to the Bank of the Philippine Islands. Two online retailers that sell this CD-Rom collection are www.myayala.com and www.defensor.org. The University of Michigan also has produced an online archive called “The United States and its Territories, 1870-1925,” at http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text‑idx?c=philamer.

It contains a photo archive, as well as scanned pages of several important publications from this period, including Blair & Robertson. I do not believe the entire 55-volume compendium is actually online at this time, but at the very least the indeces are already available.

. Mis días corren con velocidad y encuentro que soy muy viejo (así me llaman muchos) para mi edad. Me falta la alegría de los corazones jóvenes... (Ayer MS 1417, p. 88).

. In the early 1900s it became known as “Bughouse Square” and was a popular public space for political and artistic free speech. Later in the 20th century, the serial killer John Wayne Gacy reportedly prowled the park for victims.a

. See Caraga Antigua: The Hispanization and Christianization of Agusan, Surigao, and East Davao by Peter Schreurs, MSC. Published in Cebu by University of San Carlos Press, 1989 (ISBN:971-100-054-7). Even though I had read this book, which was written by a priest from neither Order, I was struck by the profundity of the Recoletos’ work in Mindanao, which in my view remains unacknowledged. Newspaper accounts from the 19th century, stuffed into the ARM legajos, indicate that a major political brawl erupted at that time between these two Religious Orders, not only for territory but also for proper recognition,