garden/The Garden of Kapwa.md

Even before I became more involved in Filipino community space, I knew of Kapwa through the Filipino American leaders I encountered, online or in person, who employed it in their work. Although at times the Filipino American discourse around Kapwa could be a bit facile or even misinformed, Kapwa's novelty, being a uniquely Filipino approach to understanding my own experiences, still allured me. For that reason, I still sought to incorporate Kapwa into my personal philosophy, yet I worried my own awareness would fall short if I spoke too broadly. It wasn't until I had read bell hooks' All About Love that I acquired a new framework for deepening my interpretation of Kapwa. It was last August, as I was leaving the Philippines last August and doing serious reflections about identity and leadership, when I began considering radical love, Kapwa, and relational leadership not as disjoint concepts, but as converging paths to liberation. I realized that truly cultivating Kapwa¹ – to recognize a shared identity, of a self in unity with others, and embrace the emergent power thereof – can enable within us² a transcendence into radical love.

To explore my personal concept of Kapwa, I've written this meditation on Kapwa, containing my personal reflections and thoughts. I hope that you'll find these ideas enlightening and that they'll broaden your perspective. Thank you so much for reading and supporting my work.

Kapwa is a recognition of a shared identity, an inner self, shared with others. This Filipino linguistic unity of the self and the other is unique and unlike in most modern languages. Why? Because implied in such inclusiveness is the moral obligation to treat one another as equal fellow human beings. If we can do this – even starting in our own family or our circle of friends – we are on the way to practice peace. We are Kapwa People. – Virgilio Enriquez³

While our bloodlines may contain a tremendous wealth of shared, generational experience, which contributes to our sense of interconnected humanity, our Kapwa⁴ is not purely preprogrammed. As we partake in our earliest experiences with Filipino communities and cultures and internalize important cultural lessons about our humanity, we plant our first seeds of Kapwa. Still, we are subject to other influences within cultures and societies which raise us, internalizing the injustice, pain, and dysfunction we witness, especially when we are young and just starting to learn our cultural, social, and behavioral norms. A sense of Kapwa can be with us from an early age, but it will not flourish unless we choose to nurture it – and ourselves – and let go of unhealthy behaviors, harmful beliefs and biases, or other oppressive patterns. Without the intentional endeavor to fulfill its moral, ethical obligations or embrace the communal love which a concept like Kapwa implies, we may inadvertently act as ibang tao and behave dysfunctionally or cause harm to ourselves and others. This is why it is important for our Kapwa to be consciously cultivated, not simply inherited.

I speak very matter-of-factly regarding Kapwa, as if it is a natural part of our lives; however, the average Filipino may not acknowledge this concept in their daily life. But they – we – do not necessarily require a scholarly concept of Kapwa to exercise it or pursue it. As I said previously, Kapwa is a culturally based framework of analyzing and understanding our humanities, our selves, and our psyches. It is but one Filipino cultural embodiment of communal self-concept, which you can see at work in ordinary life: how we build community, how we nurture and love one another, how we acquire knowledge and learn, or how we confront problems. When my mother's rosary group meets and sets aside time to share their thanks, struggles, and hopes, that too can be Kapwa. When my fellow Filipino American organizers speak against discrimination in our spaces, that too can be Kapwa. Exploring and developing Kapwa through conscious effort is only one method for expressing it and building it.

Cultivating Kapwa can also be a spiritual journey. Seeing ourselves as connected with others, or pakikipagkapwa, can bring us closer to our friends, our family, our colleagues, and our peers. It encourages us to show more concern for our community, our nation, and our environment. In addition to an awareness of these connections, within Kapwa, who we are and what we do are just as important; Kapwa development involves personal commitments, invested emotions, and congruent actions directed both inward and outward, in response to our interconnectedness. Following spiritual guidance, which directs us to connect with others and our community, allows us to demonstrate our connectedness with feelings and actions as well as to reflect on and grow in Kapwa.

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1. As I had previously written in another article, I use Kapwa primarily in reference to "a shared sense of self in Filipino culture, [with] implied moral and normative aspects," the same terms in which it was coined by Virgilio Enriquez and reasserted by Katrin de Guia. My discourse in this article builds on that definition and seeks to provide an additional framework for understanding Kapwa's manifestation in personal relationships and community work. ↩︎

2. Here, I use "us" to refer to Filipino Americans and Filipinos as a primary audience for this discourse; however, this usage does not preclude members of other communities from engaging this concept. I simply focus on these communities as the terms discussed here – both kapwa, the Tagalog word, and Kapwa, the concept in Filipino psychology (sikolohiyang Pilipino) – are contextually, but not necessarily universally, Filipino and/or are based on Filipino experiences. ↩︎

3. Enriquez, Virgilio. "Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Perspektibo at Direksiyon." In Sikolohiyang Pilipino: Teorya, Metodo, at Gamit, edited by Rogelia Pe-Pua. 1976. Reprint, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1995. ↩︎

4. I capitalize "Kapwa" in reference to the Filipino psychology concept to draw contrast from the Tagalog word "kapwa," which means "fellow" or can be short for "kapwa tao," as in "one's fellow person." ↩︎