COLUMN #176 Decolonizing my mind, picture by picture

I want to start with the word remember. It evokes the coming together of severed parts—fragments becoming whole. In Art on My Mind (which I highly recommend), Bell Hooks writes about the role of photography in the process of decolonization. She describes how images have the power to draw us back to the past, allowing us to reclaim and renew life-affirming connections. Through photography, we engage with a memory that is both restoring and redemptive—one that empowers us to construct radical identities and envision ourselves beyond the limits imposed by the colonizing gaze.

Reflecting on Hooks’ words, I’ve come to realize that photography isn’t just about preserving moments—it can also be an act of reclaiming identity. This realization became even more personal when, in the summer of 2021, I lost my job due to COVID. My entire team was let go—the creative team, of course, was the first to be cut. In times of crisis, corporations often see creatives as the most expendable. After all, our success isn’t always measured in numbers. But what mattered more to me was the project that emerged from that loss.

Losing my job sent me into a depressive state. I questioned why I was still in Japan if I couldn’t do what I loved, and I felt overwhelmingly homesick. To distract myself, I decided to share a body of work I had kept to myself for years. I called it Summer Time Babe and held a small pop-up with Hiro-kun from Temme Coffee at Shin-san’s Unplugged in Harajuku. The project was a series of T-shirts featuring photographs of my mother in her younger years.

At first, it was a lighthearted joke. The photos reminded me of Minnie Riperton’s Perfect Angel LP cover, and I thought it would be hilarious to print T-shirts with my mom’s face on them to give to friends. But as I worked on the project, it evolved into something much deeper. The images brought back stories I had heard about my mother’s youth. They also made me reflect on my own experiences growing up.

My mother rarely wore her hair curly when I was young. Like me, she straightened it with chemical relaxers. She once told me that in her 20s, she studied marine biology, spending her days swimming and researching at the beach. But when she came home, my grandmother would scold her for letting her skin get darker. Eventually, she was pressured to give up marine biology because of it. I grew up with the same warnings—to stay out of the sun, to keep my skin from darkening. I was taught that being dark wasn’t beautiful. My parents would even pinch my nose, hoping it would grow taller and thinner.

As I got older, I realized these beauty standards—passed down through generations—were a direct result of colonization. The ideals my mother and I had internalized weren’t ours; they were imposed by whiteness. But we aren’t white. Our roots lie in the islands of the Philippines. Before Spanish and American colonization, the first settlers of the Philippines—the Austronesians, Negritos, and Aeta peoples—had short stature, wide noses, curly hair, and dark skin. These are features I share with so many other Filipinos.

The T-shirts and photographs became a way to reclaim indigenous beauty. Choosing old photographs of my mother and sharing her narrative allowed me to engage in conversations about decolonization. It became an act of resistance against colonized beauty standards and a renewal of self-worth. Through my mother’s photographs, I was able to reclaim my own Filipino beauty—to unlearn years of nose pinching, skin whitening, and hair straightening and instead embrace the heritage I once tried to hide.

This project is about celebration. About remembering that we are all worthy of being seen.

Summer Time Babe is still ongoing. If you have photos of your grandparents or parents and want to decolonize your mind—or if you simply want a photo of them on a T-shirt—please share them with me. Maybe I'll print them on a t-shirt! Hehehe.