Hapones exhibit opens at SM

The photographic exhibition “Haponés: The early 20th century Japanese community of Baguio” opened last June 20 at the Gallery, Lower Basement, SM City Baguio.

Haponés was first produced for exhibition at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum in Quezon City last November. Its sponsor, the University of the Philippines Asian Center, marked the exhibit opening with the symposium, “Japanese migrants to the Philippines: History, issues, and prospects.”

This exhibition is the third of a series of historical photographic exhibitions being presented by BaguioBenguetStudies at the SM Gallery.
Haponés in Baguio is the first leg of a tour planned by the UP Asian Center of the Philippine cities that welcomed Japanese migrant workers in the early 1900s. It is based on oral histories of Japanese descendants in the Cordillera region and in Japan as well as on textual and photographic research and archival sources.

This exhibition by the UP Asian Center is supported by The Japan Foundation-Manila, National Commission on Culture and the Arts, Filipino-Japanese Foundation of Northern Luzon, Inc., in cooperation with BaguioBenguetStudies, SM City Baguio, Japanese Association in Northern Luzon Inc., RaiRaiKen, and Colorworld.

Haponés is curated by Patricia Okubo Afable, also editor of the book Japanese Pioneers, upon which the exhibition is based. In her message at the exhibit opening read by co-curator Erlyn Ruth Alcantara, Afable said, “We invite you, with this exhibition, to help preserve the knowledge of the transformative role that this city’s early Japanese community played in Baguio’s history.”

She said “‘Haponés’ was the Spanish term used by early Baguio officials for the Japanese settlers, and in imitation, the Ibaloy people of Baguio called them Kafunis.”

“The early Japanese settlers in Baguio were carpenters, masons, sawmill workers, merchants, farmers, contractors, gardeners, and silk producers. Many of these migrant workers made Baguio their home for 30 or 40 years before World War II destroyed their community. It may be useful to recall that, a hundred years ago, Baguio was welcoming overseas workers who were poor men from farming and fishing villages from Japan,” Afable said.

“They made substantial contributions to the building of Baguio…. Understandably, this work was virtually ignored and almost forgotten because of the great tragedies that all Filipinos (including Japanese-Filipinos) experienced during the Pacific War,” she added.