Asian Languages & Cultures is launching a new Instagram series, Humans of ALC, envisioned by department chair Deirdre de la Cruz and inspired by Humans of New York. The series highlights the professors, students, and staff who make up ALC and the paths that brought them here. Through personal reflections, Humans of ALC offers a glimpse into the lived experiences, questions, and histories that shape the department’s community.
The first spotlight features Professor Deirdre de la Cruz, ALC department chair and professor of Southeast Asian Studies, whose work has been deeply shaped by her Filipino heritage and Catholic upbringing.
As de la Cruz reflects, “The kernel of my interest in Asian Studies probably started with my grandmother. She was from the Philippines and migrated to the US in the 1950s.” She describes her grandmother’s “old-time Filipino Catholicism” as a tradition grounded in ritual and devotion, and contrasts it with the more progressive form of Catholicism she experienced growing up. That contrast stayed with her and sparked a lasting question: why did their traditions feel so different, even though both were Catholic?
She writes that it was not until her undergraduate years at the University of Washington that she encountered area studies in a way that gave shape to those questions. There, professors working on Indonesia and Thailand helped her think about the Philippines as part of Southeast Asia, while also recognizing how its Spanish colonial history made it distinct within the region.
A major turning point came through reading Vicente Rafael’s Contracting Colonialism, which she says brought together her personal and intellectual interests. In her words, “This book illuminated for me the Filipino Catholicism of my grandma’s generation, how it could be both super pious and super transactional, how it remained haunted by beliefs in ghosts and other supernatural beings, and how even within its seemingly intractable patriarchal hierarchy, acts of resistance and subversion were still possible.”
De la Cruz credits that book with setting her on the path that led to where she is today. She also reflects on the recent passing of Rafael, who later became both a mentor and a friend: “I’m consoled in knowing that he left behind such an immense and rich body of work, that I, along with the many others he influenced, will continue to be in conversation with him for a very long time.”
With Humans of ALC, the department hopes to highlight the many ways culture is lived just as much as it is studied and to bring greater visibility to the people whose experiences and scholarship shape the life of ALC.
