Organizer: Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University

Type/Location: In Person / New Haven, CT

Description:

Join the Council on Southeast Asia Studies at Yale University for a talk by Christina H. Lee, Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Acting Chair of the Humanities Council at Princeton University. Professor Lee will discuss how elite indigenous women in the Philippines signed documents in pre-Hispanic indigenous scripts known as baybayin, demonstrating their persistence in preserving this cultural heritage despite over a century of gradual decline in literacy following the Hispanization of the indigenous script.

Abstract:

The arrival of Spanish missionaries in the Philippines in 1565 marked the beginning of a significant effort to convert its indigenous population to Roman Catholicism, along with the transformation of pre-Hispanic indigenous scripts, known as baybayin, into the Spanish writing system. Although indigenous women were literate in baybayin before Spanish colonization, they were often excluded from learning literacy in both Spanish and the hispanized Tagalog. As a result, few were literate in any language by the eighteenth century. This paper explores how elite indigenous women, known as principalas, signed documents in baybayin, demonstrating their persistence in preserving this cultural heritage despite over a century of gradual decline in literacy following the Hispanization of the indigenous script. Moreover, it illustrates how principalas used baybayin to express their sense of identity and social rank within colonial systems that often overlooked their personhood and their distinguished ranks.

About the Speaker:

Christina H. Lee is Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Acting Chair of the Humanities Council at Princeton University (2025-2026). She is also in the executive committees of the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion (CCSR), the Humanities Council, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS); the committees on Renaissance and Early Modern Studies (CREMS) and the Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Additionally, Professor Christina Lee is an associated faculty member of the Program in Latin American Studies.  Professor Christina Lee also serves as a Faculty Fellow for Novogratz Bridge Year, in the Faculty Advisory Board of the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity, and as the faculty board member of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. 

Registration:

To attend the event in person, please register here.