A Word for Sustaining Your Community

Bayanihan • (buy-uh-nee-hun) • noun

Definition: literal translation “being in a community,” the act of helping and sustaining your community

Origin: Tagalog, Philippines

Linguistically Leaving Europe

From the beginning of The Word, our weekly words have been primarily of European origin with Latin, Greek, French, German, and Spanish roots, but this in no way implies that The Word or The Sustainable Culture Lab has a Eurocentric approach to language and philosophy. Our linguistic strategy consists of initially connecting with people via the languages they are most familiar with and then broadening those horizons by introducing unfamiliar words within familiar languages. By expanding this linguistic comfort, we believe that people will be more receptive to unfamiliar words from unfamiliar languages too. Since America is a westernized nation dominated by European languages, we believe that starting with European words before branching out to African, Asian, and Indigenous words makes sense. I say all of this because I am really excited to share our first non-European word: bayanihan.

I learned this word through my friend Les Talusan. She’s a photographer and DJ in Washington, D.C., and this month SCL has teamed up with Les and Seda Nak to produce “SAMASAMA x SCL July Art Series: Diaspora People’s Month." SAMASAMA is usually an in-person art show and gathering to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, but due to COVID-19, that show had to be canceled. We decided to join forces and create something new for the month of July specifically because it is a symbolic combination of both APA Heritage Month (May) and African American History Month (February). As a result, we have planned 5 weekly events where we will feature 2-4 amazing artists and have different philosophical discussions depending on the theme for that week. We hope each and every one of you will find the time to attend. As Americans protest and work to liberate our society from ethnocide and white supremacy, we believe that it is more appropriate to use July to celebrate the art, culture, and philosophy of communities of color than America’s independence from the British. You can register for the event here.

Back to Bayanihan

As I was saying, Les is Filipino and as we began collaborating on this project, I wanted to learn about some Filipino or Tagalog words that spoke to the culture and philosophy of her people. The types of words that I am looking for are normally simple everyday words that people within a culture say without applying much thought to the meaning of the word while also struggling to imagine how their society would exist without it. They are seemingly casual words that a society would struggle to live without, and bayanihan is this type of word.

Words like bayanihan are hard to define because they speak to the unique culture of a people and often the spirit of the word can get lost in translation.  Les understands the word as “the act of helping and sustaining your community,” but the literal translation is “being in a bayan” and “bayan” is the Tagalog word for “town, nation, or community.” There is an existential nature to bayanihan since its focus is the act of being in the world or a community. Cultural words like bayanihan that prioritize existence ahead of essence are incredibly valuable in America because our society is built upon prioritizing essence ahead of existence. Appreciating these types of words are essential for countering ethnocide, forging equality, and creating Eǔtopia.

Bayanihan can take on many forms, but arguably the most distinct and unique representation of bayanihan is the act of helping a community member move. In rural parts of the Philippines when a community member (or kababayan) needed to move to another part of town, the community would come together to help them move. The move not only consists of their belongings and perishables but also their entire house. An indigenous Filipino home is constructed mostly of bamboo, leaves, and other natural materials. In order to move a house, bamboo poles would be placed under the house to lift it, and roughly 15-20 people would volunteer to move the home. At the end of the day, the hosts would treat everyone with a meal to show their appreciation.

Bayanihan & COVID-19

Bayanihan values engaging in collective acts to sustain your community without expecting anything in return, and it should come as no surprise that as the Philippines addresses the COVID-19 crisis, the culture of bayanihan helps to combat the pandemic.

The names of the legislations that the Philippine government crafted to address the COVID-19 pandemic are “the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act,” which ended on June 5, and “the Bayanihan to Recover as One Bill” which was created to replace its predecessor. In the Philippines, bayanihan is a part of the language for defeating COVID-19 and sustaining your community against an existential crisis.

As COVID-19 infection rates increase across America due to Republican officials at the national and state level prioritizing the economy ahead of people’s lives and far too many Americans valuing their individual desires ahead of the good of the community, it should be easy to see how the language and philosophy of bayanihan could help America today.

America is an ethnocidal society, and thus America linguistically, philosophically, and culturally prioritizes division and inequality ahead of an equitable and shared community. Ethnocide discourages us from creating words like bayanihan, or literally and figuratively carrying our neighbor’s house on our back while expecting nothing in return. 

At SCL, we embrace bayanihan, and by doing so we are combating ethnocide.

This week please meditate on the spirit and act of sustaining a community, and how being selfless can be an essential part of sustainability and culture.

Please share your thoughts with us via email, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using #TheWord, and support us on Patreon. We will be hosting a Live Q&A session on our Instagram today at 5PM EDT so that we can answer your questions about Bayanihan. We hope to see you there.