''Viajero'', Spanish for "The Wanderer"Delmendo, Sharon
The Rosales Novels
The Star-entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines, books.google.com or "The Traveller", is a 1993 English-language novel written by Filipino author

F. Sionil José Francisco Sionil José (December 3, 1924 – January 6, 2022) was a Filipino writer who was one of the most widely read in the English language. A National Artist of the Philippines for Literature, which was bestowed upon him in 2001, José's ...

."Viajero"
Commencement Speaker - Francisco Sionil José, Foundation Time Community Page, Community Issue, Foundation Time, Foundation Time Official Bulletin of Foundation University, negroschronicle.com The literary theme is about the constant search of the

Filipino people Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or other ...

for “social justice and moral order”.Viajero (A Filipino Novel) by F. Sionil José
amazon.com ''Viajero'' is one of the literary representatives embodying the fulfillment of the Filipinos' "emergent-nationalism".

Main characters

The lead character of ''Viajero'' was an orphan named Salvador dela Raza (a Spanish name meaning “

Savior Savior or Saviour may refer to: *A person who helps people achieve salvation, or saves them from something Religion * Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of Islam who will rule for seven, nine or nineteen years * Maitreya * Messiah, a saviour or li ...

of the ilipinoRace”). In 1945, Raza was

adopt Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...

ed and brought to

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

by James Wack, an African-American

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of the United States military. Dela Raza was a firsthand witness of the Filipino

diaspora A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...

. Dela Raza was described to be a Philippine-born "nationalist hero" independent of American colonial influence who was able to recover the past of the Philippines long thought lost due to "

colonial Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French Colonial * Spanish Colonial architecture Automobiles * Colonial (1920 a ...

oppression". Dela Raza was the missing link or filler of the fundamental gaps or

disjunction In logic, disjunction is a logical connective typically notated as \lor and read aloud as "or". For instance, the English language sentence "it is raining or it is snowing" can be represented in logic using the disjunctive formula R \lor S ...

s between the Filipino Ilustrados and the common people known as the ''masa'' (referring to the "mass ve numberof people" or the Philippine public), and between Filipino expatriates and the Filipinos who stayed in the Philippines. However, Dela Raza's knowledge of American issues and history made ''Viajero'' an allegorical reinforcement of "ideological interdependence" and reaffirmation of "

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

colonial tutelage", which was contrary to the goal of contemporary Filipino nationalists. Such goal was to define and diffentiate the Filipino view of nationalism from the American form of nationalism. Other characters include the wife of Leo Mercado, Father Jess, and Simplicio Verdad (a name meaning "Simple Truth" or "Simply True" in translation). Some characters from José's ''The Rosales Saga'' also resurfaced in ''Viajero'', such as ''Pepe Samson'' of José's '' Mass'' in the person of a full-pledged

insurgent An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric warfare, asymmetric na ...

Description

''Viajero'' tackled Philippine History and the character of the Filipino people prior to the arrival of the

Spaniard Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both ind ...

s. The other “epic voyages” experienced by the Filipinos included the country’s contact with China, the tragedy of Ferdinand Magellan in Mactan Island, the voyages of galleon through the Pacific Ocean, the movement of Filipino men and women

worker The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual labour, manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via wage, waged or salary, salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also "Designation ...

s to the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Although a novel about the Philippines, ''Viajero'' was also described as a novel about America because Dela Raza was educated by his American stepfather. Through Wack (a representation of the United States in the novel), Dela Raza learned of the issues that existed in America: racial discrimination, colonialism, failures of political ideals, betrayals of nationwide democracy, and ironies of American History. By discovering the American shortcomings, Dela Raza saw the failures in Philippine History. Thus Dela Raza was able to instruct and rejuvenate the Filipino youth to search in the past for answers in order to solve the Philippines' problems. Through ''Viajero'' José was able to point out the "failed opportunity of the revolution" to create the changes that could have been made by

Corazon Aquino Maria Corazon "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (; ; January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was a Filipina politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines from 1986 to 1992. She was the most prominent figure of the 1986 People P ...

for the Filipino people when she was president.

Main characters

Description

References

See also