Changing Place, Changing Norms: A Descriptive Study on the Clothing and Food Practices of Muslim in Migrants in Quiapo, Manila

Abstract

It has been proven that the only permanent thing in this world is change. The phenomenon of cultural change is very much evident in every known society today. With the advent of Globalization and Urbanization, societal contacts of culturally diverse communities were brought to existence. The trend of migration that has been prevailing for a long time is the process or urbanization. In the case of Manila, even Muslims who have proven themselves, with painstaking efforts, as preservativists especially in terms of cultural identity are not able to escape from the push factors of migration to urban communities. Taking into consideration the attitude of Muslims towards change and the changing effects of migration developed the led the researcher to investigate how Muslim in-migrants adjust and react to the cultural traits and practices of the Manila settlers. The results would not only help sociologists and anthropologists in studying the phenomenon of culture change. migration, and ethnographical study on Muslims but also this study is found to be very significant in maintaining the community ties, known as the "Umma", between all Muslims despite of their spatial gaps. The results of this study should be evaluated and assessed by Islamic advocates in fostering venues that would reconnect the Muslim minorities caught in the middle of non-Muslim communities into the Umma and Islamic way of life. With this, the author set two major objectives. One is to determine and describe the changes on the respondents' clothing and food practices. Second is to determine and describe the factors that might promote and facilitate these changes. Though how ambitious the researcher is in capturing the change among the Muslim in-migrants, her research was still limited on clothing and food practices. This was the strategy that allowed the study to produce a comprehensive output. With the studies and other related literature. such as those of Ember and Contreras, there are four approaches in explaining the existence of cultural change. These are the physical changes in the environment, revitalization movement, innovation and invention of the individual within the community, and direct and/or remote contact between two societies. But among these sources, the research focused on the diffusion of cultural traits of the donor community to the recipient community. Greatly influenced by these, the researcher chosen length of stay, frequency and duration of interaction of the respondents with the Manila locals, and the respondents' occupation as the factors assumed to have facilitated change among the respondents. Changes, due to the uniqueness of Muslims in food and clothing practices, specifically those that are based on their traditions and restrictions, can be easily perceived, discovered, and measured. To attain the mentioned objectives, the author of the study immediately went on with her planned fieldwork. Questionnaires were administered and interviews were conducted among the respondents. This data gathering procedures were aimed to achieve a clear picture of their practices before and after migration. By doing so, the researcher was able to compare and thus discern differences present between two conditions. For a better organization of the results obtained, the researcher categorized the changes observed and determined among the Muslim in-migrants. Deletion is a categorical description that refers to not maintaining the practices, namely traditional, restriction based. and priori practices. The second category is called imitation. This refers to changes brought about by adding practices evident among Manila settlers into the Muslim in-migrants' pre-existing system of practices. Based on the methods used, it was found out that there exists a difference between the frequency of executing practices, that is very apparent among the respondents during their stay on their place of origin and their present pace of residence. Wearing traditional clothes and coverings in before and after migration have significant differences. This of course was based on the results garnered from the T-test for Matched Pairs. which is 5.02 (regular days) and 4.03 (special occasions), that is greater than the T-critical of 2.009. In addition. the respondents' obedience to the restrictions on clothes also withered. Though it should be noted that among ten listed restrictions, only one changed in terms of frequency. Wearing headgear, otherwise known as Hijab or Kombong for girls and Tutub for boys, was performed differently in terms of frequency, by a T-obtained of 3.724, higher than the T-critical. While for the priori clothes, the respondents sometimes \Vear this, basing of course on the group mean of 2.7. The respondents also admitted that they also imitated some of the Manila locals' clothes. But they only do this sometimes and in accordance with restrictions imposed upon them by their religion. In terms of food, Muslim in-migrants decreased to eat traditional foods in terms of frequency. Based on the T-obtained (4 for regular meals and 5.46 for special occasions) higher than the T-critical, it was concluded that there is a significant difference in practicing these norms before and after migration. While the respondents have maintained most of the restrictions concerning food, eating in front of a person who is eating food became tolerable after migration. While more than half of the population attested that they sometimes eat priori foods but only for sometimes, a manifestations or decrease in frequency of doing so, while only 3.9% shared that they completely eradicated priori foods from their system. Like in the case of clothing, they were able to acculturate foods identified with the Manila settlers. especially foods included in popular culture, but again it is in accordance with the restrictions and only in a sometime basis. Length of stay have a low, if not none at all, correlation with the practices investigated except on deletion of traditional food practices. But this correlation. since it is positive, does not mirror any changing effect of this particular variable. Socialization factors on the other hand only affected, based on its high and positive correlation. eating traditional foods. But it has to be emphasized that again, its effect is more on augmenting rather than withering of the practices in focus. Among the three independent variables of this particular study, occupation was the only one to have a changing effect but is limited to deletion of wearing traditional clothes. This was based on the obtained negative and high correlation. With these results, the hypothesis that there is a change in terms of the respondents' clothing and food practices between before and after migration condition was proven to be true. But with regards to the independent variables such as length of stay, socialization, and occupational factors, it was found out that generally, these do not have significant direct changing effects on the practices of the respondents except for specific sub domains discussed above. Based on the results of the study, the researcher advices the majority of the Manila settlers not to place stigma and discrimination among the Manila settlers because this place them on a difficult stand of choosing between their religion, since this dictates their way of life, or of conforming to the Manila settlers who at the present affects them in a great extent. In addition, Islamic advocates should focus on fostering venues for the reconnection of Muslim minorities caught in the middle of non-Muslim communities with their own cultural identity to avoid weakening the Muslim Community ties and withering of Islamic practices.