Maria Luisa Camagay
Department of History, University of the Philippines
Three words may be associated with the name Encarnacion Alzona: historian, feminist and Rizalist. It is in these roles that she gave her best and contributed the most to the country. She dedicated her life to three important pursuits: ameliorating the conditions of women by being at the forefront of the suffrage movement in the Philippines; undertaking scholarly writing and research about the history and heroes of the Philippines; and popularizing the life and works of Jose Rizal by translating into English the works of the hero written in Spanish. In 1983, Dr. Alzona was conferred the title of National Scientist by President Ferdinand Marcos in recognition of her being “an eminent historian and mentor of a generation of other eminent historians in the period of transition after the Philippine Revolution and the war against the United States to the present time…and for her other writings on notables of the Post-Revolutionary era which made available to our people a legacy of the past.”
This short paper aims to document how an historical watershed is reflected in the life and writings of Encarnacion Alzona.
(Presented in the 2013 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: The Emergence and Heritage of Asian Women Intellectuals, 10-11 September 2013, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Indian Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University)