The Philippines is an Asian country that historically has been conquered by nearby Islamic nations, colonized by Spain, and controlled by the United States. It has been desired and fought over because of trade, religion, and its strategic location militarily. Dogeaters portrays a country trying to overcome the oppression of its colonial past. It exposes the negative effects that colonialism has had on the nation and its people. In the Philippines, colonialism has alienated the people from their culture, their history, each other, and themselves. It has opened the door to corrupt leaders who exploit the people and pervert the truth.

The characters in Dogeaters are searching for their identities on a personal level as their country is simultaneously seeking to define itself. The 1950s postcolonial Philippines is a country of eighty dialects and languages. The characters’ sentences are mixtures of English, Spanish, and Tagalog. The people themselves are a cultural mix of past colonizers and indigenous people. They are Freddie Gonzagas, visitors in their own country, who believe in “dual citizenships, dual passports, as many allegiances to as many countries as possible at any one given time.” They are Rio Gonzagas who only feel at home in the “no man’s land” of airports, trying to escape the past by reconstructing the present. They are half Black, half Filipino Joey Sands who must prostitute themselves to foreigners in order to survive. They are Lola Narcisas, hidden somewhere in a back room, a tiny, dark, silent grandmother listening to Tagalog soap operas. They are a country prejudiced by the ethnocentric views of people such as Father Jean Mallat, whose condescending history of the Philippines appears in snippets throughout the novel, or US President William McKinley, who tells the world the Philippines “are unfit for self-government.”

In Dogeaters, religion is an oppressor and a tool of colonialism contributed by Spain. The Catholic Church is a hypocritical institution whose only achievement is guilt. Rio and Pucha feel guilty for sneaking into movies that the Archdiocese has condemned. General Ledesma’s wife believes her ascetic life will atone for the sins her husband commits on behalf of his country, and Joey feels the need to confess for his country when he witnesses Senator Avila’s assassination. Baby Alacran participates in a Catholic wedding while pregnant, a mortal sin which almost kills her grandmother. Pucha wants a divorce but must leave the country: “it is still a mortal sin here.” The extravagant, wasteful Alacrans are good Catholics because they donate huge sums of money to the church. The first lady invokes God on national television. She tells an American reporter that her reign is a god-given duty to perform. The final chapter is a Kundiman (prayer), a blasphemous revision of the Lord’s Prayer that criticizes the church for its role in colonization and oppression: “Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom never came,” it reads.

There is a tentative hope that the Philippines can free itself eventually from the brokenness of its colonial past. Rio, for example, accepts all levels of her mixed race. She bridges the culture gap by listening to Philippine soap operas with her grandmother, attends American movies with her cousin, and puts up with the Gonzaga and Alacran family events. As she looks back on her life, she attempts to reconstruct her history and her identity. Although this frustrates her, she feels it must be done. Rio represents the balance that the author hopes Filipinos will achieve in respecting the past without repeating its mistakes. Daisy Avila survives being objectified and raped to join the movement for change. The anti-hero Joey has had...