HIDDEN HISTORY

Orang Asli: Introduction to the ‘First People’ of Southeast Asia

For much of my adult life, I have been collecting old photographs of the so-called “little blacks” of Asia.

Satun Woman and Child, Satun province, Ban Doan Village, S. Thailand. Photo: Brandt, John H (1961–1968). Source: Brandt Image Collection, Keene State College. Mason Library, Orang Asli Archive.

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As a kid growing up on the far South Side of Chicago, whenever I would envision the physical features of Asian people—since those I saw most were in martial arts movies and Ultraman reruns on television—a fairly narrow set of characteristics always came to mind. Perhaps not all that surprisingly, brown skin and curly black hair were never among them.

But one fateful day, my father told me about an eye-opening experience he’d had as a young man serving in the United States Marines.

While stationed in the Philippines between 1961 and 1963, “Pops” would learn of Asians whose physical features were significantly different from what most Americans have been conditioned to expect.

There in the Philippines, my father saw native Filipinos who, albeit small in stature, looked a lot like him, with dark brown skin, curly black hair, and — stranger still — African facial features.