Juan dela Cruz

Juan de la Cruz is Spanish for John of the Cross

In the Philippines, the name Juan de la Cruz is symbolically used to represent the "Filipino", roughly, the equivalent of the American Uncle Sam. He is usually depicted wearing the native Salakot hat, Barong Tagalog, long pants, and slippers (called tsinelas in Tagalog). The term Juan de la Cruz is also used when referring to the collective Filipino psyche. The terminology was coined by R. McCulloch-Dick, a Scottish-born journalist working for the Manila Times in the early 1900s, after discovering it was the most common name in blotters.

^†There was however a real Filipino who was a coxswain of a steam launch and was arrested on suspicion of brutally murdering two men on June 7, 1886. He was thrown into the Cavite jail and remained for twelve years due to neglect of the Spanish colonial government to wait for a trial which never came. When the Americans came, he was set free on May 1, 1898.

The name is Spanish which translates to "John of the Cross". The majority of Filipinos have acquired Spanish surnames largely due to more than 300 years of Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines. The Catholic Church also plays an important role in the naming of a child, with almost every other baby baptized and named after a saint. San Juan dela Cruz is a Spanish mystic and friar and a leading figure in the Catholic Reformation.

Activists often called him a victim of American imperialism, especially since most editorial cartoons of the American era often depicted Juan de la Cruz along with Uncle Sam. Replacing the earlier pictures bearing the filipino as an african-like islander.

See also

• National personification
• Uncle Sam
• John Doe — An American equivalent
• Juan Tamad, or Lazy John — Another character common in Filipino culture

Reference

• ^†page 212, The Philippines, a Unique Nation by Sonia M. Zaide.