José Rizal was a true Filipino, but he was also educated and acculturated to the European lifestyle and mindset. Imagine for him the feeling of returning from affluent and privileged society in Europe to his impoverished homeland, the Philippines, corruptly administered under Spanish "frailocracia" where the native Filipinos were treated as as inferior race of "indiOS".
In his thoughts and writings he often straddles a difficult to reconcile line between the perspective of colony and colonizer. But in the end, to the Europeans, even his friends, he may have only represented little more than a curiousity, being educated and extremely articulate, but still an "indio" and an alien. Likewise, to the Filipino people, he had become something alien through his cultural and educational experiences that distanced himself from the perspective of his own mother culture.
It is a beautiful poem because it captures so well the loneliness of an immigrant. In your new home you may never truly be accepted as anything more than an outsider, yet the culture you will inevitably adapt to will mark you for life in your perspective so that you can never return to your country of origin and fit in as seamlessly as you might once have done. In the end you are simultaneously a native and a foreigner to both nations.
His sad conclusion is that once you begin your travels, your choice is made. Once outside of the circle, their is no way back inside:
"Pilgrim, begone! Nor return more hereafter,
Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth ;
Others may sing of their love while rejoicing,
Thou once again must roam o'er the earth"
Copyright © 2026 eLLeNow.com All Rights Reserved.
