One imagines fashion designers occupying urban spaces and spotless salons, but for Iris Gil Viacrusis, a quest for knowledge about the textiles and dress styles of the Philippines led to remote jungles and hillsides, where he trekked through knee-deep mud, through typhoons that washed away swaths of mountain roads, and into territories dotted with armed soldiers.

His journeys paid off in an intimate exhibition of Filipino traditional dress on view in the first-floor reading room at the Hawaii State Library. The “Baro at Habi (Dress and Fabric): Visual Clues to Filipino Culture” exhibition of textiles, accessories and 50 costumed Barbie dolls coincides with the publication of the Filipino Association of University Women’s anthology “Pinay: Culture Bearers of the Filipino Diaspora,” in recognition of International Women’s Month.

The collection of stories and poems by 30 female writers grew out of co-editor Virgie Chattergy, a University of Hawaii professor emeritus, asking what happens to the values and culture of Filipinos who move away from their homeland.

“Women are the culture-bearers of societies,” said co-editor Pepi Nieva. “We are the ones transmitting values of family, funeral traditions, cooking, how we relate to other people.”

She’s no stranger to the issues of cultural loss and acculturation to another society. When her son was 10, he identified with Japanese games and decided he wanted to be Japanese like all of his friends. Now, at 28, she said he chooses to identify as an Asian-Pacific Islander rather than Filipino.

Part of the reluctance of Filipino youths to identify with their ethnicity is the discrimination encountered by their predecessors. Nieva said even though she was already a writer and public relations professional when she arrived in Hawaii in the 1970s, Filipinos were being told they weren’t smart enough to go to college and were qualified to do only service work, no matter what was on their resumes.

“It was very hard to find a job at that time,” she said. “People would ask me, ‘How come you speak English so well?’”

Her first job here was as a file clerk, as was Rose Churma’s, one of the book’s authors, who had been an architect in the Philippines. Although both say the situation has improved, current racial politics in the United States indicate that prejudices once hidden by a veneer of civility are still widespread.

DOLLS ON DISPLAY

In an attempt to keep various aspects of Filipino culture in front of its youths, Viacrusis is showing dolls in Philippine apparel and textiles, including woven fabric from Luzon’s mountain and lowland tribes, pineapple (piña) fiber cloth, Chinese silk (jusi), gold-threaded malong (woven tube skirts) from Mindanao, and embroidered butterfly-sleeve ternos (gowns) and barong tagalogs (men’s formal shirts).

Growing up in the Philippines, Viacrusis started creating doll clothing when he was 10. He studied fashion in Paris and worked in theater costuming in Los Angeles before moving to Hawaii, where he’s found a niche working for private clients. While creating costumes for the Merrie Monarch Festival, he learned that many hula dancers of Filipino heritage are more likely to identify with Hawaiian culture than their own.

“My thing is, we’re Pinoy, be Pinoy. But here in Hawaii, the second and third generations may not relate to it,” he said. “They’re more likely to say they’re local and tell their parents, ‘You’re in America now.’”

EXPLORING REMOTE LOCALES

Viacrusis said he was fascinated by the visual aspect of his culture, which drew him into Filipino customs and traditions. He was able to get an Atherton Foundation grant to study Philippine textiles. His search led him as far south as the Zamboanga peninsula, considered unsafe for travelers because of infiltration by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and other terrorist groups blamed for bombings and kidnappings.

Reaching mountain tribes meant leaving vehicles to hike up to 10 miles through rice paddies and forests, camping overnight and hauling out his acquisitions the next day. But he was grateful for the isolation that allowed various tribes to preserve their diversity of dress.

In the earliest examples of acculturation it’s easy to see the influence of other peoples in the evolution of Filipino attire. This includes the use of African back-strap weaving techniques reflected in the t’nalaks (banana fiber weaving) of the T’boli tribe of Mindanao, as well as Indonesia’s kebaya, a fitted, embroidered, semitransparent blouse wrapped with a long piece of cloth called a stagen.

“The Chinese were the silent invaders of the world who transferred a lot of these pieces and ideas from place to place,” Viacrusis said. “In the Philippines, there were no glass beads. Beads were made of earthenware, wood or shells.

“Then, all of a sudden, trade beads showed up in the northern Philippines. And African mudcloth looks very similar to the first weavings done on the back-strap loom (tied around a woman’s body, with the threads anchored by her toes).”

In spite of the risks, he said that if research funds became available again, he would return.

“There’s still so much to see.”