thesis about music in the philippines

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Leveraging Filipino Music and Indigenous Culture amidst the Ever-Changing Industry

A country’s pride is inherent in its rich culture and unique sound of music. However, there looms the  challenge to preserve, celebrate, and gain a vantage on existing music and indigenous culture with the ever-changing creative industry.

During the 6 th  Basic Research Symposium held at PICC last October 20, 2022, the National Research Council of the Philippines zoomed in to the interesting findings involving the Philippine music industry, socio-cultural phenomena involving spatial and generational preservation of musical knowledge and instruments, penetration of predominant religion among indigenous tribes, and the ecological impact of traditional methods.

Four (4) basic research results were presented to dig deeper into these inquiries. Ms. Roanne B. Romeroso, Associate Member of NRCP Division of Biological Sciences discussed her research findings on  Women Indigenous Knowledge and Traditional Fisheries: Impacts on Biodiversity of Rivers in the Samar Island Natural Park ; Dr. Randy A. Tudy, Regular Member of NRCP Division of Social Sciences presented the  History of Kalagan Indigenous Group in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur ; Dr. Jose S. Buenconsejo, Regular Member and former Chair of NRCP Division of Humanities shared the  Music-Cultural Flows and Exchanges in Pulangi River, Maguindanao ; while lastly, Dr. Maria Alexandra Chua, Regular Member of NRCP Division of Humanities unraveled note-worthy information on Philippine music industry through the research titled,  MusikaPilipinas: Research and Mapping Towards Understanding, Scoping, and Defining the Philippine Music Industry .  

Generally, the main theme of these research results is answering the challenge of preserving indigenous knowledge and culture, whilst being welcoming to new ways and adaptive to external, competitive demands.

Welcoming New Ways—Kalagan’s Religion and Samareños’ Traditional Fisheries

Marrying the temporal differences of traditional and modern approaches can be a bit of a hard knack—but one can see the beauty and advantage of giving it a try.

According to the NRCP study led by Dr. Tudy, elderly members of the Kalagan tribe worry that practicing Christianity will lead to the death of their rich indigenous beliefs. Currently, practicing, Kalagan Christians still perform their indigenous rituals but only during important occasions.

Young Kalagans should be provided mechanisms to discover the value of preserving their culture without dismissing their Christian experience. This sentiment is crucial in the long run. In fact, UNESCO supports the idea that “ culture provides the necessary transformative dimension that ensures the sustainability of development processes .”

For instance, in Samar, indigenous knowledge and practices on fishing contribute to the protection of Samar Island Natural Park river’s biodiversity. However, passing these on to new generations of Samareños continues to be a challenge. To address this, NRCP researchers promote its preservation through video recording the wisdom of the elderlies and securing an archive of it. Dr. Romeroso’s study is a component project of the NRCP-funded SALOG program (Saganang Buhay sa Ilog), covering the 9 rivers of the Samar Island Natural Park. SALOG is a joint endeavor of the University of Eastern Philippines, the Samar State University, and the Eastern Samar State University.

Adapting to Competitive Demands—Music Industry and Indigenous Instruments

There is a blurred line in adapting to competitive demands when it comes to music—how do we leverage on our own while being also flexible to what other countries offer out there?

This is what the Philippine Creative Industry Law (PCIL) is trying to support by mandating the creation of a long-term plan and development of creative industries. The Council, as a premiere agency which stands firm that the sciences, arts, culture, and humanities are equally pivotal fields of studies, is in the forefront and has funded the research titled,  Musika Pilipinas .

Musika Pilipinas produced a “comprehensive mapping, scoping and defining of the Philippine music industry; providing an analysis of the country’s music market and its current state, particularly information and assessment of its baseline socio-cultural and economic data.” Thus, moving towards the direction of supporting evidence-based policies to leverage on and strengthen the country’s creative industry.

In a related study, looking into the music cultural flows is one way of understanding how we can further preserve and leverage on what creative pieces the Philippines already has. For Maguindanao, Dr. Buenconsejo explored 1)  the diffusion of locally-manufactured bossed gongs  in the context of the social-material conditions; 2) the  dynamics of social meanings  in contemporary re-enactment of traditional rituals and festivals, and 3) the  continuity of musical theory and thinking  in the construction and performance of their traditional instrument.

He discovered that the Maguindanao  kulintang  tradition was being sustained and that growing tourism demands on local culture led to folklorization of traditional performances. Banking on basic research like this can strengthen the enforcement of PCIL.

In her message, NRCP Executive Director Marieta Bañez-Sumagaysay highlighted that “Understanding and respect, as ways of valuing the nation’s diversity, can be facilitated only if different cultural expressions are documented and effectively communicated to the public. We [NRCP] acknowledge these differences, cognizant of protecting the common threads which bind Filipinos together and strengthen the nation’s social fabric.” ( Regine C. Pustadan, Information Officer II . )

Downloadable Content

Music of Pre-colonial and Spanish Colonial Philippines and the Filipino Rondalla

• Masters Thesis
• Cabales, Justin
• Heinen, Julia M
• Stoffel, Lawrence F
• Monchick, Alexandra S
• California State University, Northridge
• Dissertations, Academic -- CSUN -- Music.
• Sa Ugoy ng Duyan
• Instruments
• Spanish occupation
• Filipino Music
• 2015-06-01T21:46:40Z
• http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/140401
• by Justin Cabales
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 36-37)
• California State University, Northridge. Department of Music.

Items in ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

15 Nov Indigenous Philippine Music: Tradition and Transformation

Despite colonial rule of more than 400 years, the Philippines continues to take pride in its indigenous music. Not only has indigenous music been preserved, but it has also helped enrich contemporary Philippine music, fusing the old with the new, the original with the borrowed, the indigenous with the foreign.

What we now regard as popular or folk music is a product of such fusion. One example is the pasyon , a verse narrative on the life of Jesus Christ. While the pasyon was originally based on material used by Spanish friars to convert the natives to Christianity, it was also transformed by Filipinos into something that reflected its own identity, dreams, and traditions. Other Filipino musical forms also emerged as a result of the intersection of indigenous and Spanish musical traditions. These include the talindaw (a boat song), the awit (a song in slow triple time), the tagulaylay (a mournful song), the sambotani (a song sung at a feast), the kumintang (a war song that later became a love song), among others, all of which flourished during the Spanish colonial period.

The American period saw the heightened experimentation of Filipino composers with European styles. However, the period also produced nationalistic Filipino composers who used their formal training and expertise in music by incorporating ethnic elements in their works. One of these composers is Francisco Santiago, regarded as the “father of nationalism in music,” who transformed the kundiman from folk song to art song, a song that “requires advanced vocal technique and musical maturity for its performance, usually on the concert stage” ( CCP Encyclopedia of art vol. 6, 1994, p. 78). Examples of these are Pakiusap , Madaling Araw and Sakali Man. Another is Nicanor Abelardo who utilized the kumintang in his classic kundiman, Mutya ng Pasig .

In the 1930s to 1940s, Antonino Buenaventura also used nationalist themes in his compositions like Pandanggo sa Ilaw and Mindanao Sketches which was based on Manobo themes. Other composers who made use of indigenous themes were Juan Hernandez in Mga Katutubong Tanawin and Lucio San Pedro in the Malakas at Maganda Overture .

The number of artists who sought to merge Filipino musical traditions and forms of Western classical music grew in the 1950s to the 1980s. Among the notable composers who emerged from this period were Lucrecia Kasilag, Jose Maceda, Ramon Santos, Francisco Feliciano, Eliseo Pajaro, Ruben Federizon, and Conrado del Rosario.

In popular music, Joey Ayala has infused pop and rock with a genuine appreciation of ethnic music as well as a strong sense of nationalism.

Banas, R. C. (1992). Musika : an essay on Philippine ethnic music . Manila : Sentrong Pangkultura ng Pilipinas.

Tiongson, Nicanor (Ed.). (1994). CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art (Vol. 7: Philippine theater). Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Ibaloy String Ensemble (Retrato Photo Archive)

WHAT ARE THE INDIGENOUS MUSIC IN THE PHILIPPINES?

Jenna Mae De Chavez

what are the 5 indagenous vocal music

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Singing While Filipino: Reflections on Authenticity and Musical Labour

Long admired and derided for her fluent mimicry of Western musics, the singing Filipino is emblematic of both the postcolonial reckoning with hybridity, and the neoliberal transformation of cultural production into precarious work. But might there be other ways to make sense of Philippine vocal performance beyond valorisations of and injunctions to cultural distinctiveness and individual virtuosity? In this paper-performance, I meditate on the intimate practices of singing and listening "while Filipino," and propose that vocal performance serves as a unique and important site of reckoning with multiple subjectivities. I present two instances of critical reflection. In the first I consider the findings of my research on migrant Filipino musicians, whose singing, valued for the imitative and affective capacities of entertainment, is framed by larger infrastructures of labour migration and colonial cultural history. In the second, I share/sing insights as a performer and facilitator of improvised chant with Manila-based artists in contemporary dance and music. I propose that the musical labour of song ambivalently positions the Filipino to be for herself and yet always for others. Such ambivalence becomes clear in transnational contexts where, firstly, music as entertainment has become one in a cadre of migrant service jobs where Filipinoness is racially coded as high-quality but subordinate labour; and music as art from the global South has discursively mark(et)ed the aesthetic and cosmopolitan value of Filipino culture in the global imaginary. In both instances, I focus on listening as a key dynamic through which these tensions are both incompletely resolved. I argue that it is through singing/listening that we can make new sense of authenticity's role in contemporary Philippine subjectivities, generating anxieties and aspirations in different contexts of performance and/as labour, and revealing these cultural subjectivities as multi-sited, polyvalent, contradictory, and vital.

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Kim Rockell

his study is the first extensive examination of musical activity of the Filipino community in Christchurch. The thesis examines the styles of music and the ways in which music is used by the Filipino migrant community in Christchurch during 2008, encapsulated in their fiesta celebrations. It acknowledges the recent growth in Filipino migration to New Zealand and seeks to identify a corresponding increase in Filipino musical activity. The measurement of greater musical activity in the Filipino community is linked to the occurrence of new initiatives involving music. Concepts of Filipino musical identity are extrapolated from data, which indicates the relative representation of musical styles and mediums, in the context of conscious displays of Filipinism. Filipino musical activity is shown to be lively, physically mediated, and group orientated, with an emphasis on song and dance. The importance of religion in Filipino music making and celebration is demonstrated, and a sustained Hispanic influence on Filipino culture in Filipino migrants to Christchurch is identified. Background chapters deal with main genres of Filipino music, and aspects of Filipino culture and society. A participant/observer role and use of fieldwork recordings and interviews are adopted. Findings on Filipino groups and their musical activity in Christchurch are presented and key fiestas that took place in 2008 are reported. Following this, two specific items; a folk dance and a liturgical song, the preparation and performance of which were participated in by the researcher as part the project’s ethnomusicological fieldwork, are examined. A DVD of selected performances is included.

Globalization as a concept has reached an impasse exhausted of its potential to generate imagination and critique. Hence worlding, defined in various ways such as “the whole new way to globalize” and “the art of being global”. In worlding, we are invited to re-imagine globalization in a new light unaffected by the dominant discourses of state and business. Unlike globalization, wording is neither a fatalistic structural force nor the triumphant sweep of neoliberal capitalism. It is practice of world-making, a pursuit of an alternative globalization (or globalizations). The Inter-Asia cultural studies scholarship has been an effort to engage in cultural and intellectual construction of Asia. What Asia has been made during this initial phase? What Asia should be made in the future? With the theme of worlding, the 2017 conference hopes to re-examine the efforts thrown thus far and to appreciate emerging trans-bordering forms in Asia outside or in the gaps and cracks in the neoliberal hegemon. The term should open up new research areas and agendas of inter-Asia cultural studies.

Patricia Hardwick

Mak yong is a Malay dramatic art performed in the region of the former Pattani Sultanate, an area that includes the northern Malaysian states of Kedah, Terengganu, and Kelantan and the southern Thai provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat. In 1991, Parti Islam Se-Malaysia, or PAS, the Islamic party that rules Kelantan, issued an official ban on mak yong performances under a clause prohibiting acts of vice (Khoo, Tikamdas, & Wong, 2003). PAS officials claim that mak yong performances incorporate pre-Islamic belief systems and encourage the worship of deities and supernatural beings other than Allah. PAS officials also take issue with the prominent role of women as mak yong actresses, arguing that the appearance of women in such performances encourages male audience members to view them as sexual objects. The longstanding PAS ban on Kelantanese mak yong has altered its performance, but has not succeeded in its obliteration. Kelantanese performers may no longer be granted permits to perform mak yong as a secular form of folk entertainment, however, mak yong continues to be an important part of village life through its incorporation into main puteri ritual healing performances. Mak yong-main puteri healing performances treat social and psychological illnesses that western medical techniques cannot address. In this paper I will examine how contemporary mak yong-main puteri practitioners envision the human body and how they engage traditional Kelantanese concepts of personhood when performing in a healing context. I will also investigate how the physical and metaphysical selves of a patient are united during mak yong-main puteri performances through the use of metaphor.

Proceedings of the 5th Symposium for the International Council for Traditional Music Study Group for Performing Arts of Southeast Asia

Anthea Skinner

The Sultan of Lingga’s Brass Band, also known as Korps Musik, was formed by Viceroy, Yang Dipertuan Muda Riau VI, Raja Jaafar in the late 19th Century in what is now Indonesia’s Riau Province. Raja Jaafar sent a group of local men to Melaka to learn European music, receiving instruction in a range of instruments including military drums, flute, trumpet and violin. Upon completion of their studies they returned to Riau, forming a military band at the palace of their patron, Viceroy Raja Jaafar on the island of Penyengat. Although ostensibly under the employ of the Sultan of Lingga, in reality the band played an important part in the power struggle between Sultan Mahmud and his Viceroy who, with the help of Dutch influence, gradually sought to become de facto ruler of the kingdom. While most Europeans are instantly familiar with the political power denoted by a fully-uniformed military band, the Sultanate had its own musical ensembles to confer power, known as Nobat. Nobat were not only vital in the process of installing a ruler, but the dynamics of their performances was seen to denote the extent of a Sultan’s rule. In this context, the introduction of an even louder ensemble, and one that was a recognised symbol of Dutch power, had the ability to profoundly impact the balance of power in the area. This paper will explore the formation and history of the Sultan of Lingga’s Brass Band, concentrating on how its use impacted upon the power struggle between the Sultan, the Viceroy and the Dutch Colonial Government, eventually leading to Sultan Mahmud’s deposition by the Dutch, before being replaced, first by a more docile relative and eventually, in 1886, by the son of the Viceroy.

Allison Mackey

This paper reports on two recently developed contemporary rondallas outside the Philippines: one in Dansui, Taiwan and another in Queensland, Australia. The rondalla is a plucked-string ensemble which was brought to the Philippines from Spain in the late nineteenth century, not long before American intervention and the end of the Spanish era. This type of instrumental group was enthusiastically adopted in the Philippines and became an inexpensive and accessible medium for music education in schools. It has also become strongly connected to notions of Philippine national identity. Enjoying periodic resurgences within the Philippines, the characteristic, sparkling tremolo sound of rondalla instruments has an enduring place in the Philippine musical soundscape. This examination of rondallas in two diasporic locations confirms that the key concern for group founders is the transmission of culture of origin to second- generation Filipino migrants. In spite of a lack of funds and the scarcity of rondalla teachers, Filipinos have been able to reconstruct a treasured, musical heritage in their new homes. The paper also highlights the interesting contrast between the specific forms of multiculturalism which have arisen in Taiwan and Australia over the last few decades and have influenced the development of rondallas in each location. Recommendations for the rondalla's further development are offered, including the establishment of a freely downloadable database of scores and the creation of accessible educational multi-media materials for rondalla.

Sir Anril Pineda TIATCO

meLê yamomo

In the second half of the 19th and in the beginning of the 20th century, the Asia Pacific region was inevitably entangled with early modern globalisation. In this article the author examines the spread of town bands and popular music in this period, and the ways in which both the bands and their music were intertwined with the modernist aspirations of the urban capitals, from Manila and into the Asia Pacific region. The role of the Manila musicians as crucial cultural mediators in this sonic modernisation project is closely examined. Looking into biographies, historical newspapers, and surviving archival documents, the author surveys some general patterns and specific narratives in the various replications of modernities, through the movement of sounds and ideas instigated by the migrant Manila musicians. In particular, the case of the Sta. Cecilia Band in Singapore between 1892 and 1910 is analysed.

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This essay explores the disputed origins of the first karaoke machine and explains how karaoke eventually evolved into a term of judgment in star- making media such as reality vocal competition shows. What Tongson calls the double- edged “karaoke standard” — whether a competitor’s performance sounds like a direct imitation of the original and thus, according to judges, “like karaoke” — was famously invoked by Simon Cowell during the early seasons of American Idol. Karaoke has often been imagined as a technology that enables the everyman or everywoman to experience, if only for the length of the song, the power that comes with commanding the stage as a star. And yet, this essay argues, instead of verifying the wide chasm between celebrity and mere imitation, the karaoke standard reminds us of how narrow the gap actually is between amateur recreation and pop prowess.

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Meet Eleanor Wikstrom, a Fil-Am Harvard Summa Cum Laude who pushed for the university's historic Filipino language course

By Yoniel Acebuche Published Jun 03, 2024 8:19 pm

Eleanor Wikstrom's work uplifting the Filipino and Filipino-American communities has just begun. 

The California-based Fil-am recently graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies. She also gained the Sophia Freund Prize, which is the highest GPA in her college.

Her senior thesis on US colonialism in the Philippines won numerous awards including the Alexis de Tocqueville Prize for Best Thesis in Social Studies, the Senior Thesis Prize in Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights, and the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize.

Speaking to PhilSTAR L!fe , Wikstrom considers these milestones incredibly meaningful because they represent a "win" for the Filipino and Filipino-American community.

"I understand that graduating Summa Cum Laude and having such distinctions on my thesis mean that it represents something more than myself, it's also a win for the Filipino community and the Filipino American community, and also for the community where I grew up in California. And so I think it's very meaningful for me," she told L!fe .

"[These awards are] the beginning of a lot of work. In some ways, it's the culmination of an academic career and a really extensive project that I've been working on for several years."

But her passion for the communities she represents doesn't end with her graduation. She added that it's work that she'll continue throughout the rest of her career and academics.

After Harvard, the Oakland native is set to study at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in 2025 as she's one of the recipients of the American Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, Wikstrom will study imperial and global history.

Representing Filipinos at Harvard

At Harvard, Wikstrom found that the Philippines and its communities in the US were underrepresented relative to its population in the country. About 4.5 million Filipinos and Filipino-Americans live in the United States according to a 2021 census .

"Going into a setting where there are very few Filipinos can be very difficult because it means that you don't really know if you're going to be able to learn more about your heritage or learn, learn more about your motherland or culture. But at the same time, it also means that you have to be very intentional about forming strong bonds with the other Filipinos that are there."

She continued, "[Since] I had the opportunity to meet other people who are equally as passionate about celebrating and uplifting the Philippines and their Filipino and Filipino American heritage, that ended up being one of the most meaningful parts of my time at Harvard, was connecting with other members of that community."

Wikstrom even played a pivotal role in pushing for a Filipino language course at Harvard as she wrote an opinion piece about its absence.

In 2023, the university began offering a course on Filipino for the first time in its nearly 400-year history. Cavite teacher Lady Aileen Orsal was hired as the subject's instructor.

"There's a really rich and important history behind the reason why Tagalog was so widely spoken in the United States, but that there was also a very conspicuous ignorance and gap about the Philippines in American education systems," she explained to L!fe.

Filipino is the fourth most spoken language in the United States behind English, Spanish, and Chinese.

With her senior thesis, she wanted to be able to trace back how colonialism in the Philippines changed what knowledge was considered valid and valuable. She also studied how this colonial rule, in turn, affected the United States, too. 

"I grew up in the United States, and that's the setting that I'm most familiar with, I wanted to make sure that that side of the history was also being exposed and being taught that we could start reckoning with it and start teaching Tagalog at places like Harvard, or start teaching more Filipino history, because it's such a big part of the United States history as well, it just often gets obscured."

'The most important thing is to be genuine'

Wikstrom, also the co-president of Harvard Philippine Forum, implied to L!fe that her academic journey at Harvard wasn't smooth sailing.

"I wouldn't want to give the impression that it was still smooth sailing the whole time because I want to make sure that especially other Filipinos who go to Harvard understand that it's okay to struggle," she noted.

Wikstrom added, "[There's] a lot of the other things that they had in order to make sure that I could be successful, like knowing that it was okay to ask for help if I didn't know how to navigate something or if I thought I needed additional assistance. I was definitely living in the current learning curve."

When asked about tips for those hoping to get into Harvard, Wikstrom said, "I would say the most important thing is to be genuine."

"Harvard interviewers are reading thousands of applications a year. They know people who are trying to craft their narrative in order to seem like the most impressive thing. But if you genuinely love what you do, and you genuinely want to make a difference in the world—which sounds cliche, but I actually want to do that and there [are] many other people who actually want to do that," she shared.

Lastly, Wikstrom said that when entering universities like Harvard, one should know one's priorities, which include self-love and well-being.

"It's easy to think that if you just [grind] all the time, and [sleep] three hours a night, [spend] all of your time doing extracurriculars, that it'll lead to success. But if you're not taking care of yourself, it's not sustainable."

TAGS: Philippines education Filipino-American harvard university Thesis eleanor wikstrom american rhodes scholarship us colonialism

Yoniel Acebuche

Yoniel Acebuche is a journalist by profession and a beauty queen by passion. She has constantly joined beauty pageants in different cities and fiestas across the Philippines ever since she was 15. Writing and pageantry are her empowering ways to connect to other people as well as to understand herself.

L.A. Influential is the story of Los Angeles in 2024

Los angeles is in constant flux. arranged into six categories, l.a. influential presents people of all ages, backgrounds and fields, who are making a difference. come back each sunday for more stories on the moguls, artists, community leaders and others shaping the city now..

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It was 4 in the morning on a balmy weekday last summer as I walked toward City Hall to cover a labor strike .

I’ve seen the massive building up close during the day, from the 101 Freeway at night, on film and television numerous times, and it never fails to impress. Thirty-two stories tall, always gleaming, tapered at the peak like one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, built with sand from all of California’s 58 counties, and water from the 21 Spanish missions.

Discover the change-makers who are shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Creators, who are leaving their mark in film, art, music and more. Come back each Sunday for another installment.

It was erected to show off the “new era of progress and accomplishment” that Los Angeles represented, according to this paper when City Hall was officially dedicated in 1928 with a parade, speeches and all sorts of pomp.

It was also meant as a flex, and a promise: Behold L.A.’s power, and the influence we will soon have over the world.

City Hall shone especially bright in the early hours when I went to cover the one-day work stoppage, a beacon as I walked through the dimly lit streets of downtown. The structure stood as memory and manifestation to the boast city leaders offered to the world 96 years ago. But all around me, L.A.’s influence played out in ways that they would’ve never imagined.

People were sleeping in tents and sleeping bags on the sidewalk and in front of tower doors. I passed the former headquarters of The Times — the longtime tastemaker of the West, now located in El Segundo. A man in a skullcap knelt next to a bench and prayed in Arabic. Police cars drove by; buses rumbled in the distance. Men and women put in their daily runs and bike rides. News vans parked across the City Hall steps next to Gloria Molina Grand Park, named after the late Chicana political powerhouse.

City Hall is a gorgeous place, but it’s just granite and concrete without the people who make L.A. happen.

I’ve thought about that day many times since. I saw the city at its best — and at its most vexing. Glamorous and struggling. Fearful. Hopeful. Influential nationally and internationally in every single way, for better and worse.

It’s in that spirit that The Times launches L.A. Influential, in which we profile the people shaping the contours of the city right now. Through photos, essays, stories, videos and more, it’s a roster of who makes L.A. tick, at a moment everyone knows represents a change for the city — even if none of us know exactly where we’re going.

Historically, influence in Los Angeles was an easy proposition: Those who had power used it at the expense of everyone else.

Through conquest and racism, hustle and corruption, brute force and unfair laws, and money above all, the city was a playground for our potentates for over a century, at the expense of too many residents. Surnames such as Chandler and Mulholland, Broad and O’Malley dominated civic and political life to imagine and build an L.A. that now seems like a long-ago dream.

Since the 1992 riots, a new philosophy has taken hold in L.A. as the population diversified and the old guard largely high-tailed it out of here: Influence can come from anywhere, and woe to those who don’t realize that.

That reality is reflected in L.A. Influential.

L.A. Influential is a snapshot of a city at this moment. Among the names on the list are, clockwise from top left, businessman and former Laker Earvin “Magic” Johnson, filmmaker Ava DuVernay and actor Cheech Marin.

What does influence even mean anymore in Los Angeles when anyone with a social media account can amass a following of hundreds of thousands? Is it the people who are in charge of how the city runs — the politicians, the bureaucrats, the nonprofit leaders? Is it the individuals who tell us what to view, read, listen to and eat? The folks who work behind the scenes that few know about but who are legends in their world? Those who have huge influence outside Southern California but wouldn’t even be recognized at the In-N-Out drive-through?

This leveling is a good thing. It forces the multitudinous nodes in this famously fragmented metropolis to work together if anyone wants anything done.

In reporting on these subjects, we met them in boardrooms or at protests, talked over the phone or via Zoom, spent an hour with them or months. Their stories are accompanied with portraits shot in studios or in the field by Times Pulitzer-Prize-winning photographer Christina House. We’ll be publishing these 101 profiles over the course of six Sundays, by category — the Creators, the Connectors, the Money, the Civic Center, the Disruptors and the Establishment.

There are the obvious choices — and many more surprises. You’ll find elected officials and fishmongers. Movie stars alongside social media upstarts. Philanthropic giants whose grants improve life for millions of Angelenos, and tech bros. Sports. Music. Fashion. Quiet influence. Loud. People who you don’t think deserve to be noted here and people you couldn’t imagine Los Angeles without.

Influence can come from anywhere, and woe to those who don’t realize that. Artist Mark Bradford, left, and Zapotec advocate Odilia Romero are two others on The Times’ L.A. Influential list.

We know that there can never be a perfect L.A. Influential. The demographic makeup of this compilation doesn’t even approach how L.A. looks. Forty-seven percent of the people on this list, for instance, are white; 22% identify as Black; 18% are Latino; 16% are Asian. Several individuals are of Middle Eastern descent, and one person is Indigenous.

Criticize, praise or debate this selection — we welcome it all. But these numbers are valuable, too: They reflect how influence has historically worked in the city, the ramifications of that legacy — and where it’s going.

Above all, L.A. Influential is a snapshot of a city at this moment. Because influence changes. When City Hall debuted, the lords of L.A. were concentrated in downtown and were nearly all white. By the 1960s, influence was shifting to the Westside, and an alliance of Black, Latino and Jewish activists was laying the groundwork for the multicultural coalitions — sometimes fraught, sometimes not — that have defined L.A. ever since. Who holds influence changes so much that The Times did a similar project in 2006 , and there is very little crossover between that list and this one. In 15 years, maybe even five, you can expect the same.

That’s a good thing. Los Angeles is at its best when the people who shape us make way for the next generation, when there are people who want to right the wrongs of the past as they try to build a better future. The people you’re about to read up on know it’s the only way to live in the city of the eternal future.

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Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, covering Southern California everything and a bunch of the West and beyond. He previously worked at OC Weekly, where he was an investigative reporter for 15 years and editor for six, wrote a column called ¡Ask a Mexican! and is the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.” He’s the child of two Mexican immigrants, one of whom came to this country in the trunk of a Chevy.

Christina House is a staff photojournalist with the Los Angeles Times. She officially joined the visual journalism team in 2017 after 10 years as a freelance photographer. House grew up in Long Beach and is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton. Her love for photography started when she visited the Philippines, her mother’s native country, at age 7. That unforgettable experience inspired her to pick up a camera. House won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for Domestic Photography for “Hollywood’s Finest,” an intimate look into the life of a pregnant 22-year-old woman living on the street. She received the 2021 Cliff Edom New America Award and was honored in the portrait series category for her work on “Game Changers: A Celebration of Women in Sports” from the 2021 National Press Photographers Assn.’s Best of Photojournalism awards.

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News Analysis

In Israel and Ukraine, Biden Navigates Two of America’s Most Difficult Allies

President Biden has promised to support the two countries for as long as it takes. Both their wars appear to be at critical turning points.

By David E. Sanger

Reporting from Washington

Over the past five days, President Biden has been engaged in a very public demonstration of the struggles of managing two of America’s most difficult allies, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, both leading countries that the president has vowed to defend, as long as it takes.

The conflicts they are engaged in could not be more different, born out of grievances that reach back decades. But by coincidence, both confrontations seem to be at critical turning points, that moment when it becomes obvious how starkly national interests are diverging — to say nothing of the political interests of three leaders clearly worried about their own hold on power.

Adding to the complexity of the problem, it is unclear in Washington exactly what an acceptable endgame might look in Ukraine or in Gaza. Officially, Ukraine still talks about total victory, pushing Russia out of every inch of territory it seized since the February 2022 invasion. Israel still speaks of the goal of the “total destruction” of Hamas, the only way to assure that it could never again mount an attack like the Oct. 7 assault that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and sparked seven months of brutal retaliation.

But in Washington, those rallying calls sound increasingly unrealistic. Russia appears to be regaining momentum. The call for the total defeat of Hamas sounds like a rationale for perpetual war — and, in fact, Israeli officials have publicly declared the war in Gaza will likely continue to the end of the year, if not longer.

So Mr. Biden has taken to crisis management, trying to prevent the worst, even if he cannot answer the question of how, exactly, these wars end.

“Neither Ukraine nor Israel is a treaty ally,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime Mideast negotiator. He was referring to the status of the other 31 members of NATO, which are obliged to come to one another’s defense, and the formal American pacts with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and others. “And yet we are fully invested in how to get these wars to the next phase, a phase where we lessen the violence, even if we can’t articulate a realistic vision of how it stops.”

In both cases, Mr. Biden has now staked some big bets.

On Thursday, with the most minimal of public explanation, the White House revealed that Mr. Biden had carved what it termed a narrow exemption to his 27-month-long insistence that American weapons can never be shot into Russian territory. It is a rule he established at the outset of the war in Ukraine to “avoid World War III.”

It was one thing, Mr. Biden told his aides, to give the Ukrainians the weaponry they need to protect their own homeland. But letting them launch American artillery rounds and rockets and missiles over the border, where they could take the lives of not only soldiers but also civilians, and wipe out Russian infrastructure, could escalate into a direct American confrontation with a nuclear-armed adversary.

That mandate made sense when time was on Ukraine’s side, one of Mr. Biden’s top advisers said over the weekend. But now, momentum has reversed. Mr. Zelensky, who clashed repeatedly with Mr. Biden and his staff over their reluctance to give him long-range artillery, then tanks, then F-16’s, began a public pressure campaign to get Mr. Biden to soften his restrictions on firing American weapons across the border into Russia.

In an interview with The New York Times two weeks ago, Mr. Zelensky addressed Mr. Biden.

“Shoot down what’s in the sky over Ukraine,” Mr. Zelensky said. “And give us the weapons to use against Russian forces on the borders.” He was taking public what he had been saying more insistently to visiting American officials, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, the most recent senior official to visit Kyiv.

Mr. Blinken came back convinced, and in a Friday night Oval Office meeting with Mr. Biden, he and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, along with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, convinced Mr. Biden that he needed to lift the restrictions at least in the border areas around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Otherwise, they warned, Russia could well start taking back significant parts of territory that it was chased out of in the fall of 2022.

Ukraine announced on Monday that it had used Western-provided weapons to destroy an air-defense system on Russian territory, though it did not name the weapon or give details. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, then issued a warning that if Western-provided weapons struck Russia, Moscow would extract “fatal consequences.”

Mr. Biden’s aides insisted that the president had not reversed himself as much as he had created an exception to his non-escalation rule. But as Mr. Blinken himself hinted at the end of last week, it might not be the last exception. He said the American strategy to push back on Russia would adapt to changes on the battlefield.

Mr. Zelensky spent the weekend arguing that it was not enough — that Mr. Biden should take all the restrictions off the use of American weapons, so that he could use them across all borders with Russia and deep into its territory. The White House shook it off.

“I don’t think it should come as a shock to anybody that President Zelensky would be grateful on one hand, but all eager to continue to press his case,” said John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. But Mr. Kirby said U.S. policy against “long range strikes inside of Russia has not changed.”

In private, Mr. Biden’s advisers concede that American and Ukrainian priorities are diverging. At this point, Ukraine has nothing left to lose from escalating with Russia. Mr. Biden still does: Inside the White House, the obvious concern is that President Vladimir V. Putin will roll out battlefield nuclear weapons, trying to convince the world that if Ukraine keeps dropping American-made bombs and rockets on Russian territory, he will not hesitate to use the ultimate weapon on Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky, for his part, has dismissed the nuclear fears as overwrought.

The day after Mr. Biden allowed limited strikes on Russian territory, he made a much more public move to force the hand of Mr. Netanyahu, with whom his relationship has turned just short of poisonous. Mr. Biden gave a public speech in which he endorsed what he called an Israeli plan to win the release of hostages and end the fighting in Gaza. “It’s time for this war to end, for the day after to begin,’’ he said.

It was unusual, to say the least, for an American president to be spelling out the details of an Israeli plan: Diplomats are trained to avoid speaking for other countries. But in this case, that was the point. Mr. Biden spoke after months of frustration, in which Mr. Netanyahu refused to go along with American admonitions to let in more lifesaving aid, to create a plan for evacuating hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians from Rafah before military operations took place, and to avoid using 2,000-pound bombs that injure or kill civilians.

So the president was determined to make Mr. Netanyahu admit to ownership of a three-phased peace plan, one that could stretch out for years.

In fact, the plan was approved by the war cabinet — though not by the small right-wing parties that support Mr. Netanyahu and that he needs to keep his fragile coalition government in power. It appears those opponents of the deal never even saw the offer to Hamas.

Mr. Netanyahu did not exactly deny that he had signed off on the plan, but he did not admit it, either. “He’s dancing,’’ said Shalom Lipner, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who worked for seven Israeli prime ministers over 26 years, including Mr. Netanyahu. “He hasn’t disclaimed it. But he hasn’t embraced it, either.”

“Going public with this proposal — on the Sabbath, when he knew that the more right-wing religious parties might not hear it or could not respond — became a necessity because time is slipping away,’’ Mr. Lipner said.

It is slipping in particular for Mr. Biden. Six weeks ago, the president and his aides thought a prisoner swap and a cease-fire, even if temporary, was just days away. That moment came and went. Now, atop the human tragedy of the war is the political reality: Mr. Biden knows that his campaign appearances, and the Democratic convention, may well be marked by protesters from the progressive wing of his party who believe the United States should have cut off all of Israel’s offensive arms as the civilian deaths mounted.

But, as a strong supporter of Israel over the past 50 years — Mr. Biden still talks of dealing with Golda Meir at the end of her time in power as Israel’s prime minister — the president knows he cannot appear to be threatening or abandoning the current government.

So the two men have taken to public pronouncements that make clear their differences of strategy. It is hardly the kind of quiet, take-a-friend-aside cajoling that Mr. Biden prides himself on, whether he is strong-arming NATO leaders to spend more on defense or persuading the Japanese to reconcile their century-old differences with South Korea. But it is what the US and Israel have come to, out of distrust: Public pronouncements to corner the other.

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

Inside the Biden Administration

Here’s the latest news and analysis from washington..

Immigration:  President Biden issued an executive order  that prevents migrants from seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border when crossings surge, a dramatic election-year move  to ease pressure on the immigration system.

Israel and Ukraine:  Biden has promised to support the two countries for as long as it takes. Both their wars appear to be at critical turning points .

Attacks on Justice Dept.:  Attorney General Merrick Garland lashed out at House Republicans , accusing them of seeking to undermine the rule of law, peddling “conspiracy theories” and spreading falsehoods.

‘Corporate Offender’ Registry:  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a plan to create a public registry  of nonbank businesses that have been penalized for violating consumer protection laws.

Live Nation:  The Justice Department is suing Live Nation Entertainment , the owner of Ticketmaster, asking a court to break up the company over claims it illegally maintained a monopoly in the live entertainment industry.