Filipino Americans

Transformation and Identity

Maria P. P. Root

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN: 9780761905790, 9780761905783
• eBook ISBN: 9781506319896
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

"Maria P. P. Root?s new edited volume on Filipino American makes an outstanding contribution in terms of exploring the socio-economic integration and the transformation of ethnic identities among one of the largest, fastest growing, but least studied Asian American groups in the United States - Filipinos. . . . One unique area covered by this book is its thoughtful reflection on the impacts of colonization on Filipino literature and the articulation of Filipino identities . . . . The book provides an unusual breadth of information on Filipino lives in the U.S.A. . . . I found this book very valuable as an introductory text in an undergraduate curriculum on Asian American studies, and in racial and ethnic studies. The power of the book lies in its ability to render problematic the stereotypes of Asian Americans, and to question the preconceived categories of race, culture, and ethnicity. The book?s discussion and reflection on identities is provocative and accessible to students."

--Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

"Maria P. P. Root succeeds where many ethnic-specific anthologies fail: focusing on the issue of a people?s identity while avoiding boxing them in. . . . What is refreshing about this volume is not only the variety of perspectives, but the different styles. . . . Root and the contributors succeed in living up to the hope stated in the book?s introduction, ??that these pages will offer challenging questions, some refreshing analysis, and new paradigms for interpreting the Filipino American experience.??

--Pacific Reader

Typically, when Asian Americans are discussed in the media, the reference is to people of Chinese or Japanese descent. However, the largest Asian American ethnic group is Filipino-a group about which little is known or written, even though Filipinos have a long-standing history with the United States through colonization that effects how this group is viewed and views themselves. Aimed at rectifying this information dearth, this volume presents the first interdisciplinary analysis of who Filipinos are and what it means to be a Filipino American. With contributions from historians, social workers, community leaders, ethnic studies scholars, sociologists, educators, health care workers, political scientists, and psychologists, this book addresses such issues as ethnic identity, the impact of different colonizations on ethnic identity, personal and family relationships, mental health, race, and racism. In addition, the sociopolitical context is examined in each social-issues chapter to make the volume more useful as a foundational tool for hypothesis generation, empirical research, policy analysis and planning, and literature review. This book offers readers a rich and varied portrait of our largest Asian American ethnic group.

1

The Tragic Sense of Filipino History

Peter Bacho

The sorrow and downright tragedy of Filipino history have long been the main components of the engine that drives Filipino literature. As we approach any number of centennials (1896—the start of the war against Spain and Jose Rizal’s execution; 1897—the signing of the short-lived Pact of Biak na Bato; 1898—the arrival of the Americans; 1899—the start of the American war against Filipinos), it is appropriate to understand that the bloody crushing of dreams at the turn of the century was simply a harbinger of worse hardships to come. Some of these were triggered by foreigners, such as the devastation caused by the Japanese occupation. Others, however, had domestic origins: the Huk Rebellion, the Marcos era, the twin insurrections led by the Marxist New People’s Army and Muslim secessionists.

For many Filipinos, the major good to emerge from this litany of instability and war was the enduring link to the United States. For most of that colonial period, it meant a chance to escape to America. Left behind was the Philippines’ rural poverty, a condition that would only worsen as landlords distanced themselves from their tenants and—operating within the lucrative context of the tariff-free American market—began to pay more attention to increased profits. Yet even here, among the fabled “Manong generation” there is a particular sadness to their stories.

In the 1920s and 1930s, they arrived in the United States full of hope. They were, after all, American nationals and products of a Thomasite school system¹ that preached only the best of American ideals. America, young Filipinos believed, was a meritocracy, a social ideal that the Philippines—with its emphasis on inherited wealth and European blood—was most assuredly not. Somewhere—whether in an asparagus field in Stockton, a hotplate room in Seattle, or a cannery in Alaska—a part of that ideal died. Restricted by race, these men were forced into a life of migrant labor, doing menial jobs most white workers would never touch. Keep moving, they were told in one hostile West Coast town after another. And so they did, living a life of constant motion; on the West Coast, they ranged from California’s Imperial Valley to the northernmost Alaskan cannery, and to all points in between.

In the literature gleaned from Filipino authors in the Philippines and in America, the shadow of Sisyphus, the Greek king condemned by the gods to everlasting failure, looms exceedingly large. He is embodied in Crisostomo Ibarra, a mestizo idealist who seeks a modest reform—the establishment of a Spanish academy—in his homeland, the Philippines.

Yet even that advance proves too much for the friars, the true powers who govern the archipelago on behalf of Spain. The political and economic power of the friars, medieval in its scope and authority, is built on the passivity and blind obedience of the Filipino masses. Any reform, ranging from Philippine representation in the Cortes to trimming of the extent of the friars’ secular powers, is quickly crushed by religious authorities. Even as modest a reform as the teaching of Spanish smacks of “progress” and merits condemnation by the friars and worse. Such is the case in Jose Rizal’s first great propaganda novel, Noli Me Tangere (1887/1961), in which forces led by the friars appear to have killed the luckless Ibarra by the novel’s end.

Of course, Rizal is not finished with his protagonist; his pedagogical value has not been exhausted. Ibarra does not die; rather, as in any good melodrama, he returns a number of years later, as the jaded, wealthy, and mysterious Simoun, to haunt his old foes in Rizal’s sequel, El Filibusterismo (1891/1965). Simoun’s purpose is simple: to provoke Filipinos to rise against Spain. He fails and, in his final confession to Father Florentino, a Filipino priest, Rizal, through Florentino, speaks out against violence (revolution) as a means of promoting a social good.

By this time, of course, Florentino/Rizal’s protest against violence is a bit too late. Indelibly etched in the minds of the book’s Filipino audience is an encyclopedia of legitimate Filipino grievances and Spanish cruelties. In Noli, one example of the latter is the execution of Tar silo, a captured rebel, who is lowered head first into the town well. The prospect is so horrific that Tarsilo pleads, not for life, but for a quicker death: “If you’re Christians, if you have hearts … lower me fast or hit my head against the wall and kill me. God will reward you for this good deed. Think, maybe some day you will find yourselves where I am” (p. 358).

Surely, among Rizal’s audience, Tarsilo’s admonition—that others might someday find themselves sharing his fate—must have struck a resonant chord, leading some to an inevitable conclusion: that reform was insufficient. Those who held this view gathered within the ranks of the Katipunan, a secret organization under the leadership of Andres Bonifacio. Their goal was revolution, which erupted against Spain in 1896.

The Spaniards blamed Rizal for the revolt and executed him that same year. Rizal, up to his death, protested his innocence, claiming that his intent was reform, not rebellion, and, to a degree, he was correct. To a larger degree, however, the logical product of Rizal’s works was revolution. What his writing unleashed, aside from revulsion at Spanish injustice, was a growing sense that the Philippines’ myriad cultural and linguistic groups, despite a history of competition and even violence, had a common bond, and that collectively they stood separate from their Spanish overseers. The former is best summarized in a scene from F. Sionil Jose’s great novel Po-on (1984).

In that scene, Istak, the protagonist, has been assigned the task of delivering a letter to General Gregorio del Pilar, leader of the rear guard of the retreating Presidente of the infant republic, Emilio Aguinaldo. Fast on the entourage’s heels are American forces, who intend to succeed the Spaniards as colonial masters of the Philippines. By agreeing to this task, Istak makes an existential choice and accepts the consequence (his death). He declines safety and the welfare of his family in favor of a call to a larger loyalty, Filipinas, a nation in concept if not in fact. As Istak mounts his horse, his nationalist patron, Don Jacinto, declares that by doing this task, Istak is “no longer Ilocano [i.e., with loyalty to the Ilocos region of the Philippines and its people specifically], [he is] Filipino” (p. 162). This leap in loyalty—from the specific and narrow to the general—is one that many Filipinos have tried and are still trying to make. In the classic Filipino American work America Is in the Heart, Carlos Bulosan (1973) noted that a “tribal” orientation had “obstructed all efforts toward Filipino unity in America” (p. 98).

Nonetheless, Bulosan, as the narrator of the Manong generation’s story, confronts not just the frustrating problems of internal disunity but also a society openly hostile to Filipinos. Bulosan and his Filipino American colleagues accepted the challenge; they chose to struggle against entrenched economic and violently racist forces in the America of the 1930s. In the process, that generation manages to participate effectively in a powerful movement of organized labor: Filipinos were the main force behind the creation of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, a union affiliated with the militant Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). By responding in this fashion, these young Filipino Americans hoped to create nothing less than a new America, or to revise the old one to the point that it would resemble the gossamer Thomasite vision of a meritocratic society, one still held “in the heart.”

Although Ibarra/Simoun, Istak, and Bulosan as narrator all exist in separate literary contexts, a number of themes are common. Each text is the writer’s interpretation of historic conditions; such conditions are dismal (colonial oppression, war, racism, class consciousness) and inevitably force the main character to choose whether or not to act; the choice of action carries with it no guarantee of success. For writers such as Rizal, Jose, and, later, Ninotchka Rosea (State of War; 1988) and Jessica Hagedorn (Dogeaters; 1990), this entails identification of the enemy—whether foreign or native—followed by action against that enemy. Although not quite so dramatic, Bulosan identified the foe of all workers (including Filipinos) as fascism. The Filipino American response was militant labor organizing.

In that sense, the inclusion of Filipino literature—whether Philippine or Filipino American—in the occasional Asian American literature class is, at best, a very ill fit. The focus of Japanese and Chinese American literature is different, whether it is Maxine Kingston’s or Amy Tan’s exploration of relations between immigrant mothers and citizen daughters, Frank Chin’s outrage at the theft of Chinese American history, or John Okada’s depiction of a community’s attempts to heal divisions caused by the Japanese American internment. These are, by the nature of their topics, quieter, more introspective stories that at the very least hold out hope of resolution.

In contrast, such hope is often missing from the fiction of Filipino writers. Given the penchant of many Filipino writers to use in their works substantial doses of Philippine and Filipino American reality, it is hardly any wonder that success is such an elusive goal. Instead, such writers tend to celebrate the protagonist’s decision to act as we readers applaud the choice while bracing ourselves for the inevitable disappointment or demise. Even in a work as wonderfully understated as Bienvenido Santos’s collection Scent of Apples (1979), a melancholy mood pervades many of the stories. Who, for example, can forget Santos’s description of his reaction to the devastation of post-war Manila, as seen by the narrator from a ship returning from America:

How indeed … rebuild the other ruins? Could old men do it by dying in a land they had decided to call their own? Or was it done by scattering toys all over the land, rattlers and kiddie cars, balloons and electric trains, guns, grimacing clowns and dolls with upswept lashes, that childhood might start with laughter and kindness? Or would it help if the dumb were made to speak at least and the deaf hear and understand? Or would songs do it; wisdom, perhaps? Or, maybe prayer? There is a way, but it could not be the way of trembling hands with so many things to hide, nor could it be the way of that woman, holding a fatherless child in her arm, dragging a duffle bag by her side, now walking slowly toward the ruins of the city. (p. 107)

The most cohesive group of Santos’s stories focuses on Filipino students living in Washington, D.C., during World War II. Unlike Bulosan’s characters, many of these Filipinos come from the Philippine elite. Also, unlike many of their impoverished countrymen on the West Coast, they are purely sojourners: They have something to return to.

The students are temporarily in the United States for the sole purpose of achieving a prestigious American degree, after which they are expected to return and help run the various family enterprises. Ironically, separated from their families’ wealth by enemy occupation and by distance, they are forced to sample a bit, but not all, of the desperation endured by West Coast Filipinos. For example, although both Bulosan and Santos write about Filipinos in America during roughly the same period of time, American racism is a dominant theme in Bulosan’s work; that element is missing from Santos’s depictions.

Ironically as well, the “savior” of Santos’s privileged characters comes in the humble form of Ambo, a working-class old-timer similar to those characters found in Bulosan. Ambo’s tireless efforts prompt one elite beneficiary to utter the following:

The boys look up to him. I have heard … he had a whole household of Filipinos, feeding on everything he could give them, and he was tireless. Now those whom he saw through those years will fight for him, will die for him. He is well loved by the Filipino community, (p. 51)

Still, Ambo’s integrity and his unqualified kindness are not enough; they are several rungs short of bridging the socioeconomic gap and prompt the same beneficiary to add a caveat: “If he [Ambo] had only been educated, he would have been an articulate leader of our countrymen in this country” (p. 51).

This disdainful view of Ambo, expressed in the United States but having Philippine roots, explains Bulosan’s class consciousness and his hostility toward the Philippines’ elite. The Philippine-centered works of later writers such as Jose, Rosea, and Hagedorn continuously examine the problem of class division and extreme turmoil prompted, in large part, by the insular arrogance of the elite.

For Santos’s wealthy sojourners, the question arises: Is their professed affection for Ambo in any way genuine, or more a matter of need? In his collection, Santos provides the answer in “Letter: The Faraway Summer.” Ambo returns to the Philippines, but the wartime devastation has forced him to reconsider his move. He wants to come back to the United States and hopes that one of his “boys”—Steve, now a successful Manila doctor—can pull the right strings at the U.S. Embassy. He visits Steve’s office; Steve is embarrassed by his presence and treats Ambo like “a stranger” (p. 112). Ambo then inadvertently overhears Steve’s telephone conversation with (presumably) his wife or lover and recounts it in a letter to a stateside friend: “Darling, I should have called earlier, but I just got rid of a visitor.… No, no, it wasn’t a girl … a man, a Pinoy. … I said Pinoy just one of those Pinoys I had met in the States” (p. 112).

Here, the term Pinoy needs some explanation. As used by Steve, Pinoy is a pejorative. If so, it is one that has been proudly worn by thousands. As I recall from my Pinoy childhood, the term had class (poor, working), geographic (American), and attitudinal (aggressive) connotations. Thus, it was applied to the Manong generation and to their American-born offspring. It most surely does not apply to Steve or to others of his status. But it does apply to the proletarian Ambo, and it is he that the Tondo-born Santos celebrates, not the shallowness of Steve or the other high-born “boys.” It is a criticism of the elite that Bulosan, Santos’s blunter contemporary, would have warmly endorsed.

What future directions, then, for Filipino literature? In the Philippines, the wars against the Americans and the Japanese are, respectively, almost a century and more than half a century old. In recent years, the most obvious problem, the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, has been removed, and democracy has been restored. Still, endemic corruption, the gap between wealthy and poor, and ongoing insurrections remain both as severe national problems and as grist for writers/social critics. Undoubtedly, the tradition of using fiction as social/political/historical commentary will continue. However, there is also evidence that other themes may assume prominence. Even F. Sionil Jose departed somewhat from his position as writer/rebel in his recent novel Viajero (1993). Here, the focus is on Buddy, a Filipino orphan adopted by an African American officer serving in the Philippines during World War II. Although the protagonist finds himself returning to familiar ground—the unstable Philippines—the ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1. The Tragic Sense of Filipino History
• 2. Demographic Changes Transforming the Filipino American Community
• 3. Macro/Micro Dimensions of Pilipino Immigration to the United States
• 4. Colonialism’s Legacy: The Inferiorizing of the Filipino
• 5. Corning Full Circle: Narratives of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans
• 6. Contemporary Mixed-Heritage Filipino Americans: Fighting Colonized Identities
• 7. Filipino American Identity: Transcending the Crisis
• 8. Living in the Shadows: The Undocumented Immigrant Experience of Filipinos
• 9. Mail-Order Brides: An Emerging Community
• 10. Part of the Community: A Profile of Deaf Filipino Americans in Seattle
• 11. The Day the Dancers Stayed: On Pilipino Cultural Nights
• 12. Pamantasan: Filipino American Higher Education
• 13. Images, Roles, and Expectations of Filipino Americans by Filipino Americans
• 14. Homeland Memories and Media: Filipino Images and Imaginations in America
• 15. Deflowering the Sampaguita
• 16. Tomboy, Dyke, Lezzie, and Bi: Filipina Lesbian and Bisexual Women Speak Out
• 17. At the Frontiers of Narrative: The Mapping of Filipino Gay Men’s Lives in the United States
• 18. Throwing the Baby Out With the Bathwater: Situating Young Filipino Mothers and Fathers Beyond the Dominant Discourse on Adolescent Pregnancy
• 19. The Prevalence and Impact of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs on Filipino American Communities
• 20. The Family Tree: Discovering Oneself
• 21. The Filipino American Young Turks of Seattle: A Unique Experience in the American Sociopolitical Mainstream
• 22. Filipino Americans and Ecology: New Challenges in the Global Future
• 23. Filipino Spirituality: An Immigrant’s Perspective
• Index
• About the Authors