From Exile to Diaspora

Summary

As the largest contingent of Asian/Pacific Islanders in the United States today, Filipinos have been described as "invisible," "forgotten," marginal "others," and, on the whole, inconsequential.From Exile to Diasporachallenges these stereotypes. With the Philippines undergoing revolutionary transformation, the Filipino diasporaabout six million "overseas contract workers" scattered around the planetis radically configuring the Filipino presence and potential for change in the U.S. Subsumed before in the category of immigrants, exiles, refugees, etc., Filipinos now claim a nationalitarian, uniquely political/ethical identity removed from panethnic racializing generalities. Filipinos in their singular diversity are reassessing their colonial past and engaging in projects of popular-democratic resistance (of which this work is one) to the transnational system of global commodification.This book examines the received textbook dogmas about the Filipino community before World War II and after. It questions the claims about Filipino assimilation and acculturation, focusing on their encounter with "white supremacy" in various forms. Through analysis and interpretation of imaginative texts and other discursive practices,From Exile to Diasporaseeks to establish a new framework for charting Filipino agency within the constraints of late capitalism. It seeks to open up for laypersons and students of U.S. social history the question of racial justice and equality. San Juan hopes this book will serve as a guide to understanding the nuances of Filipino self-identification in the process of challenging the dominant polity's claim to pluralist and multicultural heterogeneity.

Author Biography

E. San Juan is Director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut. He was recently chair of the Department of Comparative American Cultures and professor of Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He was previously visiting professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Trento, Italy, and Tamkang University, Taiwan. His most recent books are: Beyond Postcolonial Theory, From Exile to Diaspora, After Postcolonialism, and Racism and Cultural Studies. He received a Centennial Award from the Philippines Cultural Center in 1999. E. San Juan is Director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut. He was recently chair of the Department of Comparative American Cultures and professor of Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He was previously visiting professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Trento, Italy, and Tamkang University, Taiwan. His most recent books are: Beyond Postcolonial Theory, From Exile to Diaspora, After Postcolonialism, and Racism and Cultural Studies. He received a Centennial Award from the Philippines Cultural Center in 1999.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

(18)

1 Alias "Flips," "Pinoys," "Brown Monkeys...": From the Boondocks to the "Belly of the Beast"

(18)

2 From Identity Politics to Transformative Critique

(34)

The Predicament of the Asian American Writer in Late Capitalism

(19)

But Where Did We Come From? And Where Are We Going?

(15)

3 Arming the Spirit, Writing in Times of Emergency

(24)

Historicizing Texts

(4)

Crisis of Representation

(4)

From Transgression to Sublimation

(4)

Brown Orpheus

(3)

Counterhegemonic Resistance

(7)

4 Bulosan's Metamorphosis: The Return of the Alter/Native

(38)

Works and Days

(7)

The Example of "Be American,"

102

(6)

In the Middle of the Journey

108

(4)

From the Cry to the Dedication

112

(5)

When "Life Was Swift and Terrible in This Country,"

117

(3)

Overturning the Patriarchal Law

120

(5)

Beyond "Manifest Destiny,"

125

(8)

5 Resistance, Intervention, Deliverance: Lessons from Philip Vera Cruz

133

(18)

Postscript

149

(2)

6 Prophesying a Permanent Cultural Revolution

151

(30)

7 Fragments from an Exile's Journal

181

(22)

Notes

203

(12)

References

215

(20)

Index

235

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