Filipino Studies

"A collection like a circus of daredevils. . . . A bravura debut.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

https://www.amazon.com/Foley-Artist-Ricco-Villanueva-Siasoco/dp/0982814267

A compelling debut for fans of the Filipino America brought to life in fiction by Elaine Castillo and Mia Alvar. At once deliciously bizarre and painfully familiar, The Foley Artist introduces a vital new voice to Asian American literature. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco’s powerful debut collection opens new regions of American feeling and thought as it interrogates intimacy, foreignness, and silence in an absurd world. These nine stories give voice to the intersectional identities of women and men in the Filipino diaspora in America: a straight woman attends her ex-boyfriend’s same-sex marriage in coastal Maine; a college-bound teenager encounters his deaf uncle in Manila; Asian American drag queens duke it out in the annual Iowa State Fair; a seventy-nine-year-old Foley artist recreates the sounds of life, but is finally unable to save himself.

This essay focuses on the Filipino American filmmaker Miko Revereza, who is “out” about his undocumented status, in order to document the possibilities of counter-assimilationist expression by migrants who are undocumented. In his awardwinning autobiographical film Disintegration 93-96, Revereza uses footage from the glitchy VHS “video letters” that his family recorded and sent from California to relatives in the Philippines in the 1990s. In contrast with the model of the ideal DREAMer, who integrates into the state, Revereza creates an aesthetic of imperfection and a space of “disintegration,” widening the possibility for counter-assimilationist expression by migrants who are undocumented.

Using Foucault’s concept of governmentality vis-à-vis Appadurai’s “global ethnoscapes” as frames, I argue for a techno-cultural dimension which brought forth the phenomenon of the “dancing inmates,” an argument against the charge of Filipino colonial mimicry of a Hollywood popular entertainment. Albeit the inmates’ dance routines indeed depict Foucault’s “docile bodies” in his analysis of the modern prison, as pointed out by critics, I am inclined to show how the internet mediation through social media networks awakened a culturally imbibed dance and musical character trait vis-à-vis the jolly cultural disposition of Filipinos. Thus, I view these characteristics as existential responses, hence, ‘creative resilience,’ to the inhuman incarcerating conditions of the prison life through using the art of dance with the aid of media technology. I argue on the role of the internet as the prisoners’ avenue to the outside world that was strategically deprived of them as a form of punishment,...

abstract The ascendancy of the United States as a global empire produced a crisis in the meaning of American nationhood, prompting imperial statesmen to recalibrate the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. The annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 gave rise to a complex and often volatile system of border-making. Overseas expansion changed the territorial nature of the state, as both the Philippines and Puerto Rico were declared " unincorporated territories " defined as neither fully domestic nor completely foreign. Territorial statecraft treated the Philippines and Puerto Rico similarly. However , statecraft towards individuals (as opposed to territories) differentiated the two populations as Puerto Ricans were declared U.S. citizens in 1917 but Filipinos were not. This essay explores how U.S. policies toward these territories and populations became increasingly complex and contradictory as the state tried to manage the national polity in the age of imperial expansion.

Religion plays an important role in human life. In a recent review, religiosity has been associated with prosocial behavior; although consistent, the association was weak (Saroglou, 2013). To understand religious prosociality, varying theoretical contentions were offered (Preston, Salomon, & Ritter, 2013). The present study tested Supernatural Monitoring Hypothesis and sought to identify the role of the thought of a watching God in a religious individual’s prosocial behavior. With this aim, an experiment was conducted with two groups of participants wherein the experimental group was primed with the thought of a watching God through a song translation. Results of independent samples t-test showed that religious participants who were primed offered more time for a volunteer work compared to those who were not primed. Implications of this study point to the role of the thought of a watching God - interestingly when primed through a song - in prosocial behavior.

Since the start of the twenty-first century a distinctly Filipino American hip hop music movement has developed on the West Coast of the United States.  This article examines this politicization of Filipino American emcees, situating their emergence at the nexus of four interrelated factors: (1) the social location of Filipinos within the contemporary American racial/ethnic landscape; (2) the extent to which Filipinos marginalized status involves dimensions of racialization that young Filipinos draw on in their efforts to connect with Black social movements of the 1960s and rap music’s late-80s/early-90s politicization; (3) Filipinos’ established position in hip hop’s other expressive fields (namely deejaying, graffiti writing, and breaking); and (4) Filipino American hip hop’s incorporation into a politically-conscious, knowledge-building tradition, which, through processes of identity inscription – that is, song writing as a means to constructing identity – achieves new liberatory possibilities for individual and collective self-understanding and challenging dominant rationalizations of power.

We tend to regard culture and history as simple addition in which layers of cultures and histories were added to our original identity. Because of this, we tend to have this notion that the true Filipino identity is the prehistoric and precolonial state. In other words, we regard identity as the state after subtracting all the imposed layers brought by cultural and historic events.

This paper explores the unique Filipino way of celebrating Christmas. It investigates the syncretism of Filipino culture and religious tradition. In this contemporary world, such traditions and practices have been continuously commemorated traditionally. However, with modernism and consumerism, such practices became more complex. To examine the Christmas phenomenon in the Philippines, this study presents descriptive research of Catholic Filipinos which indicates Christmas has a deeper meaning. It supersedes religious expressions of gratitude. Rather, it is a time sought after by every Filipino far and near to gather-once families to re-connect and deepen family relations. This implies that the yearly Filipino Christmas celebration is more than a religious practice but is part of the culture and tradition that each and every Filipino household and communities live with.

In 2015, I conducted four interviews with Hawaiian independence activists who traveled to the Philippines between 2009 and 2015. I trace how Kānaka Maoli weave our sovereignties together, as well as what makes that difficult to do. The interviewees highlight multiple theorizations of Hawaiian sovereignty, particularly with regard to the state. The interviews point to how political strategies in Hawaiʻi are being informed by the lessons learned in the Philippines as well as the lessons learned from Filipinx settlers in Hawaiʻi, demonstrating how visions of Hawaiian sovereignty have been nourished by Filipinx on both sides of the Pacific.

Авторы определяют фашизм, как разновидность способа строительства нации, основанного на делении людей по этническому признаку на высшие и низшие ранги, преследовании, эксплуатации и уничтожении первыми вторых. С этих теоретических позиций в книге анализируются процессы национального строительства в 20-е-50-е гг. ХХ в. в Японии, Китае, странах Юго-Восточной Азии. Формулируются выводы о природе, специфике, формах, структуре, механизме возникновения, развития, надлома и трансформации азиатского фашизма. Полученные в работе выводы позволяют лучше понять суть социально-политических процессов, происходящих в азиатском регионе в настоящее время как в азиатском регионе, так и во всем мире.
The authors define fascism as a kind of nation-building method based on the division of people along ethnic lines into higher and lower ranks, persecution, exploitation and destruction of the former by the latter. From these theoretical positions, the book analyzes the processes of nation-building in the 20s-50s. 20th century in Japan, China, Southeast Asia. Conclusions are formulated about the nature, specifics, forms, structure, mechanism of emergence, development, breakdown and transformation of Asian fascism. The conclusions obtained in the work allow us to better understand the essence of the socio-political processes taking place in the Asian region at the present time both in the Asian region and throughout the world.

In studies of Pilipinx and Pilipinx American queer identity, attention is often paid to the articulations of culturally specific forms of queer gender/sexuality in the Philippines and amongst first generation migrant subjects. To better flesh out the experiences of queer Pilipinx American identity, the study at hand will interrogate 6 in-depth interviews and personal reflections centered around the question of how second generation Pilipinx Americans subjects locate, interpret, identify or reject the term bakla. The study will discuss the relationship of Pilipinx-specific forms of queerness as it travels across national borders and generations by examining how the US-born/raised generation interprets the term, as well as how they describe their relationship to the term. In doing so, the study will describe the role of bakla in the formation of Pilipinx American queer identities through the interaction of differing discourses of gender and sexuality by placing these interviews in conversation with contemporary scholarship on bakla.

This introductory chapter presents an overview of the state of Filipino millennials. It adopts a critical perspective that challenges the general discourse about them. That the discourse is imported from Western writings and reinforced by the local advertising industry needs to be called into question. In my view, these writings still echo the functionalist take in Filipino youth studies that treats them as a problem that must be corrected. In the latter half, I will discuss the fragmentations among Filipino millennials brought about by inequality. It is important to recognize these fragmentations to demonstrate that the stereotypes that both celebrate and problematize them are inadequate. At the same time, recognizing the vulnerabilities of these youths is crucial in understanding the different responses they have towards various social issues.

Cornelio, Jayeel. 2020. "The State of Filipino Millennials: An Alternative View." In Rethinking Filipino Millennials: Alternative Perspectives on a Misunderstood Generation, edited by Jayeel Cornelio. Manila: UST Publishing House.

This article derives from doctoral research on the ability of Angeles City's poor and marginalized biracial children to exercise their rights, including, but not limited to, children who were offspring of Filipina sex workers and foreign sex tourists. To illustrate the research context, this paper starts with a discussion of Angeles City and its biracial children. Next, the study's Maka-Pilipinong design is explained, particularly the application of a Filipina as worldview and dangal as a lens. Details about the relevance of the Philippine oral traditions with Sikolohiyang Pilipino (SP) are also provided. The final part of the article reports on the primary researcher's fieldwork experience.

This research is a preliminary analysis of the concept of death in Tagalog language. To be able to do this, lexical and metaphorical aspect of the languages were examined. Through these, an intertextual analysis was done incorporating the different cultural implications related to kamatayan.

In the second chapter of the paper, the concept of death was discussed in depth. Death was established as a universal concept. This concept of death was enriched with the evidence found in different cultures and is incorporated to the view in Tagalog. In this way, the Tagalog concept of death is strengthened apart from what we know today, through the support of these evidence. Under the discussion of death is the discussion of bangkay and kaluluwa. In separate sections, causes, emotions related to death were discussed, followed by the topic of the afterlife. In the Tagalog concept of afterlife, death is seen as a journey with the use of the bangka.

In the third chapter, metaphorical aspect of kamatayan was discussed. The metaphorical implication of death was also discussed through the idiomatic expressions. The death as shown in the data has metaphorical implications of tardiness, morality and courage. Causes of death, emotions, kaluluwa, and the afterlife were also discussed through metaphorical data, where various interpretations emerged.

In Choreographing in Color , J. Lorenzo Perillo investigates the development of Filipino popular dance and performance since the late 20th century. Drawing from nearly two decades of ethnography, choreographic analysis, and community engagement with artists, choreographers, and organizers, Perillo shifts attention away from the predominant Philippine neoliberal and U.S. imperialist emphasis on Filipinos as superb mimics, heroic migrants, model minorities, subservient wives, and natural dancers and instead asks: what does it mean for Filipinos to navigate the violent forces of empire and neoliberalism with street dance and Hip-Hop?

Employing critical race, feminist, and performance studies, Perillo analyzes the conditions of possibility that gave rise to Filipino dance phenomena across viral, migrant, theatrical, competitive, and diplomatic performance in the Philippines and diaspora. Advocating for serious engagements with the dancing body, Perillo rethinks a staple of Hip-Hop's regulation, the "euphemism," as a mode of social critique for understanding how folks have engaged with both racial histories of colonialism and gendered labor migration. Figures of euphemism - the zombie, hero, robot, and judge - constitute a way of seeing Filipino Hip-Hop as contiguous with a multi-racial repertoire of imperial crossing, thus uncovering the ways Black dance intersects Filipino racialization and reframing the ongoing, contested underdog relationship between Filipinos and U.S. global power. Choreographing in Color therefore reveals how the Filipino dancing body has come to be, paradoxically, both globally recognized and indiscernible.

A number of paradigms have been proposed to understand the sources of meaningful work, but a non-Western approach has attracted little attention. This study aims to make a theoretical contribution toward an understanding of meaningful work from a virtue-ethics framework that is culturally meaningful and relevant to Filipino realities and their distinct cultural heritage. It develops a paradigm for a Filipino view of meaningful work that could guide both researchers and practitioners in business ethics by defining what is meaningful work, explaining why it is important, and presenting some examples of concrete measures that management can utilize to promote meaningful work in the Philippine workplace.

This research highlights how nonverbal meaning is conveyed in Filipino communication and when it is appropriate to use nonverbal communication. This unique form of communication is a cultural and traditional form that is practiced by Filipinos not only in the homeland but also in the diaspora. Evidence from this research suggests that nonverbal communication among Filipinos is just as powerful as written and oral literacy, enriches dialogue and interacts with other forms of literacy such as the written and oral forms. What remains inconclusive is to what extent Filipino nonverbal communication can be defined as a literacy practice in the same way as oral and written communication. An equally important research question is whether this important form of communication will survive the succeeding generations of Filipinos in the diaspora particularly in the United States. Significance Filipinos in the United States currently comprise 2.2 million of the nation's total population (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey, 2004), the second largest group following the Chinese among the Asian immigrant community. Understanding some of their cultural and traditional practices, including forms of communication, contributes to a greater appreciation of and better interaction with this huge community. The activity of the Filipino community in government, education, and business in the San Francisco Bay Area points to the importance and need of gaining a basic understanding of Filipino nonverbal literacy. For the following research, I use the term " discourse community " to mean a form of interaction that is utilized by a specific group of people to connote a shared sense of culture, family, or awareness. This study of the Filipino discourse community addresses the need to understand a component of an important Bay Area culture. Rationale and Key Research Questions The rationale for selecting the Filipino discourse community for the research came as a result of several personal experiences. Although I am not of Filipino descent, through marriage I became familiar with Filipino nonverbal literacy as a specific form of communication. I had made the assumption that I could recognize and utilize this nonverbal literacy, but I had little understanding of how it developed or why it is so significant in communication. Many of my friends and professional colleagues are of Filipino descent, and one of them is my primary research subject. The central research question of my study is: How can Filipino nonverbal communication be defined? The sub questions are the following: 1. How can nonverbal communication be interpreted as a literacy practice? 2. What are the uses of nonverbal communication, such as facial animation, in creating Filipino cultural identity? Methods The research methods used for this study are primarily qualitative, anthropological observations; open ended interviews; and interpretation of texts within a theoretical framework. The theory that informed this research is that other forms of communication are commonly used outside of the realm of written and oral communication. Moreover, forms of communication beyond oral and written forms may not necessarily function as a component of either, but rather can stand alone as a form of expression within a discourse community. The key influences and literature reviewed for this study are from American, other Western, and Filipino scholars in the fields of cultural anthropology and communication, as well as sociological research on exchanges among multicultural societies. Review of the Literature Literacy has been defined as a mode of communication with a guide or system universally recognized by its users (Bakhtin, 1986). Literacy has come in the form of written symbols as well as oral communication. Similarly to the way written communication establishes symbols as a form of literacy practice, Filipino nonverbal communication also relies on a series of facial animations and movements that are consistent and universally understood within its community of users. The nonverbal literacy practice of tapping someone's arm in the Filipino community is understood as an acknowledgement of humor or joy. It is the contention of this researcher that this practice is wholly different from, for example, the pat on the back gesture used commonly in some parts of the United States (Korukonda & Hunt, 1989). The purpose of this literacy practice in the Filipino community is to present an existing understanding of friendship and camaraderie (a defined meaning), in contrast to the pat on the back that has been known to carry many different meanings depending on the situation in which it is used. Oral communication as a literacy practice represents a form of expression that can be more intimate and personal than written literacy (Daft, Lengel, & Trevino, 1987; Ng & Bradac, 1995). Oral literacy, like written and nonverbal literacy requires an audience or receiver of information in its discourse. However, oral communication, like nonverbal communication, is often a physical activity that takes place in the presence of its target audience. (Radio and television broadcasts are common exceptions to this theory). Filipino nonverbal literacy is based on many of the same principles as written and oral communication, but on some levels it is able to occur without the assistance of either. For example, sign language for the hearing impaired is a form of nonverbal literacy that is prevalent in many parts. This form of nonverbal communication has its own system of

Defining Filipinoness has been problematic throughout history. Previous studies have focused on the persistent impact of the colonial experience on Filipinos (Bernad, 1971; Constantino, 1977; Enriquez, 1992; Yacat, 2005). Some scholars have framed their understanding vis-a-vis the search for a national consciousness resulting in a unif ied Filipino identity (Anderson, 1983; Constantino, 1969). But in the age of globalization, statehood and nationhood have become questionable concepts (Adamson & Demetriou, 2007; Ahmad & Eijaz, 2011; Guehenno, 1995; Omae, 1995). Who has the Filipino become amid a modern-day diaspora? I propose an analysis of history not as archival and disconnected from the present but as part of an ongoing story of identity formation. Recognition is given to kapwa, a view of self-and-other as one. This indigenous ontology offers a postmodern lens to understand the complexities of being Filipino through time and space. For contemporary Filipinos, identity formation ma...

Idinokumento ng pananaliksik na ito ang karanasan, kasanayan, at pananaw ng mga mag-aaral ng Humanidades at Agham Panlipunan (HumSS) sa pagbuo ng makaFilipinong pananaliksik. Pangkalahatang suliranin ng pananaliksik na ito ang malaman ang proseso, kasanayan, at kahalagahan ng paggamit ng wikang Filipino sa pagbuo ng makaFilipinong pananaliksik sa pananaw at karanasan ng mga mag-aaral ng Humanidades at Agham Panlipunan (HumSS) sa senior high school ng isang pribadong paaralang Fransiskano. Deskriptibong disensyo ang sinusunod sa pagbuo ng pananaliksik na ito. Upang masagot ang mga tiyak na layunin, ginabayan ang mananaliksik ng mga batayang metodo sa kalitatibo (pagsusuring pangnilalaman) at kantitatibong pananaliksik (pagbibilang at pagbabahagdan). Ang antas ng kahirapan ng kahirapan sa proseso ng pagbuo ng makaFilipinong pananaliksik ay 3.11 (katamtaman lamang). Ang mga kasanayang napaunlad sa pagbuo ng makaFilipinong pananaliksik ay ang mga sumusunod: pagbabasa (22 tugon), pagsasalita (15 tugon), pakikinig (13 tugon), pagsusulat (9 tugon), panonood (6 tugon). Dalawang pananaw ang nabuo mula sa paggamit ng wikang Filipino sa pananaliksik: (a) ang pagmamalaki sa isinagawang pananaliksik dahil sa Filipino ito naisulat; (b) mas naging malapit ang mga mananaliksik sa kalahok at materyal ng kanilang pag-aaral samantalang mas naiintindihan ang pinapanood at imaheng sinusuri dahil sa wikang Filipino.

While Hip-hop is recognised as a global musical culture, few studies have examined its practices of choreography. This essay privileges the ways Hip-hop dancers in Manila theorise their practices through four main aspects-genre, mode, dimension and conflict-in order to draw attention to the principles of meaning-making in contemporary Hip-hop performance. This article suggests that a dance-based system of knowledge is helpful to our understanding of music and performance in Asia and the Pacific because it fleshes out internal discourses of Hip-hop and promotes a mindfulness regarding assumptions around the performing body. Taken as a whole, these aspects help articulate conventional concerns around studying Hip-hop dance. This explanatory framework, hopefully, clears up more room to move when theorising through and about Hip-hop and promotes the critical study of dance practices in the Philippines with larger implications for contemporary
popular music and performance in Asia and beyond.

Ang bawat kultura ay nagkakaroon ng ilang uri ng sining tulad ng pag-unlad ng wika. Ang ilang mga sinaunang kultura ay walang tunay na mitolohiya o relihiyon, ngunit lahat ay mayroong ilang siningsayaw, awit, disenyo ...... ...... Ang sayaw, higit sa lahat, ay tila ang pinakalumang na nailarawang sining .... Ang sining ay, sa katunayan, ang pinuno ng pag-unlad ng tao, panlipunan at indibidwal. Anong uri ng bagay ang sining, na dapat itong gampanan ang isang nangungunang papel sa pag-unlad ng tao? Ito ay hindi isang intelektuwal na paghabol, ngunit kinakailangan sa buhay intelektwal; ito ay hindi relihiyon, ngunit lumalaki sa relihiyon, pinaglilingkuran ito, at sa malaking sukat tinutukoy ito. "Ang pananaw na iyon-na mayroong makasaysayang sosyolohikal-sosyolohikal-ay ipinahiwatig ng pilosopo, si Susanne K. Langer, sa kanyang artikulo, The Cultural Kahalagahan ng Sining. Itinatampok ng Langer ang aspeto ng sining bilang isang banayad at walang malay na impluwensya at puwersa sa lipunan at kultura. Ginawa ni Carl Jung ang isang kaparehong katulad na pagmamasid kapag pinagmasdan niya, na-habang ang isang artista ay isang indibidwal-ang indibidwal ay mayroon ding natatanging katangian ng pagiging isang artistikong archetype, tulad nito, at "bilang isang artista siya ay" tao "sa isang mas mataas na kahulugansiya ay" sama-sama na tao, "isang sasakyan at moulder ng walang malay psychic life ng sangkatauhan. " (Carl Jung, CW 15, Para 157)

This paper wishes to explore press freedom in the Philippines with a survey through the pre-colonial to the present day, looking at how press freedom developed as an idea, how it is practiced, how is threatened - not only by the state or external private actors, but within institutions and media collectives as well, and how society, politics and the economy lead to inhibitions and censorship (whether by state, media institutions or journalists themselves) in media.

Much has been said about Filipino millennials. Born in the 1980s and 1990s, they are often described in passionate terms: they can seize the day, pursue their dreams, and travel the world. And yet they can also be self-entitled and narcissistic. How true are these characteristics? Drawing from the empirical work of 17 scholars from around the country, this collection presents an alternative view. Millennials belong to a fragmented generation whose dreams, abilities, and dispositions need to be understood in context. An agenda-setting collection, this will be useful for researchers and practitioners who wish to understand the state of the youth and the emergence of new generations.

Update: Awarded Best Book in the Social Sciences, National Book Awards 2022.

Research shows that political economy—the structural distribution of a society’s economic resources as shaped by power inequalities—is linked to the incidence of domestic abuse as well as survivors’ success in escaping abusive relationships. Yet studies often overlook the extent to which domestic abuse in the global South is embedded in neocolonial structural violence. Drawing on interviews and surveys with urban poor women in Metro Manila, I explore how structural adjustment and state violence from the 1980s to the 2000s have inextricably shaped experiences of domestic abuse. Popular discourse and some gender scholars portray economic globalization as an empowering, even liberatory force for poor women in the global South. Instead, I trace how a political economy marked by what I call “neoliberal imperialism” has fueled domestic violence, not by boosting the upward economic mobility of urban poor Filipinas but by worsening their gendered precarity. I complicate feminist scholarship that has framed increased abuse as a male backlash against heightened female mobility. Gendered material inequalities, austerity, and militarization have serially exposed women and girls to cycles of violence. These facets of a neocolonial political economy collude to reinforce low-income Filipinas’ primary responsibility for reproductive labor, trapping them in abusive relationships despite access to cash earnings. I argue that imperialist extraction not only exacerbates domestic abuse but that interpersonal gendered violence is a tool for harnessing Filipina reproductive labor to reproduce empire. I critique carceral feminist responses to abuse in a neocolonial context, considering how urban poor Filipinas’ oppositional consciousnesses gesture toward structural alternatives.