Abstracts

Panel 1: Dynamics of Religion / Clash of Spirits

“‘Surrin Ninyo ang Lahat ng Bagay at Panghawakan ang Mabuti’: Receptive Ecumenism and the Renewal of Aglipayan Canon Law” by Joseph B. Johnson, JCL, STB (Ateneo de Manila University)

Although founded on democratic ideals, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) operated as a cult of personality under its first Obispo Maximo, Gregorio Aglipay, from its proclamation in 1902 until his death in 1940. The initiation of ecumenical contacts with Philippines-based representatives of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the postwar period fundamentally transformed the IFI, which became financially dependent upon its new partner, and adopted doctrines, liturgies, and a canonical order patterned largely on Episcopalian models. While these developments indeed tended toward assimilation, they were also instrumental in the eventual recovery of the church’s founding spirit, to which its current (1977) Constitution and Canons now gives practical effect. This presentation examines Episcopalian influences upon Aglipayan canon law as instances of receptive ecumenism, or the willingness to learn and receive with integrity from one’s ecclesial “others.” Special attention is paid to the valorization of participative governance structures as a purification of authoritarian accretions and a potential subject of ecumenical learning for Roman Catholic canon law. 

“American Jesuits in the Philippines between Mission and Ideology: Francis X. Byrne, SJ—First American Jesuit Rector of the Ateneo de Manila University (1921-1925)” by Antonio de Castro, SJ (Ateneo de Manila University)

This paper focuses its attention on the role that Francis X. Byrne, SJ, played in the transition from the Spanish to American Jesuits. This is done through a close reading of texts from his interaction with superiors both in New York and Rome. The tensions between foreign missional objectives and American ideological commitments palpable in this exchange of communication between Byrne and superiors mirror tensions in the wider society as American officials sought to socially engineer their new colonial wards according to their own image and likeness. We shall take a long hard look at the tensions that this transition occasioned, track its attempts to arrive at a new equilibrium for the Philippine Mission, and consider some of the effects this would have on the subsequent history of the Filipinization of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines in the twentieth century. 

Panel 2: The Uses and Functions of English

“Linguistic Creativity in Philippine Englishes” by Isabel P. Martin, PhD (Ateneo de Manila University)

Creativity in Englishes in the Philippines is evident in both literary and non-literary works produced in current contexts of multilingualism. The term “creativity” is traditionally associated with language use in literary texts, suggesting that a systematic study of creativity in language use lies only in the esoteric fields of literary studies and creative writing. However, I wish to approach “creativity” in the sense of what Carter describes as “not simply a property of exceptional people but an exceptional property of all people.” I approach creativity in Englishes in the Philippines as “everyday creativity,” beginning with a discussion of Braj Kachru’s concept of “bilinguals’ creativity,” introduced in a 1985 groundbreaking work. This Kachruvian concept of creativity is revisited in the light of twenty-first century sociolinguistic realities. In this revisiting, I extend the concept of bilinguals’ creativity beyond traditional approaches to creativity in English language use. 

“Writing from a Colonized English” by Cyan Abad-Jugo, PhD (Ateneo de Manila University)

Revisiting an article of the same title, published in World Englishes (2024: 1-10), this talk will examine what Philippine poet Gémino H. Abad (and National Artist for Literature since 2022), has written in so many essays about the writing of our literature in and from and through English because: ‘We have our own way of feeling by which we then use this language called English. So that English is ours. We have colonized it too’ (Abad et al.). This substantiation—what is the difference between in and from and through? What is meant by colonized?—hopes to argue for the validity of using English to express Philippine identities and realities, so that English becomes less the language of subjugation, and more the language of liberation.

“English in Philippine Higher Education” by Kingsley Bolton (University of Stockholm)

This presentation will briefly review the current use of English in higher education across the Asian region and in the Philippines. It will then proceed to a discussion of recent research at Ateneo de Manila University, which surveyed students in some detail about their experiences in learning English and using English as an academic language. Such research, it is suggested, is of key relevance to many other universities and colleges throughout the Philippines, where the English language plays an important role in most higher education institutions. 

Panel 3: American (Mis)education and Colonial Logics

“The Racial-Ideological Roots of Philippine Identity-Building in Schools” by Rowena Azada-Palacios (Ateneo de Manila University)

My talk draws on a chapter from my forthcoming book Postcolonial Education and National Identity to explore the colonial logics embedded in present-day school-based methods to build a sense of national identity among Filipino pupils. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, I argue that these strategies for constructing a “national identity” among students have their origins in the colonial educational system established by the US government during the Philippine-American War (1899–1901). Using language policy debates as an illustration, I further argue that vestiges of the theories and ideologies that underpinned the colonial educational system persist today. In so doing, I hope to uncover the ideological roots of the identity-building project in the Philippines, foregrounding the status of the country as a post-colonial state. 

“(Mis)educating the Empire: American Epistemic Repression and Their Effects” by Kelly Louise Rexzy Agra (University College Dublin / University of the Philippines–Baguio)

In the Philippines, the process of institutionalizing Western knowledge as standard of  truth took the form of religious schooling during its Spanish occupation (Alzona 1932) and the establishment of American-based formal mass education during American colonization (R. Constantino 1966/1982). Packaged as “education,” these educational policies constitutively foreclosed the critique and revision of Western epistemic structures and norms. The cultural and epistemological system that Spanish colonizers superimposed in the Philippines “inferiorized” (Fanon 1952) indigenous knowledge systems, engendered intellectual elitism among educated elites (Sobritchea 1989), generated religious discrimination towards those who refused to convert into Catholicism (R. Constantino 1978), instituted gender hierarchy and patriarchal ideology (Sobritchea 1989; delos Reyes 2012), and enforced political and cultural subservience (R. Constantino 1978). This was exacerbated by the more “inclusive” but more ideological and deceptive enforcement of mass education in the country by the Americans. American education was paired with the non-recognition of Philippine state independence, even after it had won the revolution against the Spanish (Steinbock-Pratt 2019), leading to the US annexation of the Philippines in 1898; the World Bank-commissioned rewriting of history textbooks portraying the Americans as “accidental visitors who out of a spirit of altruism accepted the burden of educating the Filipinos” (R. Constantino 1966/1982; L. Constantino 1982); the armed threat against, if not the assassination of, anyone who would resist American rule and American education (L. Constantino 1982; Azada-Palacios 2021); and the subsequent exportation of Filipino labor into the United States (Moore 2019), which became the basis of the Philippines’s export-labor program developed in the 1970s. These mechanisms for thought-control have deep and continuing influence on Philippine psychology and thinking, as well as on state policies. In this talk, I draw links between American colonial mechanisms of (mis)education and epistemic repression and three social-epistemic phenomena that continue to persist in the country: 1) the phenomenon of desaparecidos, 2) attempts at historical revisionism, and 3) export-labor-induced brain drain. 

“An Uneasy Positionality: Reflections on Philosophical Research in the Field” by Pamela Joy Mariano Capistrano (Ateneo de Manila University)

In this talk, I reflect on the field research I conducted for my PhD research in two municipalities in the province of Bukidnon, and the traces of American colonialism that I found, both in the social structures of power in agrarian life that I tried to describe and in my struggles in the course of my philosophical research. The power structures of corn farming in these two municipalities, I argue, are the traces, the long-term effects of the American colonial project in Bukidnon, the dream of recreating “home on the range” in the Philippines (Edgerton 2008). My own struggles as a researcher, in an analogous way, are the traces of the American colonial project of education, a constant grappling with the deeply internalized “inferiorization” (Fanon 1952) of local and indigenous knowledges especially in the field of philosophy (Rodriguez 2019), and I think through whether my attempts at mitigating this internalized inferiority were (or were not) successful. Through this talk, I hope to articulate an experience that, though specific to myself, is nonetheless resonant ethically and politically with the experiences of others. The resonance of my personal stories, and their ethical and political significance, are ultimately linked to fostering a sense of solidarity (Ferguson 2009), continuing to confront the entanglement of Philippine intellectual life (Veric 2020) with the legacy of colonialism.

Panel 4: Food, Hygiene, and the Environment

“The Ecologies of Freezing: The Cold Storage and Ice Plant, Urban Health, and Environmental Considerations in American Manila” by Nicolo Paolo P. Ludovice (Division of Public Policy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

This paper examines the cold storage and ice plant as vital infrastructures in managing health during the early twentieth century. Brought about by new knowledge in thermodynamics, refrigeration, and microorganisms from the late nineteenth century, cold storage facilities were novel structures that were built to arrest the biodeterioration or spoilage of perishable goods, including meat products. Focusing on the establishment of the Insular Cold Storage and Ice Plant in Manila, the paper considers the management of cold storage facilities as technologies against biodeterioration and intertwined with the promotion of urban health. Constructed in 1900 and finished the year after, this massive building served as a cold storage for imported meat and produced ice and distilled water for the army. Soon, the cold storage and ice plant catered to the needs of Manila and nearby provinces, and supplied frozen goods in commissaries, restaurants, and domestic households. Through the use of archival and legal records, the paper makes the argument that the cold storage facility was closely implicated with the process of environmental biodeterioration, where it used an enormous number of extracted resources and expended much pollution to sustain this new brand of health. While it was intended to control chemical breakdowns within meat, a multi-scalar analysis demonstrates how the cold storage facility also brought into question the environmental impact of freezing technologies. In doing so, this paper explores the issues surrounding urban health and governmentality, and the invisible processes of imperial technologies on the environment.

“The Industrialization of Philippine Food Production: The Role of the American Multinationals” by Roberto N. Galang (Ateneo de Manila University) 

The study explores the impact of the American colonial experience on the entry of new industrial technologies and modes of production to the Philippines, particularly in the agri-business sector. The presentation narrates how colonial rule facilitated the entry of major US multinationals, such as PhilPack (now Del Monte), Philippine Refining Company (now Unilever) and the Philippine Manufacturing Company (now Procter & Gamble) in the Philippines.  Many of these subsidiaries were the first overseas expansion of these grand American firms. These fledgling multinational companies pioneered new forms of production and technological applications to enhance local manufacturing capabilities.  PhilPack pioneered large-scale plantation agriculture and invested in canning operations to single-handedly create an export industry around fresh and canned fruit. PRC and PMC manufactured coconut oil, and converted its byproducts into soap and candles for the local and American markets, as well as other industrial food-grade products like margarine.  Other new American products produced at that time include Magnolia ice cream and Coca-Cola beverages.  Technologies that supported shelf stable production like canning and pasteurization, allowed the transport of more American food products from companies such as Carnation (milk), Hormel (spam), and Hunts (pork and beans).  The paper explores the impact of these companies on the economic productivity and Filipino dietary consumption patterns that remain until this day.

“Hygienic Death: Transformation of Burial Practices during the American Period” 

Erik Akpedonu, Ateneo de Manila University 

“Hygiene” was one of the buzzwords of the nineteenth century, be it medical, personal, or even racial and social hygiene. The new US-American colonizers who took over the Philippines from the Spaniards in 1898 were obsessed with purity, health, and hygiene, and in line with nineteenth-century notions of the need to protect the supposedly superior “White” race from the unhygienic conditions of the colonized and supposedly inferior “Colored” races, set out to radically transform their new possession in the Far East into a model colony of orderliness, cleanliness, and sanitation. This colonial reshaping of the Philippines’ culture had particularly long-lasting impact on Filipino burial practices and funerary architecture. Radically breaking with the frightening Spanish-era “grizzly death,” the newly established American-era cemeteries not only introduced new hygiene and sanitation standards, but also the notion of the “beautiful death,” by removing all physical reminders of fragility, morbidity, and decay. Thus, 

building upon new revolutionary funerary models developed in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, the American-era cemeteries in the Philippines, such as the North Cemetery, quickly became popular showcases for the indigenous elites’ desire to portray their newfound social status, political power, material wealth, and cosmopolitan outlook; a trend that continues to this day. 

Panel 5: Mobility and Transportation

“The Measure of Mobility: Private Roads and Public Transportation in American Colonial Davao, 1898-1941” by Patricia Irene Dacudao (Ateneo de Manila University) 

The United States colonized the Philippines in the late nineteenth century, in between the invention of the automobile in Europe by Karl Benz in 1886 and its ensuing mass production in America by Henry Ford in 1903.  It was thus a decidedly road-focused colonization that occurred under American rule in the Philippines. This colonial phenomenon was nowhere more pronounced than in the southern Mindanao province of Davao, America’s so called Last Western Frontier, which at the turn of the twentieth century was one of the most isolated provinces in the country.  In 1901, Wharton Professor James T. Young wrote to the colonial government that roadbuilding was the most important aspect of development; all others—education, tax revenues, peace and order, and self-government—followed from this important first step. Henceforth, colonial administrators (many coming from the University of Michigan where the Ford Motor Company was founded) used the length of roads to measure tangible evidence of progress in its newfound Mindanao frontier. However, as Davao’s population and economy grew in leaps and bounds through the next four decades, and despite government initiative, most of the roads were built by private enterprise rather than by the government, even if majority of the population could not afford to buy their own private vehicles. Consequently, out of this need for mobility by the working class came the creation of an early public transportation system catering to the needs of frontier residents. Using archival sources, this paper interrogates the roles that government and private enterprise played in the construction of roads in Davao province, and examines the creation of a pioneering mass transit system on a Philippine frontier.

“Philippine Airlines and the Philippine-American Nexus” by Meynardo P. Mendoza (Ateneo de Manila University)

Advertising spiels for Philippine Airlines (or PAL), highlighting its Filipino-ness, belies the fact that it was an American enterprise with Filipino employees. Established in 1935 as an aerial taxi, the small PAL fleet was pressed into military service during the Pacific War, a service that would endear the company to America. With its umbilical cord secured to business and the bureaucracy, the revived PAL benefitted from the Reparations Act and surplus of American transport planes, pilots, and mechanics. Shifting nationalities from Spanish to Filipino during the Commonwealth period to American in the postwar era, owner Andres Soriano employed an all-American management team and benefitted from a business arrangement with Trans World Airlines (TWA). With this status, PAL secured lucrative contracts, among which is the repair of US Air Force assets. Yet the airline had to abide by its Filipino identity, i.e., satisfy the needs of the riding public, the missions of the government and the regulatory powers imposed by legislators. By 1961, these contradictions could no longer be contained so that the government took over and converted PAL into a state-owned enterprise.   

“Modernization’s Frustration: The Motorization of Manila’s Urban Transport System, 1898-1941” by Michael D. Pante (Ateneo de Manila University)

Frustration with Manila’s urban transport system was evident among the Americans at the start of their colonial rule (1898–1941) in the Philippine capital. For American colonial bureaucrats and expatriate civilians, the land- and water-based vehicles (such as carriages, bancas, and a horse-drawn streetcar) they encountered in this city hampered their intraurban mobility. Their annoyance helped shape a colonial vision of a reengineered Manila through the “modernization” of its urban transport system that supposedly could only occur with the aid of Western technology. Motorized transport modes embodied this transformation. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Americans facilitated the arrival and integration of the electric streetcar and the automobile into the city. They regarded these innovations not merely as enhancers of mobility but as vehicles of modernity that would spell the end for “traditional” transport modes. However, the success and popularity of the new vehicles did not lead to the supposed demise of pre-twentieth-century vehicles. As late as the 1930s and into the 1940s, carriages continued to ply the city streets and nonmotorized watercraft still transported freight along the canals. Moreover, cocheros (carriage drivers), whom the colonial elite had depicted as the epitome of un-civilization and un-modernity throughout the colonial period, maintained considerable influence in city politics. Optimism thus gave way to renewed frustration during the twilight years of transport motorization under American colonial rule, prompting us to question the linear narrative of modernity.

PANEL 6: Bureaucratic Perceptions of the Environment and their Dangers in American Colonial Philippines 

“'Good' Fire, 'Bad' Fire: Bureau of Forestry and Its Policy towards Indigenous Agricultural Practices in the Philippines 1900–1940” by Greg Bankoff (Ateneo de Manila University)

Fire increasingly became a feature of the Philippines’ forests during the early decades of the twentieth century. While it had always been present, the changes wrought by an expanding population clearing more land to feed a growing number of mouths and felling more trees in more efficient ways to supply demands it was assiduously creating, brought not only anthropogenic fire to the tropical forest but also created the conditions where autogenic fire was more likely to be generated. In this sense, fire in the archipelago’s forests was a colonial construction and its suppression became a means of social engineering. While the forest remained an arena in which indigenous needs, state repression, scientific experimentation, and market demands played out, the contestation also took on an unusual form that some regard as the hallmark of American colonialism—education. Indigenous agriculturalists were to be converted into conservators of the forest, forest rangers transformed into teachers, shepherds of men as well as trees, and the forest managed scientifically as well as felled, sawn, and marketed to places near and far away.

“Destroyer of Fish: Alvin Seale, American Ichthyology, and the Introduction of Gambusia to Philippine Waters” by Brian Paul Giron (Indo-Pacific Research Center, Murdoch University)

The reorganization of the Bureau of Government Laboratories into the Bureau of Science in 1905 saw the addition of fish sciences to the American scientific bureaucracy’s areas of study in the Philippine colony. The new bureau included a fisheries section which saw the appointment of Alvin Seale as insular ichthyologist in 1907. Seale’s tenure saw the application of American ichthyological knowledge to the colony's needs such as increasing the food supply, the protection of marine resources, and public health. My discussion examines the circumstances and consequences of Seale’s introduction of Gambusia affinis or “mosquitofish,” a North American freshwater poeciliid fish, to reduce mosquito populations and the diseases with which they are associated. I investigate the experiments conducted by Seale at the Bureau of Science in Manila, as well as those undertaken by other American ichthyologists at the Bureau of Fisheries in the United States, on the potential impacts of the introduction of Gambusia to environments that are outside its range. I argue that the nature of American ichthyology during this period made it possible for Seale and his colleagues to overlook aspects of the science that could have prevented the ecological disaster brought on by the introduction of Gambusia to the Philippines and other countries in the region.

“Men and Their Beasts: Medical Research and Animal Experiments in American Colonial Philippines” by Bianca A. Claveria (Institute of History, Leiden University)

Animals (including insects) during the American colonial period in the Philippines arguably straddle peculiar positions in the country’s history of medicine and public health: they were depicted as either the spreaders of diseases or the sources of desired remedies. In the untamed tropical environment, they were viewed as “vermin” that the Bureaus of Science and Health cautioned against, but within the hallowed and sterile walls of the laboratory, they were the vessels that endured clinical trials, and were instrumental in the production of medicines and vaccines. Yet the gilded institutional histories of the Bureau of Science and its laboratories remain mainly focused on the success stories of its scientists over diseases. Disease ecology has encouraged medical and environmental historians to question Western-centric themes of progress, decenter individual champions from the narratives, and situate colonial (and medical) history within a larger and more complex ecological scope. Guided by this view, this paper will survey the history of the Bureau of Science’s laboratories, with a focus on animal experimentation and testing. Could a renewed appreciation for the roles and contributions of animals in medical research offer a more profound appreciation for changing human-animal interactions across time? Could it also offer nuanced views of the changing ethics of scientific or medical institutions and ethos of colonial scientists or physicians?  

“Colonizing Risks: Disasters and the Colonial State in Early Twentieth-Century Nueva Ecija” by Diego F. Rebato (Ateneo de Manila University)

Nueva Ecija faced dramatic ecological, social, and economic transformations in the late nineteenth century. These changes resulted in the intense commercialization and the further exposure of the local population to various forms of hazards, especially droughts and floods. The present research argues that the hazards greatly contributed to the solidarity of the peasant societies while it was also one of the factors that led to the success of the consolidation of haciendas by the 1930s. As the province was highly agrarian, the colonial authorities, local landowners, tenants, and homesteaders saw climate extremes as challenges that needed to be managed or controlled. Using official government reports, including meteorological bulletins, and newspaper accounts, this paper examines the responses of the colonial state to the hazardous environment of the province. The measures carried out by the Americans not only touched upon the ecological and infrastructural management to reduce the risk brought about by hazards, but they also created platforms to bring into focus the problems with social relations between peasants and landlords and between the landed and the landless.

PANEL 7: Special Collections of the Rizal Library

“Filipino Women as Pensionados (Scholars) during the American Colonial Period” by Hilario S. Balderas Jr. (Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings) 

The American colonial period had a profound impact on Filipino women’s activism, achievements, and status. Filipinas found increased educational opportunities, access to previously-closed professions, and a greater presence in the public sphere. However, these so-called opportunities were largely accessible only to those belonging to the elite class. Women during the decades of American rule were also caught between the conflicting aims of the American colonial state and the Filipino nationalist movements, which were male-dominated. Filipino women thus had to carefully navigate the socio-political context in order to define and eventually achieve what they were aiming for. For the remarkable women Encarnacion Alzona, Paz Marquez Benitez, Angela Manalang Gloria, Virginia Benitez Licuanan, and Edith Lopez Tiempo, it was a transition that would shape their education and career paths, their politics, and their accomplishments. 

“Snapshots of the Past: Exploring Philippine Arts, Culture, Literature, Media, and Music during the American Period through the Rizal Library's Filipiniana Collection” by Bernadette M. Garilao (Filipiniana Collection and Indexing Pool) 

The Filipiniana Section of the Rizal Library is home to an extensive collection of materials on or about the Philippines. Of particular interest are materials published during the American colonial period in the Philippines. This presentation will showcase the rich materials kept in this section of the library, highlighting significant works by notable authors during this crucial period of our nation's history. It will also showcase how Filipinos used arts, culture, literature, media, and music to adapt to or push back against American cultural influences. Simply put, these materials clearly demonstrate how the Filipinos preserved their identity and heritage despite the pressures of colonial rule. 

“Shared Histories, Shared Lives: Resources on Philippine-American Relations in the American Historical Collection” by Russel N. Castro (American Historical Collection) 

In 1950, U.S. Ambassador Myron Cowen encouraged the American community to collect and to preserve as many materials relating to Philippine-American relations as they could find. The intent was to create a library that maintains a unique and exceedingly rich repository of historical information which can be useful for Americans who continued to live in the Philippines and for Filipinos who wished to examine the period. The collection frames the encounter through a range of materials including primary documents, memorabilia, books, photographs, periodicals, etc. This presentation is an attempt to highlight the individual experiences of Americans and Filipinos and their intersected lives during this transformative period as described in the resources found in the American Historical Collection at the Rizal Library. Simultaneously, it provides insights to the implications of the colonial period and its enduring legacies. 

“Colonial Chronicles: The American Experience in the Philippines through Pardo de Tavera’s Special Collections” by Rosalyn Santos Diño (Pardo de Tavera Library and Special Collections) 

This presentation explores the American experience in the Philippines through the Pardo de Tavera Library’s Special Collections. It uncovers the diverse impacts of American rule, from colonial administration to resistance movements and lasting cultural changes. The talk also highlights the contributions of key figures like José García Villa, Domingo Abella, Arturo Rotor, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, and Pedro Paterno, who balanced Filipino values with American influences in literature, education, and public service. Their efforts reflect the broader Filipino adaptation to American policies. Overall, the presentation underscores the importance of preserving these collections to understand how this pivotal period has shaped modern Philippine identity. 

“Headlines under the Stars and Stripes: Philippine Newspapers during the American Colonization” by Tommy Dela Cruz (Microform and Digital Resources Center) 

This presentation looks at the important role of newspapers in the Philippines during the American period, especially as we mark the 125th Anniversary of the 1899 Philippine-American War. It will examine how these newspapers, like the Manila Times, La Vanguardia, the Daily Bulletin, Bagog Lipag Kalabaw, the Philippines Free Press, El Nacionalismo and Progreso Economico de Filipinas helped shape public opinion, shared news, and supported the fight for independence. 

PANEL 8: The Cold War in the Philippines 

“Carter, Human Rights, and the Marcos Regime” by Meynardo P. Mendoza (Ateneo de Manila University)

The Carter administration was both unique and innovative. Not only was it an interregnum between two Republican presidents notorious for belligerent overreach, Carter opened a novel approach to foreign policy. At a time when the United States appeared unaccountable for its actions in the pursuit of national interests, the Carter administration introduced an innovation—using human rights as a major plank in crafting US foreign policy. This policy is a rebuke to the concepts of presidential immunity, reversed recently by the US Supreme Court, and support for dictators guilty in spite of gross human rights violations and war crimes so long as they protect US strategic interests. Yet the struggle to reorient foreign policy towards a more judicious approach was met by stiff resistance. In the State Department, old time hawkish diplomats frowned upon the concept as impractical and detrimental to US interests. But it is in authoritarian states like the Philippines where the strongest displeasure is to come. While the Philippines was treated as a client state, Marcos played on the US bases and regional security interests in undermining this human rights regime.

“‘The Balance of Terror’: The Cold War and the US Bases Question in the Making of the 1987 Philippine Constitution” by Francis C. Sollano (Ateneo de Manila University)

The making of the 1987 Philippine Constitution has been contextualized mostly as a post-authoritarian constitution, which places it in the same “wave of democratization” that happened in the last decades of the twentieth century. However, what differentiates it from post-communist and other post-authoritarian constitution-making efforts is its late-Cold War context, which has been overlooked by scholars. One of the important constitutional debates during the 1986 Philippine Constitutional Commission (Con-Com) was about the presence of the largest US military facilities outside the US at that time: The Subic Naval Base and the Clark Air Field. On the one hand, the bases were glaring reminders of the US intrusion into Philippine sovereignty. On the other hand, they were seen as a fender for possible Soviet aggression in the region. This paper examines the public discussions in the press about the issue and their influence on the Con-Com deliberations. It also shows the ways in which the US and the USSR exerted pressure on the constitution-making process. Therefore, the paper intersects the country’s neocolonial history, diplomacy, and participatory constitution-making with the geopolitical interests of the “superpowers,” both of which deemed the Southeast Asian region as a crucial site of contestation during the last years of the Cold War.

“The Cold War and America’s International Development Agenda: Ford Foundation and the Rizal Library” by Nikki B. Carsi Cruz (Ateneo de Manila University)

Against the backdrop of the Cold War, the priority of the international donor community was to assist nation-building in newly independent states, specially those under a threat of Communism so that they may develop along democratic lines. The Ford Foundation, headed by committed internationalists like Hoffman (author of the Marshall Plan) and John J. McCloy (president of the World Bank) sought to focus funds on a limited number of countries. Southeast Asia became a focal point with offices opening in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines in the 1950s and 1960s. Their initial projects in the Philippines were the Asian Institute of Management, the International Rice Research Institute, and the Rizal Library of the Ateneo de Manila University. This paper examines the relationship of the Rizal Library with American donors in the Cold War era and how it shaped the library’s aims, its building design, the composition of its collection, and the range of its services in its first ten years of operation—an “American period” under its American library director, Fr. Robert Suchan.

PANEL 9: Issues of Health and Nutrition in the Early American Period 

“Transplanting Modernity through Medical Supplies: Transport of Medical Technology in the Philippine-American War and Its Legacy in Colonial Medical Modernity in the Early Twentieth Century Philippines, 1899-1920” by Alvin D. Cabalquinto (Ateneo de Manila University)

Military and medical historians have argued that the movement of American troops in the Philippine campaigns accompanied the movement of American ways of management and practices. These recent reevaluations of the pivotal role of military medicine in the Philippine-American War attest to the “civilizing” mission of medicine and public health as an enduring institution of American colonial rule in the Philippines. Such actions exhibited by the military medical bureau included transporting American medical equipment into its newly acquired territory. This research utilizes correspondences among American military officers and reports from army medical officers. It examines aspects of military medical administration, particularly the vital role of transporting medical supplies from the United States to the Philippines. This paper presents the process of obtaining these medical supplies from procurement to the eventual delivery through select correspondences between army medical officers. It examines the factors and conditions affecting this process using official reports and memoirs. Moreover, this paper explores the legacies of transporting American medical supplies circulated in the Philippines using periodicals such as newspapers and medical journals. By limiting the Filipino exposure to these American medical technologies, it probes and problematizes the dynamics of American exceptionalism in presenting American medical technology with superior medical knowledge while unpacking the inherent contradiction of this “civilizing” mission of modernity.

“The Epidemiology of War: Infectious Diseases and the Philippine-American War” by David O. Lozada III (Ateneo de Manila University)

Using primary sources that include reports from the Surgeon General of the Army to the Secretary of War and numerous correspondences sent to the Adjutant-General of the Army by military officers stationed in the Philippines, this paper looks at how infectious diseases like malaria, cholera and typhoid affected the conduct of military operations in Manila and the island of Luzon during the Philippine-American War, 1899-1902.

“The Nutrition and Hygiene in the Early American Period Public Schools, 1900-1012” by Olivia Anne M. Habana (Ateneo de Manila University)

When the American public primary schools opened in the early American period, many teachers and officials observed issues of health and wellness among their pupils. Filipino children were seen by the early American teachers and education officials as having inherent physical and moral defects for which Spanish influence and native shortcomings were blamed. Although institutional changes were eyed, the American educational sector also reasoned that changes in nutrition and hygiene would result in improvements not only of the colonial children’s bodily health, but also of their character and morals. Official reports, diaries, and memoirs of American officials and teachers will be analyzed to shed light on this issue and answer such questions as: How did American education officials view the Filipino child’s body? What defects did they believe needed altering? What steps did they take to do this? Although this is a multipronged issue, the paper will concentrate on the issue of how “proper” feeding and hygiene practices were put forward as the solution to the problem.

“Teaching Girls Not How to Cook, But How to Live: Gendered Nutritional Discourse in American Colonial Cookbook-Textbooks, 1911-1925” by Sarah Jessica E. Wong, MA Cand., (Ateneo de Manila University)

Studies on the history of public health in the Philippines often focus on diseases, epidemics, and sanitation. As a result, the discourse on nutrition—how to protect and maintain the health of colonial subjects through food practices—has not been explored as widely. This is despite colonial health authorities’ shifting focus from “the inanimate surroundings of man to the man himself” in the second decade of American colonization. In this paper, I will explore the nutritional discourse found in cookbook-textbooks and other educational materials published by the colonial government, particularly the Bureau of Education and the Bureau of Health. Such materials were explicitly aimed at Filipino girls, whom the former regarded as responsible for the health and nutrition of their families—and thus, the health and nutrition of the nation. By analyzing these materials in conjunction with contemporary government reports, journal articles, and periodicals, this paper will address questions such as: How did the American colonial government view the issue of Filipino nutrition and diet? What food-related practices needed to be learned, unlearned, or reformed? What role did the American colonial government expect Filipino girls and women to play in the health and nutrition of their families?

Panel 10: Literary Contact Zones of US-Philippine Relations

“The Making of the Twentieth-Century Filipino Writer in English: The National Summer Writers’ Workshop and the Rise of Creative Writing in the Philippines” by Charlie Samuya Veric  (Ateneo de Manila University)

In 1976, Edilberto K. Tiempo wrote that the “Silliman workshops were designed firstly, to help serious creative writers, both published and unpublished, to discover their own strengths and weaknesses as writers; and secondly, to stimulate their creative faculties and develop their critical insights through frank discussions of their works in regular sessions and in informal gatherings among their colleagues, as well as with literary critics and publishing editors.” Founded in 1962, the National Summer Writers Workshop (NSWW) became a crucial force in the institutionalization of creative writing in the Philippines. Now running for sixty-two years since its founding, the NSWW helped to solidify the stature of the contemporary Filipino writer in English early on. Its history, however, remains unwritten and unknown, especially its emergence in the context of decolonization and the Cold War. How was the SUNWW conceived originally? How did it begin? How was it received? What historical forces shaped its emergence? This paper reconstructs the founding of an institution that has cemented the hegemony of the Filipino writer in English in the twentieth century, and beyond.

“Cultures of Commemoration and Posthumous Literary Biographies of Nick Joaquin” by Luisa L. Gomez  (Ateneo de Manila University)

Often discussed in relation to Shakespearean studies, “cultures of commemoration” are defined as conscious or active attempts to rehearse and reimagine the author in the present, while ensuring the remembrance of the author’s past and present in the future. This paper explores the diverse practices of commemoration that have shaped the narrative of Joaquin’s so-called greatness. Despite his self-profiling as a devil’s advocate, there is hardly any contest to his canonical status, as evidenced by posthumous biographical writings on Joaquin. He remains, as was the case during his lifetime, acclaimed as “the greatest Filipino writer of his generation,” according to Resil Mojares. This presentation aims to describe the discourse on Joaquin’s “greatness” in these biographies and explain how such writings sustain his cultural presence, creating an impression of his timelessness, despite such claims being predominantly based only on a selected body of his prolific work. This paper thus provides new insights into the qualifications attributed to Joaquin’s greatness.

“‘I Read, Therefore I Am’: The Construction of Self-Reflexivity in Filipino-American Literature” by Maria Gabriela Martin (Ateneo de Manila University)

This presentation examines the productive nexus between literary criticism and reading culture in Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now: Essays (2022) and Gina Apostol’s interviews and essays, including her forewords to the Philippine reprint of Wilfrido Nolledo’s But for the Lovers (2023) and the Penguin Classics edition of Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic (2017). Situating both authors as agents in the transnational literary field originally outlined in Pierre Bourdieu’s Rules of Art and The Field of Cultural Production, I argue that despite the differing contexts that shape and condition their writing and reception, the above-mentioned texts acquire legitimacy and prestige through academic consecration and by an articulation of reading as a political act, a strategy that intervenes in the opposition between social art and art-for-art’s sake which emerged in the first half of the twentieth century and has since structured the production and consumption of Philippine literature.

PANEL 11: Philippine Fiction in English and Cultural Knowledge 

“Dust and Crabs: Nick Joaquin’s Zoopeisis of Postcolonial  Philippines” by Nathan Chan 

Nick Joaquin—that baroque historiographer and critic of Philippine postcolonialism—has always invited his readers to engage with the meanings of his works. One understudied aspect of the writer’s novels, however, is the writer’s use of animal symbols in his novels, particularly his employment of the figure of the “crab” in both The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Cave and Shadows. This presentation will examine how Joaquin, in the aforementioned novels, uses crabs as more than just metaphors, but as polysemous semiotic organisms to figure, articulate, and critique postcolonial Philippines. By looking into the crab as a facet of Joaquin’s making (i.e., poeisis) of postcolonial Philippines, I take my cue from postcolonial animal studies and its understanding of how the animal and more-than-human world, often labeled as bestial and irrational, can serve as fertile literary resources in figuring postcolonial realities. By close reading Joaquin’s two novels, I posit that Joaquin’s view of Philippine postcoloniality is characterized by agitated, “side-wise” movement (giving the illusion of forward mobility) as a result of its non-linear, because serially disrupted, trajectory. Thus, each articulation of post-coloniality in Joaquin’s novels is cancrine, a word which, fittingly, gives animalistic expression to the conflation of identities characteristic of Philippine postcoloniality.

“Filipino-American Intimacy: Revisiting N. V. M. Gonzalez’s The Bamboo Dancers” by Stanley Guevarra (University of Tokyo)

 Views on the Philippines’ relationship with the Americans in the postwar context can be described as a pendulum. On the one hand, greater dependence on America after the war led some scholars to think that Filipinos seemed to prefer psychological dependence to the Americans, putting them at the center of Philippine imagination. However, the undeniable existence of opprobrium against the continuing American influence at the time suggests otherwise, as well as the discourse that America’s empire was not so benevolent after all. In light of these questions, perhaps a study on literary texts can approximate, without unequivocally asserting, how the Americans were regarded after the war. This presentation revolves around The Bamboo Dancers (1959) by N. V. M. Gonzalez. In particular, I focus my attention on the protagonist (Ernie Rama) and his American friend (Herb Lane). While seemingly marginal, Ernie’s relationship with Herb proposes an alternative view concerning intimacy between Filipinos and Americans—one that goes beyond the binary of dependency or resistance. On this account, The Bamboo Dancers is evidence that, as early as the 1950s, an effort to deepen Philippine-American relationships had been pursued in the literary scene.

“MTV Cities: The Translocal, Mobile, and Virtual City in Luis Katigbak” by Stephen Seth Zagala

 Philippine literature in English has long been concerned with the representations of the city of Manila. The same can be said about Luis Katigbak, author of the essay collection The King of Nothing to Do and the short story collections Happy Endings and Dear Distance. Hailed as one of the foremost authors of his generation, his slice-of-life and science fiction are highly emblematic of the coming-of-age experience of Filipinos in 1990s Metro Manila. This paper draws on urban and mobility studies to analyze how various cultures and their social production constitute and define the literary cities of Luis Katigbak. Through a close reading of the various characters, cultures, and their various mobilities, as well as the flows of time, I will propose translocality as a key characteristic of the Philippine urban city, especially in Dear Distance. In particular, I argue that Katigbak redefines the city as going beyond the merely or primarily geographical in nature. More than just a physical place, the city in Katigbak’s representations of Metro Manila is dynamic, fluid, and mobile—a site for social meaning-making, yielding cultural information.

Panel 12: Literature in Spanish

“Tuning to Tango: Radio's Influence on Filipino Poetry in Spanish (1922-1952)” by Maria del Rocio Ortuño Casanova (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia) 

This presentation explores how radio shaped the cultural landscape and influenced poetic expressions from 1922, when radio was introduced by Americans, to 1952, reflecting broader cultural shifts in the Philippines. Paula Park notes that radio, as a commercial enterprise controlled by Americans, aimed to Americanize Filipinos by shaping their auditory imagination. Here, I argue that radio also redirected the Hispanic sentiment of the Spanish-speaking audience through the contemporary rhythms of the time. Instead of nostalgic Spanish rhythms, Latin American rhythms, particularly tango, became prominent. Tango songs were frequently requested on the radio, and their lyrics were published in Spanish-language newspapers. Poets such as José Hernández Gavira and Jesús Balmori composed tango lyrics, which faced criticism from some Spanish journalists in Manila. These critics likened the tango’s rise to the cultural infiltration of jazz and fox-trot by Americans and earlier critiques of modernist poetry in the early twentieth century. Moreover, tango lyrics often carried an erotic tone absent in the traditional poetry of the same authors, turning the traditional values linked to Filipino expression in Spanish into modern American-like values. This new poetic form spread widely through record sales, radio broadcasts, and newspapers: song lyrics were published in newspapers and played on the radio at the request of listeners, while authors wrote lyrics and requested their publication in newspapers, encouraging public involvement in the cultural scene and literary creation.

“El fuerte y  la Bella: Locating Malakas and Maganda in Philippine Literature in Spanish” by Wystan de la Peña (University of the Philippines) 

The American regime (1898-1945) was a period of Filipino identity affirmation in Fil-Hispanic literature. In reaction to the thrust of Americanization, the generation of writers educated during the Spanish colonial period inaugurated a discourse which defended Philippine identity as Malay-Hispanic.  They were followed by a second generation, this time reared by the American colonial system, who continued the rhetoric that the Filipino was Catholic and Hispanic (but not necessarily Spanish-speaking) with a Malay  genetic background. A closer reading, however, of the corpus from these two groups will show that both deploy the figures of Malakas and Maganda in affirming the identity of Filipinas in reaction to the sajonización being carried out during the first half of the twentieth century.  The paper shines the spotlight on literary discourse to show how now-mainly forgotten Philippine writers in Spanish used a native framework in asserting Filipino-ness.

“Between the Mall, the Street and the House: Desire, Action and Boredom in the Stories of Evangelina Guerrero Zacarías” by Irene Villaescusa Illán (University of Amsterdam)

This presentation discusses some of the stories published in The Excelsior in the 1930s by the Filipina writer and poet Evangelina Guerrero Zacarías. It considers the social and cultural prescriptions for women';s behaviour and morality that emerged from the contact between US and Hispanic cultures in the Philippines. It argues that Guerrero's nuanced and ambivalent prose reveals an existential anxiety derived from frustrated desires and abject boredom, which contrasts with the vibrancy of her contemporary souffragettes and other women of action. The presentation links Guerrero's writing to other feminist writers and situates her stories in the press alongside the feminie sections of American periodicals.

Panel 13: The Soundscape of the Commonwealth

“Ang Wika ng Kundiman” by Michael M. Coroza (Ateneo de Manila University) 

Hindi kundiman ang lahat ng lumang awiting Filipino. Bagaman may pinag-ugatang katutubo o sinauna, isa itong nilinang na anyo sa pagtatapos ng siglo 19 at sa bungad ng siglo 20 (o buong panahon ng pananakop ng mga Americano) ng mga maestrong sina Nicanor Abelardo, Antonio Molina, Francisco Santiago, at iba pang mga kakontemporaneo sa layuning lumikha ng isang masíning na awit na kakatawan sa pambansang hinaing at mithiin ng mga Filipino. Sinimulan ang paglinang dito sa panahon ng himagsikang Filipino kayâ tinagurian ding “awit ng himagsikan,”  gaya ng iginiit ni Antonio Molina sa kaniyang pag-aaral sa “Joselynang Baliwag” noong 1940. Bilang isang tiyak na anyong pansíning na nilikha para sa isang tiyak na layunin, nalikha ang mga “lehitimong kundiman” alinsunod sa isang tiyak na estruktura o gramatika na mahahango mula sa mismong teksto (letra o liriks) ng mga ito sa pamamagitan ng matalik na pagbása at kritikal na pagsangguni sa konteksto ng pagkakalikha. Itatanghal sa presentasyong ito ang isang gramatika ng kundiman na nalikha sa pagitan ng 1896 at 1939, ang panahong kinilala ni Antonio Molina bilang ang “panahon ng kundiman.” Prinsipyong tinatanggap sa pag-aaral ang pagiging tula ng awit o awit ng tula. Sa gayon, bagaman bahagyang papasadahan ang mga batayang katangian ng musika o melodiya, sadyang malilimitahan ang pagsusuri at pagtalakay sa letra o liriks ng mga piling kundiman. Nasa wika ng kundiman ang pagkakakilanlan at mithing Filipino kayâ nararapat kilalaning pambansang makasining na awit ng Filipinas.

“On and Around the Stage: Changes in the Soundscape of Moro-Moro Theater in the American Period” by Nikki B. Carsi Cruz (Ateneo de Manila University)

The Moro-Moro was the most popular form of theater in the Spanish colonial period. It was ejected from the Manila theater district and replaced by the more patriotic sarswela but it spread elsewhere and enjoyed even greater reach nationwide in the American colonial period. This paper examines changes in the staging conventions of this form of theater by examining American accounts of Moro-Moro plays, paying close attention to changing soundscapes that came with new spaces and schedules for performances. How did the sound of dialogue change? How did the music change? And how did the ambient sounds of the new contexts reshape this theater style?

“Gen Zs and Jazz” by Antonio Cayabyab (Ateneo de Manila University)

Jazz was first introduced in the Philippines in the 1920s and was often considered American colonial musical heritage ever since. This discussion examines the common misconceptions of Jazz according to the younger generations of today and aims to find how Jazz has transformed into its current perceived form. Jazz can be loosely understood nowadays due to its evolution and transformation influenced by other genres (and vice versa) and because of different cultural backgrounds, but it can be easily identified through its defining practices and characteristics. 

Panel 14: The Visual Arts

“Racial Feudalism” and the American Occupation of the Philippines” by Jovino de Guzman Miroy (Ateneo de Manila University) 

In her Body Parts of the Empire: Visual Abjection, Filipino Images, and the American Archive, Nerisa Balce argued that Filipino bodies were blackened to transfer the American idea of race to the Philippines. This process instilled state docility as Filipinos identified with the Black slave who was bound to the White master. This presentation relates the idea of “racial feudalism” to the scholarship on the place of race in the American Occupation of the Philippines, especially those by Filipino scholars. “Racial Feudalism,” is an article published in 2024 by Keidriek Roy, which observed that recent scholarship explained the not so well investigated idea in Alexis de Tocqueville that racial stratification in the United States was an extension of European feudalism. The study interrogates the idea of modernity brought by American colonization and to what extent that idea extends pre-modern structures, such as feudalism. Fuller understanding of social stratification in the US in the period before the turn of the century further deepens analysis of the process of colonization.

“Against U.S. Economic Aggression, Embracing Indigenous Values for a Sustainable Future: A Comparative Study of Art Projects in Baguio and Naoshima” by Midori Yamamura

This paper comparatively examines environmental art projects that emerged in the provinces in Japan and the Philippines during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Post-WWII Americanization in Asia is generally bound to urbanization, which swept away people’s identity, traditional family values, and imposed centralized system of government. Both, in Japan and the Philippines, their unique and diverse regional cultures were at risk of diminishing, and they are on the verge of losing their identity. However, starting in the late 1980s, artists and art producers in both countries began paying attentions to their respective indigenous cultures and traditional agrarian community, with a purpose to establish an eco-friendly environment in the age of climate crisis. This paper will examine the similarities and differences between the two projects: Japanese art director Soichiro Fukutake’s (1945-) Benesse Art Site Naoshima (est. 1989-) and one of the Baguio Art Guild artists Roberto Villanueva’s (1947-1995) Archetypes: Cordillera’s Labyrinth (1989).

Panel 15: Literary Traditions and Identity

“Ang Panahon, Espasyo, at Uring Panlipunan ng Piling Nobelang Pangkasaysayan sa Wikang Tagalog, 1905-1927 (Time, Space, and Social Class in Select Historical Novels in Tagalog, 1905-1927)” by Christoffer Mitch C. Cerda (Ateneo de Manila University)

Tatalakayin ng panayam na ito ang panahon, espasyo, at uring panlipinan ng ilang nobelang pangkasaysayan sa wikang Tagalog na isinulat at inilathala sa pagitan ng 1905 hanggang 1927. Sa aspekto ng panahon, tatalakayin kung kailan o ang kaligiran at tagpuang pangkasaysayan kung kailan naganap ang mga nobela. Susuriin kung ano ang sinasabi nito sa pananaw pangkasaysayan ng mga manunulat, sa partikular, at ng mga Filipino, sa pangkalahatan, tungkol sa Pilipinas at sa kanilang sarili. Sa pagbibigay-pansin kung ano-anong mga sandaling pangkasaysayan ang binibigyang-tuon ng mga nobela, at kung ano rin ang hindi nabigyan ng halaga, may mahihinuha nang mga halagahan (values) at maging kamalian (vices) ang binibigyang-tuon ng mga nobela na dapat sundin o di sundin ng mamamayang Filipino. Sa aspektong espasyo, tatalakayin kung saan ginanap ang mga nobela at tatalakayin kung paano nag-uugnay ang pagpili ng mga partikular na mga lugar bilang tagpuan sa kabuuang diskursong pangkasaysayan ng mga nobela. Sa partikular, susuriin ang ugnayan ng sentro (Maynila) sa laylayan (mga probinsiya) at kung ano ang sinasabi nito sa naging pangunahing direksiyon ng diskursong makabayan noong panahon ng kolonyalismong Amerikano. Panghuli, tatalakayin ang uring panlipunan ng mga pangunahing tauhan ng mga nobela at kung paano nito hinihubog ang pagkakakilanlang Filipino na matatagpuan sa mga nobela. Ipaliliwanag, gamit ng tatlong aspektong ito, na ang diskursong pangkasaysayan na binuo ng mga nobela’y nakaugnay sa patuloy na paggigiit ng katwirang pangkasaysayan.

“Literary Criticism in Spanish about the Inchoate Philippine Literature in English: The Ideas of Enrique K. Laygo (1897-1932), Journalist and Writer” by Beatriz Alvarez-Tardio (University Rey Juan Carlos)

This presentation offers the insights of Enrique K. Laygo (1897-1932) journalist and writer of fiction in Spanish, winner of the Zobel prize in 1925 with his collection of short stories Caretas. Laygo published his cultural and literary criticism in the newspaper El Debate, from 1926 to his death. The complexity of the literary system in Manila reveals itself through Laygo’s lenses. As a writer, he grew up within the Spanish literary subsystem, whose members were, among others, Claro M. Recto, Fernando Ma. Guerrero, and Cecilio Apostol. However, thanks to his job as journalist, Laygo was in touch with the literary and cultural scene in Manila in the different languages. In his pieces of criticism, he reviewed works in Tagalog, Spanish, and analyzed the incipient literary production in English. Laygo developed two main ideas regarding Philippine Literature: First, he established the verisimilitude as a requisite for the progress of Filipino texts in English in order to bridge with the readership. Second, Laygo defined clearly that the multiple forms of expression, genres and languages, were equally good for serving the country. Laygo was a singular literary critic whose texts provide us with a contemporary perspective to the inchoate Philippine Literature in English in the decade of the 1920’s.

“Mr. and Mrs. English Travel with a Rattan Suitcase” by Luis Francia (New York University)

The only benefit arguably of colonization for the colonial subject is the acquisition of a new language, in this case, English. The latter becomes a way for the empire to strike back, allowing the indigenous to both address and critique empire in terms familiar to it. In my own use of English, as well as that of Filipino-American writers—Jessica Hagedorn and Nick Carbo come to mind—I have attempted to demonstrate the ways in which the American Empire has sought to undermine and devalue the indigenous in order for Filipinos to become their little brown brothers, denoting both race and hierarchy favorable to its dominant status. In this manner, English becomes Filipinized, just as Spanish in Ecuador becomes Ecuadorean. In a sense, Filipinos, myself included, are returning a borrowed tongue, only this time not as mimics but rendering it original and as their own: indubitably Filipino.

“The Deterritorialization and Reterritorialization of the ‘Filipino American’" by Oscar V. Campomanes (Ateneo de Manila University)

Pilipino-American? Flip? Filipino American? U.S. Filipino? Filipina/o American? Filipinx American? “What is in a name?” The names for the only Asian-origin community in the USA whose ancestral homeland was directly and formally (neo)colonized by the United States have been, and continue to be, in such terminological flux since the 1960s. Such ‘indeterminacy’ of identity may be read as indicating important shifts and conjunctures in the history of this community-in-the-making, a community now seen to be either central to, or different from, the formation of the Philippine global diaspora in the present. In this paper, I revisit some personal interventions in the literary and cultural historiography of this community from the vantage point of American empire and Filipino postcolonial critique (1992/1995/2005; 1997; 2006/2008) to track important developments and transformations in its genesis. I argue, based on this retrospective, that not only has the politics of emergence and self-determination of this community taken some unexpected directions; it has itself, by what I used to insist as its irreducibility, radically transformed a range of fields which had institutionally rendered it marginal, even illegible: from comparative empire studies to postcolonial or decolonial critique; and from American ethnic studies to area studies.