Announcements

+Announcements Fri 11/29, 6pm – Sagip Tulong Fundraiser @ WORLD BEAT

CENTER (2100 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA 92101) - $5 donation

Fri 12/6, 6pm – Candlelight Vigil @ UDW (4855 Seminole Drive, San Diego, CA 92115)

Finals Study Guide posted on course website Schedule for remaining weeks:

Th 11/28: NO CLASS –  HAPPY THANKSGIVING! T 12/3: Homebound, Ch 7 Th 12/5: Homebound, Ch 8 T 12/10: Homebound, Ch 9

+

Making HomeBuilding (Transnational) Community in San Diego

+Forces of Homelessness racialized and gendered

perceptions deny home & belonging in both the Philippines and US “little brown brothers” to

“little brown monkeys” anti-miscegenation acts,

alien land laws, & de facto segregation keep manongs homeless

transnational home making as survival strategy

+transnational homes & families Filipinos were transnational even before they left their

homeland English education system, popular culture, American

commodities & businesses, military presence

returning “home” can provide validation and social status denied in U.S. (87) one is always Filipino in the US, but one becomes American in

the Philippines

remittances & familial obligations simultaneously empower and take a toll on immigrants “I left my family to be a good mother”

connections to Philippines demonstrate an insistence on being “home bound” rather than “homeless” (97)

+Filipino San Diego: Pre-1965 transition of Filipino community from mostly agricultural

laborers to enlisted Navy San Diego – the “aviation capital of the world”

“Since the early 1900s, widespread use of racially restrictive zoning covenants kept poor and nonwhite residents out of the most desirable areas of San Diego and confined them in what came to be called Southeast San Diego” (100)

Active recruitment by US bases – Sangley Point Naval Base (Cavite) & Subic Naval Station (Zambales)

stringent naval entrance requirements but shared experince of occupational downgrading 1970 – 80% of Filipinos were in steward training

Market Street & the Gaslamp = historic Manilatown small but dynamically united community

+ Filipino San Diego: Post-1965

1965 Immigration Act – triples size of community and by 2000 community is roughly 121,000 increased regional, professional,

class, and generational differences

“increasing geographical dispersion of the post-1965 Filipino community, with many professional immigrants settling in suburban neighborhoods beyond the reach of their compatriots who lack comparable economic means” (120) north of the 8 versus south of the

8

• proliferation of Fil Am community associations – regional, professional. cultural, issue-based, identity-focused, etc

• divisions within community, status-seeking practice and resistance to racist homogenization

+ Masculinity & Race

because of racialization, Filipino men are assigned feminized domestic labor in navy

just as race is a social formation so is gender; the two are entwined but not equivalent

“Like other men of color, Asian American men have been largely excluded from white-based cultural notions of the masculine” (128)

asexual nerd and over-sexual primitive: Asian masculinity as always the other of white masculinity

+Military Masculinities “As domestic servants, Asian

men became subordinate not only to privileged white men but also to privileged white women” (129) complexities of race, class, gender

– not all men benefit from patriarchy

immigrant men can respond by asserting masculinity & dominance in other contexts or by undoing patriarchy (131) Ex. option 1: some Filipino men

return “home”& flaunt naval paycheck

Ex. option 2: working to de-stigmatize domestic labor within own families

+Military Wives Prior to 1965 – most Filipinas

were naval wives either in islands or following husbands to US

“the prolonged absence of their husbands saddled most women with a disproportionate share of household tasks as well as a life without the company and assistance of their husbands. Yet this arrangement simultaneously gave the women more independence and increased their authority over family governance” (142)

revised gender divisions of labor

= naval husbands using steward skills to care for family

(145)

+Filipina Professionals & Femininity post-1965 – “women comprise the

clear majority among U.S. immigrants” family reunification growth of female-intensive industries

male agricultural labor force of 20th cent. versus female labor force of 21st

service, microelectronics, textiles, health-care

naval male immigration – economic power & marriageability

medical female immigration – economic power & independence

+Changing Gender Roles & Family Structures

female-first immigration reverses gender roles Filipina women as bread-winners

dual-earner parents = rotating shifts of labor and child care

persistence of women’s double burden

expectation of elder children to care for younger

employment of lower class women to care for domestic space

“These life accounts tell us that the pursuit of the

American dream, even when ‘successful,’ entails physical

and psychic costs, the majority of which are borne by the wives and children of

these families” (156)