Colonial oppression, labour importation, and group formation: Filipinos in the United States

Abstract

This article approaches the study of ethnic organization and reorganization from an international and historical perspective. Focusing on Filipinos in the United States, it argues that the identities of immigrants (particularly of immigrants of colour) have been shaped not only by the social location of their group within the host society but also by the position of their country within the global racial order. Couching the study of Filipino American ethnicity within the wider context of US‐Philippine relations, this article examines the impact that US colonial policies, recruitment practices and labour conditions have had on the regional and class composition ‐ and thus on the process of group formation and differentiation ‐ of Filipinos in the United States. It compares the ethnic organization and reorganization of three different cohorts of Filipino immigrants: the pre‐World War II agricultural labourers to Hawaii; the pre‐1970 Filipino sailors in the US Navy; and the post‐1965 family reunification and occupational immigrants. In the first two cohorts, the regional divisions among Filipinos were largely minimized by their similar class position. In contrast, in the post‐1965 period, regional divisions are often compounded by class divisions, making it more difficult for the contemporary Filipino populations to build a comprehensive group consciousness. By examining the regional and class differentiation among Filipinos in the United States, this article challenges the homogeneous descriptions of communities of colour and moves the field of race relations away from a black‐white paradigm to one that explores relations within racially‐defined groups.

Keywords:

• Filipino Americans
• ethnicity
• class
• regionalism
• immigration
• US colonialism