From running amok to eating dogs: a century of misrepresenting Filipino Americans in Hawai‘i

Abstract

This article reviews and analyses historical and contemporary processes of the racist representation of Filipino Americans in Hawai‘i. Historically, it discusses the causes and consequences of the extreme over-representation of Filipino men among those executed from 1900 until 1944. In contemporary terms, it examines how the news media, ethnic joke telling and the ‘local literature’ of Hawai‘i reinforce stigmatizing stereotypes of Filipino Americans. While some of these stereotypes are new, others have been revived from the pre-Second World War era. The factors that explain why Filipino Americans have been subject to extremely denigrating stereotypes include their continuing subordinate status and the considerable proportion of immigrants among them, which result in their being associated with especially perverse and ‘barbaric’ activities, such as running amok and eating dogs, that are common in the Philippines as a seemingly culturally underdeveloped nation.

Keywords:

• Filipino Americans
• transnational racism
• Filipino immigrants
• stereotypes
• capital punishment
• Hawai‘i

Notes

1. Balce also observes how ‘racialized and gendered stereotypes of the Filipino’ were circulated in the US popular media soon after Philippine annexation that portrayed Filipinos as ‘dark “savages,” as “children,” and as “feminized” subjects’ (2006: 46).

2. Historian Dawn Mabalon (2003: 258) cites a 1929 case in Vallejo, California, in which a 36-year-old Filipino killed a 14-year-old girl and then himself after she declined his advances. She added, ‘Intense jealousies over women fueled fistfights and stabbings among Filipinos.’

3. The term ‘amok’ is Malay in origin, and amok behavior was historically reported in Malaysia. Over time it has come to refer generically to incidents of ‘violent homicidal aggression’ by an individual using a weapon. While he does not refer to it as running amok, Bulosan described an incident in Seattle that could be considered such: ‘The Filipino had gone completely crazy. He was running up and down the sidewalk with a long knife, stabbing everyone in his way.…He had killed eight and wounded sixteen before the policemen caught him’ (1973 [1946]: 176).

4. Buk-buk, which is a Filipino word for a type of insect, is a derogatory term for Filipinos in Hawai‘i that originated during the pre-Second World War period. As a bright colour, purple is supposedly favoured by Filipino Americans.