Are second-generation Filipinos ‘becoming’ Asian American or Latino? Historical colonialism, culture and panethnicity

Abstract

This article examines how second-generation Filipinos understand their panethnic identity, given their historical connection with both Asians and Latinos, two of the largest panethnic groups in the USA. While previous studies show panethnicity to be a function of shared political interests or class status, I argue that the cultural residuals of historical colonialism in the Philippines, by both Spain and the USA, shape how Filipinos negotiate panethnic boundaries with Asians and Latinos, albeit in different ways. Filipinos cite the cultural remnants of US colonialism as a reason to racially demarcate themselves from Asians, and they allude to the legacies of Spanish colonialism to blur boundaries with Latinos. While the colonial history of Filipinos is unique, these findings have implications for better understanding racialization in an increasingly multiethnic society – namely, how historical legacies in sending societies interact with new racial contexts to influence panethnic identity development.

Keywords:

• panethnicity
• colonialism
• Filipino
• Asian American
• Latino
• second generation

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Min Zhou, Roger Waldinger, Wendy Roth, Jennifer Jones, Kerry Ann Rockquemore, Anthony Alvarez and the reviewers for their feedback throughout various stages this manuscript.

Notes

1. Studies of European migration have more thoroughly detailed how colonialism affects assimilation among post-colonial migrants. Studies of the Indian migration in the British colonial era show how colonial policies facilitated the movement of Indian professionals to East Africa during the early twentieth century (Poros 2010). British–Indian colonial relations allowed Indians in East Africa to then migrate to the UK when African societies later gained independence. While their colonial status allowed them entry into Britain, it also became a marker of their second-class citizenship in their new host society (Dhingra 2012).

2. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony of one million people (1 per cent the size of the Philippines), is the only other Catholic society in Asia.

3. Filipino migrants of the early twentieth century encountered hostility and violence from white nativists hoping to halt Filipino migration. However, it was not until 1934 that nativists coalesced with Midwestern agribusiness players who were worried about competition with Philippine agricultural products. These constituencies lobbied Congress to pass the Tydings-McDuffie Act in 1936 and grant the Philippines independence following a ten-year transition period succeeding its passage (Baldoz 2011, pp. 156–193).

4. The Philippines is not the only Asian country with a colonial past. While countries, like Korea, experienced colonialism, they are qualitatively different in many respects. First, the Philippines was colonized for longer than most other Asian countries. Second, the legacies of both Spanish and US colonialism are more deeply embedded within the mainstream culture of contemporary Philippine society. The closest parallel is British colonialism in India, which lasted nearly as long as in the Philippines. This partly explains why besides Filipinos, there are challenges to including Indians within the pan-Asian collective (Kibria 1998).

5. Second-generation studies generally includes both 1.5 and second-generation individuals.

6. Before asked about panethnic identity, respondents were asked the open-ended question: ‘How do you identify, that is what do you call yourself?’

7. Teranishi (2002) revealed that Filipinos were treated as remedial students while Chinese were dubbed model minorities. In this study, Filipinos were the only Asians present in the school, leading teachers to designate them model minorities relative to the other groups present.

8. When surveyed, IIMMLA respondents were adults, while CILS respondents were teenagers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anthony C. Ocampo

ANTHONY C. OCAMPO is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at Cal Poly Pomona