Valorizing racial boundaries: Hegemony and conflict in the racialization of Filipino migrant labour in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the role of the “racial state” in delimiting the socio-economic mobility of Filipino immigrants in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. I illustrate how racial statecraft was deployed to restrict the access of Filipino immigrants to citizenship, family formation and land ownership through exclusionary racial criteria. I argue that the state instituted ascribed racial categories as the principal means of differentiating the civic status and social resources available to racialized collectivities. Filipino immigrants in the United States offer an interesting case study because of their status as colonial subjects of the United States. The precarious political and racial status of Filipinos made the enforcement of racial boundaries a complex issue that was contested by both whites and Filipinos and eventually led to a prohibition on Filipino immigration to the United States in the 1930s.

Keywords:

• Filipino-Americans
• colonialism
• immigration
• racialization
• racial state

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Jonathan Okamura, Yen Le Espiritu, Michael Omi, Miri Song and Manfred Steger for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes

RICK BALDOZ is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii.

ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii, Saunders Hall 247, Honolulu HI 96822, USA. Email: <[email protected]>

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rick Baldoz

RICK BALDOZ is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawaii. ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii, Saunders Hall 247, Honolulu HI 96822, USA. Email: <[email protected]>