REMEMBERING CARLOS BULOSAN (tags)
A re-assessment of Carlos Bulosan's life and works in the context of his birth anniversary this November and Filipino-American Month.
RE-VISITING CARLOS BULOSAN (tags)
Reviewing Carlos Bulosan's life and work in commemoration of his birth anniversary November 1911.
Confronting U.S. Empire: Reviewing Filipino American Insurgent Intellectual Production (tags)
This new intervention by internationally renowned Filipino scholar E. SAN JUAN, Jr. signals a renewed self-reflection by the Filipino American community and the entire diaspora of nearly 10 million Overseas Contract Workers.
FILIPINOS IN THE UNITED STATES: WHITHER? WHENCE? (tags)
The publication of four essays by Filipino activist-scholar E. SAN JUAN, Jr. on the situation of Filipinos in "the belly of the beast" marks a historic stage in the criticial self-examination of this community at a time when the USA Patriot Act and Bush's "war of terror" have stigmatized this group as somehow connected with the Abu Sayyaf terrorism in the Philippines. It is time for Filipinos in the U.S. to stand up and fight continuing racial stigmatization and inferiorization of the Filipino national identity. Makibaka, huwag matakot!
Review of E. SAN JUAN's ON THE PRESENCE OF FILIPINOS IN THE UNITED STATES (tags)
Filipinos in the U.S. today comprise the largest community of Asians in the U.S. But knowledge about Filipinos is scarce; instead, trivialities, cliches, and stereotypes are disseminated by Filipino historical associations. This review calls attention to one serious effort to approach Filipinos from a historical-materialist point of view.
In the light of the profound economic and political crisis in the Philippines today, what could be the significance of celebrating the one-hundred year anniversary of the coming of Filipino contract labor to Hawaii? Are Filipinos the new compradors for the militarist U.S. Empire? Or are they harbingers of a new generation of combatants from the oppressed communities? At the turn of the century, the revolutionary organizer Rosa Luxemburg elegized the dismal plight of the subjugated natives. Today, US Special Forces are back to reconquer the neocolony, with the natives no longer smiling, now up in arms, united with people of color in Venezuela, Palestine, Hawaii, Nepal, Mexico, and other battlefronts of our beleaguered planet. Whither the Filipino diaspora?
Filipinos—Forgotten Heroes of the UFW (tags)
Filipino labor leaders played pivotal roles in organizing labor unions and fighting for farm workers’ rights
OUT AND SHOUT INTO THE STREETS! (tags)
We Fil-American students call on our fellow justice-loving students to raise their anti-imperialist voices on April 15 and May 1 to fight for full immigrant rights and forge an anti-imperialist solidarity with the working people and migrant peoples of the U.S..
WALKOUT - A Critical Review (tags)
Some people have recently called the HBO film, Walkout, as “providing much inspiration to the student walkouts” across America in recent days. Although the film is a historical feature that tells the story of the Chicano people’s struggle against racism and discrimination and is undoubtedly a breakthrough against white supremacy, it is also a telling lesson in the chauvinism of some Chicano activists towards Filipinos in America. This is a case of a majority minority that unconsciously or consciously discriminates against another albeit smaller national minority in advocating for its own self-determination in the United States.
FILIPINOS IN THE U.S.A. AND AROUND THE WORLD: WHENCE AND WHITHER? (tags)
About ten million Filipinos are now scattered in the U.S. and around the world, chiefly as exploited migrant labor. Meanwhile, 85 million Filipinos--with the exception of a tiny privileged minority--are sufffering and resisting the current repressive regime in a rapidly deteriorating neocolonized social order. The Philippines has one of the most durable and vibrant revolutionary traditions in the whole world--the first Asian people to revolt against Western colonialism. 4.1 million Filipinos died opposing U.S. domination in the Filipino-American War at the turn of the last century. Today Filipinos are engaged in a popular democratic revolutionary process against U.S. imperialism and its local agents. Can overseas Filipinos contribute to the radical transformation of a world afflicted by the atrocities and terrors of global capitalism?
The anniversary of the death of the Philippines' national hero Jose Rizal this Dec. 30 affords us the occasion to reassess his work, particularly in the context of ongoing fierce class war in the Philippines between the oppressed, impoverished majority and the few privileged landlords and politicians bought by global capital. This is taking place at a time when the Philippines is being re-colonized by the U.S. as the world's imperialist hegemon. Would Rizal want the country partitioned to greedy transnational corporations and their national elites in the current terrorist war against peoples of color in particular? These reflections hope to provoke a re-thinking of what it means to be a Filipino with the Philippines in permanent crisis, using Rizal as a point of departure, especially in the light of its citizens becoming an embattled diaspora--more than ten million OFWs as exploited domestics and contract workers around the planet, while the country's rich natural resources, cultures and traditions are wasted by foreign profiteers of globalizing capital supported by local comprador parasites currently headed by the corrupt Arroyo regime. "O where is the hope of the motherland...."?
Self-educated at the Los Angeles Public Library in the Thirties, Carlos Bulosan, the militant Filipino writer and labor activist, died on September 11, 1956. His death anniversary last month provided the occasion for the Filipino community to celebrate his contribution to the revolutionary struggle of peoples everywhere for justice, dignity, and self-determination. Bulosan was part of the community of progressive Los Angeles-based intellectuals (Carey McWilliams, Sanora Babb, Louis Adamic, Ring Lardner Jr. and others) victimized by McCarthyism and fascist reaction. His example of resistance continues to inspire people of color everywhere.
Los Angeles City Council Recognizes "Historic" Filipinotown in LA (tags)
There is now an official Filipinotown. The article gives some insight into how these ethnic districts are created, and why they are important.