Uh Puerto Rico...Woh!! Obama 'erupts' the colony

On Tuesday, the island had a visitor from the continent, and it ain't Frankie Cutlass.

Like the Puerto Rican dancers on America's Best Dance Crew, the islands erupted on the American mainstage once again with an official presidential visit from Barack Obama. In past articles, I've talked about the curious cultural position inhabited by members of U.S. island colonies: the Filipino/Puerto Rican brutha Bruno Mars, Puerto Ricans in Florida, Pacquiao vs. Cotto, Puerto Rican and Filipino representation on America's Best Dance Crew (here and here), and the newly confirmed Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Still, questions remain about how Puerto Rico continues to configure in the national imagination of the U.S. Instead of dancing, singing, or boxing, the President's visit makes the island visible for a "mainstream" audience through political pomp and election skrilla snatching (he raised $1 million at a fundraiser).

Mr. Obama's home state of Hawai'i stands as an example of another island colony, which is at once "different" because of its exotic appeal yet "domestic" because it's the 50th state (hey a nice round number means national completeness, right?). Hence the twisted irony of Obama's visit: he used to rep a Pacific island colony (turned state) and now reps hard for the "mainland" on a visit to the Caribbean island colony.

The 50 state nation is purportedly "complete" in God's eyes, at least according to the kind folks at American Family Association who are sponsoring a "prayer event" in August with Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry. According to rhetoric of this group, the shape of the nation is set by God.

But what exactly is the shape of the nation? And how do we determine its borders? The U.S.-dominated islands (the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, and others) prove the complexity of these questions. The islands trouble the nations legal, geographic, and cultural contiguity.

Enter Obama on a visit to the literal margins of America. How can the emergence of Puerto Rico in the U.S. imagination bring to light the sin of U.S. imperialism? Where does Puerto Rico, as a non-voting colony of the U.S., configure within the "ideal" of Americana?

As a territory under federal authority (especially military) but limited "voice" in federal governance, Puerto Rico's incongruity to an American ideal is a problem. And the people of Puerto Rico have much to be concerned about. Like the Philippines, Puerto Rico is experiencing a "brain drain" of skilled Puerto Ricans migrating to the continent. The island has more boricuas living on the continent (who interestingly can vote for president) than on the island itself. Much like the rest of the nation (only magnified), the island has been experiencing unprecedented unemployment and poverty. And like the rest of the nation, higher education is one of the first priorities on the fiscal chopping block, resulting in an uprising by students who are subsequently denied "voice". Freedom of speech in some instances has been banned in Puerto Rico, where student protesters who are increasingly unable to attend school because of rising fees are punished for exercising a fundamental American right. Liberty and justice...for some?

From the New York Times. Student protests meet roadblocks in Puerto Rican universities.

During his visit to the island, President Obama declared his support for the decision the colony makes regarding statehood (51st?) or independence: “When the people of Puerto Rico make a clear decision, my administration will stand by you…. We want Puerto Rico to have a shot at the dream that we all have.”

As an afterthought to the "main" U.S. agenda, Puerto Rico's future is becoming increasingly dismal. As members of a supposed critical "Hispanic" (continental) voting bloc, the President finds Puerto Ricans a valuable demographic. But how valuable is the President to Puerto Ricans?

As the author of the article "Obama's Puerto Rico Pit Stop" in The Nation writes, "The perception is that Puerto Rico is not a part of the 'national conversation,' but rather a colonial outpost in which identity politics, language and nationalism have residents mired in a perennial identity crisis."

Puerto Rico plays an important role in bringing knowledge to American imperial history (and future?). Where Obama's Hawai'i became "domesticated" and the Philippines became "independent", Puerto Rico--home to 4 million American subjects and whose migrated people constitute a coveted voting bloc on the continent--remains a major player in the quest for U.S. border-defining. Can residents of the "colonial outpost" challenge the notion of American imperial innocence? Or will America's island subjects remain the way they always have been? That is, invisible.

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Visions of the Creole Bastard: Film and the postcolonial body

Davis, played by Jose Saenz, is determined to dunk in The Flip Side (2001).

On Saturday the 27th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival presented the 10-year anniversary screening of the pioneering narrative film The Flip Side. An official selection of the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, the LAAPFF screening marked a historic moment in Filipino American film and raised questions about the future of the genre. At ten years old, is The Flip Side a film that a younger generation can relate to? What cultural changes have occurred between the Fil Am generation of the late 90s and early 2000s, and the generation coming-to-age around 2010?

In 2001, a troupe of California-based Filipino American artists and advocates stormed the Sundance venue in Utah with the intent to make clamor for The Flip Side and DJ Qbert's Wave Twisters that premiered at the same time. These Fil Am pilgrims were surprised to be greeted by a small community of Utah Fil Am residents who showed a tremendous amount of love for the artists.

At the time, the Fil Ams' experience in Utah reflected a bigger phenomenon of Filipino (mis/under)representation in the larger public imaginary. Many times during Sundance meetings and press events, according to The Flip Side director Rod Pulido, he and other Filipinos were the only people of color around. Also to note, the film was interestingly programmed into the Native Forum portion of the festival, which is perhaps reflective of Utah's demographic imaginary and Filipinos' strange ethnic placement in the United States. "The Native Forum director felt that Filipinos' issues were similar to those of Native Americans, such as dealing with assimilation," Pulido mentioned during the Q&A portion of the LAAPFF event.

Filipinos similar to Native Americans? Hold up. This is getting confusing. I think this cross-racial resonance speaks to the indeterminacy that best describes Filipino people whose culture is mixed, creolized, and transformed by what Filipina art critic Sarita See calls a "wild heterogeneity."

But the film speaks for itself when it comes to Filipino American anxiety (from outside and from within) over their complex membership in the U.S.'s (and the world's) racial and cultural landscape. Likely to resonate with Fil Ams of all ages, as a satirical drama, The Flip Side engages questions about racial and cultural authenticity. Characters in the movie perform a series of "Fil Am caricatures" (some more painfully disturbing than others): the bahag-wearing Darius who awkwardly preaches facile Philippine nationalism, the brother Davis who speaks as if he were African American, the sister Marievic who hopelessly wishes she looked more white, the bagoong craving father, the gossiping mother, and the lotto addicted lolo.

The film opens with Darius returning home in suburban California (the film was shot in Cerritos) after his first year at college where he joined the Filipino student group Kababayan. Emboldened by his knew knowledge of Filipinoness, Darius deals with his dysfunctional family members while preaching the gospel of (his version of) Filipino culture. Darius's curmudgeon lolo stays cramped in an upstairs room, where Darius visits bearing food in hopes of connecting with the old man who for Darius becomes a proxy for an "authentic" Filipinoness. Giving away his hip hop records to Davis, Darius exchanges his default hip hop identity--an identity that Rod Pulido said he most identified with--for minstrel-like Filipino indigeneity.

Darius, played by Verwin Gatpandan, drags in indigeneity with his bahag.

A testament to the identity-formation process many college-educated Fil Ams go through, The Flip Side is both a hyperbolic critique of Filipino American culture and also a comedic meditation on the otherwise complicated circulation of racial and cultural referents dealt to Filipino Americans. For the Fil Am males in the movie, the ethnic journey is a journey to recuperate a Filipino masculinity, with Darius's bahag representing a phallic symbol of his Filipinoness and Davis's desire for the supposed African "extra bone" in his foot together with an obsession with gaining height representing his own longing for a black manhood. In addition, the heroicizing of lolo with his Battle of Bataan medals stand in for an aspirant Filipino (militant) masculinity gone flaccid, of which the two generations--Darius and lolo--resolve by tricking their quirky family members and starting a journey of their own.

Marievic is proud to be "Hawaiian."

The seeking for a more stable sense of self for Darius's siblings ultimately meet tragic disfigurement: Davis breaks a bone in his foot after trying to dunk on his modified basketball rim and Marievic's nose becomes infected after a botched cosmetic operation to "fix" her Filipina nose. But the sad idea of "fixing" a Filipino identity is perhaps the most heartbreaking lesson offered by The Flip Side, performed poignantly by Ronalee Par who as Marievic trashes her vanity mirror arrangement after her boyfriend dumps her. Her boyfriend, who is drawn to Marievic when they first meet, tries to guess her ethnic background of which Marievic agrees is "Hawaiian". "In Hawai'i I was born, that's why I'm Hawaiian," she tells him. Hawaiian, therefore, according to Marievic, is a more legible and intelligible (and exotic) ethnicity compared to the disarticulated and ambiguous Filipino. Ultimately, Marievic's desire to "fix" her "flawed" identity meets with failure and loss.

The message, then, that The Flip Side promotes is that a Filipino and Filipino American culture does not need "fixing" like that exemplified by Davis and Marievic's penchant for bodily modification. Maybe the film is telling us we should embrace our ambiguity and "wild heterogeity" and find agency in being able to play with borders. Or maybe the film is suggesting that young Filipino Americans should seek knowledge about their history, especially our history of resistance as shown by Darius's teaching Davis about Philippine "heroes."

Whatever the case, I think the tortuous racial negotiations visualized in The Flip Side work as a critique of the way Filipinos are seen as weak. I think the film performs a subtle commentary on the conceit of "purer civilizations" positioned "above" the creolized* Filipina/o and her/his aborted/injured Philippine national identity molded by Spanish (three centuries), U.S. (all of the 20th century as a colony/neocolony), and even Japanese (for three years during WWII) colonization. Filipino American engagement with whiteness, blackness, and (according to Sundance programming) Native Americanness provides a window to this mixed history. This in-betweenness references a complex Filipino racial position in the world that differs from the classical U.S. immigrant narrative that only identifies racialization originating upon arrival in the U.S. In other words, unlike many other immigrant nations, a creolized Philippines offers a grammar of racialization prior to migration. Yes, The Flip Side is a commentary on immigrant assimilation, but its also more by virtue of its envisioned "wild heterogeneity"--its characters' creolized identities.

Ryan Greer as Ralsto in One Kine Day (2010).

Another movie that speaks to the creolization featured at this year's LAAPFF is the beautifully-shot One Kind Day, a film about the trials of young skater Ralsto who encounters a series of money problems--including tense encounters with a haole drug trafficker named Vegas Mike--after he finds out his teenage girlfriend is pregnant. Director Chuck Mistui described during the Q&A that his movie addresses the problem of teen pregnancy in Hawai'i, visualizing what he called the the grittier, non-touristy side of Hawai'i.

Under the auspices of Haolewood Productions (a gesture to white people, or haoles as they are called by locals), One Kine Day foregrounds the multiracial landscape of Hawai'i with its cast of whites, hapa haoles (part white Hawaiians), Asians, and Islanders. The film, however, is surprisingly absent of Filipino presence especially given the large concentration of Ilocanos in Hawai'i. Nonetheless, the process of creolization--the colonial transforming of racial order, culture, language, and so on--parallels that of the Philippines. Both were colonies of the United States, but Hawai'i attained U.S. statehood in 1959 whereas the Philippines (for multiple reasons) remained a U.S. neocolony (which means the U.S. arbitrated uneven economic control and military authority in the archipelago). One Kine Day, with its subtle references to Hawai'i's peripheral yet incorporated status such as the recurring imagery of the U.S. Post Office, bears witness to the cultural and racial "othering" that describes Hawai'i's exotic status compared to the other 49 states. Perhaps Hawai'i's "other" yet somehow "familiar" status is why Marievic privileges Hawaiian over Filipino.

Even though during the Q&A Mitsui did not really mention the racial critique offered by his film, the multiracial cast and the tensions that emerge among its members suggest an embedded racial discord. For example, race and class tensions emerges when racially-mixed (Japanese and white) Ralsto hitches a ride with his two "brown," pidgin-speaking neighbors who recycle bottles and cans as part of their work. Ralsto blurts out he would rather have a baby than collect trash with the two men, prompting one of the men to retort: "You think you better than us?!" This scene unpacks bigger racial issues in the Pacific state, where the racial order can be described as whites above Japanese, Japanese above other Asians, Filipinos as the lowest Asians, and Native Hawaiians and African Americans at the bottom of the caste.

One Kine Day illustrates this racial hierarchy. When the story revolves around pregnancy and the anxieties of reproduction, the racial narrative becomes even more compelling. Given that discourses around race and native genocide in Hawai'i often follow a complex logic of bloodlines that mark native membership, reproduction becomes a site of the future of Hawai'i. One Kine Day, with Ralsto and his pregnant white girlfriend Alea, therefore, depicts a mixture of anxieties and hopes about the reproduction of a white future in Hawai'i. The "browner" residents embody sexual excess, risky behavior, and "improper" language (pidgin as Hawaiian creole) while whiteness (through Alea) signifies life and hope. The movie, I think, if read unconventionally offers a tragic criticism of these representations rather than their blind replication (you have to see the ending).

In many ways I agree with Mitsui. His film depicts a Hawai'i not seen by tourists. His vision of Hawai'i (whether intentional or not) reminds us of the "impurity" of the state's history, language, and residents. Like The Flip Side, One Kine Day reverses the colonial gaze by allowing the colonized people to speak back--in the "wild heterogeneity" of their creole language. The "dysfunctions" of the characters are not one-to-one representations of a bastard people. Rather, we can envision the characters as resilient survivors of postcolonial violence--"flaws" and all--who through their performance (satiric and/or tragic) will travel forward and reproduce (in life and knowledge). Yet, their flourishing--the pleasure and beauty of their creole culture--will always embody a memory of colonial transgressions.

The Flip Side and One Kine Day provide creative evidence of the racial position of creolized people in the world. Perhaps this archive can give knowledge to possible cultural alliances with other creolized people around the world, such as those flourishing in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the continental United States. Maybe such collaborations can create more creative productions that help disrupt the myths of a "weak" postcolonial people who need "fixing." Maybe one day a congregation of this alliance can gather (together with the local community) and celebrate their achievements like the hopeful group of Filipino Americans did at Sundance just ten years ago.

*I realize I'm taking great liberties in my use of the word "creole." For now, it is the most proximate word I have to describe colonial cultural and racial mixture.
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References:
Asian American Invisibility: You don't see us, but we see you!
Questioning Kapuso: Re-Thinking Fil Am Culture
You don't see us, but we see you: Filipinos under the veil

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Throwback Thursday: Celebrating Black History Month: Filipino American X blackness

Fictional depiction of Filipino "insurrectos" fighting U.S. colonizers. This screen shot is from found footage featured in the film Bontoc Eulogy. The Filipinos are played by African American actors.

In this edition of Throwback Thursday we celebrate Black History Month, which was founded by Carter G. Woodson whose connection to the Philippines as supervisor of schools during the early days of U.S. colonization makes the linkages of this blog to Black history so significant.

In my entry from April 2008, I discuss Filipino American participation in hip hop and the community's relationship to Black people and blackness. I've since refined my approach (for example, I've abandoned the term "mestizaje"), but my attempt to center Black history and positionality within a Filipino racial discourse is stronger than ever. Anyways, thanks for all the support and enjoy:

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I just got done presenting a very short synopsis of some of my research questions at this year's Association of Asian American Studies Conference in Chicago.

I showed "Hip Hop Mestizaje" and did an 8 minute discussion on what the hell its supposed to be about. Thanks to everyone who liked the film and appreciated my research on the intersections of Filipinoness and Blackness. For those folks exploring similar topics, keep on keepin on, it's an emerging topic (I hope!). Can't wait for the Filipino Soul conference that is in discussion.

Here is the paper I shared at the conference:

"Right now I want to thank god for being me
My soul won't rest until the colony is free
1896 Revolution incomplete
Silence is defeat, my solution is to speak
Resurrect the legacy of martyrs I beseech
Time to choose a side: It's the mighty verse the meek
My big brother Free brought the word from the East
We're the bullet in the middle of the belly of the beast."

These are the lyrics of Geologic, the Pinoy emcee of the Seattle hip hop duo Blue Scholars. When decoding the meaning behind the lyrics, such as “I want to thank god for being me,” we can see that his references of Filipino nationalism are curiously reinforced by Five Percenter Nation of Islam rhetoric, which is a pedagogical and spiritual discipline rooted in sects of African American Muslim tradition. In this verse, “god” refers to Geologic himself. For those who are not familiar, in the Five Percenter tradition, “god” refers the original Black man, or the god on Earth. So the question we ask is, “why is a Filipino emcee uttering a clearly Afro-centric phrase?” In my thesis, I interrogate the uses of Blackness by Filipino American hip hop practitioners. I contend that for many Filipino Americans, Blackness is both a resource and referent in their process of racial identification, and complements an existing racialized and hybridized Filipino subjectivity. Hip hop serves as an appropriate case study to demonstrate the emergence of Blackness among Filipino Americans’ racialized expressions. The recent JabbaWockeez triumph are a prime example of Filipinos’ dedication and loyalty to hip hop cultural production.

By evoking the often-neglected role of the Afro-Americanization of Filipinos, it is my intention to bring into focus the formation of race-consciousness among young Pinoys and Pinays—an effort that is built from the interventions made by scholars who have documented the process of deracialization among Fil Ams involved in hip hop. While we may be well-aware of young Pinoy and Pinays’ efforts to deracialize themselves (i.e. becoming the real “invisible” in the Invisbl Skratch Piklz), what is happening when they attempt to bring race consciousness unabashed? What does a post-1980s, hip hop generation, race-conscious Filipino American identification look like?

As seen from the video, Filipino Americans have been immersed in certain realms of hip hop forms since the late 1970s, but their participation in the broader forms of Black performance traditions dates back to contact made by Black Buffalo Soldiers who arrived in the islands during the Philippine-American War. The Americanization of the islands through music, education, and culture certainly contributed to Filipino familiarity with their White colonizers, but with the Americanization of Filipinos was the simultaneous Afro-Americanization of Filipinos. Therefore, the identification with Blackness among Filipinos has precedence, a precedence that is essentially rooted in U.S. Empire and the concomitant resistance partnered by Black Buffalo Soldier and Filipino insurgents during the war. At the turn of the 20th century when the Jim Crow South was solidified and U.S. Empire reached the Philippines, Blacks and Filipinos were rapping to a different beat, one underpinned by colonial domination and racist ideology.

Filipino Americans’ hybridity (or the “mestizaje” that I use) mediates their identification with Blackness in both its aesthetics and cultural origins. Elizabeth Pisares writes of Filipino American artists’ “invisibility” and lack of racial discourse, which allows for a flexible identity formation, moving in-between Asian-ness, Latinidad, Whiteness and Blackness. Many young Pinoy/Pinay brothers and sisters have been making visible a constructed notion of their Filipinoness through hip hop. The Pilipino Culture Nights, whose organizers were once skeptical of the “modern” hip hop sections of the theatrical shows (as Filipino hip hoppers were accused of “acting Black”), are now almost incomplete without them; hip hop has become staple for many PCN troupes. In another example, at a recent “Filipino Hip Hop Renaissance” showcase organized by the Kababayan Pilipino and “The Dark Boys” Pinoy brotherhood at University of California, Irvine, a graffiti-style artwork displayed on one panel the Philippine star rising above the Manila skyline and the word “Lost,” and on the opposite panel were displayed blaring boombox speakers along with the word “Found” (artwork by Pia Banez and Rommel Dimacali). As if evoking the Five Percenter “Lost-Found” lesson, young Filipinos continue to process racial and ethnic identification in the context of Filipino cultural recuperation. Here, hip hop is the recuperator.

Hip hop’s rise in popularity in the 80s among a generation of youth of all colors gave its resonance mass appeal, and for young Pinoys and Pinays, this resonance interwove with their existing racialized story here in the States and a broader story informed by Spanish and U.S. Empire. Commenting on hip hop’s appearance in the lives of young Filipinos in the early 80s, Geologic said in an interview “we had to respond to [hip hop] in some way. We had to either be a part of it or resist it. And why would we resist it? It’s something that we can kind of relate to.”

Even though Latinidad and Asian-ness can be powerful sources of racial affiliation among Filipinos (with Whiteness as the neocolonial racial default), my interest is the Blackness that is left unregistered, unrecognized, and even denigrated. As Geologic puts it, “I think a lot of ways when people down talk hip hop in the Filipino community, I think they do it with a tinge of racism to it. Because like a Filipino hip hop artist isn’t as legitimate as Filipino musical playwright. You know. Or a Filipino novelist. When in fact those three—first of all if they are all writing in English, then they’re writing in a language that’s not theirs. You know, so then who’s to say what is Filipino and what’s not?”

Filipino hybridity not only provides rich analysis for comparative race studies, even more, it presents the intersectionality of racialized groups and deconstructs the built borders surrounding ethnic studies disciplines. While addressing the fictiveness of essentialized Filipino identity, investigations of Filipino American performance of Blackness demonstrates the possibilities and promises of unpacking interracial subjectivities—indeed putting Blackness at the center of analysis—while never abandoning the critique of Whiteness as forming the broader structure of power relationships.

So it is worth asking, “what does a post-1980s, hip hop generation, race-conscious Filipino American identification look like?” It can look like many things, and rocking the dance floor to funk breaks and dominating the DJ scene illustrates an un-ignorable cultural dimension, like a bright colored graff piece written on a painted and repainted road sign.

In closing, it is important to acknowledge that Filipino American performance of Blackness is not free of deserved criticism. As Joel Tan writes in “Homothugdragsterism,” “it didn’t bother me that Filipino Americans we re affecting and talking Black. What vexed me was the ways this adopted Blackness went unquestioned…” Uncritical Blackness as drag should be scrutinized, especially when affiliation with Blackness does not necessarily mean a respect for Black people. In addition, Blackness in its constructed hypermasculine dimensions and its gendered role imbedded in racial significance should be taken into consideration. So in an attempt to re-imagine greater dimensions of Filipino racial discourse, a gesture towards the Afro-Americanization of Filipinoness is worth generous attention, especially for a people whose prism of difference is molded from every direction. Geologic best summarizes this re-envisioning:

“Rewriting what it is to what it ought to be.
I be the emcee in the place not to be.
Under constant revision is the poem that I be.”


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War-torn Philippines, the first Vietnam

This is a bit dated, but Nam and Geo spit the gift on this one from Nam's album Exhale. Check out Geo's verse at 1:22. His analysis of Filipinos sa U.S. and their displacement never forgets the moment of U.S. occupation (rather than reiterating a liberal immigrant tale). The reference to The Cry and Dedication Carlos Bulosan's unfinished novel on the leftist peasant movement in the Philippines, speaks to the radical vision of Filipino diasporic sensibilities and counters the American assimilationist narrative that many people read in Bulosan's more famous book America is in the Heart. It seems that Geo is mindful of genocide and violence as structuring the contours of a Filipino diaspora (and of course the beauty in struggle associated with this).

The ending reference to the Philippines as the "first Vietnam" raises important questions about why military occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan are called the "second Vietnam" and not the "third Philippines." This is the violence of historical erasure. "Beats, Rhymes, and Rice" illuminates an otherwise veiled condition.

This song is more than rice. It is the meat in the meal of knowledge.

Nam feat. Geologic, "Beats, Rhymes, and Rice" (2008)

[Geo's first verse at 1:22]

The reason that they killed
Made the reason we arrived
Left the bodies on the field
We the children of survivors
Fam with severed ties
Our plans been set aside
The Cry and Dedication
Our hands will never die
I stand side by side
With the riders of all shades
Heart beats to tropical soil
And shallow graves
The pale called us slaves
And complained
Upon the moment we came
To take back what was stolen
Way back in the day
Until the present
The yellow, brown descendents
Of peasants who held weapons
To defend our essence
So check the work ethic
In the author who writes
One generation removed
From harvesting rice
I stay up nights
Composing my raps
And moms still call the place home
Though she knows
We can never go back
And so I make balikbayan
through song
War-torn Philippines
The first Vietnam

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Deep Foundation responds to Adam Carolla's ignorance

The dudes Deep Foundation in NY/NJ respond to Adam Carolla's comments on Pacquiao and the Philippines. I think that Carolla's remarks are not anything new in the shock jock steez, but when you couple ignorance with the wholesale erasure/obscuring of Philippine history in the context of U.S. imperialism, jokes like Carolla's do a particular kind of damage that extends the already protracted imperial project in the Philippines. To make savage/slut a U.S. colony, I think, does more to make invisible that very moment of colonialism rather than reveal it. The veil becomes darker...

Anyways, DF provides a space for cultural resistance to such ignorance. What would be interesting is a more critical look at the Philippine state, rather than a blanketed heroization of the homeland. For the Philippine state is also repressive, especially when it comes to the Moro south, peasants, and indigenous people.

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Colonial Funk! Pacquiao vs. Cotto: violent island intimacies

Pacquiao and Cotto painting on a jeepney, for HBO 24 7 show

"On the tube, I'm just watching Pacquiao box it up. How would I know HBO would get a shot of us? Sittin so close that we almost got snot on us."
-Jay Z, "Thank You"

"You know I get em with the rap's Manny Pac hooks!"
-Son of Ran, "For the Wax"

"My people pump your fists like you're Manny Pacquiao. Man-child with the wild-style, right to be hostile."
-Blue Scholars, "Solstice: Reintroduction"



The colonies is hostile this Saturday! Manny Pacquiao (representing the Philippines) and Miguel Cotto (Puerto Rico) will bout it out for WBO Welterweight supremacy. Moving up from 140 to 147 pounds, Pacquiao will once again be tested as he gains bulk, which is always a liability in terms of speed and power.

This blog has dedicated a lot of material to posing questions about Filipinos' relationships to other people of color. So, it is not surprising that the Pacquiao-Cotto fight is overheating the Hip Hop Lives thinking-engine.

As former/current colonies of Spain and the United States acquired by Western powers at the same time, the Philippines and Puerto Rico occupy historical discourses in almost identical colonial, cultural, and military relevance.

It's important to note that both colonies have a strong love affair with boxing. And--as hip hop heads know--Filipinos and Puerto Ricans in the U.S. have had a strong love affair with hip hop culture (Pinoys on the West Coast, PRs on the East). Finally, as demonstrated by Cotto's father's 25 years in the U.S. Army and by Filipinos' migration through military service, both colonies have for over a century been firm ground for military boots.

But of course a few things disrupt the otherwise seemingly perfect accord:

-The Philippines is in the Pacific, and Puerto Rico is in the Caribbean, bringing in some geographical dissonance.

-Although both are mixed racially, the Philippines has a large "Asian" population especially pronounced with a noticeable Chinese middle class, and Puerto Rico is home to a dominant African diaspora. After all, Afrika Bambaataa considers Puerto Ricans as "black."

-Puerto Ricans speak a Spanish vernacular and were not forced American English by the U.S. colonial administration. Whereas Filipinos were not taught Spanish because of Spanish prejudice against indio inferiority, but were/are instructed and speak a variety of American English. However, in the HBO 24 7 episodes, both Pacquiao and Cotto speak American English (but Pac-Man gets the subtitles! Doh!)

Political cartoon from the early 1900s. Uncle Sam disciplining the bad Filipino, Hawaiian, Puerto Rican, and Cuban children

A few questions can be asked about the upcoming fight:

1. What does it mean to gaze upon two Filipino and Puerto Rican bodies in violent confrontation--especially with millions of dollars at stake?

2. How will the audience categorize Pacquiao and Cotto? Will Pacquiao be "Asian"? Will Cotto be "Hispanic"? Black? And what does that mean for Filipino and Puerto Rican audience members (actually, all audience members) as they assess the other's body type?

3. In the HBO 24 7 biographical specials, the music and scenery (complete with food!) give vivid depictions of where these men are from. What kind of narratives can be written about the islands Pacquiao and Cotto represent? Will the shared histories of Spanish and U.S. colonization of both colonies be articulated, or are both effectively painted as completely incongruent? (I mean, check "The Battle of East and West" narrative written on the Pacquiao-Hatton fight. I'm wondering the marketing strategy debates occurring with this current one. Rice and fish vs. rice and beans?)

4. What does it mean to have non-Americans, especially Pacquiao, figuring as a boxing icon for the U.S. boxing imagination? Will the Floyd Mayweather, who is from Michigan, rescue the all-American boxing iconography? (Remember, Oscar De La Hoya, from East LA, is called "Golden Boy" for a reason)

Like hip hop, this boxing thang unearths some interesting queries about ourselves as Filipinos and people of color! So before yall crack open the San Miguel and let loose, some crazy juice for your thinking-engine as we prepare for the big fight on Saturday!


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America's Best "Periphery": Island dance crews redefine America

The banner has fallen for the Massive Monkees in the 4th season of America's Best Dance Crew. The crew has once again inspired a whole demographic of young Filipino Americans and b-boy/girls. Furthermore, they help gave Seattle a bigger, bolder, well-deserved rep in the hip hop game.

With an obvious domination of Fil Am champions on the show, every season so far has captured the imagination of Filipinos and definitely impacted their respective dance choreography. This year will be the only year to not feature a Filipino in the last round; Afroborike and We Are Heroes will battle it out in the finale.

We can't say there is a definite Filipino, Asian, or b-boy fatigue on ABDC because each crew definitely put in work to prove themselves, but we'll miss the MM's and want to congratulate them and their tremendous success on the show.

Critical questions:

Who would have thought fans of U.S. popular culture would usher in a group of mostly Puerto Rican dancers (one is Cuban) as perhaps America's best?

Who would have thought that four Filipino guys, a Cambodian fella, and a Black dude would represent the desire of a whole generation of young people in the U.S.?

This show is interesting in that it gives a visual representation of the varying meanings of "America's best..." I've written about it before, but the Puerto Rican and Filipino fetish this show has raises stimulating questions about the U.S.'s island colonies and their role in U.S. mainstream culture. The colonized strut, flip, and strike poses on stage, constantly challenging the "center" of America as they invigorate the imagination of a new, young MTV generation.

The islands are erupting on the American continent.

This MTV generation might find the Latin-flavor of Afroborike worthy of ABDC champ-status, but We Are Heroes will take it this season. If they don't, it's good to see some ladies (from either crew) finally crowned.

Season 5, Pinoys and Pinays get ready! We hope to see you on stage once more! (East Coast, Midwest, South stand up!!)

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That link to Juneteenth

Tomorrow many in the U.S. will be celebrating "Juneteenth." I just thought I'd throw some interesting notes about the holiday, which commemorates the emancipation of slaves in Texas in 1865...two and a half years after the official Emancipation Proclamation.

From Juneteenth.com:

"Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863."

It is worth mentioning that some folks are advocating for making Juneteenth a national holiday, with Congress passing a number of acts signifying the importance of the holiday.

The material, epistemological, and cultural connections between Filipino history and Black history is something that deserves more attention. So in honor of Juneteenth, I'm gonna throw around a few significant moments in Filipino/Black history, which weaves threads around emancipation and Juneteenth...
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896):
This U.S. Supreme Court ruling justified the separation of Blacks and Whites. This decision legally, morally, and culturally justified subsequent actions taken by Whites in their treatment of Blacks and other non-Whites. In short, Whites were thought to be set apart for a more glorious destiny...separate from Blacks, Mexicans, Asians, Natives, etc. (Thus anti-miscegination laws, "colored" schools, and anti-Asian immigration exclusion laws). By distinguishing the "other," subordinating of people of color would define meanings U.S. citizenship, white humanity, white labor, etc. Two years after the Plessy ruling, the U.S. would occupy the Philippines and wage war, genocide, and attempt to "domesticate" Filipinos, as they attempted with newly freed Black slaves in the U.S.

Philippine-American War (1899-1910ish...):
This began the U.S. colonial project in the Philippines. Along with Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawai'i, and Cuba, the U.S. tried to become a player in the world of imperial powers...at the expense of Brown lives. Ignore the 1902 ending date of the war as indicated in Wikipedia, cuz it lasted way longer than that (still occurring today?) The repercussions of U.S. occupation is apparent today, with many Filipino immigrants who work as nurses or navy servicemen, a diaspora phenomenon reflective of agreements between the U.S. and Philippine elite. Oh, not to mention the Visitors Forces Agreement.

Instruments of Empire. Buffalo Soldiers in the Philippines. From SFGate.

A Moment of Coalition: Black and Filipino Resistance during the Philippine-American War:
David Fagen was an African American Buffalo Soldier in the Philippines who defected from the U.S. army and fought on the side of the Filipino resistance (insurrectos) against the U.S. colonizers. A few hundred Black soldiers joined the Filipino freedom fighters, and here is a neat book describing the family of an Afro-Filipina descendent of a Buffalo Soldier.





Carter G. Woodson:
Noted as the "Father of Black History," Woodson actually served as the Supervisor of Schools in the Philippines. He describes some of his experiences in the Philippines, as similar tactics of "educating" Filipinos were used on African Americans. After his role in the Philippines, he wrote the book "The Miseducation fo the Negro" and inaugurated Black History Month (which started as Black History Week). Here is an excerpt of a bit of his biography from the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia:

"Woodson described a similar phenomenon in the Philippines where U. S. teachers trained at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Chicago, failed repeatedly in their efforts to teach Filipino children, all because they did not take into account the alienating materials of instruction...It was pointless to concentrate “On the story of how George Washington always told the truth,” he continued, for teaching Filipino children to read from books based solely on American myths and heroes would never prove successful. Woodson readily complicated these positions by suggesting that no “people should ignore the record of the progress of other races … We say, hold on to the real facts of history as they are, but complete such knowledge by studying also the history of races and nations which have been purposely ignored.”"

I know I've written about these topics before. But today seemed appropriate to return to some hidden history. Filipino history not only intersects but can be seen as flowing within the same circuit of "non-Filipino" histories. Why do people insist on keeping history so bracketed and separate? Maybe yall can enlighten me on that. I'm sure the answer(s) are complicated and contested.

Rock-rock on.
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Good clarity on the Juneteenth myth. I agree:

"The Truth about Juneteenth" in the Grio
"...What Granger's proclamation mainly tells us is just how provisional freedom remained after the conclusion of the war. The promises of the Emancipation Proclamation were not only delayed in the state of Texas. Indeed, freedom was not guaranteed until the 13th Amendment passed, and even then, freedom proved to be provisional."

U.S. Supreme Colonial Justice: "Island Ironies" or "Reggaeton (un)Ruliness"

Dear Mr. Obama,

I swear I saw you dancing perreo to "Gasolina" during your inauguration ball, despite Daddy Yankee supporting McCain for president. Does that mean you support energy independence through off-shore drilling?

On another note, thank you for nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. We all hope she gets confirmed by the Senate, even while we all know Republicans will try to do everything to block her confirmation--from criticizing her judicial opinions regarding the sanctity of life to scrutinizing her American citizenship.

Wait, what is that? Judge Sotomayor is of Puerto Rican descent? Does that mean she is assumed U.S. citizenship, even though she is subsumed under the homogeneous legion of Latin hoards crossing the boarders to invade America?

Nice one, B-HO, a Brown woman who is quintessentially Americana. What is that? Critics are still going to scrutinize her because she is Latina, and not "one of us"? But hasn't Puerto Rico (along with the Philippines) been a part of the United States longer than Hawai'i, your own home state, and Alaska, the home state of America's beauty queen Sarah Palin? So what is it! Is Judge Sotomayor going to be accepted as a loyal American, or not?! Is she "Sonia from the block" or "Sonia extranjera"?

The Hispanic causing panic is a default U.S. citizen due to Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. colony. This can't get any more interesting. Cruz Bustamante must be squirming with angst and Lou Dobbs must be scratching his nasty little head.

You must have been spending your free time watching re-runs of America's Best Dance Crew, especially watching these guys:


I know the G.O.P. moniker makes you flinch, but these San Juan, Puerto Rico bad boys really made an impression for ABDC fans, especially since they battled foos from Alabama, Brooklyn, and other unmistakably "American" locales. When you finished watching this episode, did you immediately whisper, "Sotomayor..." and the rest is Supreme Court history? Will the public vote her as America's Best Justice?

Your nomination reminds me of a book I am reading called Reggaeton. El hip hop has made a lasting impression globally, as you know, and this book gives a glimpse into its form, pleasures, racial/gender politics, and multiple/contested origins. Hate it or love it, reggaeton, I am reading, is going global and experiencing the same backlash as hip hop because of racial, sexual, and class issues. But one thing is distinct with reggaeton: it uses Spanish.

Now we haven't heard Judge Sotomayor bust out in Boricua vernacular, but I know que l@s herman@s de la isla are just waiting for her to curse uno gringo out in Spanish. Are you waiting for that too, B-HO?

So maybe we are getting closer not to the reality of "energy independence," but independence from a hegemonic, homogenizing discourse that constantly defines who is "American" (read: White) and the language an American speaks (read: English-only). Puerto Rican people are usually quite Brown and often Black, and, like Reggaeton, usually signify in Spanish. Your Sotomayor nomination (along with Ricky Martin...SIKE!) could be part of a series of changes to the U.S. public imaginary on debates surrounding citizenship and membership. Maybe the U.S. can one day be a nation that recognizes its coerced colonial acquisitions, whether from the Caribbean, Pacific, or continent?

Or maybe not. And isn't that the Great American Irony?


Love,

Brown, Colonized, and Signifying

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Update:

"Sotomayor: Champion of the Oppressed, Outcasts, and Nerds" from Huffingtonpost.com

"...The observations were not strictly autobiographical and they sometimes reflect her worldview. In a 2002 speech titled "A Latina Judge's Voice," she argued that "America has a deeply confused image of itself that is in perpetual tension."

"We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity," she said, "recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence. Yet, we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way that ignore these very differences that in other contexts we laud..."" CONTINUE READING

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Even more interesting:

"National Review perplexingly depicts Sotomayor as Asian"

(blend the foreign threat narratives!)

[Re]Presentation of the Filipin@ American

The KabaCon is coming! If you're near Orange County, CA on Saturday, February 28th then swing by the 10th Annual Kababayan Conference at UC Irvine. The venue is at the Student Center and registration begins at 9:00am. Pre-registration is $3, day-or registration is $5.

The conference is titled "The [Re]Presentation of the Filipino American." Kinda sounds intriguing, no?

The conference's featured presentations:

"Hip Hop: The Filipino American Impact on Hip Hop culture, and Hip Hop's Influence on Filipino American Culture" with Bambu & Krishtine De Leon (EyeASage)

"The Historical Experiences of Filipin@ Immigrants in the 1920s-1930s" with Linda Maram (professor at Long Beach State and author of Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila)

"Pinoy Pop: Aesthetics and Style in Contemporary Filipino Culture" with Christine Balance (musician, member of The Jack Lords, writer for OH! Industry webzine, and professor at UC Irvine)

"The Current and Historical Portrayal of Filipin@ Americans in American Media" with Patricio Ginelsa & AJ Calomay (Xylophone Films & Kid Heroes Production)

"Filipino American and Chicano American Migrant Workers Experience" with Gilbert Gonzales (professor at UC Irvine)

"PCN: The Filipino American Cultural Phenomena Its Origins, the Subculture Created, and How It Has Become an Outlet for Original Expression" with Xavier Hernandez (SF State Graduate Student)

(Those are some long ass titles)

Conference Performances:

Rhythm Natives

Kuttin Kandi

Son of Ran

The line-up looks nice. And the keynote speaker? It's none other than yo boy talking about some mess: "Yes! The Rhythm, The Rebel! Filipino Funky Hybridity and the Magic Trick of U.S. Empire" (and that's not a long ass title?)

And, later on the very same day, you need to check out my man Tad Nakamura's new film, "A Song for Ourselves" in Little Tokyo. Tad chronicles the art, activism, and passion of the late, great Chris Iijima, who sang the songs of revolution during the Asian American movement in the 1960s. I like how Tad ties in the art of the pioneers like Chris with the hip hop of Filipinos today. By the way, Bambu, Kiwi, and Blue Scholars will be performing after the screening (what!).

Go Numb? Understanding Palestine, Israel, and Slingshots

Watching the news, it may be very hard to digest what is going on in Israel and Gaza, so much that we may feel numb to the story. Like you, I'm learning a lot myself. Let's try to break down the most fundamental aspects of the story by "placing into context" the violence occurring right now so that perhaps we can think more critically instead of "going numb" and detaching ourselves from this global crisis.

Context #1: Nation-building
It is important to understand that the nation of Israel is NOT an ancient country that has been existing for centuries. I mean, all nations are essentially "created" and "imagined," but what makes Israel so compelling here is that it is new, born in 1948 (here and here) after violent aggression by Israel nationalists against the existing people of Palestine (and British colonizers, which is another part of the bigger story of European imperialism). When Jewish settlers (anyone in the world claiming Jewish heritage can become a citizen of Israel) started to occupy Palestine, it resulted in at least three occurrences: 1) mass exodus of Palestinians, 2) the killing of Palestinians, 3) the segregation/apartheid of Palestinians into small portions of the newly created Israeli state.

The situation can be compared to the segregated American South after Reconstruction--the lawful separation of people, the state-sponsored terrorism (lynching) in order to keep people in their place, and programs of "attrition" inflicted on Blacks through the allocation of inferior resources.

Better yet, the genocide of Native people in the U.S. is a more cogent example: separation (Indian reservations), killing (Trail of Tears, etc.), and programs of "attrition" (reservations, alcohol, inferior schools, healthcare).

Context #2: Violence begets Violence
To be fair, it is up to you to research the issue and understand the other side of the story-- that of the Zionists. True, Jewish people have been persecuted throughout history, thus one of the main arguments for settling in Palestine is a space for Jewish freedom and fulfilling a narrative of "returning to Zion" as written in the Jewish holy book. So read up on that. But what can't be ignored is the wholesale, uneven violence against Palestinian people. Its truly David vs. Goliath--a nuclear-armed nation against slingshots and rockets (although in the hands of the elite few). Like Talib Kweli says, "Palestinians got rocks, Israelis got tanks." Israel's failed attempt to "tame" Lebanese Hezbollah in 2006 is an example of the extreme force Israel can wield. Today's war is seen as round 2. Remember, the war that Israel wages against Palestine is not only a war against Palestinian militants (who are not without blood on their hands), but also a war against women and children. This is the greatest tragedy...and Kiwi puts it best (in an early song on the "Stray Bullets" mixtape):

"I place my words on an altar and offer it to my ancestors
To all my family, every brother and sister
To every inch of the land, to every drop of the sea
To every ounce of oxygen that we breathe

Cause I feel the impact of them bombing the earth
Cause every bomb that they drop leaves a scar in the dirt
From the woman that it hit as she was walking to work
And a couple oil barrels was all it was worth..."
read more or Kiwi's ("For Palestine" post)

Context #3: Collective Punishment
I think one of the scariest part of the violence in Israel and Gaza is the "collateral damage" of war, in other words, the non-combatant residents such as the women and the children. Like any nation, Palestine is controlled politically by one elite party--Hamas. Hamas does not represent all Palestinians, but Israel's attack on Hamas has been deployed as an attack on the whole of Palestine. Jack Stephens (worth clicking to learn more) puts it best here:

"This line of attack is no different then the line of attack the apartheid South African government used against the ANC, no different than the southern states speaking of reacting against radical Blacks within the NAACP and the SCLC, and no different then dictator Marcos justifying his suspension of democracy and imposition of martial law because of the First Quarter Storm."

As mentioned above, the attack on Gaza by the Israeli army is likened to southern Whites punishing ALL southern Blacks because of the actions of the NAACP. How can an army collectively punish a people, when a small group is the one firing the rockets on Southern Israel? In this war, both sides are losing: the non-combatant residents in Gaza and in Israel. Not a safe place to be. No wonder there are so many Palestinian refugees. (But ironically, Jewish settlement still continues). To add to that, it can be argued that continued violence helps the power agenda of both leading groups in Palestine and Israel, meaning that violence might be welcomed in order to consolidate power/incite hatred on either side.

The next time you watch "You Don't Mess With the Zohan," understand that Zohan is not just some random soldier. His character comes out of a very specific moment in history: a super soldier built to fight Palestinian/Arab resistance against Zionist occupation. Zohan is the protector of an Israeli occupation. Israel, the "only Democracy in the Middle East" surely has a lot to protect...Can Democracy exist on the prerequisite of violence? Sure, ask the United States.

Read up! Understand the issues, make informed decisions, and get a sense of your position(s). Will the new U.S. administration hold the same politics as the old? Or will our policies on the Middle East remain the same? Will the policies intensify the situation?

At the risk of "going numb," we must always be aware of the world around us. Like The Philistines say in "Free the P":

"We race for truth
Now we spit it face to face
From Palestine, Syria, Philippines, to America
Culturally open minds
Keep the strength in character..."

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Note: I write this not to insult yall's knowledge, but to help others become familiar with the issue. I've been having too many conversations about it with my folks, that I'm saddened that not many people are informed about it.