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Stacey Salinas
Feminist Theory American Studies
Paper Prompt #2
November 30th, 2017
Asian American History and the Filipino American Woman Project
As a graduate student, I have noticed the value in making academic material both
relatable and accessible to general audiences. Often academic theory, discussion, and critical
analysis is written with highbrow language to the point where the core subject matter of the
material is overshadowed by unrelatable literary rhetoric. If such histories or literature are so far
detached from the language and experiences of general audiences, theories that advocate social
change, celebrate diversity, and offer means to explore or understand different cultures (ethnic,
gendered, religious, class, etc.) will not make any headway in affecting the realities of
mainstream politics. Renowned black feminist, scholar, and activist bell hooks argues that
educators should seek to provide a learning experience that liberates its audiences from limited,
traditional, and narrow frameworks. hooks discusses in her book Teaching to Transgress:
Education as the Practice of Freedom that traditional teaching models, and the literature they
provide tend to speak to a certain class, culture, and gender preferred in American educational
institutions; white, male, middle and upper class, heterosexual perspectives. Hooks believes that
because teachers have within them the knowledge of theory and the power to transform and mold
the minds of future generations, their teaching methodologies should always seek to reach out to
wider audiences, speaking in languages or rhetoric that minorities and marginalized audiences
can also relate to (hooks, 12, 24). In so doing, learning becomes “a place where paradise is 1
created... where people can demand an openness of mind and collectively move beyond
boundaries” (hooks, 183).2
For many immigrant and second generation Asian Americans, finding answers or having
open forums that discuss racial issues specific to their experiences, (such as battling the “model
minority” myth, or Asian males feeling emasculated by general effeminate assumptions
1 Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice to Freedom (New York: Routledge,
1994), 12, 124.
2 Bell Hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (New York: Routledge, 2003), 183.
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traditionally associated with them, etc.) are not common. Many Asian Americans find
themselves feeling like perpetual foreigners. Asian Americans, like many other minorities of
color in the United States experience societal prejudices due to their intersectional identities
(Asian American citizens are politically and socially seen and treated not only for their ethnic
differences but also along other markers of identity such as class, gender, immigrant
status/citizenship, ESL, sexual orientation, etc.). First and second generations in particular are
self conscious of their physical attributes as markers of difference in comparison to
Anglo-American features yet find themselves never fully accepted by their respective ethnic
communities (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Southeast Asian, or South Asian, etc.) because of their
“American” habits, beliefs, or preferences (Tewari & Alvarez, 79). This cultural disconnect that 3
bars Asian Americans from fully feeling incorporated into mainstream American society, like
many other ethnic groups, stems from a lack of discussion or public context in which for them to
engage in or reference. Asian American history, role model archetypes, literature, news, and
media continue to be few and far between in traditional American media outlets and classroom
texts. Unless one is able to take an Asian American course in college, literature on the Asian
American experience continues to be limited to minor immigration histories.
The Asian American experience tends to be watered down or misread with longstanding
American prejudices perceiving Asian Americans instead as Asians in America. Tourism
hotspots of Asian ethnic enclaves (Chinatowns, Japantowns, Lil’ Manilas, etc.) despite their
century long histories and roots are still perceived as “foreign space” for American and
international onlookers. The stereotyped exoticisms rendered to Asian/ Asian American women
perhaps are one of the most perpetuated prejudices that continue to stigmatize Asian American
communities in the United States. Stereotypes of Asian/Asian American women as “dragon
ladies,” model minority student, or submissive “mail order brides” are common caricatures as
seen in American film, newsmedia, or pop culture within the last century (Amott & Matthaei,
254). These stereotypes and prejudices reveal the marginalized and complex identities of Asian 4
3 Nita Tewari & Alvin N. Alvarez, Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives (New York:
Psychology Press Taylor & Francis Group, 2009), 79.
4 Teresa Amott & Julie Matthaei, Race, Gender, and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of Women in
the United States (Boston: South End Press, 1996), 254.
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American women as double, or even triple, minorities (people ostracized due to traditional
conventions on race, gender, and immigrant status).
Critical theory scholar and activist Kimberle Crenshaw argues that such intersectional
markers of identity, if broken down and assessed, can reveal how different power structures
interact (i.e. discriminate, oppress, or dominate) with the lives of minority groups. Asian 5
American women therefore face discrimination as both women and people of color but the
social, legal, and economic inequalities their intersectional identities bare witness to are less
addressed perhaps due to statistics (Asian Americans only make up 5 to 6 percent of the total
population, 21 million) (Velez). Furthermore, “Asian American” is a pan ethnic term 6
encompassing various East Asian, Southeast Asian, Pacific Islander, and South Asian ethnic
groups making the political term/identity both misleading and too broad of a definition to
represent the total Asian American experience. But contrary to their small populations,
Asians/Asian Americans have made major historical contributions over the last three centuries to
America’s success and growth into a modern nation state.
A Subset of Asian America: Filipino Americans
Although Filipino Americans are the fastest growing Asian ethnic group in the United
States, they like many other Southeast Asians are underrepresented more so than their East Asian
American peers (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). Spanish colonial history can trace the
immigration routes of Filipinos to the Americas as early as the sixteenth century along the coast
of Morro Bay and Louisiana as sailors and slaves on Spanish Galleons and trade ships, yet their
histories are still underrepresented in traditional American historical narratives and in
mainstream media. Working in Hawaii’s early pineapple and sugar plantations as immigrant
cheap labor hands beginning in 1909, Filipino nationals have had a significant influence on the
success and rise of American produce and agricultural trade. Filipino nationals served in the
5 Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, & Kendall Thomas ed, Critical Race Theory: The Key
Writings that Formed the Movement (New York: The New Press, 1995), 468.
6 Daniel Velez, “Asian American & Pacific Islander Month: May 2017,” Census.Gov, Last Modified March
14, 2017, Last Accessed November 22, 2017,
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/cb17-ff07.pdf.
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American cannery businesses and in agriculture as early as the 1920s in both Hawaii and the
greater Pacific Northwest (Nayor, 198). They participated in World War II as Scouts, fought in 7
the Korean War and the Vietnam War as full-fledged American soldiers, and served in multiple
Civil Rights Movements throughout the 1960s-1980s.
The Asian American Movement, also known as the Yellow Power Movement, of the
1960s-1970s represented a broader movement for the rights and recognition of Asian
immigrant/Asian Americans. Although it did include Filipino Americans, the movement was
dominated mainly by Chinese and Japanese American students thus leading to a more East
Asian American cultural attachment and perspective to the political term, Asian American.
Mainstream historical narratives of the Civil Rights Era (1950s-1970s) continue to give less, if
any, attention to the Yellow Power Movement. But in comparison to the African American led
Civil Rights Movement, Chicano Movement, and Red Power Movement, Women’s Rights, and
the LGBTQ Movement, the Yellow Power Movement too is guilty of representing a majority
whose intersectional identities did not fit the broad mold of the Asian American experience.
From these broader movements, intersectional identities emerged like the 1970s
black-feminist-LGBTQ Combahee Collective advocating for intersectional inclusion, the trans
community of the Cold War Era fighting for inclusion and against sexual violence, and the
racially diverse SisterSong Collective encouraging reproductive justice regardless of race,
gender, sexual orientation, able bodiedness, or one’s immigrant status. But finding a Filipina/o 8
American identity amongst these intersectional and contemporary American issues and histories
is even less likely to be present in academic literature.
Much of the historical literature on Filipino and Filipino Americans flourished during the
1990s, much of it pertaining only to the Filipino male experience. Popular histories that discuss
the Asian American experience including Ethnic Studies and Sociology scholar Yen Le
Espiritu’s Asian American Women & Men: Labor, Laws, & Love and historian Erika Lee’s The
Making of Asian America leave other female minority experiences absent (i.e. Southeast Asian
7 Ed. Larry L. Nayor, Cultural Diversity in the United States (Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1997), 198.
8 The Combahee River Collective, “The Combahee River Collective Statement,” Circuitous.org, Last
Modified 2017, Last Accessed November 30th, 2017, http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html.
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Americans: Indonesian, Malaysian, Hmong, etc.). Filipina Americans despite census data
confirming their labor (nurses, students, farm hands, domestic workers, wives/mothers) and
presence during the 1920s, and their contributions to both their Filipino ethnic enclaves and the
broader Asian American community, especially are without a history for current generations of
Filipina Americans to fall back on or reference.
The Filipino American Women’s Project
The Filipino American Woman Mission Statement
The first step to building our community is by creating awareness. The approach we are taking
to create awareness amongst our sisters is through storytelling. We believe that storytelling is
the most powerful and effective way of connecting with each other. In understanding our
similarities and differences, we strive to find a common ground of community, support and
collaboration. Stories connect. And when we’re connected, we’re empowered to embrace the
beauty that’s within ourselves and with each other (Amos).9
An intersectional feminist project that I am currently involved in is the Filipino American
Woman Project (TFAW). My main focus of research as a history graduate student is Asian
American Women’s History and was lucky to stumble upon TFAW and meet with the
organization’s founder, Ms. Jen Amos. Jen Amos is a San Diego native, business owner
(Founder of Social Turtles, a digital marketing company), and second generation Filipina
American. Her goals for TFAW was to create a social hub that discusses contemporary
Filipina/Filipina American issues. TFAW also promotes Filipino and Filipina American history
allowing for generations of Filipina/o Americans to have a relatable resource for history,
learning and relearning Filipino traditions, and finding an overall community of female roots.
Her most recent event last month at the Filipino School in San Diego involved the local
Filipina/o American community of Southern California (San Diego, Orange County, Los
Angeles), to discuss struggles Filipina Americans face and how they grapple with race, gender,
motherhood, and their perspectives on Asian American history.
9 Jen Amos, “A Passion Project: The Filipino American Woman Project,” GarciaMemories.com, Last
Modified September 17, 2017, Las Accessed November 22, 2017,
http://www.garciamemories.com/2017/09/FilipinoAmericanWoman.html.
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Jen Amos recognized the absence of Filipinas in both Filipino and American histories
and wanted Filipinas to have a network of stories to trade, reference, and relate to. In her most
recent event in San Diego to kick off Filipino American History Month (October), Amos hosted
an open panel roundtable discussion where Filipina/Filipina Americans discussed their
intergenerational experiences, family histories, tips and opinions as to why it is important to raise
their budding families as “Filipino American,” and what their biggest hurdles are in coming to
terms with being Filipina American. The value in this one local event alone is that Southeast
Asian American women have the opportunity to contribute and lend their voices willingly in a
comfortable circle and can see women according to Amos, “who look like me” (Amos).10
Physical features and beauty hold historically high value in Filipino cultural psychology.
The lighter one’s skin tone, the more Spanish or American their lineage appears. The mestiza/o
(fair skinned, racially mixed) Filipinos continue to be deemed more preferable, have older
Spanish/American family histories, and are revered as representing ideal standards of beauty
(Hall, 55, 136). These gender expectations compounded with the cultural desire to be fair 11
skinned, or more westernized, are heavy tasks for Filipina women to take on especially when
that cultural mindset is transplanted to an American landscape; a dominantly white male
landscape where Filipina American women have to contend with the additional struggles of
being women of color. TFAW, in response to these excessive gendered presumptions, aims to
eliminate stressors or insecurities that Filipinas face within their community and family. “With
The Filipino American Woman Project, we [TFAW] celebrate the Filipino American women as
they already are. Our underlying message is: You are enough, and we want to celebrate you by
sharing your story” (Deaderick). Having open discussions on cultural struggles of assimilation, 12
or adhering to traditional expectations with women who look, experience, and have felt the same
insecurities because they stem from similar cultural roots, can be both healing and enlightening
10 Jen Amos, “The Filipino American Woman Project,” TFAW, Last Modified October 28, 2017, Last
Accessed November 22, 2017,
https://www.facebook.com/thefilipinoamericanwoman/videos/vb.1844862255781997/2014262865508601/
?type=2&theater.
11Ronald E. Hall, Filipina Eurogamy: Skin Color as a Vehicle of Psychological Colonization (Giraffe
Books, 2001), 55, 136.
12 Lisa Deaderick, “Filipino Women Sharing and Writing Their Own History,” San Diego Union-Tribune,
Last Modified October 21, 2017, Last Accessed November 22, 2017,
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-one-amos-20171020-story.html.
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therefore allowing Filipina American women to feel more confident in their daily lives and
routines. TFAW’s goal of creating a community space for Filipinas and Filipina Americans to
discuss their shared histories and experiences as women of color can create bridges between
Filipina Americans and provide an outlet for their frustrations allowing for opportunities towards
emotional healing.
The Philippine Islands experienced four centuries of Spanish and American colonialism.
Both Western empires emphasized and imparted patriarchal traditions and relationships of
power based on lineage. The traditional roles of Filipinas include striving to be good Catholic
mothers and matriarchs of their household. Although they manage all household expenses, child
rearing, the domestic work, are the sole caregivers to the elders of the family, their main
commitment is to their husband despite the fact that their overall physical and economic
contributions to the household are greater than their husband’s (Cheng, 33-35). Amos’ 13
TFAW Project events, both local and online (open forum, Twitter, Facebook Live interviews,
Live Videos) allow for Filipinas to be visible outside of their expected roles as mothers,
caregivers, or wives. Ranging from two to five times a month, Amos interviews Filipina
American women from a expansive host of working backgrounds from entrepreneurs (Amos
titles these business savvy mothers as “mompreneurs”), historians, actresses, musicians, disc
jockeys, photographers, professional speakers, cytotechnologists, writers, and the list goes on
(Amos). Filipina American women through the TFAW Facebook page can thus hear and view 14
livestream interviews of women ethnically like them, with numerous aspirations similar to theirs,
speaking in Filipina American slang that is relatable, comforting, and familiar.
Grassroots organizations like TFAW is essential to the burgeoning of Filipina/o
American literature because community leaders like Amos seek means to record and distribute
primary source material; oral histories from a diverse collection of intergenerational Filipina
American voices. Her efforts to interview and collaborate with other Filipina Americans with
13 Shu-ju Ada Cheng, Serving the Household and the Nation: Filipina Domestics and the Politics of
Identity in Taiwan (New York: Lexington Books, 2006), 33-35.
14 Jen Amos, “The Filipino American Woman Project,” TFAW, Last Modified October 28, 2017, Last
Accessed November 22, 2017,
https://www.facebook.com/thefilipinoamericanwoman/videos/vb.1844862255781997/2014262865508601/
?type=2&theater.
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other professional backgrounds to fill in the “absent” Filipina in American history and literature,
provides intersectional networks (gendered and racially based) for scholars in both the
Humanities and Social Sciences to explore. For aspiring history graduate students like myself
whose research focuses on intersectional identities like race and gender, getting involved with
local organizations like Amos’ TFAW broadens my graduate training by forcing me to remove
myself from constant objective theoretical frameworks and seeing on the ground level as to how
people “like me” (second generation Filipino American, multiracial, and female) view
themselves.
My volunteer work for Jen Amos is to collect primary historical source material (Filipina
American poetry, histories, literature, oral histories, etc.) and deconstruct and analyze their
impact on redefining the Filipina experience. My contributions aim to provide a voice and face
to the earlier pioneer Filipina/Filipina Americans and using historical analysis to address the
unsaid roles and implications that notions of gender, race, labor, culture, sexuality, class, and
religion had in their cultural assimilation into mainstream twentieth century American society.
By comparing historical documentation to present Filipina American experiences, the
perpetuation of oppressive barriers like Filipino machismo, patriarchy, oppressive gendered and
family responsibilities can be brought to light. In an open forum, these issues could then be used
to produce positive discussions by local Filipina Americans part of Amos’ TFAW network.
Collaborations between activists and academics therefore can help to transform the tight
knit ivory tower and its classrooms into a more authentic and relatable space. This form of
“engaged pedagogy” according to Bell Hooks can produce a politically active generation of
students and willing audiences to not only understand their intersectional circumstances but use
that knowledge/awareness to reshape the politics that manage the inequalities found in society.
The knowledge base of students therefore should encompass relatable academic theoretical
frameworks and activist primary source material, like Amos’ ethnic community histories, to
fully transform societal dynamics into a more inclusive and politically driven community.
By the end of the year, I hope in collaboration with Amos to continue 1) promoting
awareness as to the many historical contributions that women of color have made, 2) building
centers (online & local) of community for present generations of women with intersectional
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identities, and 3) creating a safe collective space for Filipina American women to succeed in by
building off one another’s success and guidance. Therefore, TFAW falls within similar goals of
contemporary womanism, intersectional feminism, and those in favor of reproductive justice and
even transfeminism because TFAW promotes educational resources towards a more collectively
aware community.
Bibliography
Amos, Jen. “A Passion Project: The Filipino American Woman Project,”
GarciaMemories.com, Last
Modified September 17, 2017, Las Accessed November 22, 2017,
http://www.garciamemories.com/2017/09/FilipinoAmericanWoman.html.
Amos, Jen. “The Filipino American Woman Project,” TFAW, Last Modified October 28, 2017,
Last Accessed November 22, 2017,
https://www.facebook.com/thefilipinoamericanwoman/videos/vb.1844862255781997/20
14262865508601/?type=2&theater.
Amott, Teresa & Julie Matthaei, Race, Gender, and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of
Women in the United States. Boston: South End Press, 1996.
Cheng, Shu-ju Ada. Serving the Household and the Nation: Filipina Domestics and the Politics
of Identity in Taiwan. New York: Lexington Books, 2006.
The Combahee River Collective, “The Combahee River Collective Statement.” Circuitous.org.
Last Modified 2017. Last Accessed November 30th, 2017.
http://circuitous.org/scraps/combahee.html.
Crenshaw, Kimberle, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller, & Kendall Thomas ed. Critical Race Theory:
The Key Writings that Formed the Movement (New York: The New Press, 1995.
Deaderick, LIsa. “Filipino Women Sharing and Writing Their Own History,” San Diego
Union-Tribune, Last Modified October 21, 2017, Last Accessed November 22, 2017,
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/lifestyle/people/sd-me-one-amos-20171020-story.html.
Hall, Ronald E. Filipina Eurogamy: Skin Color as a Vehicle of Psychological Colonization.
Giraffe Books, 2001.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice to Freedom. New York:
Routledge, 1994.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York: Routledge, 2003.
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Nayor, Ed. Larry L. Cultural Diversity in the United States. Westport: Bergin & Garvey, 1997.
Tewari, Nita & Alvin N. Alvarez. Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives. New
York: Psychology Press Taylor & Francis Group, 2009.
Velez, Daniel. “Asian American & Pacific Islander Month: May 2017,” Census.Gov, Last
Modified March 14, 2017, Last Accessed November 22, 2017,
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/cb17-ff0
7.pdf.