The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race - Rilegato

Ocampo, Anthony Christian

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0804793948 ISBN 13: 9780804793940

Casa editrice: Stanford Univ Pr, 2016

Riassunto

Is race only about the color of your skin? In The Latinos of Asia, Anthony Christian Ocampo shows that what "color" you are depends largely on your social context. Filipino Americans, for example, helped establish the Asian American movement and are classified by the U.S. Census as Asian. But the legacy of Spanish colonialism in the Philippines means that they share many cultural characteristics with Latinos, such as last names, religion, and language. Thus, Filipinos' "color"—their sense of connection with other racial groups—changes depending on their social context.

The Filipino story demonstrates how immigration is changing the way people negotiate race, particularly in cities like Los Angeles where Latinos and Asians now constitute a collective majority. Amplifying their voices, Ocampo illustrates how second-generation Filipino Americans' racial identities change depending on the communities they grow up in, the schools they attend, and the people they befriend. Ultimately, The Latinos of Asia offers a window into both the racial consciousness of everyday people and the changing racial landscape of American society.

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Informazioni sugli autori

Anthony Christian Ocampo is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Public Policy at University of California-Riverside.

Anthony Christian Ocampo is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Public Policy at University of California-Riverside.

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The Latinos of Asia

How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race

By Anthony Christian Ocampo

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2016 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8047-9394-0

Contents

1. The Puzzling Case of Filipino Americans, 
2. Colonial Legacies, 
3. Suburban Ethnicity, 
4. The Latinos of Asia, 
5. Getting Schooled on Race, 
6. "Filipinos Aren't Asian" and Other Lessons from College, 
7. Racial Dilemmas, 
8. Panethnic Possibilities, 
Acknowledgments, 
Appendix: Reflections on the Research, 
Notes, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

The Puzzling Case of Filipino Americans

IN THE SPRING OF 2011, I was in my last year of the sociology PhD program at UCLA. I'd been in the program for nearly seven years — long enough to have finished law school twice with time to spare. Like most graduate students, I wasn't making much money. Working as a college teaching assistant for the majority of my twenties hardly brought in the big bucks. So when I walked by this flyer in the UCLA sociology building, I thought I'd hit the jackpot:

ALCOHOL STUDY

Do you drink alcohol regularly?

Are you Asian American?

For completion of the study, participants would be compensated up to $215.

This study was tailor made for me. Given the typical stresses of PhD life, my fellow grad students and I were no strangers to the local bars, and as a Filipino, my ethnic roots were from Asia. This would be the easiest two hundred bucks I'd ever make in my life, I thought.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I called the study coordinator to set up an appointment for the following Monday, but before I hung up the phone, I mentioned that I was Filipino. This was when everything went downhill.

"I'm sorry, but you're not eligible for the study," the coordinator said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because we can only have Chinese, Japanese, and Korean participants in the study."

"But I'm Filipino. Your flyer said it wanted Asian American participants."

"Yes, but we need a genetically similar sample."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"No, I'm sorry."

I knew the genetics argument was bogus. Anyone who's taken Introduction to Sociology knows that race is a social construction, not a genetic one. People, not biology, determine the meaning of racial categories. Besides, there is a consensus within the scientific community that with respect to genetics, "all human beings, regardless of race, are 99.9 percent the same." Even though I had science on my side, the coordinator wouldn't budge. By her definition, I wasn't Asian American. I hung up the phone without bothering to say good-bye.

What was the big deal? Surely I could've shelled out a few bucks from my own wallet for a few drinks at happy hour. And so what if I wasn't going to make two hundred dollars? This was my last year of grad school, and within a few months, I'd be working as an actual college professor (finally). But this wasn't the main issue. What upset me most was that a researcher from a top university felt at liberty to exclude Filipinos from a study about Asian Americans. This researcher had no idea what she was talking about. Besides the plethora of scientific articles that have debunked the relationship between race and genetics, I also had the history books on my side. Any Asian American historian can tell you that Filipinos played a central role in the creation of the Asian American identity. In fact, the term Asian American did not even exist unti

Dettagli dell?edizione

• Editore: Stanford Univ Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0804793948
• ISBN 13: 9780804793940
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Lingua: Inglese
• Numero di pagine: 257
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile