Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The relationship between the Philippines and the United States has its origins in a history of conquest, occupation, and exploitation..." (more)
Key Phrases: town mates, steward school, hometown associations, United States, San Diego, Filipino American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Discusses Filipino immigrants in San Diego and how they use their memories of their country to construct a new home in the United States."--Chronicle of Higher Education -- Review

Product Description

Filipino Americans, who experience life in the United States as immigrants, colonized nationals, and racial minorities, have been little studied, though they are one of our largest immigrant groups. Based on her in-depth interviews with more than one hundred Filipinos in San Diego, California, Yen Le Espiritu investigates how Filipino women and men are transformed through the experience of migration, and how they in turn remake the social world around them. Her sensitive analysis reveals that Filipino Americans confront U.S. domestic racism and global power structures by living transnational lives that are shaped as much by literal and symbolic ties to the Philippines as they are by social, economic, and political realities in the United States.

Espiritu deftly weaves vivid first-person narratives with larger social and historical contexts as she discovers the meaning of home, community, gender, and intergenerational relations among Filipinos. Among other topics, she explores the ways that female sexuality is defined in contradistinction to American mores and shows how this process becomes a way of opposing racial subjugation in this country. She also examines how Filipinos have integrated themselves into the American workplace and looks closely at the effects of colonialism.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (May 5, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520235274
• ISBN-13: 978-0520235274
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #58,208 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read Asian American Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Immigrant Studies Text , January 18, 2006

By	JVS (USA) - See all my reviews

Yen Le Espiritu, in her book, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries, "contends that Filipino American racial formation is determined not only by the social, economic, and political forces in the United States but also by U.S. (neo)colonialism in the Philippines and capital investment in Asia" (1). Moreover, not content with the narrow, one-sided focus that Filipinos are transformed through the experience of colonialism and migration, Espiritu highlights how Filipinos "in turn transform and remake the social world around them" (2). Home Bound is most specifically an ethnographic study of Filipino Americans in and around San Diego, CA, that is grounded nicely by Espiritu through U.S. immigration laws, U.S. imperialism and colonialism, and intersectional analyses. Espiritu presents the experiences of Filipino Americans in order to educate us about this often overlooked population through their own voices.

Scholars in Women's Studies and Gender Studies may be especially drawn to chapter 7, where Espiritu focuses on the way gender is used by racialized immigrants to assert their superiority over the dominant (white). In this chapter Espiritu turns to second generation daughters and the way in which it is through them, specifically the enforcement of their "female morality-defined as women's dedication to their families and sexual restraint" (160), that racialized immigrants construct themselves as superior. In other words, in light of the racist oppressions they face, one method of responding that immigrants have deployed is to assert their (daughters') moral superiority over whites. Through the lens of generations (first, second, etc.) of immigration, Espiritu challenges us to think of the multiple, intersectional systems, at play, while making clear that this manner of response is not without its own complications and contradictions (namely, the perpetuation of sexist oppression and patriarchal power over daughters).

In addition, I found particularly compelling the end of Espiritu's book, chapters 8 and 9, where she delves more in depth to the ways in which Filipino Americans transform and remake the world around them. These two chapters excitingly point to the new and creative relations constructed by Filipino Americans in regards to cross-racial social relations and immigration as a technology of racialization and gendering.