Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space [Paperback]

Rick Bonus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 29, 2000

The Filipino American population in the U.S. is expected to reach more than two million by the next century. Yet many Filipino Americans contend that years of formal and covert exclusion from mainstream political, social, and economic institutions of the basis of their race have perpetuated racist stereotypes about them, ignored their colonial and immigration history, and prevented them from becoming fully recognized citizens of the nation. "Locating Filipino Americans" shows how Filipino Americans counter exclusion by actively engaging in alternative practices of community building. "Locating Filipino Americans", an ethnographic study of Filipino American communities in Los Angeles and San Diego, presents a multi-disciplinary cultural analysis of the relationship between ethnic identity and social space. Author Rick Bonus argues that alternative community spaces enable Filipino Americans to respond to and resist the ways in which the larger society has historically and institutionally rendered them invisible, silenced, and racialized. Bonus focuses on the 'Oriental' stores, the social halls and community centers, and the community newspapers to demonstrate how ethnic identities are publicly constituted and communities are transformed. Delineating the spaces formed by diasporic consciousness, Bonus shows how community members appropriate elements from their former homeland and from their new settlements in ways defined by their critical stances against racism, homogenization, complete assimilation, and exclusionary citizenship. "Locating Filipino Americans" is one of the few books that offers a grounded approach to theoretical analyses of ethnicity and contemporary culture in the U.S. Rick Bonus is Assistant Professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bonus draws on contemporary insights of cultural studies while grounding its tendency toward idealism in a very material sense of power. His subjects are actors, not victims of narratives. He does an effective and sometimes elegant job of capturing their adjustment and resistance to being neither and both Filipino and American." --John Horton, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, UCLA "Filipino Americans rank as the second largest Asian-American population in the USA, following Chinese Americans. This book draws from the author's ethnographic studies of Filipino-American communities in Los Angeles and San Diego,California, in the early 1990s. Bonus focuses on commercial establishments such as markets, community centers, and ethnic newspapers as sites where Filipino Americans publicly construct their ethnic identities in relation to the historical and contemporary conditions they face as members of US society. He contends that Filipino-American identity formation reflects two forces: a need to respond to and resist historical and institutional rendering of invisibility, exploitation, silencing and racial constructing, and a desire to claim 'space' within the category 'American' on their own terms." --SAGE Race Relations Abastracts "Bonus combines oral interviews, multi-disciplinary theories, history and ethnographic fieldwork and provides sophisticated and through analyses of his findings. What is refreshing is not only the telling Taglish (i.e., a combination of Tagalog and English) responses by interviewees to his questions, but his scholarly commitment to the interviewees of the study." --Pacific Reader

From the Publisher

Defining ethnic identity and social space for Filipino Americans --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 217 pages
• Publisher: Temple University Press (August 29, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566397790
• ISBN-13: 978-1566397797
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #446,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power in Everyday Life, November 4, 2001

By 

Eydie C. Detera (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space (Paperback)

This review was published in the fall 2001 issue of _The Pacific Reader: An Asian Pacific North American Review of Books_.

Why do I feel such a deep sense of comfort when I am rummaging through dried fish, canned sardines and Spam at one of the many corner groceries along Jackson Street and Beacon Hill? What social function could "Filipino Time" (i.e., being perpetually late for meetings) serve for Filipino Americans? Or why is it that many times community meetings proceed like chaotic and politically-heated yelling matches?

Perhaps one of the more auspicious experiences of a reader is the time when something, whether a written or visual work, empowers one to see the everyday world freshly and with new eyes. Moreover, for someone like myself, who was a student of Asian American Studies, it is additionally gratifying to witness a new generation of Filipino American scholars making significant contributions to academia in such an original manner. Rick Bonus is currently an assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Communications at the University of California, San Diego. His first book, Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity & the Cultural Politics of Space, is a highly accessible ethnographic study that analyzes the seemingly mundane worlds of Filipino "Oriental" stores and strip malls, community newspapers and beauty pageants in Southern California, and uncovers a powerfully rich and complex network of community building and resistance to racialization by Filipino American women and men.

Central to Bonus' argument is that although Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian American group in the nation, and the largest in California, there is a common complaint that they are mostly invisible from mainstream history, scholarship, media and positions of power. This systematic form of exclusion on the basis of race and ethnicity has encouraged Filipino Americans "to respond to and resist invisibility, exploitation, silencing, and racial constructing, by history and by institutions, as well as a desire to claim a `space' within the rubric `American' on their own terms."

His analysis of these "spaces" in stores, community centers, newspapers and pageants shows Filipino Americans attempting to construct an identity that is both Filipino and American while interrogating it at the same time. This dynamic of resistance and interrogation is something that has historical roots in the Philippines' colonial history and a people's cultural attempts to flourish and define themselves despite oppression, categorization, and tremendous regional diversity. Bonus argues that these particular cultural practices directly challenge these forms of exclusion and invisibility while also reflecting an effort to claim a self-determined space in America.

In his study of these commercial establishments, Bonus combines oral interviews, multi-disciplinary theories, history and ethnographic fieldwork and provides sophisticated and thorough analyses of his findings. What is refreshing is not only the telling Taglish (i.e., a combination of Tagalog and English) responses by interviewees to his questions, but his scholarly commitment to the interviewees of the study. One can see that he understands the art of the interview because he is successful in having their rich voices and concerns speak for themselves. He preserves the excruciating details of the interviews so well that I can imagine them taking place before me - facial expressions, hand gestures and all.

Furthermore, I appreciated his conscious admission of his own location as an ethnographer in relation to the interviewees, and how his facility in Tagalog, his education and generational status opened certain doors to him that perhaps would not be open for other ethnographers. Bonus' scholarly eye roamed in these spaces being very much aware of his position as both a critical observer and a Filipino American, absorbing the meaningful details in his encounters with great openness, depth and reflection. Throughout the book, there are numerous instances where he lyrically describes the bustling in a community center before a big pageant, the cramped quarters of a small newspaper's offices and a reporter's passion to cover a story, or the noise and pungent smells of the market. Such descriptions capture a particular cultural spirit, setting the foreground for the poetic and political voices of the community members and their own views of what these spaces mean to them as individuals and as a collective.

Bonus' first book is an important contribution to interdisciplinary studies on the politics of race and space, and how identity is constructed and communities are enlivened on a daily basis. I don't think I will approach an Oriental store or participate in a meeting in the same manner anymore because this book has provided a sophisticated articulation of what such individual activities mean on a local, national and international scale. Now that this promising scholar is currently teaching at the University of Washington, I am very eager to see his research relate to Filipino Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power in Everyday Life, November 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space (Paperback)

This review was published in the fall 2001 issue of _The Pacific Reader: An Asian Pacific North American Review of Books(..) Central to Bonus’ argument is that although Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian American group in the nation, and the largest in California, there is a common complaint that they are mostly invisible from mainstream history, scholarship, media and positions of power. (...)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Power in Everyday Life, November 5, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space (Paperback)

This review was published in the fall 2001 issue of _The Pacific Reader: An Asian Pacific North American Review of Books_.

Why do I feel such a deep sense of comfort when I am rummaging through dried fish, canned sardines and Spam at one of the many corner groceries along Jackson Street and Beacon Hill? What social function could "Filipino Time" (i.e., being perpetually late for meetings) serve for Filipino Americans? Or why is it that many times community meetings proceed like chaotic and politically-heated yelling matches?

Perhaps one of the more auspicious experiences of a reader is the time when something, whether a written or visual work, empowers one to see the everyday world freshly and with new eyes. Moreover, for someone like myself, who was a student of Asian American Studies, it is additionally gratifying to witness a new generation of Filipino American scholars making significant contributions to academia in such an original manner. Rick Bonus is currently an assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Communications at the University of California, San Diego. His first book, Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity & the Cultural Politics of Space, is a highly accessible ethnographic study that analyzes the seemingly mundane worlds of Filipino "Oriental" stores and strip malls, community newspapers and beauty pageants in Southern California, and uncovers a powerfully rich and complex network of community building and resistance to racialization by Filipino American women and men.

Central to Bonus' argument is that although Filipino Americans are the second largest Asian American group in the nation, and the largest in California, there is a common complaint that they are mostly invisible from mainstream history, scholarship, media and positions of power. This systematic form of exclusion on the basis of race and ethnicity has encouraged Filipino Americans "to respond to and resist invisibility, exploitation, silencing, and racial constructing, by history and by institutions, as well as a desire to claim a `space' within the rubric `American' on their own terms."

His analysis of these "spaces" in stores, community centers, newspapers and pageants shows Filipino Americans attempting to construct an identity that is both Filipino and American while interrogating it at the same time. This dynamic of resistance and interrogation is something that has historical roots in the Philippines' colonial history and a people's cultural attempts to flourish and define themselves despite oppression, categorization, and tremendous regional diversity. Bonus argues that these particular cultural practices directly challenge these forms of exclusion and invisibility while also reflecting an effort to claim a self-determined space in America.

In his study of these commercial establishments, Bonus combines oral interviews, multi-disciplinary theories, history and ethnographic fieldwork and provides sophisticated and thorough analyses of his findings. What is refreshing is not only the telling Taglish (i.e., a combination of Tagalog and English) responses by interviewees to his questions, but his scholarly commitment to the interviewees of the study. One can see that he understands the art of the interview because he is successful in having their rich voices and concerns speak for themselves. He preserves the excruciating details of the interviews so well that I can imagine them taking place before me - facial expressions, hand gestures and all.

Furthermore, I appreciated his conscious admission of his own location as an ethnographer in relation to the interviewees, and how his facility in Tagalog, his education and generational status opened certain doors to him that perhaps would not be open for other ethnographers. Bonus' scholarly eye roamed in these spaces being very much aware of his position as both a critical observer and a Filipino American, absorbing the meaningful details in his encounters with great openness, depth and reflection. Throughout the book, there are numerous instances where he lyrically describes the bustling in a community center before a big pageant, the cramped quarters of a small newspaper's offices and a reporter's passion to cover a story, or the noise and pungent smells of the market. Such descriptions capture a particular cultural spirit, setting the foreground for the poetic and political voices of the community members and their own views of what these spaces mean to them as individuals and as a collective.

Bonus' first book is an important contribution to interdisciplinary studies on the politics of race and space, and how identity is constructed and communities are enlivened on a daily basis. I don't think I will approach an Oriental store or participate in a meeting in the same manner anymore because this book has provided a sophisticated articulation of what such individual activities mean on a local, national and international scale. Now that this promising scholar is currently teaching at the University of Washington, I am very eager to see his research relate to Filipino Americans in the Pacific Northwest.