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This is the second of two parts.

Now one can sympathize with the urge to be ecumenical, to subsume everyone under the "same roof," to welcome everyone in the spirit of   what   the  late  Virgilio  Enriquez  (1992)   once   called pakikipagkapwa  -- his answer to what is authentically  Filipino. This  seems  ideal provided of course everyone  keeps  quiet  and continue to police thier minds. Unfortunately, minds don't simply float around in ethereal naivete; bodies and collision of  bodies --  the  atomistic metaphor will catch up with us again  --  will remind us of the reality of lived experience, of our history as a subjugated and recalcitrant people, of the specific  trajectories and genealogies of the terms Filipino and American.

What's  in a name, one might retort. Nothing much, perhaps,  but then  everything  in  certain circumstances. This  is  not  just another semantic language game, as everyone knows, in the context of court cases involving discrimination for speaking Filipino  in the workplace. Perhaps this may be rendered concrete if we  cite the recent report that Hawaii Governor Benjamin Cayetano  refused the label Filipino American when he was visiting the  Philippines in 1995; the governor wanted to be labeled an American (Gaborro 1997) when he was in his parents' homeland.

It  may  be suggested here that the simple  explanation  for  the resort  to metaphysics -- it's just a "state of mind" --  may  be found in our historical amnesia. That is precisely the legacy of four  hundred  years  of servitude, first to  Spain,  briefly  to Japan,  and  then to the US. The proverbial  colonial  mentality again.  This seems too easy -- in the past, people simply  threw at  you  Renato Constantino's books, if not those  by  Agoncillo, Abaya,  and so on. But there's no alternative to doing  critical analysis and research into the historical formation of Philippine society and the mentality of its constituent classes and sectors.

Our  scholars  are  no  help  either.  Take,  for  example,  the explanation  by Linda Revilla and Pauline  Agbayani-Siewert  that Filipinos have problems here in the US because of their "lack  of strong  ethnic  identity." Filipinos lack  cohesiveness  because "they  belong  to  numerous  competing  organizations  based   on dialects, regional origins, and kinship ties" (1995:164).  These inane  tautologies may be found replicated in so  many  textbooks that you begin to wonder if academic study can ever save us  from our  fabled  "native" indolence. But if this is  the  result  of about  a hundred years of civilized scholarship on  Filipinos  by American  experts  who  are often cited everywhere  --  H.  Brett Melendy, David Steinberg, Theodore Friend, Stanley Karnow, and so on  --  I'd rather choose the alleged "uncivilized" ways  of  the Aetas and the Negritos.

On  the  other  hand, in talking  about  what  distinguishes  the Filipino,  Revilla  and  Agbayani-Siewert  repeat  the  same  old Orientalizing  traits: family togetherness, respect  for  elders, "smooth  interpersonal  relationships," and all  the  traditional values that distinguish a dependent and subjugated "Third  World" culture,  while at the same time claiming that "family  authority is not patriarchal, but more egalitarian" (1995: 160). The  last statement is definitely false. The paradigm that underlies  this knowledge-production is the binary formula of tradition/modernity inscribed in the "Social Darwinist" discourse of evolution, hence Filipinos become acculturated or Westernized when they adopt non- ethnic values such as independence, individualism, assertiveness, and so on. And they begin to do this when they immigrate to  the US. Before the actual passage, however, they have already  become assimilated, so to speak, because Philippine society is a replica of  the  imperial  metropolis.  Thus,  despite  the   mechanical recitation  of  the  sociological banalities,  our  two  scholars assert nonchalantly: "Filipinos are similar to most Americans  in terms of language, customs, and values, and thus, they are highly motivated to immigrate to the US" (1995: 143). Lo and behold, in one stroke, all problems disappear. We are back to the  position that  it's  all  a  matter  of  "a  state  of  mind,"  a  psychic disposition.  Which doesn't hide the utter bankruptcy of  almost all academic studies on Filipinos in the US.

The  reason  why  this  is so  I  have  suggested  eralier.  The limitation   of  perspective  inheres  in  the  erasure  of   the foundational  act  of  violence:  US  colonial  aggression,   its destruction  of the Filipino people's attempt (begun in 1896)  to forge  its  own  autonomous  destiny,  its  continuing  politico- economic  influence  on  the  Filipino  ruling  elite,  and   its cultural/ideological  hegemony on most Filipinos. When  you  have occluded or dismissed this inaugural act that bound Filipino  and American,  the  Philippines and the US, then you can  reduce  all problems to a matter of ethnicity -- beliefs, values,  attitudes, and commonsensical ideas that have no grounding whatsoever in the social relations of production, in the complex nexus of  material practices that produce and reproduce the lives of every  Filipino in a particular geopolitical terrain. In this mode of  thinking, the  fundamentalracial  order  of  teh  US  social  formation  is obscured and replaced by a discourse of cultural differences  and plural,  even  indeterminate, subject  positions.  A  mainstream version  of  multiculturalism  capable of  coopting  protest  and contatining  criticism  now  dictates the way  we  analyze  every social  and  political event. By this reduction  to  superficial ethnic  particularisms  divorced from social needs and  from  the historical  specificity  of  colonial  bondage,  alienation,  and reification -- social conditions tied to the logic of the  market and  commodity-exchange -- are reinforced. In this  proces,  the matters  of  racism, not to speak of  dehumanization  by  gender, class, and nationality, disappears to court when it is sublimated into   the   peaceful   or   coercive   management   process   of reconciliation and pacification of subject populations.

Before I conclude, I want to address the effect of the US  racial order  on the public sphere of international cultural  relations. I   have   in   mind  specifically  how   a   certain   pragmatic constructionism based on an implied social difference impinges on the   way  American  scholars,  the  agents   of   authoritative knowledge-production,  respond  to the attempts of  Filipinos  to articulate their own history of anticolonial revolution. I  have performed  critiques of such knowledge-production in my  previous works (1992;1995). What I have in mind here is the recent book by Prof.  Glenn  May (1996) to debunk the heroic  figure  of  Andres Bonifacio and castigate the Filpino historians and  intellectuals who  have  (in May's opinion) conspired to foist the  myth  on  a whole nation.

On  the surface, May claims that he is not trying to  attack  the accomplishment of Bonifacio or his heroic stature; rather, he  is trying  to expose the shenanigans and hoaxes of such scholars  as Epifanio  de  los  Santos, Agoncillo, Ileto,  and  others.  True enough,  except  that  his  doubts  and  suspicions  as  to   the authenticity   of  the  documents  ascribed  to  Bonifacio,   his reservations  about the honesty and competence of the  historians and  scholars,  and  of course the gullibility  of  the  Filipino public  (not  only the educated intelligentsia but  the  ordinary folk),   accumulate   a   suasive  force   tht   not   only   the historiograhical skills of certain individuals are questioned but also the moral character and integrity of Filipinos as a  people. If   Filipinos   like   the  highly   esteemed   historians   and intellectuals  May accuses are wanting in integrity and  honesty, then Bonifacio turns out to be a product of liars and forgers and deceivers.  Such chrge of mendacity begins to resonate so as  to cast   suspicion  on  the  whole  society  as   accomplices   and accessories to the fraud.

Well,  we  owe Prof. May this unsolicited service of  setting  us marching  along  the straight course of historical  veracity  and faithfulness  to  the  truth. But is  the  professor  himself  a neutral  value-free  agent of empirical objectivity?  Thanks  to May's methodological skepticism, we may express or doubt  whether May's  choice  of  investigating the life  and  works  of  Andres Bonifacio  is  chiefly  a  professional  one,  or  is  a  program motivated  by  other  than  personal  reasons.  The   conflicted relation  between  a  neocolony and the  imperial  power  can  be dismissed  by Prof. May, but it will not ignore him. So then  we realize the "special relation" of the Philippines and the US that persisted  smoothly through the Cold War period and survived  the days  of  the  Feb.  1986  "people  power"  uprising,  is   being critically   examined   again  in  the  midst  of   a   resurgent revolutionary   development.  This  critique  extends   to   the "interested" function of scholars like May.

Stanley Karnow, author of the bestseller In Our Image, began  the counterrevolutionary strategy of explaining Philippine dependency as  due  to  the  failure  of  the  US  colonial  experiment   in transforming Filipino habits, attitudes, norms -- in other  words Filipino  culture endured and caused the underdevelopment of  the society.  We  are responsible for our  own  misery,  corruption, backwardness. Hence, US imperialism is not to be blamed for  the ills  of  present-day  Filipino  society.  May  and  like-minded experts  follow in the wake of this apologia, this time  imputing bias, incompetence, and plain ignorance to Filipino intellectuals and thus implying that such revolutionary heroes like  Bonifacio, and  more  vulnerably, Rizal, Mabini, and so  on,  cannot  really stand  up to rigorous scholarly interrogation. What  matters  is not  so much whether May has really proved his case;  the  damage has been done by innuendo, insinuation, polemical suspicion,  and other  rhetorical means of casting doubt on your enemy. What  is primarily  at  stake  is  not  historical  truth  but   political advantage  and  global authority over the science  of  knowledge- production.  This  has  serious implications  for  the  Filipino community  here  and its aspiration to affirm  its  autonomy  and dignity.

The chief distinction of Filipinos from other Asians residing  in the US is that their country of origin was the object of  violent colonization and unmitigated subjugation by monopoly capital. It is  this  foundational  process, not  the  settling  of  Filipino fugitives  in  Louisiana or anywhere else, that  establishes  the limit  and  potential  of the Filpino  lifeworld  here.  Without understanding  the complex process of colonial  subjugation  and the internalization of dependency, Filipinos will not be able  to define their own specific historical trajectory here as a dual or bifurcated  formation -- one based on the continuing struggle  of Filipinos  for national liberation and popular democracy  in  the Philippines,  and  the  other  based  on  the  exploitation   and resistance  of immigrants here )from the "Manongs" in Hawaii  and the  West  Coast to the post-1965 "brain drain" and  the  present diaspora   worlwide.)  These  two  distinct   histories,   while geographically separate, flow into each other and converge into a single multilayered narrative that needs to be articulated around the  principles  of  national sovereignty,  social  justice,  and equality.  So far, this has not been done because  the  orthodox textbook approaches distort both histories across the domains  of experience characterized by class, gender, race, nationality, and so  on.  In  the  wake of  the  post-structuralist  trend  among intellectuals, a theory of Filipinos as transnational migrants or transmigrants has been introduced to befog the atmosphere already mired  by  the insistence on contingency,  aphoria,  ambivalence, indeterminacy, disjunction, liminality, and so on. To avoid  the "nihilism  of despair or Utopia of progress," we are told  to  be transnational  of  translational,  or else. But  the  notion  of Filipinos  as  transnational subjects assumes  that  all  nation- states   are   equal  in  power,  status,  and   so   on.   Like assimilationalism,    this    theory   of    transmigrants    and transnationals obfuscates imperial domination and the  imperative of  rebellion.. It reinforces the marginalization and  dependency of  "Third  World" peoples. It erases what  David  Harvey  calls historical  "permanences" (1996:347) and aggravates the  Othering of people of color into racialized minorities -- cheap labor  for global corporations. It rejects their history of resistance  and their  agency  for emancipating themselves from the laws  of  the mark and its operational ideology of white supremacy.

Becoming Filipino then is a process of dialectical struggle,  not a  matter of wish-fulfillment or mental conjuring. For  Filipinos to grasp who they are, more importantly, what they can become  -- for humans, as Antonio Gramsci once said, can only be defined  in terms of what they can become, in terms of possibilities that can be  actualized  --  we  need to  examine  again  the  historical circumstances  that joined the trajectory of the Philippines  and the  US, of Americans and Filipinos, contituting in  the  process the dialectical configuration we know as Filipino American in its collective or group dimension. The Filipino in the US is thus  a historical  phenomenon understandable neither as  Filipino  alone nor  American  alone  but as an articulation  of  the  political, social,  economic and cultural forces of the two  societies  with their distinct but intersecting histories. We need to grasp  the dialectics of imperial conquest and anticolonial revolution,  the dynamics and totality of that interaction, as the key to all  the questions we shall be wrestling now and in the next millenium.