Award-winning Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ruben Nepales interviews Filipino Americans and Filipinos in America who have made it big in the Hollywood scene and beyond: actors Bernardo Bernardo, Alec Mapa, Vanessa Hudgens, Hailee Steinfeld, and Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, singers Charice Pempengco, Luisa Mendez-Marshall, and Charmaine Clamor, TV star Darren Criss, model-actress Bessie Badilla, film production insiders Maricel Pagulayan and Isabel Henderson, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, animators Gini Santos, John Butiu Ronnie del Carmen and Ricky Nierva, filmmaker Ramona Diaz, comic-book illustrator Tony DeZuniga, YouTube sensation Mikey Bustos, and White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford.

This “ groundbreaking book . . . is essential reading not only for the Filipino diaspora but for anyone who cares about the mysteries of racial identity” (Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist). 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 US 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.

The contributors to this volume examine the actual workings and on-the-ground effects of contemporary political economic shifts in the Global South, and implications for reconfiguring social networks, conceptions and practices of governance, and burgeoning social movements. How do various groups in the Global South respond to and manage chronic states of insecurity and precarity concomitant with contemporary globalization processes? While drawing on diverse ethnographic viewpoints in the Philippines, the authors analyze the impact of these processes through the conceptual framework of "emergent sociality," a purported connectedness among individuals fostered through interactions, copresence, and conviviality within a community over a long duration. In so doing, the case studies in this volume suggest, illuminate, and debate insecurities that may be commonly shared among populations in the Philippines and throughout the Global South. This anthology will be of great interest to students and scholars of cultural anthropology, globalization and Philippines society.

"Maria P. P. Root′s new edited volume on Filipino American makes an outstanding contribution in terms of exploring the socio-economic integration and the transformation of ethnic identities among one of the largest, fastest growing, but least studied Asian American groups in the United States - Filipinos. . . . One unique area covered by this book is its thoughtful reflection on the impacts of colonization on Filipino literature and the articulation of Filipino identities . . . . The book provides an unusual breadth of information on Filipino lives in the U.S.A. . . . I found this book very valuable as an introductory text in an undergraduate curriculum on Asian American studies, and in racial and ethnic studies. The power of the book lies in its ability to render problematic the stereotypes of Asian Americans, and to question the preconceived categories of race, culture, and ethnicity. The book′s discussion and reflection on identities is provocative and accessible to students." --Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies "Maria P. P. Root succeeds where many ethnic-specific anthologies fail: focusing on the issue of a people′s identity while avoiding boxing them in. . . . What is refreshing about this volume is not only the variety of perspectives, but the different styles. . . . Root and the contributors succeed in living up to the hope stated in the book′s introduction, ′′that these pages will offer challenging questions, some refreshing analysis, and new paradigms for interpreting the Filipino American experience.′′ --Pacific Reader Typically, when Asian Americans are discussed in the media, the reference is to people of Chinese or Japanese descent. However, the largest Asian American ethnic group is Filipino-a group about which little is known or written, even though Filipinos have a long-standing history with the United States through colonization that effects how this group is viewed and views themselves. Aimed at rectifying this information dearth, this volume presents the first interdisciplinary analysis of who Filipinos are and what it means to be a Filipino American. With contributions from historians, social workers, community leaders, ethnic studies scholars, sociologists, educators, health care workers, political scientists, and psychologists, this book addresses such issues as ethnic identity, the impact of different colonizations on ethnic identity, personal and family relationships, mental health, race, and racism. In addition, the sociopolitical context is examined in each social-issues chapter to make the volume more useful as a foundational tool for hypothesis generation, empirical research, policy analysis and planning, and literature review. This book offers readers a rich and varied portrait of our largest Asian American ethnic group.

Filipino American Transnational Activism: Diasporic Politics among the Second Generation offers an account of how U.S. born and raised Filipinos engage in Philippines, “homeland”-oriented activism.

The Philippine Revolution of 1896–1905, which began against Spain and continued against the United States, took place in the context of imperial subjugation and local resistance across Southeast Asia. Yet scholarship on the revolution and the turn of the twentieth century in Asia more broadly has largely approached this pivotal moment in terms of relations with the West, at the expense of understanding the East-East and Global South connections that knit together the region’s experience. Asian Place, Filipino Nation reconnects the Philippine Revolution to the histories of Southeast and East Asia through an innovative consideration of its transnational political setting and regional intellectual foundations. Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz charts turn-of-the-twentieth-century Filipino thinkers’ and revolutionaries’ Asianist political organizing and proto-national thought, scrutinizing how their constructions of the place of Asia connected them to their regional neighbors. She details their material and affective engagement with Pan-Asianism, tracing how colonized peoples in the “periphery” of this imagined Asia—focusing on Filipinos, but with comparison to the Vietnamese—reformulated a political and intellectual project that envisioned anticolonial Asian solidarity with the Asian “center” of Japan. CuUnjieng Aboitiz argues that the revolutionary First Philippine Republic’s harnessing of transnational networks of support, activism, and association represents the crucial first instance of Pan-Asianists lending material aid toward anticolonial revolution against a Western power. Uncovering the Pan-Asianism of the periphery and its critical role in shaping modern Asia, Asian Place, Filipino Nation offers a vital new perspective on the Philippine Revolution’s global context and content.

In the struggles for prison abolition, global anti-imperialism, immigrant rights, affordable housing, environmental justice, fair labor, and more, twenty-first-century Asian American activists are speaking out and standing up to systems of oppression. Creating emancipatory futures requires collective action and reciprocal relationships that are nurtured over time and forged through cross-racial solidarity and intergenerational connections, leading to a range of on-the-ground experiences. Bringing together grassroots organizers and scholar-activists, Contemporary Asian American Activism presents lived experiences of the fight for transformative justice and offers lessons to ensure the longevity and sustainability of organizing. In the face of imperialism, white supremacy, racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and more, the contributors celebrate victories and assess failures, reflect on the trials of activist life, critically examine long-term movement building, and inspire continued mobilization for coming generations.

Transform How You Teach Asian American Narratives in your Schools! In Teaching the Invisible Race, anti-bias and anti-racist educator and researcher Tony DelaRosa (he, siya) delivers an insightful and hands-on treatment of how to embody a pro-Asian American lens in your classroom while combating anti-Asian hate in your school. The author offers stories, case studies, research, and frameworks that will help you build the knowledge, mindset, and skills you need to teach Asian-American history and stories in your curriculum. You’ll learn to embrace Asian American joy and a pro-Asian American lens—as opposed to a deficit lens—that is inclusive of Brown and Southeast Asian American perspectives and disability narratives. You’ll also find: Self-interrogation exercises regarding major Asian American concepts and social movements Ways to center Asian Americans in your classroom and your school Information about how white supremacy and anti-Blackness manifest in relation to Asian America, both internally and externally An essential resource for educators, school administrators, and K-12 school leaders, Teaching the Invisible Race will also earn a place in the hands of parents, families, and community members with an interest in advancing social justice in the Asian American context.