University of Hawai'i at Manoa

CPS Filipino Centennial Lecture Series

The Filipino Centennial in Hawaii and the Politics of Remembering

Dean T. Alegado, Ph.D.

  

About the Lecture

The debate over what the past is to mean in the present, particularly to non-white ethnic and immigrant communities in the United States, is central to this presentation. Why are we celebrating and putting so much energy to honor and validate our history and contributions in Hawaii and the U.S.? How is historical narration aligned with the politics of nation formation (in the case of the U.S., the politics of incorporation and assimilation)? More specifically, the talk will deal with historical narratives of Filipino- Americans as dominated by desires for inclusion into the general history of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. What kinds of stories are we forgetting? How have U.S. policies like the 1947 US-RP Military Bases Agreement and the 1965 Immigration Law resulted in “waves” of Filipino immigration, notably at the height of the Vietnam war? The politics of remembering has also the effect of forgetting and distorting the past. As a master historical narrative of the nation emerges, the little known episodes (native American Indians, Asian immigrants, etc.) are obscured or taken to the sidelines..

[Dean Alegado is associate professor and chair of the ethnic studies department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is also a faculty of the Center for Philippine Studies. Alegado’s research, teaching and publication have focused on the Filipino-American experience, the political economy of the Philippine labor export industry, and the Filipino diaspora and transnational communities.]

Date & Venue:September 30, 2005. Center for Korean Studies Auditorium, 12:00-1:30pm

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