Augusto Espiritu | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (original) (raw)
Papers by Augusto Espiritu
University of Hawaii Press eBooks, Jul 31, 2017
Despite the turn toward diasporic, transnational, global, and comparative perspectives, this chap... more Despite the turn toward diasporic, transnational, global, and comparative perspectives, this chapter argues that historians of Asian America have largely neglected and need to reflect upon inter-imperial relations--the relations of cooperation, competition, and conflict between empires, including subaltern attempts at creating spaces for maneuver and agency between them. With a focus on the development of the United States as an empire, this article identifies the key inter-imperial relations over time that have shaped the Asian American experience. An awareness of inter-imperial relations helps scholars to account for the political dynamics, the multiple sources of power, and the challenges to existing hegemonies that have structured Asian American lives. An approach sensitive to inter-imperial relations opens up the possibility of recognizing, and comparing, the simultaneous subaltern struggles that cut across nations and immigrant groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora is a collection of chapters that offers both critical commenta... more Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora is a collection of chapters that offers both critical commentaries on the state of Philippine Studies as well as innovative works that offer novel frameworks and alternative vantages for the study of the Philippines and its diaspora. Written by a group of Philippine-, US-, and Canada-based Filipino and Filipino American scholars, the chapters are also critically aware of the positionalities, constraints, and opportunities that make this work possible. After years of occupying a vexed and ambivalent position in area studies and Asian American Studies, Philippine, Filipino, and Filipino American Studies have emerged in the past fifteen years as a trenchant and vibrant academic presence. Proof of this ascendancy is a long list of notable works that have become widely read not only in North America and Europe but also in the Philippines where many of these works have been republished by local university and private presses. The circulation of ideas in the field has been transnational, though sometimes fraught and problematic, as is reflective of the kinds of work presented in this volume. This anthology is the outcome of a series of conversations, shared wishes, and fervent longings for an intellectual forum for the ideas of several US-based Filipino, Filipino American and Filipino Canadian scholars. Many contributors to this collection incidentally come from the Big Ten or the group of land-grant universities mostly in the American Midwest that hosted a wave of Filipino scholars in the early twentieth century called pensionados. These pensionados were sent by the American
Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, Mar 1, 2012
Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos an... more Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s, by Linda Maram, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 252 Pages.
Philippine Studies, 2008
Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos an... more Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s, by Linda Maram, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 252 Pages.
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, Dec 30, 2015
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2001
Reviews in American History, 2007
This is an impressive book. At 442 pages of text and over 500 pages with footnotes, it is certain... more This is an impressive book. At 442 pages of text and over 500 pages with footnotes, it is certainly one of the longest books published in recent memory on the relationship between the United States and the Philippines. Not only is its size impressive but also the way Kramer has brought together the literature and original research in a compelling argument about U.S.-Philippine race relations during the colonial period. Kramer takes his time, writes in an accessible but deeply learned manner, bringing to bear his expertise on the subject and perhaps staking a claim for the study of U.S. Empire as having a complexity, allure, and integrity that has only been granted to post-colonies of the former British Empire. In doing so, Kramer helps to anchor post-colonial studies of U.S. Empire in the Philippines.' Of these, Kramer's is thus far the most ambitious in scope and also the most transnational, examining developments in the United States metropole that puts Philippine studies in dialogue with transnational American studies.
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2008
Radical History Review, May 1, 2006
... and the US-and South African – backed National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNIT... more ... and the US-and South African – backed National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA ... that threatened to break up even those seeking a third way out of US-Soviet Cold ... While the Bandung Conference seems to have been widely celebrated in the United States for its ...
Duke University Press eBooks, May 29, 2003
Duke University Press eBooks, 2014
B ack in 1990 I had occasion to hear Filipino novelist Bienvenido Santos speak at a conference in... more B ack in 1990 I had occasion to hear Filipino novelist Bienvenido Santos speak at a conference in Hong Kong on Asian writing in English. I'd been in the Philippines for the better part of a year then, had begun to read some of the country's writers, Santos included, and I was interested not only in hearing what he'd have to say but in seeing how he would stack up against the other conference headliners, some of whom were impressively big names. He stacked up pretty well: head and shoulders above the others, in fact. He gave a mesmerizing talk, by turns challenging, charming, laugh-outloud funny, and deeply insightful, all delivered without a note in sight. I remember one moment in particular very well. It came not during the talk but in the question-and-answer following. Someone from one of the other countries represented at the conference asked: "Mr. Santos, what has been the reception of you and other Filipino writers outside the Philippines?" The reply was as blunt as it was immediate: "We haven't made a dent." To illustrate, the speaker went on to cite, unflinchingly, his own inability to find a publisher for his work in the United States, where he had resided for many years.
... Page 3. Philip Vera Cruz T~h± s One GQ94-TB7-E010 ... Philip Vera Cruz : a personal history o... more ... Page 3. Philip Vera Cruz T~h± s One GQ94-TB7-E010 ... Philip Vera Cruz : a personal history of Filipino immigrants and the Farmworkers movement / Craig Scharlin and Lilia V. Villanueva; with a new foreword by Elaine Kim.3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ...
Stanford University Press eBooks, Mar 9, 2005
Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Dec 1, 2003
In a 2002 article for the San Francisco-based periodical Asian Week, columnist Emil Guillermo rev... more In a 2002 article for the San Francisco-based periodical Asian Week, columnist Emil Guillermo revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had indeed spied upon the Filipino American author Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956). Guillermo credits Asian American academics Marilyn Alquizola and Lane Hirabayashi for their persistence in obtaining Bulosan's FBI files. He quotes Alquizola's observation that Bulosan was "at risk because of his political beliefs-expressed in his work and his writing" and that "these activities were both domestic and international in scope and eventually got the federal government's attention" (Guillermo) Hearkening to Bulosan's social commitment, Guillermo calls Bulosan "a true amok Filipino" and calls for the restoration of his badly damaged reputation. These comments reinforce once again the vitality and historical relevance of Bulosan's life. At the same time, one notices the elasticity and, in particular, the serviceability of that life to the political agenda of Asian American studies. The question of heroes, of resistance and collaboration, has always been an important preoccupation of social movements everywhere and is central to the scholarship on nationalism. 1 In a sense, the central figures held up for public veneration define the values upon which such movements are based, and, reciprocally, all such movements need venerated figures. Along with holiday celebrations and other rituals, the celebration of heroes provides enduring symbols for national movements and enables them to claim legitimacy, to retrieve elements of the past for the purposes of the present, and to model behaviors they approve, especially for youth. However, what is reclaimed of a hero's life depends upon who remembers and on the contemporary contexts for remembering. For instance, Martin Luther King's struggle to end segregation in public accommodations in the South and his "I Have a Dream" speech have helped to establish his iconic status in post-Civil Rights America, something that even conservatives have found it useful to co-opt as part of their rhetoric of equal opportunity. Meanwhile, King's concerns with America's class divide and his opposition to the Vietnam War toward the end of his life have been altogether ignored in public discourse about him (see Marable; Grigsby).
University of Hawaii Press eBooks, Jul 31, 2017
Despite the turn toward diasporic, transnational, global, and comparative perspectives, this chap... more Despite the turn toward diasporic, transnational, global, and comparative perspectives, this chapter argues that historians of Asian America have largely neglected and need to reflect upon inter-imperial relations--the relations of cooperation, competition, and conflict between empires, including subaltern attempts at creating spaces for maneuver and agency between them. With a focus on the development of the United States as an empire, this article identifies the key inter-imperial relations over time that have shaped the Asian American experience. An awareness of inter-imperial relations helps scholars to account for the political dynamics, the multiple sources of power, and the challenges to existing hegemonies that have structured Asian American lives. An approach sensitive to inter-imperial relations opens up the possibility of recognizing, and comparing, the simultaneous subaltern struggles that cut across nations and immigrant groups.
New York University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora is a collection of chapters that offers both critical commenta... more Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora is a collection of chapters that offers both critical commentaries on the state of Philippine Studies as well as innovative works that offer novel frameworks and alternative vantages for the study of the Philippines and its diaspora. Written by a group of Philippine-, US-, and Canada-based Filipino and Filipino American scholars, the chapters are also critically aware of the positionalities, constraints, and opportunities that make this work possible. After years of occupying a vexed and ambivalent position in area studies and Asian American Studies, Philippine, Filipino, and Filipino American Studies have emerged in the past fifteen years as a trenchant and vibrant academic presence. Proof of this ascendancy is a long list of notable works that have become widely read not only in North America and Europe but also in the Philippines where many of these works have been republished by local university and private presses. The circulation of ideas in the field has been transnational, though sometimes fraught and problematic, as is reflective of the kinds of work presented in this volume. This anthology is the outcome of a series of conversations, shared wishes, and fervent longings for an intellectual forum for the ideas of several US-based Filipino, Filipino American and Filipino Canadian scholars. Many contributors to this collection incidentally come from the Big Ten or the group of land-grant universities mostly in the American Midwest that hosted a wave of Filipino scholars in the early twentieth century called pensionados. These pensionados were sent by the American
Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, Mar 1, 2012
Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos an... more Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s, by Linda Maram, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 252 Pages.
Philippine Studies, 2008
Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos an... more Review(s) of: Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s, by Linda Maram, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 252 Pages.
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, Dec 30, 2015
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2001
Reviews in American History, 2007
This is an impressive book. At 442 pages of text and over 500 pages with footnotes, it is certain... more This is an impressive book. At 442 pages of text and over 500 pages with footnotes, it is certainly one of the longest books published in recent memory on the relationship between the United States and the Philippines. Not only is its size impressive but also the way Kramer has brought together the literature and original research in a compelling argument about U.S.-Philippine race relations during the colonial period. Kramer takes his time, writes in an accessible but deeply learned manner, bringing to bear his expertise on the subject and perhaps staking a claim for the study of U.S. Empire as having a complexity, allure, and integrity that has only been granted to post-colonies of the former British Empire. In doing so, Kramer helps to anchor post-colonial studies of U.S. Empire in the Philippines.' Of these, Kramer's is thus far the most ambitious in scope and also the most transnational, examining developments in the United States metropole that puts Philippine studies in dialogue with transnational American studies.
Journal of Asian American Studies, 2008
Radical History Review, May 1, 2006
... and the US-and South African – backed National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNIT... more ... and the US-and South African – backed National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA ... that threatened to break up even those seeking a third way out of US-Soviet Cold ... While the Bandung Conference seems to have been widely celebrated in the United States for its ...
Duke University Press eBooks, May 29, 2003
Duke University Press eBooks, 2014
B ack in 1990 I had occasion to hear Filipino novelist Bienvenido Santos speak at a conference in... more B ack in 1990 I had occasion to hear Filipino novelist Bienvenido Santos speak at a conference in Hong Kong on Asian writing in English. I'd been in the Philippines for the better part of a year then, had begun to read some of the country's writers, Santos included, and I was interested not only in hearing what he'd have to say but in seeing how he would stack up against the other conference headliners, some of whom were impressively big names. He stacked up pretty well: head and shoulders above the others, in fact. He gave a mesmerizing talk, by turns challenging, charming, laugh-outloud funny, and deeply insightful, all delivered without a note in sight. I remember one moment in particular very well. It came not during the talk but in the question-and-answer following. Someone from one of the other countries represented at the conference asked: "Mr. Santos, what has been the reception of you and other Filipino writers outside the Philippines?" The reply was as blunt as it was immediate: "We haven't made a dent." To illustrate, the speaker went on to cite, unflinchingly, his own inability to find a publisher for his work in the United States, where he had resided for many years.
... Page 3. Philip Vera Cruz T~h± s One GQ94-TB7-E010 ... Philip Vera Cruz : a personal history o... more ... Page 3. Philip Vera Cruz T~h± s One GQ94-TB7-E010 ... Philip Vera Cruz : a personal history of Filipino immigrants and the Farmworkers movement / Craig Scharlin and Lilia V. Villanueva; with a new foreword by Elaine Kim.3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ...
Stanford University Press eBooks, Mar 9, 2005
Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, Dec 1, 2003
In a 2002 article for the San Francisco-based periodical Asian Week, columnist Emil Guillermo rev... more In a 2002 article for the San Francisco-based periodical Asian Week, columnist Emil Guillermo revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had indeed spied upon the Filipino American author Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956). Guillermo credits Asian American academics Marilyn Alquizola and Lane Hirabayashi for their persistence in obtaining Bulosan's FBI files. He quotes Alquizola's observation that Bulosan was "at risk because of his political beliefs-expressed in his work and his writing" and that "these activities were both domestic and international in scope and eventually got the federal government's attention" (Guillermo) Hearkening to Bulosan's social commitment, Guillermo calls Bulosan "a true amok Filipino" and calls for the restoration of his badly damaged reputation. These comments reinforce once again the vitality and historical relevance of Bulosan's life. At the same time, one notices the elasticity and, in particular, the serviceability of that life to the political agenda of Asian American studies. The question of heroes, of resistance and collaboration, has always been an important preoccupation of social movements everywhere and is central to the scholarship on nationalism. 1 In a sense, the central figures held up for public veneration define the values upon which such movements are based, and, reciprocally, all such movements need venerated figures. Along with holiday celebrations and other rituals, the celebration of heroes provides enduring symbols for national movements and enables them to claim legitimacy, to retrieve elements of the past for the purposes of the present, and to model behaviors they approve, especially for youth. However, what is reclaimed of a hero's life depends upon who remembers and on the contemporary contexts for remembering. For instance, Martin Luther King's struggle to end segregation in public accommodations in the South and his "I Have a Dream" speech have helped to establish his iconic status in post-Civil Rights America, something that even conservatives have found it useful to co-opt as part of their rhetoric of equal opportunity. Meanwhile, King's concerns with America's class divide and his opposition to the Vietnam War toward the end of his life have been altogether ignored in public discourse about him (see Marable; Grigsby).