LTEN 181ETHN 124 FilipinoAmerican Literature By April Decker

LTEN 181/ETHN 124 Filipino/American Literature By April Decker, Daniel Quan, Stephani Park, Isaac Hong, Sith Sounnadath

The American Dream

Proletariat, “The Journey” • “I bent down and read the letter – the letter that had driven me away from my village and had sent me half – way around the world” (The Story of a Letter) • “…right away he had bright ideas in his head. ‘Cousin, I want to be American’. ” (Be American) • “There were no leters, no post card… but these surprising boxes, crates and barrels that arrived periodically were the best letters in the world” • “I did not think much of his disappearance because we are a wandering people due to the nature of our lowly occupations”

“The End” • I found a new Consorcio. He had aged and the peasant naivete was gone from his face” • They all came and started beating me again. I could not fight back anymore (As Long as the Grass Shall Grow) • “Naked and shining in the pale light of the April moon. Leroy was swinging like a toy balloon” (Life and Death of a Filipino in America)

Gender • Prevalence of women’s invisibility of the early 1900’s • Ngai, Mae “womanless” Filipino • “Abnormal sex ratio among Filipinos in the United States led to ‘social and psychological maladjustment’” (Impossible Subjects) • Where do Filipino women fit in this picture? • “American land is syymbolized as rolling like a beautiful woman with an overflowing abundance of fecundity and murmurous with her eternal mystery, there she lies before us like a great mother” • Where do women fit in the picture now?

Gender Continued • Patriarchal nationalism to integration • Helen O’ Reilly – “I will go on teaching people like you to understand things as long as the grass shall grow” (As Long as the Grass Shall Grow, Bulosan) • “Even as she massaged his arms and legs, her tears rolled down her cheeks ‘I won’t leave you…’” (The Scent of Apples, Santos) • “They didn’t have enough money and Ruth was willing to work like a slave” (The Scent of Apples, Santos)

Loss of Connection to the Philippines, “The Scent • of Apples” The portrait of an unknown woman “The faded figure of a woman in Philippine dress could yet be distinguished although the face had become a blur. ‘I don’t know who she is’, Fabia hastened to say” • Fabia’s family “A fat blonde woman stood at the door with a little boy by her side. Roger seemed newly scrubbed. ” • Fabia’s feeling of exilement “’I’ll be going home. I could go to your town. ’ ‘No, ’ he said softly, sounding very much defeated but brave, ‘Thanks a lot. But, you see, nobody would remember me now. ’”

“The Day The Dancers Came” • Tony and Fil’s name • Tony’s sickness “All over Tony’s body, a gradual peeling was taking place. ‘I’m becoming a white man, ’ Tony had said once, chuckling softly”. • Fil’s dreams “’Say in a ship… I mean, in an emergency, you’re stranded without help in the middle of the Pacific or the Atlantic, you must keep floating till help comes…’”

“The Day The Dancers Came” Cont. “’But, Tony, they would not come. They thanked me, but they said they had no time… They looked through me. I didn’t exist. Or worse, I was unclean. Basura. Garbage. They were ashamed of me. How could I be Filipino? ’” • Fil’s recording of the dancers “Frantically, he tried to rewind and play back the sounds and the music, but there was nothing now… a fading away into nothingness, till about the end when there was a screaming, senseless kind of finale detached from the body of a song in the background… I’ve lost them all. ’”