Winner of the 2012-2013 Asian/Pacific American Librarian's Association
Book Award
Winner of the 2013 American Sociological Association's Asia and Asian
America Section Distinguished Book Award The first half of the
twentieth century witnessed a wave of Filipino immigration to the United
States, following in the footsteps of earlier Chinese and Japanese
immigrants, the first and second "Asiatic invasions." Perceived as alien
because of their Asian ethnicity yet legally defined as American
nationals granted more rights than other immigrants, Filipino American
national identity was built upon the shifting sands of contradiction,
ambiguity, and hostility.
Rick Baldoz explores the complex relationship between Filipinos and the
U.S. by looking at the politics of immigration, race, and citizenship on
both sides of the Philippine-American divide: internationally through an
examination of American imperial ascendancy and domestically through an
exploration of the social formation of Filipino communities in the
United States. He reveals how American practices of racial exclusion
repeatedly collided with the imperatives of U.S. overseas expansion. A
unique portrait of the Filipino American experience, The Third Asiatic
Invasion links the Filipino experience to that of Puerto Ricans,
Mexicans, Chinese and Native Americans, among others, revealing how the
politics of exclusion played out over time against different population
groups.
Weaving together an impressive range of materials--including newspapers,
government reports, legal documents and archival sources--into a
seamless narrative, Baldoz illustrates how the quixotic status of
Filipinos played a significant role in transforming the politics of
race, immigration and nationality in the United States.
