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.
