History live!

There's nothing like hearing history from the history makers themselves. Today in class I was lucky to have the two fierce pinays whose activism created Asian American Studies at UMD, Christina and Angela Lagdameo. If I can figure out how to link to the Washington Post article about them (Aug 31, 2000), I'll post it. And then Juanita Tamayo Lott came by too, so that we could also hear about her experience in the 1968 student strike at SF state. Hearing them speak reminds me of how much history does not capture. The passion, the enthusiasm, the moment, and fascinating tidbits get freeze-dried and abstracted for our textbooks. Of course we should still clamor for inclusion in those books. But never let books be the only tool for learning.

My course is titled (not by me) Filipino American History and Biography. But today it dawned on me (or maybe I'm just admitting) that the more appropriate title is Filipino American Activism.

We hear over and again about the Asian communities' lack of activism and interest in engaging politically. About our meekness and desire to not rock the boat. And I hear this mostly from other Asians. But maybe that's the narrative we've been fed to keep us down (and that we believe it means we've internalized the racism it represents). Maybe it's that we don't know where to look for the activists, because Asian American studies isn't around in enough places to raise our consciousness about how much we've actually done. And because people like me often do complain, why aren't we being louder? Where are we (on x issue)?

We need to hear more stories about ourselves to repudiate, complicate and diversify this portrait of the non-activist Asian American. And in recognition of my very diverse class, I should clarify that "we" and "ourselves" is not just Filipinos or Asians. My class will leave knowing who the activists are.

Utah Helps California Prevent Marriage--Again

Prop 8 backlash: Gay marriage backers to protest outside Salt Lake LDS Temple
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10918202?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com

Mormons reached across state borders to fight marriage equality in California. According to this article which appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune last week, the "LDS Church got into the thick of the California battle when officials issued statements encouraging members to actively support the ban. All told, Latter-day Saints are estimated to have given, by some counts, as much as $22 million to the effort."

That's a huge amount of money invested in taking away our rights.

And it's not the first time that Utah has helped California prevent marriage.

Back in 1933, Filipinos(1) were added to the list of people who could not marry white people in California (so-called anti-miscegenation laws, which were really about preventing non-white men from marrying white women). But this did not stop mixed marriages. No, those determined couples just went over to Utah and other states to marry. The California legislature did notice, so in 1938 they passed a strongly-worded resolution urging Utah to "stop the practice whereby citizens of the state of California and members of the non-assimilable alien race [that's us] have been defeating California marriage laws by resorting to subterfuge of transient residence in the State of Utah." A year later, Utah added Filipinos to their anti-miscegenation laws.

I don't know enough about Utah or Mormon history to know if Mormons were involved in that 1939 decision, but the parallel is obvious enough. Utah has twice now helped take away the right of marriage.

Reference
(1) Staff, “Anti-Miscegenation Laws and the Pilipino.” In Letters in Exile: An Introductory Reader on the History of Pilipinos in the United States, ed. Jesse Quinsaat. UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1976, pp.63-71. The actual term used was "Malay." The legal fight had been over whether Filipinos were Malay or Mongolian. It was resolved by adding Malay to the law. This story is one of several examples of "just-us" in Filipino American history.


It's Veterans Day. Thanks to all veterans everywhere and especially to the Filipino WWII veterans. From just-us to justice...we will have it.