Building Filipino Hawai'i

Drawing on ten years of interviews and ethnographic and archival research, Roderick Labrador delves into the ways Filipinos in Hawai'i have balanced their pursuit of upward mobility and mainstream acceptance with a desire to keep their Filipino identity.
 
In particular, Labrador speaks to the processes of identity making and the politics of representation among immigrant communities striving to resist marginalization in a globalized, transnational era. Critiquing the popular image of Hawai'i as a postracial paradise, he reveals how Filipino immigrants talk about their relationships to the place(s) they left and the place(s) where they've settled, and how these discourses shape their identities. He also shows how the struggle for community empowerment, identity territorialization, and the process of placing and boundary making continue to affect how minority groups construct the stories they tell about themselves, to themselves and others.

“"Labrador provides many necessary interventions to studies of Filipinos in the United States and helps further the reconceptualization of what it means to be Filipino throughout the Philippine diaspora and the ongoing production of global transnationalism."-- The Journal of American History ”

"Labrador provides an engaging and thoughtful study of Filipinos in Hawai'i, demonstrating how they have struggled to define and/or redefine their identity in the diaspora, by moving from the margins of Hawaii's society to becoming an integral part of it, while also maintaining their sense of Filipino-ness." --Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., author of Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego

Roderick N. Labrador is an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He is the coauthor of Filipinos in Hawai'i and coeditor of Empire of Funk: Hip Hop and Representation in Filipina/o America.

Filipino identity in transition in contemporary Hawai'iDrawing on ten years of interviews and ethnographic and archival research, Roderick Labrador delves into the ways Filipinos in Hawai'i have balanced their pursuit of upward mobility and mainstream acceptance with a desire to keep their Filipino identity. In particular, Labrador speaks to the processes of identity making and the politics of representation among immigrant communities striving to resist marginalization in a globalized, transnational era. Critiquing the popular image of Hawai'i as a postracial paradise, he reveals how Filipino immigrants talk about their relationships to the place(s) they left and the place(s) where they've settled, and how these discourses shape their identities. He also shows how struggles for community empowerment and identity territorialization continue to affect how minority groups construct the stories they tell about themselves, to themselves and others.

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