Chapter 14 - Bienvenido Santos

Summary

This chapter considers how Bienvenido Santos critically engages Filipino migrations in ways that question dominant models of Asian American literature and US ethnic studies. The chapter begins by looking at his well-known stories “Immigration Blues” and “Scent of Apples,” which focus on Filipino manongs, single male laborers who immigrated to the United States, and are conventionally read as documenting the presence of pre-1965 Asian American communities. Noting how the stories specifically foreground experiences of differential power and exile, the chapter suggests that they complicate unifying narratives of Filipino immigrant ethnicity. It then examines the figuration of Santos as an exemplary writer in efforts to redefine a model of Asian American literature around diaspora and postcoloniality in the mid-1990s. Using short works including “Prelude to Home,” “Quicker Than Arrows,” and “Brown Coterie,” this chapter analyzes how Filipino subjects negotiate a changing world order involving intertwined events of World War II, decolonization, civil rights, and Philippine independence. To conclude, the chapter discusses how the novel what the hell for you left your heart in san francisco takes up post-1965 ethnic identity politics issues from the perspective of Filipino exile; in so doing, Santos charts an alternative epistemology for US ethnic studies.