A couple of things below: the San Francisco State University Pinoy faculty’s response,

November 17, 2004

To the Filipina/o American Community,

We, the undersigned, denounce the recent actions of the Philippine Consulate surrounding the investiture of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco. Three Filipino American faculty members of San Francisco State University — Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Danilo Begonia and Dawn Bohulano Mabalon – were specifically excluded from attending the November 18th conferral ceremony.

Dr. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, assistant professor of Asian American Studies, had accepted an invitation to attend the ceremony and was told that tickets would be procured for her by a USF colleague. On Wednesday, November 10, Dr. Tintiangco-Cubales was informed that the Philippine Consulate requested that her tickets be returned because her name, along with two other San Francisco State University professors, were on a list of “activists.” The other faculty members were Professor Danilo Begonia of Asian American Studies, and Dawn B. Mabalon, assistant professor of History. She was further informed that she, the other named faculty members, and our students were on a list that barred all of them from attending the ceremony.

Dr. Mabalon called the Philippine Consulate and spoke to Vice Consul Anthony Mandap on Friday, November 12. She was told by an assistant that Vice Consul Mandap “has the list.” Vice Consul Mandap admitted that the consulate had concerns about SF State faculty and students, and told her that the Consulate had received information from anonymous sources at USF that we and “our students are intending to rally.” Vice Consul Mandap now denies any existence of a list of barred professors and students, possibly fearing the kind of public backlash a list of this kind would elicit. As of Friday, November 12, the consulate changed their position and maintained that all are welcome, but there are no more tickets for anyone.

We are shocked and outraged that the Philippine Consulate would, without substantive evidence, bar San Francisco State University faculty and students from the ceremony. It is a slap in the face to all of us who are community advocates, educators, and professionals. The implication that we are directing our students to disrupt this ceremony is truly ridiculous. We believe this targeting of Filipino American faculty and students as potential threats to national and international security is an unreasonable and anti-democratic exercise of power by the Philippine government. It also places the professional careers and personal reputations of faculty and students unnecessarily at risk. This exclusion from the event is not only embarrassing, it could also cause unreasonable risk of harm to our professional careers, personal reputations and work in the community.

The existence of this list and these practices create an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, hysteria and division in which legitimate and constitutionally protected political discourse between academics and their students will be considered subversive. Placement on this list presents an immediate chilling effect on academic freedom.

In this situation, the only individuals that have been marked have been educators. This appears to be scapegoating of academics and students. Although we were not involved in planning an action against the Philippine President’s visit to USF, we are against the unjust suppression of political discourse and peaceful demonstrations. No one should ever be condemned for exercising their constitutional right to engage and participate in political discussion. These are fundamental elements of the American educational and political processes.

Because of this unfortunate occurrence, we feel that our professional reputations have been smeared. We have long-standing, important, positive and productive relationships with faculty, staff and students at USF, relationships strengthened by our academic collaborations, networks, and community partnerships. Because of the actions of the Consulate, relations have been strained between our faculty and our colleagues at University of San Francisco.

As educators who are well aware of the importance of academic freedom and its rational limits, we believe the actions of the Philippine Consulate constitute suppression of legitimate political discussion. The many adverse effects of the Patriot Act on political expression and civil discourse in the United States are already well-documented, and we deplore the Philippine Consulate’s clear complicity in this regard.

We, the undersigned, are concerned Filipina/o American faculty at San Francisco State University.

Danilo Begonia
Professor, Asian American Studies

Daniel Gonzales
Associate Professor, Asian American Studies

Benito Vergara
Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies

Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales
Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies

Dawn Bohulano Mabalon
Assistant Professor, History

and another from the Critical Filipino Studies Collective:

Wednesday, November 17, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Peter Chua
San Jose State University
408-829-7347

FILIPINO STUDIES COLLECTIVE PROTESTS BLACKLIST OF FILIPINOS, PATRIOT ACT EXPOSED

San Francisco, November 17

The banning of three Filipino American scholars and university students from a dinner to invest Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of an honorary doctorate degree has revealed the existence of a blacklist of Filipino scholars and students, says the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective, a group of educators and activists. The existence of a blacklist has been denied by the San Francisco Consul General’s office though what has been confirmed is that the Philippine Consul received a list from the Philippine secret service, and this list was compiled by another U.S. agency under the aegis of the Patriot Act.

In an interview with Dr. Dawn Mabalon of San Francisco State University, one of the Filipino scholars banned from the dinner, she was told that she and others were “disinvited” since they were on “a list given to [the Philippine Consul] by the Philippine secret service.”

This has led scholars to believe that the blacklist was prepared by a U.S. government agency and was submitted to the Philippine representatives.

The blacklist represents what Dr. Dylan Rodriguez of the University of California-Riverside has described as “a form of low-intensity political repression that has directly enabled the U.S. Homeland Security apparatus. It is not just Arroyo who is facilitating a proto-martial law, we are encountering a version of it in the U.S.” Members of the Critical Filipino Studies Collective observed that there is a kinship between
the torture, domestic warfare, and human rights violations in the Philippines and the torture, domestic warfare, and human rights violations that occur on the everyday within the United States. As Dr. Rodriguez observes, “This is, after all, where the
Arroyo government learned its craft.”

The chilling implications of the U.S.-Philippine blacklist are the effects it will have on Filipino immigrants, both those who are permanent residents and those who are undocumented. Many Filipinos will be afraid to join mobilizations because of their future dealings with the U.S. and Philippine state. Dr. Nerissa Balce, a member of the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective, says, “Every time a Filipino migrant, writer, or scholar will cross the U.S. or Philippine borders, you will never know if you
will be asked to step aside, be delayed, or not be allowed to travel at all. Some Filipino migrants will not be allowed to return to the U.S. if their names are on this blacklist.”

Dr. Jody Blanco of the University of California-San Diego says, “On a larger level, the blacklist exploits and exacerbates the atmosphere of mistrust, fear, and intolerance that has gripped the American public since the arbitrary and unlawful arrest, detention, and torture of U.S. citizens and foreign residents alike in the wake of 9/11.”

According to Dr. Lucy Burns of the University of California-Santa Cruz, the blacklist “illustrates how academia, believed to be the last bastion of democracy in this age of corporate media, is not exempt from Bush’s War on Terror.” Dr. Burns adds, “This is a time to be vigilant and be vocal about the ideals of democracy. We in the Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies want our colleagues at San Francisco State University to know that we support their concerns. We also call for Filipino communities and everyone to support their educators threatened under the surveillance of both the Philippine and U.S. states in service of this War on Terror.”

The Critical Filipina and Filipino Studies Collective was one of the leading groups to support the Cuevas family, a Bay Area Filipino family who were deported in June 2004. The Collective will soon be releasing a report on the deportations of Filipino families in the era of Homeland Security.

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I’ll be posting the SFSU Filipino faculty response shortly, but here’s a press release from NAFCON regarding recent events.

There’s also an article here written by Emil Guillermo for the Stockton Record.

For Immediate Release
November 16, 2004
Contact: Jay Mendoza, 408-297-1977

ARROYO BLACKLISTS PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS FROM ATTENDING UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO EVENT.

BLACKLIST ANTAGONIZES FIL-AM COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND EXPOSES DARK SIDE OF ARROYO.

Professors and students confronted the Philippine Consul General about a blacklist, which bars individuals from attending an awards ceremony for the President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for an honorary Doctorate to be conferred from the University of San Francisco (USF).

At a meeting at San Francisco State University (SFSU) on Monday, concerned professors, students and community members met to discuss individuals’ being denied tickets and the ramifications of a blacklist. Prof. Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Prof. Dawn Mabalon, and Dan Begonia, three well-known academics and community advocates, who are faculty at SFSU, were among those blacklisted.

Members present from the SFSU Associated Student Body committed to pursue a student body resolution against the blacklist.

“She’s doing political profiling, just like Marcos did during martial law. She wants to silence any perceived voices of opposition. The irony is, people on the blacklist may not all be categorically “against her”. So she’s damaging her own reputation. It reveals to the American public the dark side of Arroyo—a side of her well known in the Philippines, but not so well known here.” said Jay Mendoza, who is a Community Scholar at the University of San Francisco (USF), and the National Coordinator of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON).

Prof. Dawn Mabalon said: “”We have strong working relationships and wonderful friendships with our colleagues and the Filipino community at USF. I am shocked and angered that the Consulate would, without concrete evidence, bar us from the ceremony. It is a slap in the face to all of us who are community advocates, educators, and professionals, and the implication that we are directing our students to disrupt this ceremony is truly ridiculous.

I did not discuss this event with any students. However, even if I had discussed GMA’s policies in my courses, the existence of this list creates an atmosphere of fear, suspicion, hysteria and division, in which the legitimate and constitutionally protected political discourse in which academics and their students can and should engage will be considered subversive. Placement on this list represents a threat to academic freedom. This is chilling.”

Prof. Tintiangco-Cubales stated: “”On Wednesday, November 12th, I learned that the Philippine Consulate requested that my passes to the GMA event be returned. I was outraged to find out that it was because I was on a ‘list of activists’ that included my colleagues, Dawn Mabalon and Dan Begonia. This exclusion from the event is not only embarrassing, it could also cause unreasonable risk of harm to our professional careers, personal reputations and work in the community. It also strains our academic collaborations and relationships with those at USF.

In this situation, the only individuals that have been marked have been educators. This leads me to believe that there is some type of scapegoating of academics and students. Although I was not involved in planning an action against the Philippine President’s visit to USF, I am against the unjust suppression of political discourse and peaceful demonstrations. No one should ever be condemned for exercising their constitutional right to engage and participate in political discussion. This is part of our educational process.”

Meanwhile, the Philippine Consulate denied there was a blacklist. The denial came amidst two scheduled protests during Arroyo’s San Francisco visit, growing community concern about Arroyo’s bleak track record of human rights violations and a letter and fax drive to the President of the University of San Francisco, Father Stephen A. Privett, to reconsider conferring an honorary doctorate to the martial law-like President.

“Arroyo is curtailing civil liberties. She’s bringing her strong arm, strong republic tactics to the Fil-Am community. This is indicative of a political leader with an atrocious record of human rights violations that rivals even the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It’s no wonder she’s resorted to blacklisting,” said Rhonda Ramiro of the Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines.

###

NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR FILIPINO CONCERNS (NAFCON)
525 W. Alma Ave.
San Jose, CA 95125
408-297-1968
nafcon@focusnow.org

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The cover of last month’s issue of Filipinas Magazine had the caption “Sex and the Single Manong, ca. 1940.” I was, perhaps irrationally, hoping for some hot man-on-man action, but I knew what to expect: the men-to-women ratio, the taxi dance halls, the riots, prostitutes following the migrants from camp to camp and harvest to harvest, that California businessman calling Filipinos “hot little rabbits,”* the fascination with white women, reading between the lines of America Is In The Heart about Bulosan’s blondes and wondering what the deal was with all these white women wandering in and out of the narrative.

It’s quite obvious and understandable how historiography regarding the manong generation proceeded this way: in a community full of fairly devout Catholics, and a nascent second/third-generation (het-male) Filipino American identity that was effectively emasculated in current American popular culture, it was no wonder that this — I’m thinking of a good word — rampant male heterosexuality became regnant in Filipino American Studies. There’s nothing like a threat to masculinity to get one’s, um, dander up — if “one” were a predominantly male and perhaps proudly heterosexual group of Filipino American scholars in the ’60s and ’70s. The party line, if one could call it that, was that the manongs were playas — the suits! the white women! the slicked-back hair! — supported very clearly by the very real white perception of Filipinos as sexual threats, with its violent consequences. It is perhaps easier to imagine them, amidst their lives of desperate I-Hotel loneliness, as eternally swinging, forever single, and straight bachelors.

Such heteronormativity (and a healthy dose of Catholic prudishness) would perhaps prevent any further inquiry into whether or not scenes of the love that dare not speak its name were ever enacted in those lonely and cramped migrant shacks.**

*The whole quote actually goes, “The Filipinos are hot little rabbits, and many of these white women like them for this reason.” At which point, I imagine, my straight male Filipino students say under their breath, “Cool.”

**I’m also thinking about this because of a discussion in class last week of Joel Tan’s story “Night Sweats,” in which the classroom — and at some point one student was fanning herself just talking about it — was treated to phrases like “ring muscle” and “purple knob.”

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Just saw this about John Balance. And I just fell asleep last night listening to ANS on my headphones… I’m wearing my Time Machines T-shirt today. And playing Coil all day.

JB and ODB in one weekend.

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Posted a shorter version of this last night (more like early morning).

Too messed up to remember
Eardrums still ringing
Head still aching
Feet hurt (from jumping)
Neck hurts (from headbanging)
Throat hurts (from shouting)

Met PBers at the Toronado
Sat with Spence and Kogan
Ended up six people deep from the stage
Saw Franken’s back move farther and farther
from the middle
Keene played

Then sunsets and seagulls
1983-2004
GBV the crowd yelled
Bob with Cuervo bottle in hand
Beers aloft
Opened with Do The Earth
Lots of songs from SIAN
Bob rant on “old cuntry”
Willie Nelson and Rob Thomas
Called Lyle Lovett a pussy
Pissbreak during Window of My World

We got Gloomtown / Pricks / Jumpstart
We got Sad If I Lost It
We got Exit Flagger
We got Buzzards and Dreadful Crows
We got Beg for a Wheelbarrow
We got Redmen and Their Wives
We got loooong Secret Star
We got My Impression Now
We got Demons Are Real
We got Gold Star for Robot Boy

Mic troubles for Bob
Guy wanted to pass out next to him
Folks bumrushed the stage
on A Salty Salute
Woman bumped and grinded
Bouncers disarmed the settlers

Then homerun after homerun
Myron / Motor / FBI
Unleashed / Girls / Scientist
And the lights came up
And it was all over

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