The appearance of Filipina nationalism: body, nation, empire

The main objective of my research is to investigate how gender and the body function in strategies and ideologies of nationalism and colonialism. This dissertation explores the connections between gendered embodiment and Filipina nationalism from 1898 to 1941. In both the colonial Philippines and the United States, Filipino women actively constructed their own national identities through the stylized presentation of their physical bodies in order to navigate through the multilayered power struggles and hierarchies created by intersecting Filipino nationalist and United States imperial projects. I specifically look at how colonial and nationalist projects used fashion, beauty regimens, and public spectacles to police Filipino women’s bodies, while Filipino women used these same arenas to construct identities that often contrasted with or rejected those imposed by colonial regimes. Ultimately, my project uses the lenses of local and global paradigms of race, gender, and sexuality to investigate the ways in which constructions of Filipina nationalism shaped the contours of Filipino America. My research on the Philippine-American colonial relationship serves as a critical call for transnational approaches to histories of U.S. empire—approaches that take the gendered, sexed and raced body into account. Colonial regimes maintained power through the racialization and sexualization of Filipinas, a process that promoted U.S. hierarchies of white supremacy and colonial authority. At the same time, Filipino anti-colonial nationalists relied on representations of Filipinas to challenge racist depictions and the denial of nationhood by displaying modern, civilized, and cultured qualities. Lastly, my findings reveal that women were not merely passive victims of colonization or accessories to Filipino male nationalists’ goals. Rather, my research shows that Filipinas decidedly used the concept of Filipina nationalism to define their roles and identities within the context of U.S. empire and the struggle for a Philippine nation