Join Rick Baldoz for a talk examining the complex relationship between Filipinos and the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Baldoz will explore how American practices of domestic racial exclusion repeatedly collided with the geo-political imperatives of U.S. imperial expansion producing unexpected outcomes and consequences on both sides of the Philippine-American divide. The talk will focus on what Filipino immigration to the United States reveals about the racialized economic and political foundations of American society. The politically ambiguous status of Filipinos, who were classified as U.S nationals, confounded immigration authorities, resulting in ever-changing rationales about how to determine and police racial and national boundaries. Baldoz argues that debates about the socio-legal status of Filipinos offer insights into the contingent and contested nature of America’s ascriptive hierarchies and the interlocking politics of immigration, race, and empire.

Free and open to the public. Refreshments provided.