Week 10

Chapter 6

1.   Why were unions an important venue for Filipina/o Americans, especially given the legal and economic barriers that they faced in other sectors of their lives?   Why was Seattle significant in this regard?

2.   How are unions an important avenue for understanding the connections between community members, not only as fellow unionists, but also as contractors and workers?   How might these relationships pose mutually existing yet competing forms of "family"?

3.   Why are "popularity contests" also a valuable arena of inquiry, and how do they enable us to further see how social relations within the community are organized?   How does our analysis of Filipina/o community politics change when we place popularity contests alongside unions as sites of study?

4.   Why is it important to also investigate the history of women when analyzing union activity?   What do we learn from the stories of Bibiana Laigo Castillano, Margaret Duyungan Mislang, Matilde Simon, Anecia Iuptula, and Bessie Jackson?     Why is it important to look at "family" in both public and private spaces to more fully understand this history?

Conclusion

1.   Identify three ways (in the Conclusion, more than three ways are listed) that we can use the history of Filipina/o Americans to gain further insight into U.S. culture as a whole.  

2.   What were some of the "silences" that Professor Fujita-Rony found in her documentation of this history?   Why is it important to consider "silences" when examining how history is written?

3.   What does Professor Fujita-Rony mean in the subtitle of the book when she refers to the "transpacific West"?   Why are the "State" and the "Family" important areas of discussion when addressing the "transpacific West"?

4.   If you had to lecture about the "Family" and the "State" to a high school class using material from AWCP, what would be the three main points that you would emphasize?