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S. LILY MENDOZA 12 A Different Breed of Filipino Balikbayans The Ambiguities of (Re-)turning INTRODUCTION Over the last decade, a marked shift has been noted in Filipino American youth’s orientation from what has been a predominantly assimilationist mode of survival to one foregrounding their separate Filipino identity vis-à-vis the U.S. mainstream. Fueled by an opening (up) to formerly repressed cultural and historical memory , mainly through the instrumentality of a homeland discursive export called Sikolohiyang Pilipino (Filipino psychology),this newly assertive form of cultural nationalism has led a number of Filipino American youth to undertake not merely a symbolic (re)turn to a forgotten or previously unknown native land, but a literal one. Mostly a phenomenon among college students who are encountering for the first time a radically different narrative of Filipino history and subjectivity , this nostalgic longing among second-, third-, and fourth-generation Filipino Americans to reconnect with a formerly disavowed historical past has given rise to the phenomenon of a different breed of balikbayans, or homeland returnees . Caught up in the fervor of a Fanonian moment of decolonization, these youths begin to manifest a diasporic identity signified by participation in various Balik-Aral (back-to-study) summer programs and other kinds of visits to the homeland . These programs, jointly coordinated by Filipino American faculty and their Philippines counterparts, are designed to take these youth returnees to the Philippines to study Philippine history, society, and culture as well as to learn basic Filipino. Other more individualized homeland explorations likewise become avenues for exploring further their newfound Filipino subjectivity. The result, however, is far from singular and unambiguous, ranging from extreme shock and disillusionment to decisions to stay longer than originally intended . This essay examines the roots in the political and historical imaginary of such ambivalent gestures of returning among second-, third-, and fourth-generation Filipino American youth and their implications for the dynamics of transformation among a minoritized population seeking a new sense of purpose within a (re-)discovered ethnic subjectivity. 200 A Different Breed of Filipino Balikbayans NEW BALIKBAYANS: ENCOUNTERING THE DIASPORA IN REVERSE In the summer of 1999 I went home to the Philippines for two months of field research for a dissertation, aided by a small grant from Arizona State University.1 My goal, after four years away, was to reacquaint and immerse myself once more in efforts within the Philippine academy that were seeking new ways to constitute local knowledge within the Western-style social science disciplines that were the legacy of centuries of Spanish and U.S. colonial education. This was part of the core of my dissertation project. As a Filipina only temporarily sojourning in the United States, I was what one would term in Filipino a “balikbayan” (balik, literally, to return, and bayan, homeland). It didn’t matter that I was there for only two months; I was a bona fide balikbayan, welcomed and embraced as a true home-grown daughter. But what of U.S.-born Filipino Americans who travel to the Philippines for the first time? Surely, they could not be balikbayans in the same sense of the word? Given that such persons—save perhaps for the color of their skin—would not be marked by a “native” identity, it isn’t likely that their (re-)turn would be imbued with the same sense of originary connection to the homeland and thereby hailed with the same “authenticity” as a native born like me? And yet, on another level, might one not say that a virtual (re-)turn is possible even for Pinoys who have never set foot on Philippine soil? It is with this breed of returnees that I had the most interesting encounter that summer while conducting research at the Diliman campus of my alma mater, the University of the Philippines (UP). “Bagong estudyanteng gradwado ako dito sa Sikolohiyang Pilipino. Nag lipat ako dito sa Pilipinas itong June lang” [I am a new graduate student here in Filipino psychology. I moved here to the Philippines only this June]. Thus did Jorge Intal introduce himself to me by e-mail in broken Filipino. He mentioned that Elizabeth de Castro (formerly Elizabeth Protacio-Marcelino), a professor of psychology at UP, had given him my e-mail address and shared with him a piece I had written on the indigenization movement in the Philippine academy. Intrigued by the essay, he wanted to discuss it with me. Auspiciously, the paper was an attempt to create spaces of dialogue...

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