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Bridges are Made with Many Footsteps:Re-imagining Filipino Identity as Resistance to a Militarized Present
Ellen-Rae CacholaContours of Violence Term PaperCultural Anthropology Program, California Institute of Integral StudiesProfessor Angana ChatterjiJanuary 5, 2008
 
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Abstract
How can cross-cultural alliance work think through the issues of militarization during thistime of U.S. War on Terror? From the perspective of a Filipina born in a U.S. occupiedHawaii, I seek to think this question from a diasporic perspective situated indemilitarization movements, dominant and local cultures, and histories critical tonationalisms that link the Philippines, Hawaii, and the U.S. My research engages the textof Henry Giroux called Against the New Authoritarianism, and Neville Hoad’s AfricanIntimacies: Race, Homosexuality and Globalization to understand connections betweenfragments of militarization in Okinawa, Philippines and Maui. I also engage TaiakakeAlfred's notion of deconstructing
sovereignty
, Iris Marion Young’s
decentered diversedemocratic federalism
, and Edward Said's notion of 
cosmopolitan
to rethink nationalistPhilippine histories and imagine a Filipino diasporic identity that inspires cross-culturaland cross-issue alliances as resistance in the present.
 
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The War on Terror and Questions of alliance
The current war on terror connects countries in the Asia-Pacific, U.S. andCaribbean as strategic points for U.S. Military surveillance and repression of “terrorist”locations (IWNAM Meeting, September 10-15, 2007; Consultation paper, 2006). Howdo movements within these countries resist the violences that emerge from militaryinstallations and the continuation of colonial histories that place them as hosts to U.S.military strategic planning? Reflecting on who I am, as a Filipina born in Hawaii, andhaving met women activists from Philippine, Hawaiian and San Francisco movements, Ihave witnessed how movements within these countries face different issues, althoughthey are all struggling against the structural issues of colonization and militarization. Asthe U.S. Military shuffles funding and soldiers from one nation to another, movementsbrace themselves at the effects of the military and their consequences it has on localcommunities (Consultation Paper, 2006; 10). How can these alliances sustain themselvesas the U.S. Military acts as without borders? How can strategies of local resistance alsobe in solidarity with other places that are tied to them through histories andcontemporaries of U.S. imperialism?
Military Industrial Complex in the Asia-Pacific
Since 1989, throughout the Asia Pacific, U.S., and Caribbean, alliances have beenforged among women activists working around issues of military bases (Women forGenuine Security, 1/5/2007). My relationships to these women began in November 2004when I went to the East-Asia-U.S.-Puerto Rico International Network Against Militarismmeeting in the Philippines as a Hawaii delegate in alliance with DMZ-Hawaii. There, Ilearned about women from South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Philippines, Hawaii, U.S. andPuerto Rico building a network of alliances regarding issues of militarization in theircommunities. In September 2007, the Women for Genuine Security, the U.S. ally of thenetwork now named the International Women's Network Against Militarism, organizedanother meeting in San Francisco. Through these alliances, complicated issues thatchallenge nation state boundaries have emerged. An example is the migration of Filipinawomen to work in bases in other countries. Another is recruitment of soldiers in the U.S.who participate in the violences against local people in countries hosting U.S. bases. To
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