| Book review / Ken Tanemura "Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s" |
| Linda Espana-Miram's new book, "Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles's Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920s-1950s," is a study of how Filipino men took it upon themselves to masculinize themselves while faced with an emasculating mainstream White culture. Espana-Miram's focus on what she calls the "intra-ethnic," or meetings of different cultures, distinguishes this book from similar studies of Asian American masculine identity. She also talks about how class affects gender. For example, Filipino men hung out in the gambling dens of Chinatown to both establish a stronger masculine sense of themselves, as well as to find a way to make money when racist economies forced them out of the workforce. While other men sought work, money and aspiration in business, Filipino men came up with an alternative idea. "For the Filipino patrons, playing games of chance in Chinatown, because gambling held possibilities of winning supplemental funds, became one way of redefining the American dream," says Espana-Miram. There was a price to pay for these games of chance. Half the combined wages of all Filipinos in California in the 1930s were lost in the gambling dens. Also, gambling charges became the highest category for arrests during the Depression. Still, when Chinatown was demolished, a new source of betting arose with the emergence of the prizefight. Boxing matches allowed Filipinos to not only place bets, but place bets on other Filipino fighters who emerged as champions. "Unlike fan-tan and lotteries, boxing highlighted the brown male body by giving it the pivotal role. Instead of watching colorful fan-tan disks or counting white dots on domino blocks, Filipino eyes focused on the glimmer of powerful brown muscles," says Espana-Miram. Boxing matches soon became the most popular recreational activity attended by Filipinos. Unlike gambling and dancing with White women in taxi dance halls, boxing didn't inspire disapproval from the mainstream. Because of this level of relative acceptance, fighters like the Bolo Puncher were allowed to become heroes. "As athletes, they challenged the stereotype of the 'little brown brother' uttered by the colonizers in their homeland and the image of the dirty, lazy 'brown monkey' deployed in the racist language of their adopted country," says Espana-Miram. One of the earliest Filipino fighters to become famous was Francisco "Pancho Villa" Guilledo, ironically known as the Living Doll. At 21, he knocked out Johnny Buff and captured the 1922 American Flyweight Championship at Ebbets Field, Brooklyn. Ceferino Garcia was another fighter who became legendary for his toughness and ability to win. Even reading about the fights became a source of morale among Filipino men. "The fight directed their conversation; it became a collective experience and, win or lose, the potential of the brown body symbolized by the pugilists became part of the stories Filipinos told themselves about themselves and their experience -- Through these narratives, Filipino workers codified their ideals of Filipino masculinity. Garcia, outnumbered 50 to one, relying on his wits and raw muscle, fought undaunted, and emerged victorious," says Espana-Miram. While men throwing punches might appear to be a reductive way of achieving masculinity, it's important to keep in mind that these men didn't live in a theoretical world. They lived in a world that fought to diminish them in every way. And their attempt to fight back was real and practical. "Because validation by, and comparison with other men is salient in defining potency, confronting challenges was crucial," says Espana-Miram. Similar to Yao Ming's symbolism among Asian American men today, Filipino prize-fighters back in the day represented their community by a show of strength and bravery. Espana-Miram argues that interest in boxing matches and the sporting life was part of the process among Filipino immigrants to "assemble a collective memory." The idea that collective memory is knowingly assembled, as opposed to inevitably established almost accidentally by history, is a novel one. It is also perhaps useful these days when academics love to celebrate the "post-racial" eras. The taxi dance halls were yet another way to assemble such a collective memory; not through physical ferocity, but rather, through a highly individualized and communally hipster style. Taxi dance halls are usually associated with lonely Filipino working men squandering their wages to dance with White women. But according to Espana-Miram, the dance halls were also places where Filipinos could define and reclaim their own bodies in a masculine way. "In the dance halls, Filipino workers developed a dynamic alternative subculture where they celebrated the body attired in McIntosh suits, expensive formal attire with padded shoulders and wide lapels worn by some of Hollywood's most famous leading men, such as William Powell. In many ways, Filipinos regarded the possession and the donning of the double-breasted McIntosh as a measure of achievement in America." It's interesting that elements of style became a signpost of masculinity; it's as if a hypermasculine drive drove so far that it became fashionista femme. One could say the same for the Filipino, Mexican American, and African American men who would become the Zoot Suiters -- so hip and stylish that they posed enough of a threat to get gang-beaten by crews of U.S. Servicemen in the Zoot Suit riots. These sailors raided dance halls, movie theaters, and streetcars, and beat and stripped zoot suiters of their cool drapes and reet pleats, and cut off their slicked back "Argentine" ducktail. The sailors were threatened by men of color who looked too sharp, assumed a strut, and looked too suave. Ironically, the men of color were just exploitable field laborers who tried to maintain their dignity through style. If nothing else -- justice, equality, civil rights -- they at least maintained their own bodies to express "passion, arousal, and sexual bravado" as Espana-Miram puts it. The Filipino men were flashy and wore flamboyant colors, they were well-groomed, polite, and knew how to entertain the women who were paid to entertain them. A man's man, or a woman's man, or both? An ethnographer in New York's dance halls noted, "curiously enough however, one almost invariably observes that the conduct of these Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and African revelers is more restrained and orderly than that of the low White males with whom they rub elbows." There were instances of mutual attraction, and dates were made. Of course, taxi dancers who dated Filipino men were called "N... lovers." Oh how threatening a sense of style can be, even if that style is fashioned as a reaction to oppression, or because it is fashioned in such a way? Perhaps this type of style is a constant reminder of the kind of brutish, grotty hatred that inspired it. "Creating Masculinity" gives a whole new meaning to the saying, "Clothes make the man." For Filipino immigrants who strove to fend off constant racist/sexist messages against them, clothes did make the man. While Whites addressed men of color as "boy," zoot suiters addressed each other as "man." This term, of course, has been appropriated into common slang, and its historical reasons forgotten. For immigrants who were perceived to be "poor and dirty," dressing up in ultra clean, neat clothes was an act of subversion. Also, suits were generally designed for the "average" American male, which didn't quite fit Filipino men. So they had their clothes tailored, bucking the idea of a mass-produced, standardized item being suitable to "universal man." Just like a prizefighter with a killer hook, nothing could touch you if you were wearing a snazzy tie that no woman could resist complimenting, or so the logic must have gone. |
 |
 |