“Betrayal, Class Fantasies, and the
Filipino Nation in Daly City”
It was interesting reading this article
because it focused on the development of the Filipino community in a city that
I know very well, Daly City. The population of Filipinos in that area is
tremendous and even more than what I had expected, 25,000 Filipinos that came
to establish their own “middle class” that they could not have in the Philippines.
It was an eye-opener to read about the hardships that Filipinos had to go
through prior to being accepted and not looked down upon by citizens here. The hardships
described included being maids/servants and even working other lowly paid jobs
just for the sake of earning a tad bit more money than they could in the Philippines.
The Filipinos that came to Daly City were also being seen as a different
perspective, to some they are seen to be “silent heroes” and to some they are
seen as “betrayers” of their nations. The “silent heroes” are the ones that
come to America in hopes of expanding their culture and establishing their own
middle class here, and the “betrayers” are the ones that left their hometowns
just for the sake of personal reasons and not because they are trying to
establish anything (P.143). The article did a great job in depicting the lives
of new immigrant Filipinos that were struggling to find a job that is
sufficiently paying. The immigrants worked long backbreaking hours that were
easily being recognized by audiences as the Filipinos were being victimized
(P.148). Overall, I thought that this article gave me a lot of knowledge on the
development of this particular social group because I know that coming from a
family who also immigrated from their country to America they also had a lot of
hardships and it was definitely easy to relate to what was being told in this
article. I still have to say that no matter how much I say I understand what it
was like to be an immigrant, I won’t ever fully understand it because I never
participated in moving out of my country.
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