METROIMPERIAL INTIMACIES PERVERSE MODERNITIES a Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe INTIMACIES METROIMPERIAL
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METROIMPERIAL INTIMACIES PERVERSE MODERNITIES A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe INTIMACIES METROIMPERIAL FANTASY, RACIAL- SEXUAL GOVERNANCE, AND THE PHILIPPINES IN U.S. IMPERIALISM, 1899–1913 Victor Román Mendoza duke university press Durham and London 2015 © 2015 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper ∞ Typeset in Minion Pro by Westchester Book group Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Mendoza, Victor Román, [date] author. Metroimperial intimacies : fantasy, racial-sexual governance, and the Philippines in U.S. imperialism, 1899–1913 / Victor Román Mendoza. pages cm—(Perverse modernities) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8223-6019-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8223-6034-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8223-7486-2 (e-book) 1. Imperialism—Social aspects—Philippines—History— 20th century. 2. United States—Territories and possessions— History—20th century. 3. Colonial administrators—Philippines— Attitudes—History—20th century. 4. United States—Foreign relations—Philippines. 5. Philippines—Foreign relations—United States. I. Title. II. Series: Perverse modernities. E183.8.P6M46 2015 327.7305990904—dc23 2015022771 Cover art: Philippines, May 3, 1898; Everett Collection Inc. / Alamy. Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and Arts and the University of Michigan Office of Research, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. For PKB This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS ix Ac know ledg ments 1 INTRODUCTION 35 CHAPTER 1 Racial- Sexual Governance and the U.S. Colonial State in the Philippines 63 CHAPTER 2 Unmentionable Liberties: A Racial- Sexual Differend in the U.S. Colonial Philippines 95 CHAPTER 3 Menacing Receptivity: Philippine Insurrectos and the Sublime Object of Metroimperial Visual Culture 131 CHAPTER 4 The Sultan of Sulu’s Epidemic of Intimacies 167 CHAPTER 5 Certain Peculiar Temptations: Little Brown Students and Racial- Sexual Governance in the Metropole 203 CONCLUSION 211 Notes 259 Bibliography 279 Index This page intentionally left blank AC KNOW LEDG MENTS As an almost pathological introvert—an off- the- charts Enneagram type 5 with a strong 4 wing— I’ve always found it difficult to let go of my writing, presum- ing to work things out by myself. But reading other scholars’ ac know ledg- ments, another symptom of my introversion and expression of my 5-ness, has reminded me that it takes communities to write a book, and I’m exceedingly grateful to all those who’ve let me into theirs. As a predental (?!) undergraduate student, though, writing a book wasn’t originally in my plans. But my closest undergraduate professors, Alec Marsh, David Rosenwasser, and Jill Stephen, who first exposed me to postcolonial stud- ies in their Irish literature reading group, showed me how intellectually and creatively satisfying critical analysis could be. I thank them, and Tom Cartelli, for putting up with that fledgling feminist-theoryhead En glish major. Barbara Gorka, from my other major, helped consolidate my Spanish after my time in the other colonial Philippine metropole. When I started graduate school at the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign (to which I would return years later), Michael Bérubé, Tim Dean, Stephanie Foote, Janet Lyon, and Joe Valente (most of whom have since left) offered me the space to synthesize critical theory. Among my fellow gradu- ate students at Illinois, I fondly recall Sarah Blackwood, Gabriel Cervantes, Mudita Chawla, Joshua Eckhardt, Melissa Girard, Praseeda Gopinath, Scott Herring, Ed McKenna, Deepti Misri, Dahlia Porter, Rochelle Reeves, and Rychetta Watkins. Matthew Gambino, who was pursuing a doctorate in his- tory and a medical degree, was a solid interlocutor and friend and even after earning his paradox (sorry, Matt, for the awful pun) has continued to be gen- erous to me in both of his fields of expertise. At the University of California, Berkeley, Wendy Brown, Anne Cheng, Ian Duncan, Richard Halpern, Colleen Lye, Sharon Marcus, Franco Moretti, Chris Nealon, Michael Rubenstein, and Trinh T. Minh-ha were exemplary, brilliant models of teaching, scholarship, and mentorship. I credit Sharon Mar- cus, who assigned some five book reviews during her graduate seminar, for teaching me how to write. And Trinh Minh-ha affirmed how important it was for me to pursue a doctorate in En glish as a person of color—she also encour- aged me to go out on a limb creatively and theoretically. Caren Kaplan, mean- while, took a gamble in hiring me as her research assistant; she was exceedingly magnanimous in training me, caught me up to speed on transnational femi- nisms, and continues to school me from afar. Karen Tongson reached out to me upon my arrival at Cal and took me out to lunch, even as she was on her way out the door. My friends in graduate school made that place and time less dif- fuse and traumatizing: Carlo Arreglo, Kelvin Black, Sylvia Chong, Kristin Fujie, Christine Hong, Jhoanna Infante- Abbatantuono, Marissa Lopez, Ryan McDer- mott, Franklin Melendez, Slavica Naumovska, Hoang Nguyen, and Monica Soare. Josephine Park, finishing up her degree, was an aspirational mentor. Funding from the Eugene Cota- Robles Fellowship and the Dean’s Normative Time Fellowship made graduate school viable. It was at Berkeley that I shifted my interests from Victorian British litera- ture to U.S. ethnic and transnational studies— specifically, Asian American history, culture, and theory. Teaching Asian American literature with Anna Leong in the Ethnic Studies Department consolidated my knowledge. Col- leen Lye’s seminar on the field was terrifying, exacting, and invaluable, and it was in that context that I wrote what would be my first publication. (That essay became the germ of this book’s implicit project to decolonize the term “queer.”) Colleen, in turn, became a terrifying, exacting, and invaluable reader of my dissertation. During my doctoral qualifying exam, Michael Omi asked me a hard question about activism, Philippine- U.S. colonial history, and bakla counter- protestors around Miss Saigon; despite my probably elliptical answer, he agreed to serve on my committee and was incredibly careful in reading. José David Saldívar, my dissertation chair, has always had my back, intellectually and professionally. To borrow from one of his favorite writers, his mentor- ship is where the real work got done. José’s continual readership and fierce support, despite our not seeing each other in far too long, have been brilliant and exemplary. A lectureship and, later, a postdoc in Asian American studies brought me back to Urbana- Champaign, where a lot had changed. Kent Ono, who was in- tegral to the growth of Asian American studies at Illinois into the vibrant, intel- lectual force it is now, was charitable in hiring and mentoring me. New friends Lisa Cacho, Shelley Cohen, David Coyoca, Rachel Dubrofsky, Augusto Espiritu, x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Sara Clarke Kaplan, Kirstie Dorr, Mary Ellerbe, Viveka Kudaligama, Soo Ah Kwon, Shelley Lee, Marie Leger, Brian Locke, Shoshana Magnet, William Maxwell, Ryan McKean, Alex Mobley, Lisa Nakamura, Fiona Ngo, Mimi Nguyen, Pia Sengsavanh, Junaid Rana, Ricky Rodríguez, Siobhan Somer- ville, Julia Walker, and Yutian Wong were my po liti cal and intellectual kin in the cornfields. Joan and Ellen McWhorter were formative in my becoming. Caroline Yang was a fierce comrade to commiserate and plot with. Jennifer Chung and Kevin Lam took horrifying road trips with and for me. Susan Koshy was an incisive reader and is a tremendous model of scholarship. To Martin Manalansan, who was my unofficial mentor during the postdoc, I owe a boundless utang ng loob for his ongoing and unrelenting guidance, critique, friendship, and advocacy. He has made so much possible. Metroimperial Intimacies wouldn’t be the book that it is without the Uni- versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Grants from the Rackham Graduate School helped me hire research assistants; a grant from the Office of the Vice Presi- dent of Research and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (lsa) backstopped research expenses; a publication subvention from the lsa and the Office of Research aided with production costs; and the Institute for the Research of Women and Gender both awarded seed grants and provided course relief through the Ju nior Faculty Scholars Program. The administra- tive staff members Donna Ainsworth, Vanessa Debus, Karen Diedo, Jatell Driver, Aimee Germain, Jane Johnson, and Shelley Shock have helped me figure out how things work. Michael Schoenfeldt, chair of the En glish Depart- ment, has protected my time; Elizabeth Cole and Valerie Traub, who have chaired Women’s Studies, have been overwhelmingly supportive, sage, and kind. Many thanks to my fabulous friends and colleagues who have offered me a feeling of belonging, most especially because they took time to engage with my work seriously and generatively and on the level of ideas: Evelyn Al- sultany, Naomi Andre, Michael Awkward, Sara Blair, Andre Brock, Anne Cur- zan, Maria Cotera, Deirdre de la Cruz, Manan Desai, Leela Fernandes, Sarah Fenstermaker, Roxana Galusca, Susan Go, Dena Goodman, Sandra Gunning, Hui Hui Hu, Deborah Keller- Cohen, Aliyah Khan, Anna Kirkland, Larry La Fountain- Stokes, Madhumita Lahiri, Emily Lawsin, Peggy McCracken, Josh Miller, Candace Moore, Susan Najita, Lisa Nakamura, Esther Newton, David Porter, Megan Sweeney, Ruby Tapia, Valerie Traub, Ruth Tsoffar, Robert Wyrod, and Melanie Yergeau. My formal mentors— Leela, Valerie, and Maria— were absolutely essential to my reconceptualizations of this book: thank you all for your gracious critique and scrupulous labor. Your commit- ment to my work is unparalleled, and your labor isn’t lost on me. Since we arrived, Candace has been my writing buddy, my productivity police, and my ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi a2bff. I have also been lucky to have outstanding research assistants: Amanda Healy, James Hixon, Alex Ngo, and Sara Spiller. Amanda, especially, worked with me continually and was a great reader and a super-sleuth.