SEXUALISED CITIZENSHIP a Cultural History of Philippines-Australian Migration

SEXUALISED CITIZENSHIP A Cultural History of Philippines-Australian Migration SHIRLITA AFRICA ESPINOSA Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia Series editors Stevi Jackson Centre for Women’s Studies University of York York, UK Olivia Khoo School of Media, Film and Journalism Monash University Melbourne, Australia Denise Tse-Shang Tang Department of Sociology University of Hong Kong Hong Kong The Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia book series provides a wel- come new forum for monographs and anthologies focusing on the intersections between gender, sexuality and culture across Asia. Titles in the series include multi- and interdisciplinary research by scholars within Asia as well as in North American, European and Australian academic con- texts. The series provides a distinctive space for the exploration of topics of growing academic concern, from non-normative cultures of sexuality in Asia, to studies of gendered identities cross the region. The series will expand the feld of Asian genders and sexualities by applying a cultural lens to current debates, including rural lives, migration patterns, religion, transgender identities, sex industry and family. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15191 Shirlita Africa Espinosa Sexualised Citizenship A Cultural History of Philippines-Australian Migration Shirlita Africa Espinosa Luxembourgville Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia ISBN 978-981-10-4743-5 ISBN 978-981-10-4744-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4744-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940221 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. Cover credit: © Stefania Arca/Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore To Isabelo ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is a journey—one that brought me to many places and allowed me to have the opportunity to meet good people along the way. At the end of this journey, it is time to give thanks to those whose support and belief in what I can do sustained me. With them and through them, I face the unfnishedness of life that confronts us all. My warmest thanks to Stevi Jackson, Denise Tse-Shang Tang and Olivia Khoo—book series editors of Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia under Palgrave Macmillan—for giving me the chance to share my work to the public. Thank you Connie Li and Sara Crowley-Vigneau for guiding me throughout the process of preparing the manuscript. I thank Bronwyn Winter whose guidance and support helped me every step of the way in the writing of this project, while letting me develop on my own as a researcher. Sneja Gunew, Caroline Hau and Anna Guevarra, reviewers of my research, who kindly shared their intellectual comradeship and for appre- ciating how I wanted to approach my subject matter. My gratitude to the Ford Foundation for funding my doctoral studies; the Philippine Social Science Council for facilitating my fellowship. Also, thanks to the Marie Curie Grant and the University of Luxembourg for giving me place and institutional support, while I was searching for the best publisher for my work. Every man and every woman I have met in this journey—friends, col- leagues, Filipinos and Australians, interviewees, strangers—whose names may not be mentioned here, but are nonetheless inscribed in that neat vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS little box of memory which I will remember with great tenderness. Dave, Deborah and Dee for being my family in Australia. Lastly, I dedicate this work to my family especially to my Nanay and Tatay, and to all of us who live in the margins of a system against which we fght by making meaning in our everyday lives, and in my mind, will overcome in solidarity with each other. February 2017 Shirlita Africa Espinosa CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Philippine Migration in Multicultural Australia 11 3 Writing a Cultural History 29 4 Representations of a Sexualised Citizen 47 5 Fil-Oz in Blacktown: A Cultural Geography 61 6 Questionable Solidarity: ‘Romances, After All, Start in Various Ways’ 81 7 Class and Filipino-Australians 99 8 Male-Ordered Bodies 133 9 The Filipino Elderly: To Love Is to Labour 169 10 Filipino–Australian Activism: Decolonising Solidarity and the Search for Identity 191 ix x CONTENTS 11 Conclusions: The Culturalisation of Sexualised Citizenship 229 References 237 Index 255 LIST OF TABLES Table 8.1 Selected entries from English-Filipino Wordbook by Renato Perdon 162 xi CHAPTER 1 Introduction This book brings together analyses based on an ethnography of Filipino migrants in Australia, tracing the birth and growth of their cultural history in the last 40 years. It examines the relationship between the production of cultural materials and the sexualisation of the community due to the large number of marriage migrants from the Philippines to Australia. I interrogate the forms within which Filipino-Australians wrote their responses to the racialised and gendered marginalisation in Australia. Some of these cultural productions are ethnic newspapers, women’s anthologies, literary works, lexical references and creative non- fction that disclose a community’s sentiments about their own migration. This is the side of the story that has never been heard by middle Australia. My reading of Filipino-Australian cultural history is shaped by the intersections of ethnic,class, gender, ideological and other intra- Philippines social contradictions that to a certain extent continue to infuence Filipino-Australian formations. Through its print material culture, the community makes sense of its migration and the painful realities by which the birthing of a selfhood is forged. That migration begins not upon take-off but rather nurtured within a culture of taking fight, so that these writings are a kind of remittance sent to the old country, a sign of the ‘unfnishedness’ that characterise transnational family ties. Like most migrants from low-income countries who resettled in more affuent societies, Filipinos liken migration as property ownership. Their cultural history, as affective remittance, is precisely an exhibition of that ownership. Beyond the search for greener pasture for most migrants—that © The Author(s) 2017 1 S.A. Espinosa, Sexualised Citizenship, Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4744-2_1 2 S.A. ESPINOSA which makes migration a property, a capital acquired—migrants’ experiences are a cultural history of their struggle to interpret their new environment and to remit this history to the country left behind. Multiculturalism and marriage migrants show the problematic intersections where they meet. As ‘brides’, these women had been personally invited by Australian nationals to come and form part of a society where they will be wives and mothers of future Australian citizens. Yet, the vis- ibility of non-white, ‘Third-World looking persons’ and females raised the question of these migrants’ sexualised citizenship in the early years of multicultural Australia in the 1980s. They inhabit the private space that renders them invisible but all-too-visible as well. It is particularly poign- ant to mention that Filipino migration to Australia is discussed mainly in relation to gender issues, such as domestic violence, and ‘mail-order brides’ as a form of traffcking. The question of multiculturalism per se—as in migrants coming in bringing with them their own cultural and linguistic heritage—is not the main point of discussion about Filipinos. Their migration is documented, interpreted and analysed as a ‘gendered problem’. Filipino women suffer from the lack of racial capital and are subjected to sexist scrutiny on top of racial otherness due to their type of migration fow. Thus, there is a need to ask pertinent questions on the matter. I defne and use ‘sexualised citizenship’ as conferment of national- ity and the uses of this belonging based on the sexual division of labour and services rendered by those who receive the citizenship. The migration of ‘mail-order brides’ since the 1970s is readable only through what Filipino women can do with their sex and the roles attendant to this. This means performing sex, giving birth as the reproductive role of their sex, unpaid domestic labour premised on sexual differences and other affective labour that her racialised sex provides. Filipino women buy their citizenship through the exercise of their sex; a shortcut to jump the immigration queue. Sealing Cheng’s expression, ‘love as weapon of the weak’ captures well this assignation of usability.1 The Filipina as marriage migrant does not deserve tolerance, because she is a usable object who consents to her own objectifcation.

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