UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Filipino Youth Cultural Politics and DJ Culture A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Antonio T. Tiongson Jr. Committee in charge: Professor Jane Rhodes, Co-Chair Professor Yen Le Espiritu, Co-Chair Professor Rick Bonus Professor Lisa Park Professor Anthony Davis Professor Dylan Rodriguez 2006 Copyright Antonio T. Tiongson Jr., 2006 All rights reserved. Table of Contents Signature Page………………………………………………………………… iii Table of Contents……………………………………………………………… iv Vita…………………………………………………………………………….. v Abstract………………………………………………………………………… vi I. Framing Culture: The Politics of Youth Culture and the Negotiation of Cultural Meanings and Identities………………………………………. 1 II. Contextualizing Filipino Migration and Racial Formations…………… 55 III. Hip Hop, DJ Culture, and Filipino Youth……………………………… 92 IV. Reconfiguring the Boundaries of Filipinoness Within the Contexts of U.S. Racial Formations and the Filipino Diaspora…………………….. 129 V. Conclusion: Critical Considerations…………………………………… 181 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………….. 187 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………. 206 iv VITA 1987-1991 B.A. in Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley 1992-1994 M.A. in Clinical Psychology at San Francisco State University 1994 Completed a Master’s Thesis, Sexual and Contraceptive Knowledge and Efficacy Among Pilipinos and Other Ethnic Groups, exploring sexual and contraceptive knowledge among Filipino youth compared to other ethnic groups using both quantitative and qualitative methods. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California 1994-1995 M.A. in Clinical and School Psychology at Hofstra University 1999 Submitted and successfully defended a Master’s Thesis, Imperial Legacies and Filipino/a Subjectivities: “What War, Sex, and Work Got To Do With It, exploring the ways Filipino war veterans, Filipina sex workers, and Filipina domestic workers endure and contest the legacies of U.S. imperialism through their bodies. 1999 M.A. in Ethnic Studies at UCSD 2006 Ph.D., University of California, San Diego PUBLICATIONS “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater: Situating Young Filipino Mothers and Fathers Beyond the Dominant Discourse on Adolescent Pregnancy” in Filipino Americans: Transformations and Identity, edited by Maria P. P. Root. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997: 257-271. “Introduction: Critical Considerations,” in Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse, edited by Antonio T. Tiongson Jr., Ed Gutierrez and Ric Gutierrez. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Filipino Youth Cultural Politics and DJ Culture by Antonio T. Tiongson Jr. Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies University of California, San Diego, 2006 Professor Jane Rhodes, Co-Chair Professor Yen Le Espiritu, Co-Chair In this study, I aim to make sense of an emergent form of youth expression that has come to be associated with Filipino youth and in many ways, a constitutive element of Filipino youth identities. I’m particularly interested in those complex forms of identification taking place among Filipino youth which revolve around questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and generation and what they reveal about the racialization of Filipinos in the U.S. and contours of the Filipino diaspora. This study employs multiple methods including an analysis of interviewed conducted with Filipino DJs, observation of DJ events, as well as a wide range of secondary sources including historical and popular vi accounts of hip hop and magazine interviews with Filipino DJs. The objective is to develop insights into the ways Filipino youth go about contesting the terms by which they are inserted into the racial hierarchies and economic structures of the U.S. and imagining new ways of being Filipino that both accommodate and challenge the normative boundaries of Filipinoness. vii Chapter I Framing Culture: The Politics of Youth Culture and the Negotiation of Cultural Meanings and Identities On September 7, 1997, the International Turntablist Federation (ITF)1 held its second annual World Championships at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco in various skill categories: scratching, beat juggling, team or DJ bands, and all around. 2 In all these categories, Filipino DJs made up the bulk of the competitors, prompting the host to remind the audience that even though Filipinos dominate DJ competitions across the nation and the globe, ITF actually does not stand for “It’s Totally Filipinos.” This elicited laughter from the crowd which was also largely comprised of Filipino youth in their teens and early twenties. The host’s comments are not without basis as DJing has become an expressive form in which many Filipino youth invest their time, energy, and passion.3 By the 1980s, Filipino youth had come to dominate the local DJ scene in places like San Francisco and the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York subsequently making their mark nationally not only as battle DJs but also as club DJs, radio DJs, mix DJs, and scratch DJs in a cultural practice historically associated with African Americans. This phenomenon has international dimensions as well with Filipino DJs from Canada and Australia winning 1 The ITF is an organization that began sponsoring DJ competitions worldwide in 1996 and promotes the notion that the turntable is an instrument that produces rather than just plays music. 2 Scratching and beat juggling are common DJ techniques and have become standards of battling. Doc Rice, a DJ himself, describes scratching this way: “Virtually all scratches involve moving the record by hand in a forward and backward manner” and “require the use of the fader.” See Doc Rice, “Essential DJ Fundamentals: The Language of Scratching,” Rap Pages September 1998, 30. Beat juggling, on the other hand, involves creating “a new rhythm without cross-fader use by pausing both records alternately--one hand for each record--and breaking down the beat and separating the drum elements.” See Doc Rice, “Essential DJ Fundamentals, Part 2: Tricks of the Trade,” Rap Pages October 1998, 40. Finally, team or DJ bands refers to DJ(s) performing as a team, “with each member taking on the role of separate musicians, such as vocals, drums, etc., and switching off between them.” See Doc Rice, “Essential DJ Fundamentals, Part 2: Tricks of the Trade.” 3 DJing is considered one of the core elements of hip hop along with MCing or rapping, writing or graffiti, and b-boying or breakdancing. 1 2 competitions and achieving notoriety.4 The crowd’s response, therefore, was not a surprise given the emergence of DJing as a signifier of Filipino youth identity. It is now a commonplace assumption that Filipinos make the best DJs in the world. In highlighting the dominance of Filipino youth in DJ culture, the host touched on a set of issues that will be addressed in this study; issues having to do with the contours of contemporary youth culture, politics, and identity. For example, what forms of identification and affiliation are made possible through Filipino youth involvement in DJing? What does it mean for Filipino youth to not only dominate an expressive form many consider to be black, but also claim as their own? Does an embrace of DJing signify or represent a “loss of culture” or a “loss of tradition” or more to the point, an indicator of a lack of authenticity? Why do U.S. based Filipino youth rely on DJing to express their Filipinoness, an art form seemingly far removed from practices considered Filipino rather than on conventional markers of Filipino culture? How do they explain their involvement in DJing? What kinds of narratives underlie their cultural claims? What are the broader implications in terms of the perceived boundaries of Filipinoness?5 But the host’s comments were also telling because of its gendered implications. The prominence of Pinoy youth in DJing coincides with the notable absence of Pinay youth and young women in general. With very few exceptions, women participate primarily as spectators in this subculture, which puts into focus questions about the gendered construction of DJing. For instance, in what ways is DJing implicated in the formation of gendered subjectivities and meanings including formations of femininity 4 For example, the 1998 DMC National Champion from Australia, DJ Dexter, and the 1998 DMC National Champion from Canada, Lil’ Jazz, are both of Filipino descent. 5 The claiming of an expressive form not considered Filipino is not specific to DJing. Filipino youth have made similar claims with regards to Latin freestyle, house, and r&b. Elizabeth H. Pisares also notes that these claims are geographically specific. Italian and Greek Americans on the East Coast, for example, consider freestyle music as their own while Filipinos in California claim it as their own. See Elizabeth Pisares, “Do You Misrecognize Me: Filipino Americans in Popular Music and the Problem of Invisibility,” Antonio T. Tiongson Jr., Ed Gutierrez, and Ric Gutierrez (eds.), Positively No Filipinos Allowed: Building Communities and Discourse (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2005). 3 and masculinity? What is it about DJing that discourages and delimits female participation? How does it serve to enhance the status and prestige of Pinoy youth? Conversely, what sort of strategies do Pinay DJs engage in order to negotiate with the masculinist orientation of DJing? What do their narratives suggest about the ways ethnicity and gender collude with one another to define the boundaries of Filipinoness? How is their involvement in DJ culture conditioned by gendered expectations specific to DJ culture but also by expectations rooted in normative notions of Filipina womanhood? In this study, I aim to make sense of an emergent form of popular expression that has come to be associated with Filipino youth and in many ways, a constitutive element of Filipino youth identities. I’m particularly interested in those complex forms of identification taking place among Filipino youth which revolve around questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and generation and what they reveal about the racialization of Filipinos in the U.S. and contours of the Filipino diaspora.