Diasporic Blues Imagination: Filipino Becoming and African American Solidarity

Filipinos are scattered all around the planet—forming a diasporic community of approximately 12 million. In the United States, there are over 4 million Filipinos. Mass migration of Filipinos is intimately intertwined with the unfolding history of the Philippines— a country still in the process of becoming free from its colonial past and neocolonial present. The art (literature and music) created by Filipino migrant artists is explored to gain insight into their understanding of the process of Filipino becoming. This paper examines the “Filipino blues” in Filipino migrant literature (Bienvenido Santos and Carlos Bulosan) and Filipino migrant popular music (Charmaine Clamor and Ruby Ibarra). The “Filipino blues” aesthetic in Filipino migrant art has a bridge-building function. On one hand, it sustains historical memory of solidarity between African Americans and Filipinos. On the other hand, it sustains historical linkages between Filipinos abroad (in the diaspora) and Filipinos in the Philippines mobilizing for self-determination and genuine sovereignty. By providing a feminist rearticulation of the “Filipino blues” of an earlier generation of Filipino migrant artists such as Bulosan and Santos, Clamor’s jazzipino and Ibarra’s hip hop highlight new dimensions of the Filipino diasporic blues imagination in the 21st century.