About
The mission of Alon is to provide an on-line forum for publishing original and refereed essays, artwork, reviews, and moderated reflections that productively and critically engage with Filipinx American and Filipinx Diasporic Studies. Through Alon, we aim to generate and showcase works that positively engage with and critically analyze key questions in the production of knowledges regarding Filipinx Americans and Filipinx diasporic subjects: how are Filipinx bodies represented across multiple forms of media and in what ways do Filipinx people cultivate and create identities and subjectivities to counter these representations? What are the experiences of Filipinx migrants and what about these experiences shed light on the nature of global racial capitalism? How do they imagine and organize toward non-extractive, sustainable futures? How do Filipinx people construct an alternative global archipelago of being and belonging? How are these fields’ particular theoretical and methodological approaches rooted in scholarly production and activism? How are these projects linked with attempts to trace interracial solidarites, as fraught as they may be, to disrupt racial capitalism’s impulse to both homogenize and propagate “multicultural” difference? These and other related questions drive the work behind and in front of Alon.
Alon seeks submissions from those who are engaged in fields that include, but not limited to: Filipinx Studies, Philippine Studies, Filipinx American Studies, Asian American Studies, Asian Studies, Ethnic Studies, Diaspora/Transnationalism Studies, Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, Cultural Studies, Literature, and the Visual and Performing Arts.
Volume 3, Issue 2, 2023
Filipinx Canadian Studies
Essays
Setting the Scene: An Introduction to FilipiNEXT
Between July 13 and July 15, 2022, a group of about 60 Filipinx Canadian scholars, artists, organisers, and community members gathered at York University, located in Toronto,for a transdisciplinary workshop called FilipiNEXT. Participants came from across Canada and the United States, not only from major urban centres of Toronto and Vancouverbut also from smaller cities and towns such as Halifax (Nova Scotia), Hazelton (British Columbia [BC]), Winnipeg (Manitoba), and Calgary (Alberta) as well as Honolulu, Hawaii, and Ithaca, New York. The diverse demographic geographies that characterised the workshop were thus markedly different from previous Filipinx Canadian anthologies and gatherings, which tended towards participants from Southern Ontario and Greater Vancouver. As organisers, we wanted the workshop to mirror the geographical distribution of Filipinx academics in Canada. Along with traditional academic presentations, panels, and discussions, the gathering featured the work of visual and performing artists, a graduate student-focused workshop, as well as informal modes of gathering—chikahan, kwentuhan and tsismisan— over food and refreshments. Among other things, those of us who gathered at FilipiNEXT had the opportunity to bear witness to and learn from the current state of scholarship about Filipinx lives, cultures, and communities in Canada; discuss what it means to be Filipinx folks navigating institutions such as academia, art worlds, and organising communities; and articulate our desires and visions for the future of Filipinx studies in Canada.
“Daytoy iti kaya’t iti, apukuk”: Refusing “sayang” in My Grandmother and I
This article explores the tensions and possibilities of kinship betweena queer grandchild and his Filipinx grandmother during the AIDS epidemic inLani Montreal’s play, My Grandmother and I. While the AIDS crisis is oftenarticulated as a collective moment of loss and mourning in Canada, this articleargues that Dino and Lola refuse the logics of empire that deem his deathas “sayang” and instead, open space for transnational Indigenous solidarity,humor, and care. However, this article notes that these queer possibilities andfuturities are conditioned by the gendered dimensions of care work in thenuclear family.
Imelda’s Dreaming: Applied Theatre in Mobilizing Political Discourse in Filipino Canadian Diasporic Communities
This essay charts the practice of applied theatre that traverses transnationality.It demonstrates methodological intervention in creating diasporicperformances by engaging open and emancipative dialogical encounters usingapplied theatre. The author deploys community- based theatre performanceto activate political discourse for/with/among diasporic community members.Using autoethnographic and affective inquiry, this article instigates theatreas a process of artistic improvisation that animates historical persona,found space, and other theatrical elements to provoke political discontent anddispleasure. The article raises several questions: How do we expand the performancepraxis of community theatre and performance making for FilipinoCanadian communities beyond exotic representation of culture of Philippineheritage? How can creativity and criticality be interwoven into performancemaking? How may applied theatre become a relevant performance praxis ofcommunity formation in a politically-divided diasporic community in Canada?By using autoethnography and performance ethnography, the essay scaffoldsa praxis of community-based performance creation through the techniques ofapplied theatre as configured for diasporic communities, themes, and politicalpredispositions. It constitutes the use of ethnography as self-reflexive modeof ethical intervention in performance re-roots itself from vernacular vocabularyof relational collaboration in community building to decolonize the praxisof applied theatre. Gesturing towards these Indigenous relational Philippineconcepts as frameworks in applying theatre for diasporic performance creation,the paper argues that Filipino diasporic performance has the power tocreate a space for political discourse for/with/among diasporic communitymembers.
Kinesthetic Interventions: Choreographies And Sounds Of The 2022 Philippine Elections
Philippine dance abounds with political intention, transforming thefamily, region, and nation. As a response to sociopolitical events, I considerdances in campaign events leading up to the 2022 Philippine elections. Whatcan dance tell us about the relationship between political leaders and thosewho are led? What historico-political insights come from the spontaneous andephemeral quality of election performances? Using movement observation, Isurvey “election season dances” performed and circulated via Twitter (now X)and YouTube. I suggest that these are appeals to affect and to bodies’ desiresto move collectively—important components of Philippine performativetraditions.