THE PHILIPPINES MATRIX PROJECT

PARANGAL KAY KAROLINA ni E. SAN JUAN, Jr. Pambihira ka Matatag matingkad mabagsik ang luntiang apoy sa iyong mga mata Habang dumadampi ang hamog ng umaga Sa iyong pisnging hinog sa pangarap ng masamyong kinabukasan— Nagliliyab ang iyong tapang, nakapapaso ang dingas ng iyong determinasyon— Nabighani sa sanghaya ng iyong dangal at sa panaginip Nangahas ang kaluluwang lumantad madarang, nahimok ng kung anong bagwis Ng tukso sa bulong ng iyong labi’t galaw, dagling naligaw sa paglalakbay— Walang sindak mong binaybay ang karimlang mapanganib… Namumukod sa madla, lumilikha ng landas tungo sa liwanag…. Kahit sumabog ang pulbura sa larangang binagtas ng iyong budhi, wala kang takot Hawak ang sulo ng katarungan, sumusugod ka-- O mapusok na anghel ng bukang-liwayway, bumabangon sa iyong bisig at kamao ang masa mula Sa kasawiang-palad upang bawat nilalang ay magkaroon ng pambihirang katangian— Upang maging pangkaraniwan ang iyong pambihirang giting at kariktan— O Paraluman ng pag-asa’t pagnanais, sisikapin kong ipagbunyi ang dahas ng iyong kabayanihan Ang bungang inihasik ng talim ng iyong pagpapasiya Bagamat baliw akong nakasubsob sa hiwagang masalimuot, pinagtalik ang kapalaran at tadhana, Walang makapipigil sa iyo, matatag at mabagsik na luntiang apoy ng himagsikan, humahagibis ang katawan mong lumalagablab yapos ang bulalakaw ng katwiran at halimuyak ng kasarinlan.

BOOK REVIEW Racial Formations/Critical Transformations: Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States. - book reviews Joseph R. Urgo E. San Juan, Jr. New Jersey and London: Humanitarian Press, 1992. ix + 163 pages. $35.00. E. San Juan, Jr., is a Filipino nationalist with a strong challenge to the solidification of a theoretical nationalism in the United States. This is not to identify a contradiction but to endorse San Juan's singular insight The definition of nationalism in the United States, unlike that of other nations, is not closed but open. San Juan's point can be carried further. It may be that the closer nationalism in the United States comes to be tied to the modern paradigm of the enclosed state the further it removes itself from its promise--the prospect of post-nationalism. Racial Formations/Critical Transformations: Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States is a contribution to the groundwork for the next civil rights movement. The model of civil rights in the twentieth century has been that of assimilation. The assimilation paradigm is based upon the phenomenal success in the United States of erasing significant nationalistic distinctions among European immigrants. The problem with this model, however, is that it has not been applicable to racial differences. San Juan argues that the field of ethnic studies has perpetuated the assimilation model with the popularization of such notions as pluralism, multiculturalism, and diversity. However, these ideals, often presented as civil rights achievements, actually impede new immigration patterns. San Juan refers to "the unintentional racism of ethnicity-oriented scholarship" (38) which "cannot distinguish the ethnic from the racial" (67) and so constrains the free movement of arrivals to the United States who come from colonized areas. To counter the ethnicity paradigm, San Juan offers a series of alternative models: "slavery (Africans), colonization (Chicanos), racially based exclusion (Chinese, Filipinos), genocidal pacification (Native Peoples), [and] forced relocation (Japanese Americans), "meant as a set of correctives to the "pseudo-universalism" of ethnic studies (69). The establishment of ethnic studies as an autonomous academic field and the valorization of the European immigrant, according to San Juan, are developments with overtly racist implications. "The theoretical aggrandizement of ethnicity systematically erased from the historical frame of reference any perception of race and racism as causal factors in the making of the political and economic structures of the United States" (132). The paradigm of the white immigrant has become a mythic one, as applicable to the contemporary migrant as Horatio Alger's stories of success through luck and pluck. Ethnicity studies thus transform the model of the European immigrant into yet another aspect of cultural hegemony, working against the continuation of the processes and promises it once represented. "Something has gone wrong" (1). San Juan attempts to cast the constraints and opportunities for minorities upon a "larger totality" of United States culture, one in which that totality is "characterized by a continuous decentering of a still disputed national space" (4). Racial Formations reviews current critical approaches in the field of ethnic studies, and includes close readings of representative works of fiction that indicate ways in which the national space is being decentered. The argument that race, and not ethnicity, is "the organizing principle of social relations" (53) in the United States is perhaps overemphasized as antithesis. In the field of American Studies, and even more so in African American Studies, the observation is incontestable. Nonetheless, San Juan's purpose is to point to "the unintentional racism of ethnicity-oriented scholarship" (38) and to the resultant, hegemonic effects of the new celebration of multiculturalism. Hence San Juan's larger purpose. The solidification of "American Culture" as a fixed concept into which others must either assimilate or live with in pluralistic tandem is an oppressive development which the ethnicity model supports through notions of pluralism and multiplicity. San Juan claims that "a premature methodological unity that can only serve to reinforce and intensify the present relations of domination and oppression" arises under the banner of multiculturalism. At stake here is the divide between assimilation and influence. The European immigrant model is one that stresses assimilation and pluralism, a nation of hyphenated existences. But the model neglects the fact that United States culture has been profoundly altered by eastern and southern Europeans and the culture is not simply "multi" for it, but transformed. The continuum of culture and national identity across the waves of historic migrations to the United States is marked by radical alterations to the idea of "American." The new arrivals to the United States will not simply "become" because there is nothing fixed and immutable for them to become. According to San Juan, those who migrate to the United States from colonized areas will contribute to the evolution of American identity in ways which cannot be predicted by paradigms that have achieved historic closure. COPYRIGHT 1994 The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnics Literature of the United States

****************************************** Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Vol. VII, No. 9 April 1- 7, 2007 Quezon City, Philippines __________________________________________ TULA (POETRY) Tagsibol sa Den Haag, Nederland, 25 Marso 2007 NI E. SAN JUAN, JR. Inilathala ng Bulatlat [Para kay CPA] Mula sa tuktok ng Christus Triumfator sumungaw ang araw at sa Pax Christi sumikat ang talim ng hatol: "Guilty" ang U.S.-Arroyo rehimen--deklara ng Permanent People's Tribunal.... Mainit na ang hipo ng amihan sa iyong pisngi, Carol.... Nagtatangka nang bumuka ang buko ng mga bulaklak sa pintuan ng Hotel Van Der Valk de Bijhorst Subalit sina Ka Bel, Satur at limang kasama sa Tagaytay ay nakabilanggo pa rin Patuloy pa rin ang pagpatay at pambubusabos Patuloy pa rin, sa kabila ng himagsikan, ang laganap ng kadiliman Dito sa maaliwalas na lansangan ng Den Haag, walang ugong ng motorsiklo, walang mga taong naka-bonet Walang baril na nakaumang sa pagitan ng mga hita ng daffodil Ngunit bakit hindi panatag ang loob mo, Carol? Habang pinakikiramdaman ang kislot ng bombilya ng tulip sa pusod ng lupa Unti-unting gumigising sa panaginip unti-unting bumubuka At sa banaag ng pagdamay masilayan ang iyong ngiti-- Binabaklas ang mga rehas ng bukang-liwayway ng iyong mga labi-- Panahon na ng Christus Triumfator, bayang lumalaban! ###