Betrayal, Class Fantasies, and the Filipino Nation in Daly City

Melissa Chow
18^th April, 2017
ASA 004 – A04  

                One of the important themes of this writing piece, “Betrayal, Class Fantasies, and the Filipino Nation in Daly City,” is the idea of trans-nationalism. Trans-nationalism is the ideas social field connecting an immigrant’s home country, with the country that they have immigrated to. In particular, the author, Benito M. Vergara Jr., wants to make connections between Filipino-Americans living in Daly City, and their country of origin, the Philippines. There are many misconceptions of both Daly City and Filipino immigrants there by the Filipino people that remain in their country. For example, Vergara takes many excerpts from a book titled, “1001 Reasons not to Leave the Philippines” where reasons range from not “betraying their country for money” to, ironically, being able to have luxuries like a maid. Vergara goes on to point out that many of these misconceptions of Filipino-Americans are false. In this way, there seems to be a separation between being a Filipino living in the Philippines, and being a Filipino-American who has immigrated. As a Chinese-American who doesn’t speak Chinese, I empathized with the idea Vergara brought up, that by not speaking Tagalog, Filipino-Americans have seemingly disconnected with their identity.  There are often times when elderly Chinese will try to speak to me, but I feel ashamed to simply say, “I don’t speak Chinese,” so I instead just smile and nod. Vergara concludes that Daly City is a symbol of Filipino Americans in Daly City, but it also brings up false perceptions; for example, that the city is mostly Filipino, or that the Filipino-Americans there have abandoned their home country for the promise of riches.