HISTORY REPEATING
La Migra, Let's Run!
"La Migra, Let's Run" began in 2014 and has had many iterations to this day, since anti-immigration sentiment has persisted. It began as a deeply personal solo performance that brings to life the struggles of immigrants. It explores the challenges of assimilation and cultural acculturation that often accompany the immigrant experience.
This work reflects my own journey as a Filipino immigrant in the USA, intertwining personal narratives with political themes. The fear of deportation and the potential separation from my U.S.-born Filipinx daughter inspired this solo performance. It was a direct response to the passing of SB1070, a 2010 legislative act that allowed state law enforcement officers to stop and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants. This law also required immigrants over 18 to carry a certificate of alien registration at all times, resulting in increased racial profiling and growing anti-immigration sentiments. This new awareness of U.S. laws prompted me to examine historical regulations that have perpetuated nativism in American history, such as the Naturalization Act and the Asian Exclusion Act.
Through the use of caricatures, I made bold statements portraying the stereotypes immigrants often encounter, offering insight into how white America perceives immigrants. The symbolism of a mime—an art form characterized by clowning, white makeup, and gestural storytelling—was employed to convey the erasure of the immigrant's voice and the pressure to conform to whiteness. This approach highlights how immigrants of color frequently feel compelled to assimilate into white culture for acceptance, opportunities, and even survival.
PLAY BALL
Play Ball opens with an anthem—a symbol of national pride. Catherine Fazsewski, a performer of Puerto Rican and Polish descent, sang the US national anthem, a reference to us all being inhabitants of this land. We dissected this song as the impetus for this section.
This dance theater work shows the many bureaucratic, monetary, and educational checkmarks an immigrant must pass to be deemed legal under the US government's standards, all metamorphosized by a baseball game.
As we concluded the work, we asked, "Has my Nanay achieved her American Dream?" The use of satire and bodabil, a form of comedic theater that gained popularity in the Philippines during and after the US occupation, reclaims the play to its roots in US entertainment, which is often dark and discriminatory through mockery, particularly in Vaudeville.
I created this work with an intergenerational cast, including my then 6-year-old daughter. Performers came from different dance backgrounds, from a filmmaker who loves dance, a gymnast and pole dancer, a few Appomattox Governor's School for the Arts high school students, and VCU college dance majors, to 6-year-old girl. We interviewed family on their immigration journeys as part of the process.
More Sources for Research: The Star-Spangled Banner" documentary created by students of Morgan State University.
Deportee
This work, born from an improvisational process, is deeply personal to me. As someone who was once undocumented, I did not experience deportation, but I have been detained and felt the fear of these policies.
This work was my process of empathy as I responded to the political sentiments rescinding DACA, signaling restriction and deportation on family-based immigration. U.S. immigration authorities separated more than 1,500 children from their parents at the Mexico border early in 2016. The solo work is a heartfelt dedication to mothers who are forced to never see their children ever again due to anti-immigration policies targeting groups of minorities.
In 1948, a U.S. Immigration Service plane carrying undocumented immigrants from California to Mexico crashed. All 32 people on board were killed. This tragedy inspired Woody Guthrie to write a poem titled "Plane Wreck at Los Gatos," Which later became the legendary protest song, "Deportee. "It was this powerful song, particularly the version by the acapella group Sweet Honey and the Rock, that served as the impetus for my solo work.
Revised Lyrics to Woodie Guthrie's Deportee
by Malaya and Anito
The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
a border made up from indigenous lands
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
he came before the puritans came;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
they’ve worked the land, never saw home til they died.
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
In the Poetry meets Motion collaboration between AniMalayaWorks and Malaya's Youth Philly Poet friends, Tru and Apostle composes a piece on ICE, I responded to this through Malaya's revision of the song, Deportee.
I was happy to see teens with no connection to immigration empathize on our stories. This makes me realize how important it is to have cross-cultural conversations.
IMMIGRANT HISTORY TIMELINE
compiled by Malaya Ulan and Anito
1587: The first recorded presence of Filipinos in what is now the continental United States occurred on October 18, 1587, when a group of "Luzones Indios" landed at Morro Bay, California. They arrived on the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza.
1607-1780: People from Europe emigrated to Turtle Island.
1763: In 1763, Filipino sailors settled in a Louisiana bayou, and became the first Filipino immigrants to settle in the United States, known as “Manilamen.” Along with enslaved people and other people of color, the Filipino immigrants built a small fishing village called Saint Malo.
1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 states: "That any alien, other than alien enemy, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court that he is a person of good character"
Enslaved people from Africa were not considered citizens, nor were the Indigenous people of this land.
1798: Alien Enemies Act allowed for the deportation of individuals deemed unsafe or individuals who came from a nation the US was at war with- a rhetoric still persisting today.
1888:Chinese exclusion Act banned Chinese people from emigrating to the US.
Young Chinese men, hopeful for a better life in America, only to find themselves locked away on Angel Island (an early version of a deportation center). The shock and sadness they felt is clear in the poems they left behind. (https://www.aiisf.org/finder/)
1820-1924: Southern and Eastern Europeans were deemed "Undesirable," thus some were detained at Ellis Island.
1903: Some early immigrant Filipinos, called pensionados, were Muslim students supported by the federal Pensionado Act of 1903. Several attended Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, and the University of California in Berkeley. Many of these students started Filipino student groups that remained active into the twenty-first century. Some returned home and convinced others to seek education in the United States -the first Filipino-American rhetoric promoting the American Dream. Many came to the US with dreams of education and buying homes were forced by lack of money to work in California as migrants, in Hawaii sugar plantations (as sakadas, or contract workers), and in Alaska fish canneries, and as Manongs in California, never able to return home.(https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/filipino-repatriation-act-1935)
1917: The Immigration Act of 1917, or the "Asiatic Barred Zone Act," prohibited immigration from Asian countries except for Japan, which had already discontinued immigration for labor, and the Philippines, a United States Colony.
1924: The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants who could enter the US per year, with exceptions for those from the Western hemisphere.
1942: The Bracero Program
Gave Mexican laborers incentives to migrate to the US temporarily to fill labor shortages.
Sisa is my reflection on my immigration journey captured in a dance documentary; it is my poem, similar to the poems Chinese men wrote on Angel Island's walls. Here, I reflect on the "American Dream."
A stream of consciousness film looking into the stereotypes of primitivity and savagery promoted through cinema, YouTube Videos, and other popular media.
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Filipinos have been in Turtle island way before the European settlers arrived, Most of the West was Mexico. Yet to this day, anti-immigration sentiments towards Latinos/Hispanics are prevalent. This sentiment is sadly not new. Filipinos and Mexicans have also shared the same discrimination throughout time, and their fight for social justice in the farm labor movement is one that is often invisible in our learning of US history.
The Field Research
Every year, my daughter and I return to the Philippines and reconnect with our Panay Bukidnon cultural bearers and community. Dr. Muyco with Rennel Levilla and Anabel Castro began my curiosity about Mexican-Filipino connections when they highlighted our similarities...from their tied history to the Galleon Trades to today's immigration struggles in the US.
Malaya, my teen daughter wrote a revised script to a Suguidanon tale to suit her evolving identity as a Filipina American trying to understand her ancestral culture. We used puppetry and poetry-in-motion around a Balikbayan box (boxes often used to send US products to families in the Philippines). We create metaphors that narrate our desire to bridge home to homeland.
This workshops and residency with Multicultural Education and Counseling Through the Arts (MECA) ignited this quest for solidarity and connection between the two migrant groups, Mexican and Filipinos, after a conversation with then director, Alice Valdez on Cesar Chavez and Larry Itliong.
Field research with Panay Bukidnon bearers and our investigation of Harana, whose lineage stems from Mexico's Jarana.
LA MIGRA, LET'S RESIST (SUGOD!!!)
2024- onwards
"Sugod" is an investigation into the early migrant farm workers known as the Manongs, who maintained the practice of Kali. I incorporate the folk dances of the Philippines, which embody clandestine martial arts. This work revives a version of vaudeville that was evident in the early performances of La Migra, showcasing how indigenous Filipinos were viewed at the infamous St. Louis World Fairs. These ideas are continuing....
Sinawali
Kamayan
(Sisa to Malinche, Sinawali, Agos Y Viento, Freedom Rain Speaks)
This led to my new research with Mexican transdisciplinary artist, Carlos Castaneira, facilator of the Arts & Culture Lab. New Community-engaged works are sprouting. Here are the in-progress works, asking each other, WHERE IS HOME?
The is a seed project to a future and continuing research bridging Filipino and Mexican history, present, and futures. This work serves as a cultural bridge, weaving together socially engaged dance theater, architecture, video art, and food-sharing. In this video, you'll see behind the scenes of co-creation, set building, and intergenerational exchanges. This multiplicity metaphorically speaks to our immigrant experience of constantly adapting, shapeshifting, and seeking commonalities rather than barriers.
THE TEAM:
AniMalayaWorks
in collaboration with
Arts & Culture Lab
Carlos Castaneira
Andrew Martinez
Mark Medina
Earth Reia
Malaya Ulan
Piero Brignole
Agos Y Viento
The Manifesto written by freedom fighter, Luis Taruc, a HUKBALAHAP
(Hukbo Laban sa Mga Hapon). We are currently digging into this as research on our common histories tied to classism, and exploitation of labor in our homelands and in the US.
SISA
to
LA MALINCHE
Journal Notes:
Growing up in the Philippines, I was socialized to believe Filipinos were inferior to Americans. Like many other Filipino immigrants, it took a long time for me to come to my current place of consciousness— that being Filipino is not inferior, that my brown skin is beautiful, and that my accent isn't flawed.
As a young child, I was fluent in Tagalog, Hiligaynon, and Kinaray-a. When I transitioned from the rural town of Pototan to the city of Iloilo, I was ridiculed for speaking the 'harsh', 'unromantic', and 'primitive' language Kinaray-a, often associated with the dark-skinned, curly-haired indigenous Atis, the Indigenous people of Panay island, a lineage I come from on my mother's side. These beauty and linguistic richness, I often overlooked in the face of discrimination and societal pressures.
I attended yearly summer dance workshops with Ballet Philippines in Manila. Amongst those dance circles, I identified as Manilena (a city girl) when, in fact, I was from Iloilo. I lied about the land that raised me, ashamed of being called provincial. Growing up surrounded by rice fields, ocean, and nature was sneered at, while city living was desired.
Indeed, many Filipinos have grappled with the burden of limited notions of identity. Our collective psyche and mental well-being have been deeply scarred by generations of forced assimilation, identity loss, and colonial mentality. This struggle, often invisible to the outside world, has left a profound impact on my sense of self which I have been undoing through each choreographic work I tackle and offer to my community.
Journal Notes:
Carlos dressed me up as a Shaman, a Babaylan, a Bruja. We realized that, sadly, in our desire to connect to our ancestors, these ideas of shamanism are being mythicized, romanticized, and enigmatized today.
We are inquiring about the new age manifestations of such self-identification, Shaman. I have traced the work of Robert Bly, a poet who created the practice, the mythopoetic men's work, where men undergo a ritual utilizing Native American rituals of drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges. While the idea is a beautiful way to create men's circles, feminist critiques have stated that such secrecy does not allow conversation, creating an echo chamber and leaving no room for gender non-conformity. It was a form of mythicizing the past by people with historical attachments to it.
Another collaborator also mentions that many romanticize the idea of home and motherland, an enigmatic place, without realizing that people live in such areas, going through their own navigations. The other side of the coin is there is indeed a fear of the unknown, a demonization of the female archetype that is seen in Latino and Filipino cultures. The image of La Llorona or Sisa as outcasts parallels the villainization of the Shaman. This was experienced when I walked through public parks in Texas with this outfit and mask and was threatened by men, calling me names such as "witch" and more inappropriate names. This social experiment reminds me of Augusto Boal's Invisible Theater.