Past Events

The New Arrivals painting by Maia Cruz Palileo

 The New Arrivals (2017) - by Maia Cruz Palileo

2022-23

Monday, March 20

FPS co-sponsored a talk with CSEAS by Prof. Ambeth Ocampo (Ateneo de Manila University) on the historical documents forged by Jose Marco that have continued to influence interpretations of Philippine history.

Friday, February 24, 2023

FPS hosted visiting scholar Vincent Jerald Ramos, Ph.D. candidate from the Hertie School at Humboldt University in Berlin. Ramos discussed his recent publication on labor and employment within the Philippine context.

Friday, February 17, 2023

FPS members attended the "New Directions in Filipinx Studies: A Research Symposium on the Philippine Diaspora" hosted at the University of San Francisco by the Yuchengco Program in Philippine Studies.

Friday, January 27, 2023

FPS hosted its first meeting of the Spring semester. Members discussed two readings, Transpacific Femininities: The Making of the Modern Filipina (2012) by Denise Cruz and Beauty Regimes: A History of Power and Modern Empiure in the Philippines, 1898-1941 (2023) by Genevieve Clutario, to delve into scholarship about Filipina/o beauty and its enmeshed discourses with U.S., Spanish, and Japanese imperialism. 

Friday, November 4, 2022

The working group held a discussion with Prof. Sanley Abila about his research on the mental health of Filipino merchant seafarers. Prof. Abila, Assistant Professor of Professional Education at the University of the Philippines-Visayas, was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at UC Santa Cruz this semester.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

FPS co-sponsored "Intergenerational Organizing, Anti-Marcos Activism, and the KDP at Berkeley Then and Now" in the Ethnic Studies Library to commemorate 50 years of diasporic activism across Filipino communities against martial law. The event included former members of the UC Berkeley KDP chapter and discussed their activism and its legacies into present-day diasporic activist communities.

KDP FPS discussion

Discussion with members of the UC Berkeley KDP chapter, Ethnic Studies Library

Saturday, October 15, 2022

FPS members attended the Filipino American International Book Festival in the San Francisco Main Branch to engage in book talks, lectures, and discussions on works recently published by Filipina/o/x authors.

SF Book Festival with FPS members

FPS members visit the 2022 Filipino American International Book Festival 

Friday, September 9, 2022

FPS hosted its first meeting for the academic year. The group welcomed new members from the School of Public Health, the Departments of Architecture and South & Southeast Asian Studies, and a Fulbright visiting scholar to discuss the projected agenda and new directions for the group.

2021-22

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

FPS held a final meeting for the semester to review and discuss working papers prepared by FPS group members.

Friday, April 22, 2022

FPS held a discussion on immigration in the U.S., with a reading presenting a case study from Hawai'i. Reading: JoAnna Poblete, Islanders in the Empire: Filipino and Puerto Rican Laborers in Hawai‘i (2014) 

March 14, 2022

FPS co-sponsored the webinar "Counter-Decolonization: Policing Money and Race during the Long Philippine American War" with Allan Lumba, Assistant Professor of History, Virginia Tech University, hosted by the Center for Southeast Asia Studies.

Counter-Decolonization: Policing Money and Race during the Long Philippine American War

March 11, 2022

FPS held a discussion on American economic imperialism during the Philippine American War.

Reading:  Allan Lumba, “Imperial Standards: Colonial Currencies, Racial Capacities, and Economic Knowledge during the Philippine American War” (2015)

February 25, 2022

FPS explored the production of modernity in the Philippines amid transformations of religion, law, and politics at the end of the Spanish colonial period. 

Reading: John D. Blanco's Frontier Constitutions: Christianity and Colonial Empire in the 19th Century Philippines (2009)

February 8-9, 2022

FPS co-sponsored the "500 Years of Christianity and the Global Filipin@" conference hosted by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University. 

January 27, 2022

FPS launched the spring semester by examining the politics of language undergirding the interactions between and resistances among indigenous "Tagalog" communities and Spanish imperialists during the Christian conversion campaigns of the early Spanish colonial era. 

Reading: Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (1988)

December 4, 2021

FPS closed its Fall 2021 lineup with an exclusive free screening at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) of Nervous Translation (2017, dir. Shireen Seno). 

December 3, 2021

FPS convened for a multimedia performance by group member Dahlia Nayar (Ph.D. candidate in Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley) at California College of the Arts (CCA) Wattis Institute in San Francisco. Maraming is a multimedia response of sound, projection and dance to the stories, characters, and images within Maia Cruz Palileo's Long Kwento

November 22, 2021

FPS explored the United States-Philippines relationship, the long American colonial period, and the reciprocal influence of nationalism and imperialism in the development of national identities for both countries, past and present. 

Reading: Sharon Delmendo, Star Entangled Banner: One Hundred Years of America in the Philippines (2004)

November 15, 2021

FPS co-sponsored a talk by UCLA Professor Cesi Cruz, on "Making Policies Matter: Campaign Promises in the Philippines", organized by the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies and Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley. 

Making Policies Matter: Campaign Promises in the Philippines

October 29, 2021

FPS hosted a critical discussion on the Philippines, global Catholicism, and post-colonial approaches to history and contemporary politics.

Reading: Deidre de la Cruz, Mother Figured: Marian Apparitions and the Making of a Filipino Universal (2015)

September 24, 2021

The first FPS meeting of the semester explored issues of Philippine Studies, American Studies, Filipino American Studies, transnationalism, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, colonialism, citizenship, and immigration implicating the global Filipino diaspora in the United States during and after the Philippine Commonwealth era. 

Reading: Jane Hong, “Manila Prepares for Independence: Filipina/o Campaigns for US Citizenship and the Reorienting of American Ethnic Histories” (2018)