Giving Back

Filipino America and the Politics of Diaspora Giving

“Giving Back is a trenchant ethnographic exploration of the most human of all social interactions, reciprocity and the gift. It examines the ‘roots and routes’ of Filipino American diasporic giving through an examination of class, ethnicity, and race. Mariano suggests that the acts of philanthropy and charity by Filipino Americans to the homeland are never free from or unencumbered by the complexities and contradictions of nostalgia, guilt, familial ties, patriotic feelings, religious precepts, or professional aspirations. In fact, Giving Back details how these diasporic performances are burdened by the weight of postcolonial bonds between the United States and the Philippines, divergent perceptions of the American dream, and the messiness of individual and institutional attachments.”
—Martin F. Manalansan IV, Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and the Beverly and Richard Fink Professor of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora

“From community fundraisers to corporate campaigns for ‘social responsibility,’ Giving Back importantly grounds a Filipino diaspora politics of debt and generosity in histories of U.S. empire in the Philippines and contemporary circuits of labor migration. Warning against an ahistorical ‘love’ of homeland that necessarily traffics in neoliberalism and state policies of labor exportation for the global service industry, Joyce Mariano incisively theorizes a critical ecology of return that renders solidarity—instead of philanthropy—the ethical foundation of diaspora giving.”
—Mimi Thi Nguyen, Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages