This innovative analysis of the Philippine historical crisis is accompanied by a critique of a U.S. racial formation in which Filipinos constitute the largest Asian group. Literary and artistic expressions by Filipinos manifest a new emerging identity defined by the multicultural debates crossing the Pacific, transforming the Philippines into a borderland of East and West.

Caught betwixt the Asian continent and the hegemonic power of the United States, the Philippines occupies a contested space between past and present. Between the memory of colonial experience and an emergent nation-making dream, can a meaningful future be envisioned? This provocative book explores this problematic zone of difference through a critique of the Western production of knowledge in the context of local resistance. While Americanization of the Filipino continues, the encounter of globalizing and nationalizing forces has precipitated a profound political and social crisis whose outcome may be a paradigmatic lesson for many so-called third world countries. What happens in this Southeast Asian nation may foretell the fate of the ideals of democracy and social justice now beleaguered by the market and the unrelenting commodification of everyday life.