Rethinking the Sexual Geography of American Empire in the Philippines: Interracial Intimacies in Mindanao and the Cordilleras, 1898 -- 1921

This project uses a transnational approach to examine a range of interracial sexual relationships -from the casual and economic to the formal - between Americans and Filipinos in the overseas colony during the first two decades of colonial rule. Departing from a largely Manila centric body of literature that explores the contours of U.S. colonialism in the site of the Philippines, the present study focuses on the U.S. colonial borderlands of the northern Cordillera mountains, the traditional homelands of a number of indigenous populations, and Mindanao, the southernmost region with a predominantly Muslim population. The former attracted sporadic settlement from colonial officials and academics while the latter became a region of U.S. sponsored settler colonialism that facilitated Christian immigration and land appropriation.

From the casual and economic (queridas, mistresses, prostitution) to more formal (marriage or co-habitation), interracial intimacies between Filipinos and Americans in the so-called colonial “frontiers” were crucial components in the consolidation and stabilization of regional colonial control, strengthening the overall U.S. imperial project in the islands. Further, rethinking the sexual geography of the colonial Philippines also highlights the centrality of the far northern and southern regions in the development and strengthening of not only the American colonial capital, but of the larger imperial project in the Islands as well.  Lastly, this article demonstrates that interracial sexual intercourse was not synonymous with anti-racism or anti-imperialism, but rather, relied on and reproduced violent racism and the oppressive logics of imperialism.