On the week of the disappointing coincidence of the Brexit vote and the Supreme Court decision to block DACA, I happened to be performing my one-man show on Asian American history in New York City.
The show has some laughs mixed in with the tragedy of history. But suddenly, with the news, the show is relevant again.
Asian Americans know all about exclusion in immigration.
And it seems like the world is heading down that path again.
My show focuses on the experience of Filipinos to America in the 1920s—I call it the “Short History of the American Filipino.” It tells the tale of my father, who was a baby of American Imperialism, born in the Philippines in 1906.
That circumstance placed my father in a unique status. He wasn’t an American nor was he a U.S. citizen. He was called an American National.
That sounded better than “colonized.” And he wasn’t a “colonial” like Alexander Hamilton.
