ANNOUNCEMENTS
 Fill out CAPES
 Papers back Thurs
 Presentation Thurs:
• Susan & Megan
 Office Hours:
• Today 2-3 @ CCC
• Wed 2-4 @ SSB 254
• Thurs 2-3 @ CCC
BIYUTI & DRAMA
R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling the R’s
IDENTITY & PERFORMANCE
“Biyuti… points to a particular notion of the self as highly mercurial and plastic”
(Manalansan 149)
 Self as changeable and moldable
• Race, gender, sexuality, nationality as determiners of self, yet highly historically
produced
“…drama refers to a theatricalized notion of the self and everyday life”
(Manalansan 149)
 Performance of self according to and/or in rejection of social norms and
scripts of race, gender, & sexuality
BANAL DRAMA
 “… everyday as crucial ‘problematic’ and as a site of tactical maneuvers
for creating selves and forging relationship for marginalized groups,
particularly diasporic queers everywhere” (Manalansan 147)
 “the focus on the quotidian life unveils the veneer of ordinary and the
commonplace to lay bare the intricate and difficult hybrid negotiations and
struggles between hegemonic social forces and voices from below”
BLAME IT ON CHACHI
 “Edgar Ramirez is a faggot” (3)  regimes of normal and policing of self
 Edgar’s biyuti  self as malleable
• “’Anak, go to confession,’…” (3)
 Drama as survival
• “I roll up my sleeves and turn into the Queen of Mouth and Sizes” (5) 
gender vs sexuality vs sex
• “Even though most of the names are who I am and what I do, they say ‘em
with so much hate, like I ugly or somethin.’ But I not ugly. I might be mean,
but that’s cuz I need for be strong when they tryin’ for put me down and make
me ugly cuz I not like them” (10)
CHARACTERS
 Edgar Ramirez
 Vicente, Jing, Bino
 Florante
 Katrina
MAJOR THEMES
 biyuti and drama
 Hawaii as contact zone of US economic expansion, militarization,
immigration and settler colonialism
• banal drama versus banal violence
 Pervasiveness and power of US popular culture (“Remixing America”)
 sacred versus profane (“Our Lady of the Mount”) – hypocrisy of religious
norms
 Language as assimilation and resistance
TONGUE-TIED
 Ms. Takara  Japanese settler colonialism
 “the asphixiating room” (49)  linguistic violence and colonial violence
• “in my native tongue, breath is word is spirit” (BJR 20)
• Florante  allusion to Francisco Balagtas
 “Their use of pidgin endangers Florante’s appreciation and skillful use of
the English language” (54)
 “Do not roll the r’s” (54)  What then does it mean to roll the r’s? Why
entitle the book this?
FLORANTE’S POETRY
 “The Battle Poem of the Republic” (55)
• Children’s poems  banal violence of educational system
• Florante’s re-mix  refusal to perform dutifully
 Lolo Taiso  Christ-figure, redefinition of sin and sacrifice (62)
 “Requiem” (63)
• Memory as contested terrain
• Marcoses as figures of anti-Christ
“THE TWO FILIPINOS”
 Nelson Ariola  rejection of racialization (67)
 To be Filipino means:
•
•
•
•
Bad English
Cheap labor
Dogeaters  primitive raciality
Physical features
 Stephen Bean  to accept Nelson as “American” is to collapse term’s
meaning
 Edgar’s indictment of multiculturalism (70)