BOOK REVIEW: Will Obama’s America be different to Pinoys?

BOOK REVIEW: Will Obama’s America be different to Pinoys?

By Marites N. Sison

Call it prescience on the part of Filipino-American journalist Benjamin “Boying” Pimentel. His book, Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America, had been in the works before most Americans even thought that it was possible for an African-American to become president of the United States of America.

But Pimentel, a seasoned journalist who worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for 14 years — many of them spent covering the large Asian-American community in the Bay area — knew that something was in the air. Whether the upstart candidate from Chicago won or not, whether or not Barack Obama himself wanted it to be or not, there was no denying that the thorny issue of race relations had been thrust squarely into the body politic as a result of his candidacy. History will be grateful that Pimentel took notice and assiduously documented it, albeit largely from Filipino and Asian-American lens. It is an important contribution nonetheless. As Pimentel points out, the Asian narrative in America is hardly ever told or known. Conversation on race and ethnicity “has focused mainly on the dialogue between blacks and whites,” despite the fact that “with the steady growth of Latino and Asian communities, there will be no longer a racial or ethnic majority in the United States in less than fifty years,” writes Pimentel.

Pareng Barack, Pimentel writes in the prologue, “is about Obama’s incredible march to the American presidency, and about how Filipinos responded – often with excitement, sometimes with fear and dread – to his campaign and his victory.” It is also about “the Filipino journey in America, how it has intersected, sometimes collided, with those of other communities, and how it has taken a dramatic turn as America enters a new era of anxiety and hope.”

It is largely due to Pimentel’s dexterity as a writer and journalist and his own personal experience as a former student activist and transplant from Manila that the book is this, and so much more. Part autobiography, part history, and even part sociology/anthropology Pareng Barack is riveting not only in the tales that it tells but the breadth and scope of issues it covers.

Pimentel takes the reader from the streets of Oakland — where Filipinos are reveling in Obama’s victory, even as their other kababayans are repulsed at the thought of a “troublemaker” turning the White House into a “Black House” — and explores the reasons behind this dissonance. Is it simply prejudice? Is it buying into the model minority myth?

Pimentel plumbs Obama’s books and campaign pronouncements for clues on what foreign policy positions someone with such a diverse experience, including years spent as a young boy in troubled Indonesia, could possibly assume towards Asia and yes, the Philippines. As someone quite doubtful about Obama’s memories and ability to interpret political events at the tender age of six, I wasn’t too keen on this particular chapter of Pareng Barack, but I suppose it is a necessary exercise, wondering whether US policy towards Asia will change under Obama.

Pimentel looks at the struggles of Filipino World War II veterans and wonders whether things might be different for them in Obama’s America. He even looks at how Obama will play a critical role in shaping his two sons’ future in America. “Tatay, si Obama na naman o. It is Obama again,” his younger son, Anton, had said, excitedly pointing at the television. In that moment, Pimentel knew that his family’s paglalakbay (journey) in their adopted home had taken a different twist – anything was now possible for his own sons.

Interspersed between these accounts are what I would call a crash course in Philippine-American relations as well as Pimentel’s own musings about politics and leadership, taking chapters from Philippine and American history that he has personally witnessed. A particularly poignant one is an account of how “the changing view of progressive politics in manifested even in the mural on Masonic Avenue,” in San Francisco. He notes how Lean Alejandro, the Filipino student leader who was killed in 1987, still remains in the revised mural, but that his hair has changed and he is now seen linking arms with Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her advocacy for human rights and the environment. Maathai’s image had been painted over that of Winnie Mandela, “who has become a reviled figure to many after she was accused of abusing her position and power during the struggle against apartheid.”

Pimentel couldn’t help but think: “That Lean did not suffer Winnie Mandela’s fate on the mural is heartening for those of us who continue to remember him as a hero and symbol of our generation. Many of us are in our 40s now, but in our minds, Lean, who would have been 48 this year, will always be remembered as the 27-year-old firebrand and political warrior. That won’t change – ever. But the refurbished mural now also serves as a sobering reminder, as America and the world turns to Obama for leadership and guidance in a difficult era, of how leaders and how they are perceived can change — dramatically.”