Doctoral Dissertation Research: Filipino Military Service & The Promise of Benefits

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The PI's analyze the benefits promised to Filipino veterans as a case to explore how race and nation were constructed through empire and war. They analyze the period between 1934 and 1947 -- a time when the U.S., having already promised independence to the Philippines, recruited Filipinos in World War II. In exchange for their service, the U.S. promised citizenship and military benefits. But in 1946 the United States revoked this promise. No other national group was denied benefits. By focusing on this puzzling period of war and decolonization, the PI's explore how the competing interests of the state manifest in policies toward Filipinos. The overarching research questions are, (1) what was the logic organizing these polices? (2) how did government officials deploy the category of "active military service" in revoking military benefits from Filipinos? And (3) how did they invoke the concepts of race and nation in making these decisions? To answer these questions, the PI's examine historical records from the National Archives in College Park, MD and from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY. By collecting data from multiple institutions, the PI's explore how various state agencies, President Roosevelt, his advisors, and and Filipino elites decided to grant and revoke military benefits and citizenship to Filipino non-citizen veterans and no other national group. The PI's explore different explanations for exclusion and examine them against one another. A multi-agency analysis gives the project additional leverage for understanding the contradictory and complicated logics of exclusion within the state. The project increases our understanding in the contemporary context of what inclusion and exclusion means in a rapidly diversifying society like the United States.