Transgender Masculinities and the Global Economy

The following post has two assignments namely;

1.Transgender Masculinity and the Global Economy

1. In your view, how do gay male Filipinos juggle Pacific and Western constructions of homosexuality? How does swardspeak, a gay Filipino slang, figure into encounters with homophobia and racism? Consider also the author's notion that %60coming out%60 may be a western European and American conception that holds little or no regard amongst Filipinos. Consider also that many of Manalansan's informants may not want to %60assimilate%60 to their new cultural surroundings.??2. In our last reading, David Eng (Racial Castration) spoke to racialized motives for feminizing Chinese men. Can you explain the motives of Filipino men for acquiring Asian femininity, in spite of David Eng's negative appraisal? Has Manalansan essentially refuted Eng's conclusions???3. Can you explain the rationale for intercultural relationships between Euro and Euro-American males and Filipino transgender women? What do Filipino transgender women have to benefit from intercultural relationships? How does capitalism play a role in decisions that Filipino transgender immigrants make about who they may choose to love?

2.Filipino American Men in Los Angeles during the World War II years

1. Filipinos have often been considered the "forgotten" Asian American / Pacific Islanders, particularly with respect to scholarly publications. In your opinion, does Linda Espana-Maram effectively respond to this unfortunate characterization, and, if so, how does she accomplish this? 2.One of the criticisms of Espana-Maram's work is that she insists that dance halls promoted heterosexuality, and she speaks of the impact of anti-miscegenation laws in the U.S., but she never gives the reader any sense of whether these men in the dance halls ever had relationships with one another. There is, to some degree, an implication that these men were somehow asexual. What is your opinion of this issue in Espana-Maram's work. Do you think that these men married white women or other women of color or ay have in large numbers engaged in relationships with one another? What evidence within the text supports your conclusions? 3. What in your view, distinguishes the Filipino American experience of ethnic masculinity from that of any other group of ethnic men in America, including Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, or African Americans? What evidence in the reading supports your perspective? 4. Although you will not have the privilege of reading Espana-Maram's entire book this quarter, do you think there is anything that substantially differentiates the Filipino American experience of masculinity in the dance halls, gambling dens, or boxing matches, or do all three of these cultural arenas basically produce the same kind of sense of Filipino masculine identity? In other words, do you think that there might be any differences between the kind of Filipino men produced in either dance halls, boxing matches, or gambling dens? Is there anything in the exceprt that you have read that would support your conclusions?