On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald J. Trump spoke at a rally in Portland and made headlines with his views on immigration. He addressed refugees as “animals” from “terrorist nations” — and named the Philippines.
Despite this false description, over a fourth of Filipino American voters identified as Republican and expressed interest in voting Trump back into the White House, according to polls from an Asian American Pacific Islander data collection site. A look into the intersection between Filipino and LGBTQ+ history this October provides some insight for this phenomenon.
Dr. Annalisa Enrile, a USC professor specializing in social issues in the Filipino American community, explained that part of this mentality stems from a belief in the “lift yourself up by your bootstraps” American dream.
“What you have is a very loud, empowered, small segment of the Filipino American community that is very conservative because of … their economic status,” Enrile said. “But also, because the Philippines is the only official Catholic country in Asia — and the fact that there is no separation between church and state in the Philippines.”
The number one export from the Philippines is healthcare workers. It provides more nurses worldwide than any country, according to a piece published in the Harvard International Review. This is due in part to the Pensionado Act, a law passed by the United States Congress in 1903, that established a scholarship program for Filipinos to attend school in America.
Enrile challenged the “bootstrap” belief in the eyes of an older generation of Filipino American immigrants: “that material wealth also includes societal acceptance, which we know that having been born brown in this country — that’s not true.”
She explained how this enhances the “model minority” that places Asian immigrant communities at odds with non-Asian immigrant communities.
Enrile described this thinking as a “kind of divide and conquer imperialist way of continuing to assert their power and quite frankly, that is the whole crux … of this election.”
For some Filipino families, the immigration system places these particular workers who have received their healthcare degrees in the Philippines in the middle class when they arrive, but when they arrive, they can be subjected to prejudice.
Donna Belidhon, a film student at USC, came to the United States from Manila, and she explained how her mother was the main breadwinner for her family. While her mother worked in the food services in an American donut and coffee shop, she continued to send money back to her family in the Philippines.
Belidhon helped create a film called, “Liwanag”, highlighting the mistreatment of Filipino-American healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they would experience attacks of physical violence.
“Just to hear that, you know… people still don’t want us here, it hurts,” Belidhon said.
Dr. Kevin Nadal, the first openly gay president of the Asian American Psychological Association and National Trustee of the Filipino American National Historical Society, explained that the role of Christianity in American politics can cause Filipino voters to vote against progressive interests — especially in queer schools of thought.
The Philippines still does not legally recognize same-sex marriages., But in the United States, where queer people are more visible, the effect of homophobia in Filipino American households shows up in less overt ways.
“When we think about anybody who has multiple marginalized identities, they become exposed or susceptible to multiple forms of oppression,” Nadal said. “And so, for queer people of color and queer Filipino Americans, it could be that they experience homophobia or transphobia, as many white LGBTQ+ folks do, but they also might experience racism as a result of their race and their phenotype.”
Nadal explained in a hypothetical that racism for an individual of Asian descent might show up outside of the home in the form of blame for the COVID-19 pandemic, but homophobic thought in the Filipino household might show up in the form of criticism towards those who present outside of traditional gender norms.
“As a result of that, a lot of Filipinos, as well as other people of color — they end up living dual lives in which they have the life in which they are proud to be queer amongst their friends and romantic partners, but when they go back home, they just don’t talk about those things at all,” he said.
In the ballot box, anti-Asian and anti-queer narratives show up in the policies that conservative Filipino-Americans endorse.
“Sometimes Filipino Americans will vote against basic human rights for people, whether that is basic rights for queer and trans people, or even women’s reproductive health rights, without really understanding that then negatively impacts people within their own families,” Nadal said.
In Enrile’s study of Filipino American adolescents for her doctorate program, she took a critical look at mental health in the Filipino American diaspora as a way to explain the cognitive dissonance of immigrant communities voting against progressive policy. This research helped to combat mental health stigma in Filipino American households, and she also explained that finding community in creative spaces can help in this department.
Nadal said finding more creative, accepting communities can be easier in larger, metropolitan cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles for queer people of color.
“What really is helpful is for Filipino Americans to just exist wherever they are, and to just try to find the communities that are there,”Nadal said. “Because nowadays, with queerness being generally more acceptable across the U.S., there are more people who are out. And all it takes is somebody posting online that they’re out and that they’re in a certain community where it can lead others … and I think that’s something that’s more salient and even visible now.”
Intersectional visibility on social media platforms have proved to be a driving force in opposition to traditional conservative beliefs. Bretman Rock, the queer, Filipino-American influencer and model has 17.5 million followers on Tik-Tok and 18.7 million followers on Instagram. On their platform, Rock is unapologetically queer and Filipino — often showing up in videos with his sister, nieces and nephews, often also in drag personas — perhaps to provide a little hope.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Donna Belidhon’s mother worked in food services at an American hospital. She worked in food services at an American donut and coffeeshop.