Philippines Trip

Last month, I visited the Philippines for two weeks. It was not a research trip; most of our days were spent with the large family on my mother's side. I basically piggy-backed on her vacation to see her own mother, my Lola, who turned 86 when we were there. Too, I brought my toddler with me, which made doing research difficult already.

I did, however, manage to visit the really great American Historical Collection at Ateneo de Manila University. Even though the collection is being prepared for a big move to a newer building, the librarians were fabulous about getting me what I needed. In fact, the librarian who helped me the most even found other items that I didn't know where there, and I left with a great sense of accomplishment in terms of dissertation research. What I was looking for will only make up a section of one chapter, but I consider it the capstone of the chapter and therefore necessary. If I had had more time to spend at the university, maybe four or five days instead of the one, I would have combed through their photographs collection. Perhaps I'll do that if I have the opportunity to revise the dissertation into a book, which is a big maybe right now.*

Another great pleasure during my visits to Ateneo and also the University of the Philippines (UP Diliman) came from meeting with several fantastic people who also happen to be amazing scholars. If you know Philippine film studies, then you know RT is the premier film scholar of the Philippines. If you know anything about Filipino American cultural/literary studies, then you've at least heard of OC and probably read many of his influential, formative articles in the field. (I consider him the godfather of Filipino American cultural studies since so many of the current Filipino Americanist professors across the country were taught by him.) CY is still a young faculty member at UP, but his work is amazing and I look forward to hearing more from him. They were so sweet about taking time out of their busy schedules to see me and meet my mom and my son.

Finally, I love the books that I was able to purchase at the university presses there. CY was especially great about helping me find relevant books for my project. I'm really looking forward to reading them and knocking them off of my huge TBR pile.

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* Let's just say that the implosion of the academic tenure-track during this terrible economic downturn -- I heard some people cried when the job listings for English professorships came out last fall -- has made me focus more seriously on figuring out my Plan B.