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

PI分析了对菲律宾退伍军人的福利承诺，以此来探索种族和国家是如何通过帝国和战争建立起来的。他们分析了1934年至1947年这段时间，当时美国已经向菲律宾承诺独立，并在第二次世界大战中招募了菲律宾人。作为对他们服役的交换，美国承诺给予他们公民身份和军事福利。但在1946年，美国撤销了这一承诺。没有其他国家团体被剥夺福利。通过关注这个令人费解的战争和非殖民化时期，PI的研究探索了国家的竞争利益是如何体现在对菲律宾人的政策上的。首要的研究问题是：(1)组织这些政策的逻辑是什么？(2)政府官员在撤销菲律宾人的军事福利时，是如何运用“现役”这一范畴的？(3)他们是如何在做出这些决定时援引种族和国家的概念的？为了回答这些问题，PI研究了马里兰州大学公园的国家档案馆和纽约州海德公园的富兰克林·d·罗斯福总统图书馆的历史记录。通过从多个机构收集数据，PI研究了不同的国家机构、罗斯福总统、他的顾问和菲律宾精英如何决定授予和取消菲律宾非公民退伍军人的军事福利和公民身份，而不是其他国家群体。PI探索了排斥的不同解释，并对它们进行了相互对照。多机构分析为该项目提供了额外的杠杆，以理解国家内部排斥的矛盾和复杂逻辑。该项目增加了我们在当代背景下对包容和排斥在美国这样一个快速多样化的社会中意味着什么的理解。

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.