Alon: Journal for Filipinx American and Diasporic Studies

This article explores how Filipino boxers and fans in California in the 1920s and 1930s mobilized radical imaginations to creatively express a politics of dissent and liberation from oppressive racial regimes. U.S. imperialism in the Philippines reoriented the shape and direction of Filipino (anti)conquest and resistance following Spanish colonization. As the sport of boxing developed into an influential transpacific cultural industry, Filipino migrant fans inspired pugilists’ performative politics. As they worked and performed in interconnected urban and rural spaces across California, Filipino boxers and their fans destabilized racial scripts while negotiating claims to power, space, and dignity during this period.