UC Santa Barbara

The literature about Filipina/o American anti-imperialist organizing in the 1970s and 1980s has expanded in the past few years to include the participation of women leaders. Yet, few studies have examined the gender and sexual politics of its groups. This dissertation asks: What was the role of U.S. based women, mothers, and sexual minorities in the transnational anti-imperialist movement against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos and in the years following his removal? How did these social actors address issues of gender and sexuality within and beyond their groups while also organizing against a dictatorship? Using 100 oral history interviews, archival research, and textual analysis of primary source documents from 24 archival collections from 4 countries, Makibaka! argues that women, mothers, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and other sexual minorities were instrumental in the creation, sustenance, and evolution of diasporic Filipina/o anti-imperialist activism from 1968 to 1992. Their stories reveal the invisible work, or the typically gendered acts that are routinely erased and devalued, that these social actors undertook to make their interventions. Makibaka! recognizes the interpersonal relationships- in unity and times of conflict- that are critical for catalyzing and creating new forms of liberatory politics.