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A review by jenlabrador
The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race by Anthony Christian Ocampo
1.0
This book was very disappointing since Ocampo based the whole book and his research on two neighboring cities in California that he himself admits are anomalies of Filipino- American communities. He then generalizes these findings to the rest of Filipino Americans despite how incredibly different others have lived due to vastly differing demographics and socioeconomic status.
Ocampo's argument that Filipinos resemble Latinos far more than Asians would have been stronger if he had also acknowledged the similarities with other Asian cultures and then talked about how Filipinos were still different. But it was like he interviewed a small pool of people who identified with Latinos and then decided NOT to look at any other cultures to see how they could be similar too.
It was interesting to learn how Latinos and Filipinos share Spanish culture due to colonialism. In fact the impact of colonialism on Filipinos was the part I got the most out of from the book. But because of the author's failings, I could not continue with the rest of the book. I got almost 80% through and then just felt like because of Ocampo's shortcomings I couldn't see any of his findings as valid.
Ocampo's argument that Filipinos resemble Latinos far more than Asians would have been stronger if he had also acknowledged the similarities with other Asian cultures and then talked about how Filipinos were still different. But it was like he interviewed a small pool of people who identified with Latinos and then decided NOT to look at any other cultures to see how they could be similar too.
It was interesting to learn how Latinos and Filipinos share Spanish culture due to colonialism. In fact the impact of colonialism on Filipinos was the part I got the most out of from the book. But because of the author's failings, I could not continue with the rest of the book. I got almost 80% through and then just felt like because of Ocampo's shortcomings I couldn't see any of his findings as valid.