A Lecture (via Zoom) by Dr. Adrian De Leon | Tuesday, October 19, 7:00pm (EDT)
In this lecture, we will consider the rise of the 1587 Morro Bay landing in Filipino and Asian American public history during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and its place within settler colonialism and historical memory in the United States. Drawing from the foundational works of scholars Jean O’Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) and Candace Fujikane, I argue that the framing of Spanish-era “indios luzones” as the “first Asian Americans” is a process of firsting Asian settlers into the “United States” upon the conquest and erasure of Chumash people in Central California. We will consider the problems of settler historiography and its mechanics, and posit an alternative ethics for settlers of color to enact public histories on stolen lands.
Adrian De Leon is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, with affiliations at the Center for Transpacific Studies, the East Asian Studies Center, and the Equity Research Institute. His first monograph, Bundok: A Hinterland History of Filipino America, under contract with the University of North Carolina Press, centers Northern Luzon and its Ilokano and Igorot peoples in the making of late Spanish and early American imperial racial formations.
His research has been published in Radical History Review, Amerasia, Trans Asia Photography, and the Journal of American Ethnic History. He is the co-editor of FEEL WAYS: A Scarborough Anthology (2021), and the author of the poetry collections Rouge (2018) and, most recently, barangay: an offshore poem (2021). His poetry and nonfiction have appeared in The Puritan, Joyland Magazine, The Margins at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop, and Catapult Magazine. His public scholarship has been featured in VICE, the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, ABC Nightline, The Guardian and Rolling Stone. With Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Dolly Li, he is the co-host and co-writer of the PBS miniseries, A People’s History of Asian America.
Presentation Recording: