Rick Baldoz, “The Third Asiatic Invasion: Migration and Empire in Filipino America, 1898-1946” (NYU Press, 2011)

Rick Baldoz is the author of The Third Asiatic Invasion: Migration and Empire in Filipino America, 1898-1946 (NYU Press, 2011), which investigates the complex relationship between the U.S. and Filipinos. Unlike other Asian American groups, Filipinos were considered colonial subjects of the American empire, and therefore were granted more rights and were defined as national subjects. At the same time, these Filipinos and Filipinas were still perceived as aliens, and were characterized as sexually and morally deviant. Baldoz considers how American imperial ascendancy affected the identity of the Filipino and Filipina migrants in relation to Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Chinese migrants.