In addition to convenient lapses in historical memory, contemporary cheerleaders for the Asian American success story often suffer from selective perception when it comes to groups that do not fit preconceived images of control. The lives of Filipino Americans, for example, differ markedly from those of other Asian American groups owing to the nearly century-long imperial relationship between the Phillipines and the United States. Yet the legacy of military conquest, colonial exploitation, and continued economic underdevelopment is conveniently overlooked in the case of Filipino Americans.

Like other Asian groups, early Filipino male immigrants to the United States faced barriers erected by antimiscegenation laws, occupational discrimination, and social isolation. Family formation was also made difficult for Filipinos. During the 1920s and throughout the 1940s, the rate of marriage among Filipino Americans was quite low given the fourteen to one gender ratio between men and women. Because the few marriages that did take place between Pinoys and Pinays "were not enough to provide a permanent base for Pinoy communities," interracial marriages (often between other minority groups members) were not so infrequent as was the case with other Asian American groups.

In comparison to other Asian American groups, there are surprisingly few Filipino Americans to be found on commercial television programs. Juvenile black belt karate expert Ernie Reyes, Jr., co-starred in the cop drama Sidekicks (1986-87) as a ten-year-old orphan named Ernie Lee who helped his unofficial father Sereant Jake Rizzo (Gil Gerard) solve crimes and beat up criminals. The young martial artist had been given over to Rizzo by the boy's dying grandfather, Sabasan (Keye Luke), who passed on supernatural Asian powers to the junior crime fighter. As in the earlier Asian martial arts-oriented program Kung Fu (1972-75), Sabasan would reappear in a flashback whenever his grandson Ernie was in need of help.

Hawaiian-born Tia Carrere was "discovered" at a local market by the parents of a producer, who cast the Filipino Armerican actress in the surprisingly progressive teen-oriented movie Aloha Summer (1988). Carrere then appeared for two years on the long-running soap opera General Hospital (1963-present) as Jade Soong. In a non-Filipino role, Carrere played Venus Poon, the mistress of Hong Kong drug lord Four Finger Wu (Khigh Deigh) in the four-part miniseries Noble House (1988), based on the popular movel by James Clavell. The hit movie Wayne's World (1992), directed by Penelope Spheeris, featured Carrere's singing talents and won her enough attention to be named among People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World 1992" (May 4,1992). The only other Asian included in that list was actress Joan Chen, who played the mysterious Jocelyn "Josie" Packard in David Lynch's Twin Peaks (1990-91). In keeping with their collective desexualization, there were no Asian American males included in People's list.

The 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, which removed national origins quotas that discriminated against Asians, helped pave the way for the dramatic increase of Filipino immigration to the United States. Unlike their forebears prior to World War II, who were largely relegated to agricultural labor, fully two-thirds of recent Filipino immigrants are educated professionals or technical workers. Many have found employment in the health care professions. The chronic shortage of nurses in the United States has provided a key point of entry into the labor market for many Filipino health care workers. However, the entry of physicians, dentists, and pharmacists trained in the Philippines has been restricted by U.S. medical licensing procedures.

The clustering of Filipino American health care workers in innercity hospitals was depicted in the program E/R (1984-85). A sitcom based on a play by the same title, E/R featured an ear-nose-and-throat specialist, Dr. Howard Sheinfeld (Elliott Gould), who supplimented his income by moonlighting at the Clark Street Hospital emergency room in Chicago. Filipina Maria Amardo (played by Japanese American actress Shuko Akune) was a no-nonsense individual who liked to read romance novels during lulls in activity, but leapt into action whenever an emergency case arrived at the hospital.

In 1989, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) affiliates aired The United States and the Philippines: In Our Image , a multipart series on the Philippines that provided a moderately critical assessment of the imperial relationship between the United States and its only overseas colony. Through its military political, and economic control of the Philippines, the United States established the basis for subsequent ill-fated imperial adventures in Asia. The installment titled "Colonial Days" traces the origins of the American presence in this former Spanish possession. What was officially known in the United States as the "Philippine insurrection" was in truth a nationalist revolt led by Emilio Aguinaldo in 1899 against American rule. As Thomas A. Edison filmed battlefield re-creations back home in New Jersey for exhibition to the moviegoing public, the nature and scope of U. S. imperial aggression in the Philippines was effectively hidden.

Foreshadowing the pattern of the U.S.-sponsored genocide practiced in Southeast Asia fifty years later, in "Colonial Days" a Filipina describes in graphic detail how American troops destroyed crops, imprisoned male civilians, and ordered the women to evacuate their homes during the Balangiga massacre of 1901. An estimated 200,000 Filipinos were killed, most of them civilians. Where outright terror and physical force were not enough, approximately 1,000 American schoolteachers were sent to the Philippines to help consolidate the pacification of the newly subdued colony by steeping its future leaders in the history and culture of the oppressor. Thereafter, Filipinos were to be members of an extended family headed by the United States. In the paternalistic phrase coined by the first civilian governor of the Philippines, William Howard Taft, Filipinos would be our "little brown brothers."

The American imperial mission was summarized nicely by General Douglas MacArthur, who justified the "Philippine Defense Act" as appropriate to the creation and preservation of a Christian democratic state modeled after the United States. In the words of MacArthur himself, the purpose of the Defense Act was "to preserve the only Christian state in the Far East. To perpetuate ideals of religious freedom, personal liberty, and republican government which have under American turelage, flowered here into fruition." MacArthur's vision of a Far Eastern Christian outpost was dimmed after the Japanese invaded and occupied the Philippines while pursuing their own visio of creating a pan-Asian empire.

In the postwar era, the Philippines fell once more under the U.S. sphere of influence. The installment titled "Showcase of Democracy" features a film clip of the returning hero General MacArthur on July 4, 1946, Philippine Independence Day. But it was independence in name only, for the newly amended Filipino Constitution contained a provision for the favored trade status of the United States in exchange for continued "aid." The amended documents thus institutionalized the niocolonial relationship between the United States and the Philippines.

The American influence on the Philippines went beyond its plitical and economic institutions. In "Showcase of Democracy," noted film director Lino Brocka speaks glowingly of the American films he viewed as a youth, films that reflected the heroism and romance of American society and culture at its apex. And as the cultural shadows cast by American films taught Filipinos the superiority of U.S. life, the intelligence community was active in ensuring that atempts at Filipino independence were thwarted. None other than the infamous Colonel Edward Landsdale was sent by the CIA to subdue the communist Huk (Hukbalahap) insurgency against the regime of President Manuel Roxas, a former Japanese collaborator who had been hand-picked by General Douglas MacArthur to lead the country. Roxas, like his successors Ramon Magsaysay and then Ferdinand Marcos, was nothing more than an authoritarian despot who did the bidding of the United States in exchange for massive economic and military support.

Still in power at the time of an on-camera interview, Imelda Marcos explains how her courtly lifestyle confers international prestige to the country and the Filipino people. In speaking of her importation of world-class artists such as Pablo Casals and Rudolph Nureyev to serve as centerpieces at extravagant cultural events, the first lady of the Philippines seems utterly insensitive to plight of her countrymen, most of whom live in dire poverty. Thousands of young women from economically depressed areas such as the Visayas Islands, for example, have sought to assist their families financially by entering te prostitution industry that caters to U.S. military personnel. Home to the U.S. 7th Fleet, Olongapo at Subic Bay has a population of 200,000 who are dependent upon the sex industry. It is estimated that there are more than 300 R&R establishments in the Philippines that emply between 16,000 and 17,000 women.

The thousands of Filipinos who apply for immigration to the United States each year are fleeing a society where opportunities for all but a select few are almost nonexistent. The depressed condition of the economy, blocked opportunities for the educated middle class, and political instability have made Filipinos the fastest-growing Asian American group at present. But perhaps because of their colonial preadaptation to American society and culture, Christian and European heritage, Spanish surnames, and competence in the English language, Filipinos have not yet appeared on television programs to any appreciable degree.