Military Bases, "Royalty Trips," and Imperial Modernities: Gendered and Racialized Labor in the Postcolonial Philippines

Abstract

Military Bases, "Royalty Trips," and Imperial Modernities:Gendered and Racialized Labor in the Postcolonial Philippines Vernadette V. Gonzalez (bio) The best thing you can do to beat the heat or the rain is to bring along your retractable roof and pay her after the game. Umbrella girls are a phenomenon unique to Southeast Asia where there are a lot of women in the labor force. If you feel like taking a "royalty trip" just ask for an umbrella girl, and one will be provided. Buddy Resurrecçion, "Local Style"1 [T]he people there are very, very trainable for the hospitality industry. Tony Gonzales, quoted in What's On&Expat2 The epigraphs that introduce this essay are part of the gendered and racialized discourses that construct and manage low-skilled Filipina labor in the Philippines today. The first is an excerpt from a guidebook that characterizes the Philippines as a series of golf destinations for the (mostly Asian) golf tourist. Its author, a local Filipino writer and golfer, places Filipina service in the familiar tradition of accommodating colonial servant who happens to be the recipient of the trickle-down benevolence of golf development. The umbrella girl, holding an umbrella over the vacationing golfer while he walks up and down the fairways, epitomizes the gendered relations of labor that the transnational leisure class has come to depend on for its exotic "royalty trip." The second epigraph is a quotation from former Secretary of Tourism Tony Gonzales describing the…