Bodies, Letters, Catalogs: Filipinas in Transnational Space

Abstract

Transnational space keeps the Philippine economy afloat. The top three exports-electronics, garments, and remittances from overseas contract workers-have consistently been reliable sources of foreign exchange, which sustain the economy especially in times of crisis. The Filipina and her body prefigure this space, moving from work in the home to homework outside the home. Filipinas have been integrated into the circuits of transnationalism in various ways: as sweatshop factory workers in multinational corporations within the national space, and as entertainers, domestic helpers, nurses, and mail-order brides in international spaces. These spatial locations, after all, are artifacts of power relations. The analysis of these various locations remaps the discursive circuits in the oblique enforcement of power that places bodies and nations in a transnational juncture. This article examines the geopolitics of Filipina bodies inscribed in transnational space, specifically focusing on the problematics of the mail-order bride phenomenon as a social and political practice. Advertised mostly for middle-class, elderly white men, mail-order brides embody the hyperreal shopping for the First World male and the hyperreal commodification of women and the Third World. In the past ten years, 50,000 Filipinas came into the United States as mail-order brides. Each year, some 19,000 Filipinas leave the Philippines to unite with husbands and fiances of other nationalities, the majority of whom ar…