“Failing” and Finding a Filipina Diasporic Scholarly “Home”: A De/Colonizing Autoethnography

Finding My Bearings in School

My mother used to tell me she always knew I’d be studious because I played with books. Growing up, the first books we owned at home were the 30-volume Encyclopedia Americana series, carefully stored in our family room. In the late 1980s, Tito Lino sold these texts and other premium household items door-to-door, to his newly arrived family, friends, and extended newcomer network. My parents invested in these books, as well as a set of stainless-steel cookware my mom uses, still to this day. Tightly packed into two light-brown particle board wall units, housed underneath smiling Buddha statues filled with coins, these heavy tomes served as my first source for school assignments. Yet more vividly, I remember using these books for play. To begin, I would slam each volume onto the hardwood floor, one by one. Positioned into a grid for indoor hopscotch, or stacked up high into a makeshift throne, these books occupied much of my time. With my sister, I loved to scatter them across the room, jumping from book to book, slow at first, then faster and faster. Imagining each dark blue volume as a safety boat amid shark-infested seas, we had to take care to keep out of the water. One time, Mom peered into the room to see what kept us busy while she cooked. Giggling, she cried out, “Hay nako, you shouldn’t step on books. Books are your friends!”

***

It is Fall 2016. I just moved to Montreal to start the social work doctoral program. I am angry, the kind of angry that makes you clench your fists under the seminar table. That anxious, double leg bounce ready to pounce on my classmates type of angry. I am starting this process of understanding who I am, where I come from, and how I got here, only now as an adult, as part of my goddamn self-directed PhD training. Why not earlier? I painstakingly take to this pen and paper to try to remember.

One recent memory from my teacher education program. The instructor for Anti-Discriminatory Education, a South Asian woman, she kept questioning my neatly constructed sentences and simplistic claims that growing up ’til now, I hadn’t thought much about race, that I didn’t really experience much racism in my life, even if I attended a predominantly White middle school, high school, and university. She was asking me to do the dirty work of unpacking my identity and life experiences.

I was not ready. Are we ever?

Back then, I was ignorantly defiant, not knowing how to go deeper, scared of my unknown, unacknowledged truths, settling for the standard A-minus grade, pretty good for taking the easy route out.

It’s been easy until now.

I indulge this memory only briefly. That assignment is stored at Mom’s house in my makeshift archive, in one of those plastic storage containers in my old bedroom. But I am not ready to sort out the rummage and return to that writing, partial truths recorded.

I am not ready.

I am angry that I do not have the words for my resistance, then to that assignment, nor for my confusion now. I am ashamed that I am only starting this deep work now. I am disappointed in myself for not knowing better, I am disappointed that I do not know myself better. I am frightened to look at myself in the mirror.

My conscious mind resists going deeper, so I close my eyes and breathe.

***

“Just don’t call me Ate,” she quietly scolds me when she picks me up from my classroom. I have never forgotten this lesson because it followed us home. She brought it home. I’m in kindergarten. My big sister, she is so embarrassed I called her that—Ate—at school, in front of her friends. She pleads with my parents. I don’t follow, but their faces say it all. I did something wrong. Brows furrowed, what’s wrong with that? That’s what I call her at home.

I learn very quickly to keep Tagalog out of my mouth, especially at school. At school we speak English. At school, I learn I am to speak English and English alone.

***

The intercom speaker beeps once and a booming, raspy voice croaks, “Room 204?”

“Yes!” several people answer, mouths full.

“Is Monica Batac in class?”

“Yes!” more of us say in unison.

“Mom’s on the way with her lunch.”

My tummy’s growling and I can’t sit still. I’ve been watching the new kid Brandon, in his white Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, pull out items from his matching Leafs lunch box: a beautifully packed white bread, peanut butter and jelly sandwich complete with unfamiliar snacks. For the past fifteen minutes, I’ve been staring at everyone else eating, and now I only have ten, no, nine minutes before recess.

I see her approaching and jump up to meet her at the door. My back to the class, I smirk to myself, imagining my classmates craning their necks to watch our trade. Mom smiles, handing me a crinkled brown bag, damp to the touch, plus a soft drink. I bet it’s a McChicken meal. I linger at the door, peeking inside the bag, momentarily forgetting that she’s late, I’m late, and she’s still on break. These fries smell delicious, they’re still hot. “Ok, eat now, it’s getting cold. I’m going to be late,” she says, as she pulls me in. I close my eyes and lean in, feeling her nose touch the crown of my head.

She inhales deeply, a sneaky sniff kiss. I whisper, “Thanks, Mom.”

The loud classroom chatter breaks our brief moment of intimacy, and I turn around slowly, walking confidently to my desk. It’s hard to hide my dimpled grin. I feel everyone’s eyes follow my every move, noses tilted up, following the fries’ lingering scent.

“Can I have some?” a brave soul asks. Tikman mo, my inner voice tells her. Of course I share, relishing in this fleeting moment of feigned friendship over fries. I eat slowly, knowing full well that if I’m still eating when the bell rings, I can stay inside for recess: eating, drinking this Coke watered down by melted ice, silently reading, or tracing and cutting out construction paper letters for the next bulletin board display.

The next morning, pressed for time, Mom leaves me a 99-cent bag of Lays ketchup chips for snack. It’s always a hit at school. It fills my empty knapsack. At lunch, she drops off an oversized pepperoni slice from Pizza Nova, the paper bag translucent from the grease.

“Be good, ok?” Mom sniffs twice, quickly. I’m not sure if other kids get these kisses too, but they feel special today. She’s in bright flower print scrubs, and I feel extra special that she brings me hot lunch almost every day. I tell my classmates she works close by at the hospital. A little lie, I don’t explain that she’s a health care aide and her building is actually behind the hospital, the building no one knows, the one for seniors. No one bothers to ask, anyway.

***

In Grade 3, our school has a new substitute teacher who’s from the Philippines. He rotates from class to class. Mr. O with his black, slicked back hair, beige slacks, and knitted pullover vest—if I had to imagine a Tito teacher, it would be him. Lolo and Mom know him. They said he thinks kids in Canada have no respect for teachers. The older kids make fun of his name, his accent. Hiding my gaze under my self-cut bangs, I steal glances when he’s not looking. A scary Tito teacher alright, complete with the Tagalog I know can spew out of his mouth any minute. I dare not try something. He doesn’t need to say anything to me, I already know what to do. I stay quiet, eyes down, and just do my work. In front of my class, he stands tall. No funny business.

***

One dreadful summer, we move away from Rexdale to a countryside home in the middle of nowhere. Ten acres, too much for three kids. The closest town is a super small, super White farm town, complete with two major stoplights, a Tim Horton’s, Dairy Queen, and three convenience stores. My family is one of six Filipino families attending the local Catholic parish, semi-regularly for us as my parents usually work weekends. Us kids, we stand awkwardly after mass, waiting for our parents to exchange Tagalog pleasantries and repeat invitations to come over for dinner. We stand quiet, not knowing what to do. We’re in classes with White kids. We don’t go to the same schools. Sundays are the only days we see kids who look like us in this town. My eyes pan the mid-morning sky, trying to pass the time, trying to look at anything other than these brown faces that look much like my own. Our mothers loiter by the church stairs. I don’t know what they talk about, but it seems weird that they’re friends so quick.

***

It’s almost Remembrance Day and the local Royal Canadian Legion branch hosts an annual essay competition. Along with every student in my school, I submit something. Lolo has medals and all kinds of hats, bumper stickers, coats and shirts all bearing the American Legion crest. He is a veteran, a World War II Prisoner of War. Lolo tells us stories about marching, how the Japanese army captured them. How he almost died from starvation. Lolo proudly shares the Philippines was liberated with help from the Americans, and Lola nursed him back to health. For my essay, he had me comb through stacks of American Legion booklets, monthly mailouts addressed to him, Laureano Claudio. This year, he helped me craft a paragraph on the importance of Memorial Day. My teacher returns my draft. Her comments, penned in red ink: the two days are not the same.

Lolo helps me with my final assignments on his black typewriter, his clicks and clacks follow a predictable beat. He’s so smart, having memorized all the keys. When I try, I have to lift my fingers to read the letters. I don’t understand the order. Staring intently, it’s hard to direct my ring and pinky fingers to simultaneously reach and push down. He smiles then rubs my head, reminding me that it takes practice. He looks over my shoulder as I continue, nodding as I make slow progress. It doesn’t matter if it takes me seven times as long. It doesn’t matter if I must try again with a new piece of paper. We practice every Saturday, after he finishes his own letters. He wants me to become a lawyer or a doctor. Study, keep studying, he tells me. “Opo,” I reply, concentrating on the inked letters—my own words—that slowly appear on the page.

***

I’m in Grade 8, chain smoking cigarettes stolen by my friends from their chain smoker parents who apparently never noticed their dwindling stock. I’m lightheaded immediately. I feel cool and slightly nauseous. We think we’re cool, mostly because twelve-year-olds are definitely not supposed to be smoking. It’s lunch time in December. Old enough to leave the school premises, we huddle together at a local park, too cool for mitts, toques, and gloves. My hands turn white. I take one of the unlit cigarettes and smuggle it home in a Ziploc bag. I want to show it off to my sister, who’s now in high school, hoping she will think I am a little cool, too.

We are horrible at keeping our smoking a secret. I avoid the teacher’s stare as we walk in late to his science lesson. I can feel his gaze follow me to my desk. He looks at the clock, raises an eyebrow, then continues his lecture. His silence is all too familiar. I know he is disappointed; I am disappointed too.

Back in September, I had dismissed my classmate’s questions right away. “Hey, aren’t you Filipino too?” Matt asks me during the first week of class. I bark back, aggressively “Yeah, so what?” That was the end of it. I became rebellious that year and back then, I didn’t know why.

***

It’s Fall 2005, the first term of my first year of undergrad. Everything is new to me. Over MSN Messenger, my cousin Kuya JR convinces me to join the Filipino students’ association. I respect him, so I give it a shot.

I find myself at a QPHIL dance rehearsal. I shift my weight from each leg, left to right, right to left. My body rocks on the spot, I am trying to find an out. I didn’t know I signed up to learn a complicated dance routine, fusion: Philippine traditional dance with a bit of hip-hop. As I hold my uncomfortable stance, legs locked, hips cocked to the side, I am reminded of all the times I waited for some athletic White kid to choose me for their team. I was always among the last to be picked. I’m not good at this kind of stuff. Elementary school to university, nothing has changed. Why am I here? I look around. Are these people having fun? Is this supposed to be fun? I feel like a phony. I can barely register what they’re saying in Tagalog, my body turns rigid. I have class readings to do, too. I hear my mom’s voice in my head, “Relax, be cool.”

The perky, coordinated upper-year Filipina shouts, “Let’s try this again—five, six, seven, eight. . .”

These three hours are torture. I fumble my way through this first practice, making up half-baked excuses for not returning. They probably won’t even notice, anyway.

***

ENGL 110, Introduction to English Literature. We’ve had a handful of 1.5-hour classes in a circular lecture hall with uncomfortable wooden seats. I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do. There’s so much assigned reading for this class, I’m already behind. The Norton anthology we’re using has razor-thin pages, reminding me of a Bible except more pages and costs much more, too. I bring the book with me to the lecture. Following along with my finger, I trip over the words and line breaks trying to make sense of this week’s pastoral poetry. The instructor passes around a handout with instructions for the first paper—my first paper, as a first-year student tentatively and technically declared an English major. It is a short essay, 3–5 pages double-spaced, comparing two poems. I ask if we can submit point form notes first. The laughs around the room are unexpected, the instructor quickly directs me to attend office hours. I’m so embarrassed to need help, but I swallow my pride and walk to Watson Hall to show someone my ideas. I don’t know if I am reading the poetry right. The teaching assistant assigned to me goes through my draft quietly. I wonder if she can tell that I don’t know what I am doing. I bite my tongue to hold back the tears. I leave the office with more questions than answers, and trudge up to my North of Princess St. apartment to try to make sense of her feedback, marked up in red. The Norton’s still with me. My bag is so heavy. I hate this all.

I scrape by with barely passing grades. The following year, I find out that my boy-crush, the half-Asian commerce kid, went to private school. His Irish grandfather has a street named after him, and his family lived in a giant mansion with an elevator. When he found out I was Filipina, he told me a story about growing up with a Filipina nanny who patiently peeled kiwis, his favorite snack. I shudder, knowing for this boy and so many others at this school, Filipinas are usually the help.

***

Unbeknownst to me, I carried these untold stories into the PhD program. My Filipina identity has been a source of shame for most of my life.

***

Wednesday, September 7, 2016, 10:44 A.M

Dear Jenny,

I hope this email finds you well. I’m Monica—I’m a 1st year PhD student at McGill in Social Work. I came across your profile on the PGSS website. I wanted to ask if you are Filipina! I am new to Montreal from Toronto and would love to meet other Filipinx grad students. Hope to hear from you.

When she agrees to come over for dinner, she admits her first reaction to my email was shade. Skepticism. Most Filipinas I know are bitches, she tells me. I get it. Trying to avoid the pain of my own experiences, I find myself sharing what Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales (2005) has written . . .

***

How did I come to tell my story? I had to find your stories first. I started to read about Filipinas for the first time in 2015, the year before I started the PhD. I’m hoarding the Filipino American and Filipino diaspora library books, looking for anything that speaks to my experience. Given that no one has recalled the books in the five years I’ve been here, that should tell you something. This place is overwhelming White.

***

I host a Thanksgiving dinner at my new Montreal apartment and invite my new classmates and friends. I made turkey and all the fixings. Casual chatter fills my home. My shoulders tense up when a White woman colleague, having lived abroad in the Philippines for some time, throws out factoids of Philippine history and geography. She assumes I know what she knows, that I have spent a lot time “back home.” Seems like she knows more Tagalog than me. It’s humiliating. For a moment I wonder if I should have spent more time trying to go back “home.” And then I remember, it’s been a struggle for my family just to survive here in Canada.

No, I tell her, I have not spent much time in the Philippines. I leave it at that.

The only time I went was when I was nine. The huge Batac balikbayan clan flew to visit my two Apos who were getting old. Apo Babae smoked her cigarette backward and I was scared to ask to look at her tongue. I remember the garbage mountain that stunk from far away, Jeepneys, stray dogs, lizards in the washroom, and my cousin JR crying hard when he was told his Super Nintendo was staying there. I have never visited since. Growing up, the only other big trip we took was to Florida. We drove there in our white Astro minivan, rice cooker in tote, eating dinuguan for three days straight ’til we reached Orlando.

No, I have not gone back home again. I haven’t had the chance.

***

An international student from Korea tells me point blank I’m not Asian. She doesn’t blink. I clarify that I’m Filipino Canadian, Asian Canadian. It feels useless trying to explain, but I try. This extensive English vocabulary fails me: I am at a loss for words.

***

A White male professor speaks to me in Tagalog, so fast, I can’t keep up. I know he’s trying to be friendly, modeling that it’s not shameful to speak my assumed mother tongue. I feel myself retreating, body recoiling. Tanga! I’m stupid.

***

When I read that Almond Aguila (2015) was mistaken for a McDonald’s worker when she was obtaining her graduate degree, I am transported back to my first teaching practicum.

It is 2010 and I am in a rush, having slept in, lesson prep notes all over the bed. Running up to the school, I pass a line-up of Filipina caregivers, some with strollers, each keeping their eyes on a select child, a group of siblings or friends. I wonder, did they like their jobs? Were they teachers back home too? I smile but say nothing, ask nothing. I will later try to find their voices in the academic literature. I try to find them; I try to find me.

I come to learn that Filipinos are assumed to take up particular kinds of labor.

No, I am not a nanny. No, I am not a nurse. No, I do not work at McDonald’s, or in hospitality services. Well . . . not anymore.

Reading the literature feels like punches to the gut, repeated hits that force me to bend forward after each blow, leaving me breathless. When Ate Melissa-Ann Nievera-Lozano (2013) writes about seeing Filipino workers in a Kuwait army post, where their interactions do not move beyond slight nods of acknowledgment, I remember all the times I thought I was above others, too cool to say “hello” and engage with an unknown Filipino, I didn’t know how. I search for books by Filipina scholars, ones whose words speak to me and my experience, whose struggles connect to my own.

I think I come to critical consciousness when I realize my 72-year-old Tita is still working under the table for another aging adult. My Tita is a trope in the literature: a deprofessionalized first-generation Filipina in Canada. Her extended family in the Philippines—our family—relies on her monthly remittances. She must work. I look around her, I look around me. It dawns on me: as I learn about the Filipino diaspora, I see the issues in my life, in real time, too.

***

I flip through one book to the next. What makes these books different from the rest? I start sorting them. These books are written about the Philippines by White people. These are books by Filipino, and these, Filipino Americans. A meager pile of papers make up what I have by Filipino Canadians.

I run my hand along the spines of the books, scanning the titles for something to jog my memory, I am trying to make the connections.

***

De Jesús (2005) writes,

I remain homeless: between disciplines, generations, theoretical affiliations, and locations. I continue to seek coalition and refuge with others like me, a woman in the borderlands. I make and remake my intellectual and spiritual space as I struggle to transform this world into a place that can accept me, contradictions and all (p. 270).

De Jesús’ desired connection and “coalition” is something that I have been actively seeking myself. While reading Pinay Power, I found myself trying to make sense of why scholars choose P or F for P/Filipino/a/x, and the distinctions between peminism and Pinayism. I also found myself wondering why Pinay Power highlighted only Filipina American scholars. Where were the Filipina Canadian scholars? De Jesús statement about being homeless is shared in contemporary writing on Filipino and Asian diasporas, as we continuously imagine, reimagine, and long for “homes” (Aguila, 2015; Parreñas & Siu, 2007). While scholars like Aguila (2015), Aguilar (2015), and Tintiangco-Cubales (2005) acknowledge the multiplicity of perspectives within Filipino/a American and Filipino/a diasporic literature, I found myself deeply troubled to firmly grasp a nuanced understanding of this fractured literature, and communicate what I know through extended academic writing, to be assessed by non-Filipino scholars who struggle to understand diasporic scholars’ dilemmas.

“Mastering” the Literature: Struggling to Write

August 27, 2017—Preparing for comprehensive exam

Tips from supervisor:

***

I feel incompetent. I am supposed to show I know the literature.

I feel like I am rewriting everything and scrapping so much of what I wrote—all the notes and writing from my readings, they no longer seem relevant. I am struggling to understand, but my very task is to show my understanding. I cannot find a firm place for myself within the literature. What am I to do?

***

It’s happened again. I swear as soon as I fall asleep, I’m right back up again. Did I sleep?

I get up quickly, mind racing a million miles a minute, I am trying to keep up with the pace. I walk toward my desk, stepping over papers and books on the floor.

I pace between rooms, changing topics, changing projects, reading, writing, writing everywhere, faster and faster. Too many ideas, too much to do, don’t know what to do.

***

The clock is still ticking, and my exam submission date is quickly approaching.

I’m not doing well, I’m not close to being done, I don’t know what I’m doing.

Everyone shrugs it off. Don’t be so hard on yourself, they say. You’ll be fine.

***

I look at my phone to check the time. I’ve slept for two hours. My brain revvs up before the rest of my body, I can’t keep up. I burst into tears. I don’t know how to stop. It feels horrible and I don’t know how to make this feeling to go away.

***

I don’t know what I submit, but I submit something.

***

I haven’t been feeling like myself lately.

I tell two of my friends back home. One’s a clinical psychologist. On WhatsApp, she sends me a link. It is an online quiz, “Am I Manic?” screening tool.

I score 74.

She urges me to see a psychiatrist.

***

“It sounds like you’re looking for some relief.”

I break down in tears as I report to her what’s happening. I just want to feel normal, my brain won’t shut off. The speed of my thoughts is overwhelming, it’s scary. I am having trouble slowing my thinking down.

I just want to sleep.

I keep crying out of nowhere.

I’m in there for an hour. She hands me a prescription. “Let’s get your sleep under control first. Come back next week.”

The next few months are excruciatingly slow. The meds help. Most days, all I do is sleep. I am relearning how to sleep. I slowly return to review what I had written. I sift through the hundreds of pieces of paper I scribbled on throughout that exam process. Frantic documentation of disjointed ideas: prospective studies, prompts for potential creative writing, analysis of different songs, novels, and movies. Attempting to follow the work of cultural studies’ scholars of Filipino diaspora, I was trying to understand and unpack diaspora as expressed in various texts. A humanities orientation, I had been off the mark early in my social work comprehensive exam process. Isolated and alone with these confusing readings, I spun myself into a web of illegible ideas. These countless pieces of paper had been scattered across almost every surface in my home: kitchen table, coffee table, bedside tables, even the floor. My submitted exam papers resemble this mess.

***

Like Ate Melissa-Ann Nievera-Lozano (2013), I too have found academic writing deeply challenging, and have found solace and solidarity in the writing of other women of color scholars, including Filipina scholars. I realize now that I have been trying to find the words to situate myself in a discourse that has rendered me supposedly invisible, absent, illegitimate (De Jesús, 2005; Lacsamana, 2016; Monberg, 2008; Nievera-Lozano, 2013). I am trying to write myself into existence in the literature. Like Tintiangco-Cubales (2005) and Nievera-Lozano (2013), I acknowledge that while this writing is deeply painful, I am growing intellectually throughout this demanding process. However, I wonder at what cost—emotionally, mentally, spiritually, physically—does this intellectual growth occur.

The three months of cyclical confusion resulted in submitting unfinished autoethnographic writing, alongside incomplete notes, quotations, and even emergent cultural analysis of two novels. These were my comprehensive exams. I do not remember writing most of it. Knowing I would likely fail the exam, I cautioned my committee members that I was struggling to make sense of the theoretical and empirical literature. I warned them of my incomplete writing, but in some ways, I think they thought I was overreacting until they saw it for themselves.

***

It is Fall 2018. The comps clock resets. Let’s try this again. I need to stay super attentive to my sleep, my thoughts, my stress-induced behaviors . . .

Every morning, I turn on the laptop and open my Word file, holding my breath. I hope it’s not a mess. So skeptical about my own competencies, worried about my mind, I wonder if I was writing, once again, a bunch of incoherent thoughts. I don’t trust myself.

Have I lost my mind?

De/Colonizing Autoethnography for Diasporic Scholars

Like you, I carry an ever-evolving epistemology, so dynamic and sometimes arbitrary that I can never fully detail my continuities and contradictions moment by moment; but today, I will try. . . It is never easy to write for/in the academy. The pressure to articulate is heavy and daunting. These hives, the lump in my throat, and the strands of hair falling are externalized signals of the stifling pressure I’ve internalized to define the researcher I hope to become. . . But write, I must. My body responds with resistance. These pages are suffocating and this grief, this silence, is an all too familiar place. . .

Let us not discount our emotions, for they too are sites of knowledge production. (Nievera-Lozano, 2013, p. 1–3)

Her life is about maneuvering through the contradictions and the discomfort. It is a life that is always unsettled. We learn to live in that liminal space. (Nievera-Lozano, 2020, p. 328)

For me, the PhD process thus far has been rife with feelings of self-doubt and confusion alongside positive and painful bouts of writing. Through de/colonizing autoethnographic writing, I have been able to better understand my early experiences in school and my struggles in the PhD program. I find myself challenged—challenged to remove myself from the emotional turmoil of writing, challenged to find spaces and places of healing and refuge to recover and rest from the dynamics within the university, challenged to feel acknowledged and affirmed within a department and discipline that have so few people who look like me within it. In explicitly sharing my struggles, I write in solidarity with fellow diasporic writers, especially Filipina and women of color scholars, constantly yearning to find intellectual homes. Writing this de/colonizing autoethnography also serves as part of my own healing process after failing my comprehensive exam.

I experienced debilitating, increasing anxiety in trying to produce a polished piece of writing that demonstrates mastery, competence, and adequate academic aptitude about areas that are unfamiliar and inherently fractured. I am only now starting to see some clarity. It is through this failure that I come to understand how the university—as a colonial and colonizing institution—works to define the process of knowledge production. I understand my first attempt at writing the exams as the painful, emotional uncovering of historical intellectual contexts, contexts within which I am trying to comprehend my own existence and presence as a Filipina Canadian scholar (also see Pierce, 2005). Part of me believes that I had to go through the messy process of failing to recognize that de/colonizing autoethnographic writing is important in my own academic journey. Yet, being told that such writing is misplaced and inappropriate for the comprehensive exam makes some logical sense. My task was to write a synthesis of the literature. Somehow, I lost sight of the goal as defined by my department. I failed to shapeshift myself and my writing into the expectations and set parameters of my institution’s definition of the exam process and format. The university’s colonial logic has failed me too.

I pose this de/colonizing autoethnography as an illustration of a method, process, and product—one that has helped me express how I am coming to understand and create my epistemology, grounded in my own experiences.

While revising this article for its inclusion in this special issue of Qualitative Inquiry, I engaged in rewriting my comprehensive exam. Throughout my rewrite, I had to remember my own discipline-specific requirements, and the genres of the literature review and comprehensive exam all together. In retrospect, I believe I had to go through the failing process to render visible to my supervisor and myself that it is incredibly challenging to do this scholarly writing, and further, the existing institutional processes and procedures are suspect too.

In January 2019, I received word that I passed the written component of the exams. What a relief.

I pose the following questions to my fellow Filipino diasporic scholars: What does it mean to engage with literatures written in the Philippines as someone born and raised in the diaspora? What does it mean to rely on scholarship written by Filipinos in the United States? What are the implications of commenting on the theoretical absence and underrepresentation of published works of other diasporic Filipino scholars? How do we build bridges and alliances for this work?

It is my hope that this de/colonizing autoethnography reveals the possibilities of expanding our vision of diasporic writing beyond the United States, explicitly addressing the Philippine-U.S. emphasized binary, and speaking about the struggles to write from the margins in the diaspora. I urge emerging and established Filipino scholars in the diaspora to consider sharing their ongoing intellectual challenges as de/colonizing autoethnography so future generations can see what it means to exist, write, and theorize from the margins. Finally, I encourage diasporic scholars to engage with de/colonizing autoethnography as we collectively grapple with, search, and long for epistemological and theoretical homes.

My search for home continues.